About

It started as a spreadsheet

I am moving to Spain, and I am learning Spanish. Like many people, I got stuck on the verbs. So I started making myself a crib sheet: a spreadsheet, with a few columns of conjugations.

The spreadsheet became a web page. The page grew to sixty-four verbs. It worked, but revising by scrolling down a web page is no fun at all, and very little sticks.

One trace of it remains: the data file of the Spanish app is still called "64 essential verbs", even though it now holds 422.

From one language to thirty apps

I asked an artificial intelligence to turn that crib sheet into a real app, for learning Spanish from French, my mother tongue. I am not a developer: I described what I wanted, argued over every decision, tested, fixed, and started again.

The first app took a long time, because everything had to be invented: the structure, the review engine, the way a conjugation is laid out. Once that foundation existed, adding a language mostly meant swapping the resources — the verbs, the translations, the tenses each language has.

Thirty apps later, about three months had gone by. And not every idea was kept, thankfully: otherwise I would still be on the first one.

And then I merged it all into one

Thirty apps meant maintaining the same machinery thirty times over. And for someone learning two languages, thirty possible installs instead of one.

So I merged them into a single app. The language pair is chosen at launch and can be changed at any time, each one keeping its own progress. Vocabulary arrived with it: 3,046 words per language, with its own tab and its own quiz.

It is the same app as before, only better organised.

What I did not want to build

An app that punishes you. Plenty of learning tools pile on the pressure, count the days you missed and make you feel guilty for stopping. That is not what I was after while learning Spanish in my free time.

The principles are written inside the app, on the "About" screen:

• the coach advises, the user decides;
• a mistake is an opportunity to learn;
• the machinery should stay invisible;
• statistics motivate, they never shame;
• the app respects the user's time and attention.

That is also why there is no account to create, no notification chasing after you, and no streak you must not break.

What it is, and what it is not

It is a precise tool: conjugation, in depth, both ways round, out loud. It is not a complete method: VerboQuiz will not teach you to hold a conversation, nor general vocabulary.

It is also a small project. No team, no round-the-clock support, fixes at the pace of one person. In exchange, you know exactly who publishes these apps and you can write to me directly.

What the apps do with your data is set out in detail in the privacy policy, with nothing glossed over.

Get in touch

A mistake in a conjugation, a doubtful translation, an idea: Verboquiz@gmail.com. I read everything.

Claude-Alain Jeanmonod, Spain.