
Show HN: I speak 5 languages. Duolingo taught me none. So I built lairner
I'm Tim. I speak German, English, French, Turkish, and Chinese. I learned Turkish with lairner itself -- after I built it. That's the best proof I can give you that this thing actually works. The other four I learned the hard way: talking to people, making mistakes, reading things I actually cared about, and being surrounded by the language until my brain gave in. Every language app I tried got the same thing wrong: they teach you to pass exercises, not to speak. You finish a lesson, you get your dopamine hit, you maintain your streak, and six months later you still can't order food in the language you've been "learning." So I built something different. lairner has 700+ courses across 70+ languages, including ones that Duolingo will never touch because there's no profit in it. Endangered languages. Minority languages. A Turkish speaker can learn Basque. A Chinese speaker can learn Welsh. Most platforms only let you learn from English. lairner lets you learn from whatever you already sp
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