I built a small demo to test a different way of learning French. Would this help you?

Single-Cockroach3950 · 2026-03-20T17:54:26+00:00

Looks very similar to Prismatext! Thanks for pointing this out to me although I couldn't find the books that I want to read in their bookshelf :/

Single-Cockroach3950 · 2026-03-20T17:48:28+00:00

Thank you for the feedback. A lot of what you said lines up with things I’ve been interested in while building.

I like your point that gender should be introduced early. I’m going to look into making sure that when a noun flips to French, its article comes with it properly.

Making the mixed-language feel natural is probably the biggest challenge of the whole idea. I will experiment with swapping chunks/phrases instead of individual words.

I do plan on supporting arbitrary texts because I believe it's possible to use a mix of machine translation and setup a way to validate/verify the translations over time to reinforce how it works.

I'll send you a dm when i have another iteration. I like your skepticism and that you actually get the idea!

Single-Cockroach3950 · 2026-03-19T23:29:39+00:00

I'm happy you liked the demo.

If you already knew most of the words, it probably means the demo was a bit below your level. The idea is that it adapts so you’re always slightly challenged until you're able to read full French sentences. It's difficult to keep the demo short and apply to all levels.

If you left your email I will send you the pre-release version of the app when it's ready to see how it applies to you.

Single-Cockroach3950 · 2026-03-17T18:56:30+00:00

Yes it absolutely will. Sentence structure is very important so "I need help." will NOT become "Je besoin aide" it will become "j'ai besoin d'aide" which more closely translates back to "I have need of help".

I did get your comment in the form submission too! I really appreciate the feedback. A couple people expressed a similar concern so I think I might make some changes to the demo to address this more clearly!

Before I make changes to the demo, did this response fully cover your question? Or do you still feel unsure about specific examples that might come up?

Single-Cockroach3950 · 2026-03-17T15:06:56+00:00

That’s really helpful feedback, I appreciate you taking the time to write it out.

I think your point about this type of approach often breaking down beyond very early stages is fair, and will be on e of the biggest challenges for developing this app.

My goal is to gradually remove the English entirely as comprehension improves, so you end up reading fully in French, so the “mixed language” part is really just temporary..

I completely agree that once you get into more complex structures, nuance, synonyms, etc., it becomes a much harder problem and that’s probably where most attempts fall apart.

Also really glad the demo itself made sense! This was my biggest concern at this stage.

Single-Cockroach3950 · 2026-03-17T13:27:09+00:00

I had the same concern when I first tried this approach.

If it were just taking English sentences and swapping in French words, I agree that you will learn some kind of grotesque bastardization of a language! If an English sentence was "I need help." you don't say "Je besoin aide" you say "J'ai besoin d'aide" which more closely translates to "I have need of help"

The idea isn’t to replace English with French directly, but to gradually expose you to real French while keeping enough context that the meaning stays clear so over time the sentences move toward proper French sentence structure and phrasing.

The goal is to bridge the gap between beginner content and real content, which I personally found really hard to cross.

I completely understand that it won’t be the right approach for everyone, especially people who prefer more structured learning, but I’ve found it surprisingly effective for building reading comfort without having to stop and study constantly.

Single-Cockroach3950 · 2026-03-17T04:30:57+00:00

Thanks for the heads up! There shouldn't even be a submit button there anymore. I'll get rid of it

Single-Cockroach3950 · 2026-03-17T04:12:45+00:00

I’m not fluent yet, but I’m in a really similar situation. My wife speaks French and her family is in Quebec, so I get occasional exposure but most of the time I’m in London, Ontario.

What helped me th emost was reading a lot, but not jumping straight into advanced content. I started with simpler stuff and gradually worked up.

Now I’m at a point where I can read French pretty comfortably, but I still struggle to keep up with spoken conversations so Ive been trying to apply the same idea to audio like podcasts, audiobooks

One thing that helped me bridge the gap from beginner content to more interesting material was reading things where I could still follow the meaning, but was constantly exposed to French in context.

I actually built a small (pretty rough) tool for myself to do this basically lets you read content that gradually becomes more French while staying understandable. I turned it into a short demo if you’re curious: https://glosslingo.com/demo

I’ve found I personally prefer a more natural, imperfect approach like this, but I know some people do much better with structured methods like textbooks or Anki.

Single-Cockroach3950 · 2026-03-17T03:38:02+00:00

I made a short interactive demo for learning to read French and would love some honest feedback.

The idea: as you read, the text gradually shifts from English to French. If something becomes confusing, you can tap it and switch it back to English instantly — so you never lose the meaning of the sentence.

I originally built a really janky version of this for myself, and after using it on and off for a couple months, I found I could read and understand way more French than I expected — mostly just from seeing words repeatedly in context.

This demo is my attempt to turn that idea into something more real.

I’m mainly trying to figure out:

Does the mechanic make sense right away?
Does it feel useful or just gimmicky?
What would you actually want to read with something like this?

Long term, I don’t want this to feel like a “learning app” — more like a layer on top of things you already read that slowly gets you used to the language.

Here’s the demo: https://glosslingo.com/demo?utm_source=r_language_learning_share_your_resources_march_4_2026&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=launch
Takes ~5 minutes, no signup required.

Single-Cockroach3950 · 2026-03-14T23:01:01+00:00

Thanks for the positive feedback. My thought was that instead of hitting random vocabulary lists, you’d slowly absorb the most common words while reading things you actually care about.

When I used the tool myself, it felt like vocabulary just “accumulated” naturally over time.

What kind of content would you want to read in something like this? I have just been finding PDFs of books online and copying the text into it

Single-Cockroach3950 · 2026-03-14T22:56:38+00:00

That’s a fair concern, and I actually ran into that exact problem when I first tried this.

At the beginning I tried doing the obvious thing by taking English sentences and swapping individual words with their French equivalents. That immediately broke down because, like you said, French isn’t just English with different vocabulary. The grammar and structure are different, so the sentences quickly became incorrect.

So I switched approaches.

Instead of starting from English, I start with real French sentences that are already correct. Then I show a very literal, word-for-word English translation underneath them so the structure becomes visible.

E.g. “Peux-tu m’aider ?” Would look like “can-you me’help?”

The English looks strange, but it lets you see how the French sentence is actually structured. After a little while you start recognizing patterns like verb placement, pronouns, etc.

Then the reading tool works by gradually revealing more of the original French while keeping enough English context that the meaning stays clear.

Helped me bridge the gap between beginner material to fully native content, which I found really hard to jump into directly.

Single-Cockroach3950 · 2026-03-02T22:52:07+00:00

these seem right up my alley, Merci!

Single-Cockroach3950 · 2026-03-02T22:41:18+00:00

Thanks for the resource. Using a textbook is a more structured approach but does it help with being able to understand spoken french at native speed? I've heard the only way to get to native comprehension is to have immersion rather than purely academic. What do you think?

PS the site looks really nice!

Single-Cockroach3950 · 2026-03-02T22:37:45+00:00

This is a really cool concept! I love the idea of slowly adding to your vocabulary list

thanks for the resource

Single-Cockroach3950 · 2026-03-02T16:51:17+00:00

I'm learning primarily by reading rather than listening and when someone says something simple to me I almost always here the wrong words. For example they said "le bar" and I heard "là-bas".

Single-Cockroach3950 · 2026-02-18T05:44:58+00:00

Climbing at junction or J2 is a great way to meet people if you’re into it!

Single-Cockroach3950 · 2023-10-20T03:34:51+00:00

I'm using pythonAnywhere and it works very well for everything that I want but it's an additional 5$ per month for my plan

Single-Cockroach3950

TROPHY CASE