nowfound

Alternatives

Products that do what I spent 4 months building Duolingo but for your life does

  1. 1IB

    2012 · boxcarsurgery.com

  2. 2
    Mainichi133

    Learn Japanese, one prefecture at a time.

    Jul 2026 · mainichiapp.com

  3. 3IB
  4. 4
    Typha88

    Keep track of the things you've done.

    2018

  5. 5IA
  6. 6

    Chinese vocab, drilled into long-term memory. Free, offline.

    May 2026 · wordbrushchinese.com

  7. 7

    Stop playing, start speaking. The "Anti-Duolingo".

    Dec 2025

  8. 8

    Duolingo meets Scrabble

    2017

  9. 9IH
  10. 10LL
  11. 11IB
  12. 12TA

    Hello HN, Introducing VocabGenii.com, my online vocabulary game. It is the first product from my company, Genii, Inc., that brings innovative, engaging new learning experience to the market by leveraging web 2.0 and social networks. Currently, we are running a 10K Challenge -- anyone scoring 10,000 points before the contest ends (March 24 04:00 GMT) will get 3-Month unlimited play. Exceptional performance would also be recognized in our 10K Hall of Fame with limited edition trophies! We're hiring! If you have disruptive ideas on language learning and online education, and possess…

    2011

  13. 131P

    This project took me 1 year to complete, all by my lonesome self. What do you think? Comments appreciated! www.enrad.io

    2016

  14. 14IB

    2012 · github.com

  15. 15IM

    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

  16. 16M4

    2011 · campsh.com

  17. 17IM

    Itsumo is a language learning app that generates short lessons from stories about topics you choose, at your level. Instead of working through a fixed curriculum or another flashcard deck, you can make a lesson about whatever happens to be interesting to you that day, with audio, tappable words, and grammar notes. You can try a language story from the landing page without signing up, and if you want to try full access, no credit card is required at signup, and the premium tier free for 14 days. It supports Japanese, Polish, Spanish, English, Portuguese, French and Italian. I built it because…

    Apr 2026 · itsumo.study

  18. 18
    Flewi5

    German vocab that actually sticks — built by an expat

    Jul 2026 · apps.apple.com

  19. 19IB

    Hi HN, I have been working on a new tool that was inspired by Vannevar Bush's memex and Luhmann's Zettelkasten. Having been a long time user of different tools, I got to the point where I decided to build my own. For the longest time I have been looking for something that puts association first, works as fast as the mind, and allows you to stay in flow state. Making building a second mind, playful and rewarding. If anyone is interested, I have added the link below. At this point I am slowly letting on the first users, and hoping to gather as much feedback as possible. The explore link on the…

    2020

  20. 20MP

    My weekly(ish) video logs tracking my progress of building a completely sound statically typed language and structural editor. The motivation is to make lots of invalid programs unrepresentable.

    2022 · petersaxton.uk

  21. 21CP

    Launch day is here! This has been my passion project, to recreate Duolingo for chess! I always thought Duolingo had amazing "hooks" to help people learn new languages, so I implemented its spaced-repetition, reports and daily and weekly training reminders in a Chess learning platform for chess improvers! I built it in Meteor.js and React.js. I chose Meteor to be able to add Cordova in the future. The Caro-Kann course (for white) is completely free, if you guys want to try it. What do you folks think?

    2022 · chesskool.com

  22. 22IG
  23. 23IB
  24. 24AS

    I have always dreamed of learning Swift and creating apps for iOS, but I never found the motivation to do so. I was scared by the complexity and the learning curve of programming with UIKit and Storyboard. I thought they were too complicated and too boring for me. But then I discovered SwiftUI, the new framework for building user interfaces for Apple platforms. I was captivated by its simplicity and elegance. I watched some videos and read some articles about it and I was blown away by what it could do. I decided to give it a shot and see if I could learn it and make something with it. I set…

    2023 · apps.apple.com

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