Alternatives
Products that do what I built the literal Duolingo Killer does
Hi Everyone, I recently wanted to learn Japanese with duolingo but it kept giving me repetitive lessons. So I built an app that gives a variety of lessons from anime. You can try it out here:https://kanjieight.vercel.app/ Thanks everyone.
- 1IM
The idea is actually quite simple. As a Japanese learner and a coder, I've always wanted there to be an open-source, 100% free for learning Japanese, similar to Monkeytype in the typing community. Unfortunately, pretty much all language learning apps are closed-sourced and paid these days, and the ones that are free have unfortunately been abandoned. But of course, just creating yet another language learning app was not enough - there has to be a unique selling point. And then I thought to myself: why not make it crazy and do what no other language learning app ever did by adding a gazillion…
Sep 2025 · kanadojo.com
- 2AD
Hi HN, I watch A LOT of educational YouTube videos but wasn't forgetting a good chunk of the details because I was only really passively watching. So I made a tool that generates quiz questions/flashcards from YouTube videos, and uses spaced repetition like Anki or Duolingo to keep it in memory. Let me know if you find it cool/useful (or terrible ) or if you want to know a bit about the details!
2024 · platoedu.org
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I'm a long time lurker that recently quit my job to work on my own projects, a lot due to the inspiration from Hacker News. Now I have published my first serious project, an app for learning how to write Japanese characters. It's the app I always wanted but couldn't find when I was studying. It tries to be simple to use, you just start the quiz and go with the flow. There's no need to plan and manage your studies, and it uses spaced repetition for better retention. There's a promo page with more details up at http://www.kanjibyhand.com. It's only for Android so far. The free version includes…
2012
- 4AJ
Hey HN, it’s been 8 years since I posted on here about the launch of my Japanese dictionary app Nihongo [0] and I’m finally back with a new app: Nihongo Lessons! Think of Nihongo Lessons as the textbook to Nihongo’s dictionary. It’s an app for learning Japanese, specifically made for learners who are serious about becoming fluent, and want a guided set of content that will help them efficiently acquire vocabulary and grammar. The project came about when Adam Shapiro of Japanese Level Up (Jalup) [1] announced last April that he was shutting Jalup down. As a fan of Adam’s work I was bummed to…
2022 · lessons.nihongo-app.com
- 5PD
Hi! Wanted to share the project I really wanted to have. TLDR; this app lets you create your own list of words and you get a Duolingo-like experience (kind of, still needs a lot of features) practicing those words in their context. My English is not the best but not the worst either. But I realized I can't boost it up after a certain level! In my belief, in order to truly learn a language, you need to be exposed to that language often. Vocabulary is the key factor here if you really want to improve in any language. My experience is that when I read a book to improve my English vocabulary, I…
2025 · github.com
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I'm launching UneeBee, an open-source tool for creating interactive courses like Duolingo: GitHub repo: https://github.com/zoonk/uneebee Demo: https://app.uneebee.com/ It's pretty early-stage, so there's a lot of things to improve. Everything on this project is going to be public, so you can check the roadmap on GitHub too: https://github.com/orgs/zoonk/projects/11 I'm creating this project because I love Duolingo and I wanted the same kind of experience to learn other things as well. But I think this could be useful to other…
2023 · uneebee.com
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Hi HN, Just wanted to share a tool i've been working on to help with my own study routine. It’s a browser extension called Lingoku. The idea is simple: we spend hours browsing the web in English every day. This tool replaces some of the english words with Japanese vocabulary based on your japanese level (Similar to Toucan, but with a better user experience). It’s basically an attempt to make the "i+1" method actually passive, you understand the sentence because it's mostly english, but you pick up Japanese words naturally from the context. It uses an LLM in the backend to make sure the…
Dec 2025 · lingoku.ai
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2015 · nihongo-app.com
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2018 · edabit.com
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- 16GA
I've been fascinated by the Japanese language and culture for a while now, and I wanted to create a simple, no-fuss way for beginners to get started. So, I built *[Nihongo](https://nihongo.site/)*, a free and open-source web app designed to help you learn the fundamentals of Japanese in about a month. The name of the app, Nihongo (日本語), is the Japanese word for the "Japanese language." You can check it out here: *[https://nihongo.site/](https://nihongo.site/)* And for those who like to tinker, the code is available on GitHub:…
2025 · nihongo.site
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I’ve been tinkering with Ricotta for about a year now and I'm happy to announce it’s ready to for others to use officially. Largely the time has been spent making the project a framework to spin up newer projects quickly which I can share details around if anyone is interested. The app was born out of my frustration with Duolingo drilling me on words I knew. I moved on to creating custom Anki cards and found myself spending ages creating decks. It’s free, uses spaced repetition under the hood, and focuses on helping you learn what you want to without a course structure. I'd love to hear your…
2025 · ricotta.affineur.io
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Hey folks! I'm Callum, and I'm working on a way to practice a new language with an AI powered tutor. I've always found that the hardest part of learning a new language is finding someone to actually converse with. Even if a partner can be found, the pressure can mean that you are more focused on not making mistakes than on actually learning new grammar or vocabulary. The service that I have been working on allows you to practice with a language tutor via online chat messages, or you can have a turn-based voice conversation. I'm working on a number of other features that will be coming out…
2023 · learnlingo.dev
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Hey there! Out of the necessity to teach my son a new language, I developed an app just for him. After months of use and realizing how effective it was, I decided to make it available to the public. Now, I’m looking for your support, feedback, and possibly help in reaching potential customers. Take a look and let me know your thoughts! Thank you!
2024 · voiczy.com
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Hey everyone! I’ve been learning the Russian language on and off for over 15 years now. I took classes in college, and of course continued my education through apps like Duolingo. I started learning the language because one of my closest friends growing up was Russian, and I thought it would be cool to be able to speak with him in his language. Of all the ways I’ve learned the language, not one of them focused on the modern way we communicate: through text. I decided to make this app to create a text-first language learning experience --mostly so I could keep up with my friends’ groupchat.…
2025 · apps.apple.com
- 23IB
Hey HN! I’m Alex, and one of my favorite ways to learn languages is by reading novels. Currently I’m reading 三体 (3 body problem), but one problem I've always had is it takes ages to look up words, and add them to Anki flashcards so I can remember them. 三体 is especially brutal with so much sci-fi vocab. That’s why I built Readly. I snap a pic of the page I’m reading, it loads the text in-app and lets me lookup words, add to Anki-style flashcards, or ask AI questions about the text, all in a single tap. It's a huge time saver. My specific learning strategy, if anyone wants to replicate it: 1.…
2025 · readly.ink
- 24LG
Goal was to make it easy to jump from textbook learning into immersion. I wanted to play video games in Japanese, and started by using LLMs and a notebook, but figured it would be easier to streamline it all in an app. - You input a sentence in Japanese (easier on mobile where you can handwrite kanji you don't know) - App translates the sentence, explains the grammar, and gives you a list of flash cards - You choose some flash cards to save for studying later - You input a question about the explanation for more information - App explains some more and gives you more flash cards - Repeat And…
2024 · goginko.com
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