I used the internet to painlessly relearn a foreign language
Almost a year ago I decided to start learning Russian so that I can talk with my girlfriend in her native language (the things we do for love )<p>Initially I tried the usual things like Duolingo, Babbel and some other apps. Out of those things the only one I found useful was Duolingo because it can get you started pretty quickly.<p>However, I got stuck after that. I couldn&#x27;t see myself making any progress. Then I stumbled upon the Comprehensible Input theory and TPRS and since then I&#x27;ve been studying Russian using a method that loosely follows these.  Here&#x27;s what I do:<p>- I find short stories, news articles, social media posts etc online. 
- I read those texts and mark down the new words as I learn them. I add those words in a flashcard app and I practice them using SRS. I use an app called Ulangi.
- I ask my girlfriend (a native speaker) to ask me short questions about the text and I have to answer in my target language.
- Once I feel comfortable with that text I repeat the process with the next one.<p>And it works (at least for me). I grew my vocabulary immensely, I can acquire grammar rules naturally (like I did with my native language) and I get to actually speak the language from day 1. As an added bonus I get to learn a lot about the culture of my target language.<p>However, translating and saving words in my vocabulary became tedious so I decided to automate this whole process. So I started building a tool for me. I, then, realized that this might be useful for others so I made it public. You can use it for free at Talkabl.com