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I stopped paying £120 for Duolingo Max and built a Polish learning app centred around my life

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I stopped paying £120 for Duolingo Max and built a Polish learning app centred around my life.

It has:

  • Anki flashcards created from photos and lessons (apparently I'm aggressive and athletic: not clearly untrue)
  • Structured grammar practice, because Polish grammar is very difficult
  • Speaking exercises about my life and interests

All the things I wish Duolingo had.

A flashcard in the Polish app at polish.eeshita.com: an illustration of a woman playing tennis in London, captioned "Ta kobieta jest agresywna", for the word agresywny
A flashcard from the app — "agresywny", generated from a lesson, with a tennis scene drawn from my own photos

It also updates itself after each lesson, adding new flashcards, photos and speaking scenarios.

My Polish tutor got inspired and started building personalised apps for her students. A friend who's also learning Polish started using mine. Another built his own Japanese learning app ahead of a conference in Japan.

I've always loved learning languages, but it was difficult to get structured practise every day until I made the app fit my life. Makes me wonder how many little, personal apps people will build to improve their everyday lives.

Want to learn a few Polish phrases? Try it at polish.eeshita.com.