As well as undermentioned. I’ve been trying to find a service that offers multiple definitions of words just by clicking/tapping on them on mobile, but if you make a quick google search trying to find something like that, you will encounter countless mentions of LingQ or some other app that doesn’t do it/doesn‘t do it right. For example, LingQ, from my limited understanding (and this understanding is only limited due to the lack of a proper trial - they offer like 20 words for free), is heavily focused on flashcards instead of frictionless reading.
I kid you not, it took me no less than two hours to find the first mention of Readlang. And turns out it offers something I didn’t even know I needed: context-aware translation. This use of LLMs is just… wow. It seems like such an obvious use case in retrospect, but I’ve yet to come across such a beautiful implementation anywhere else. To be concise, I sincerely think that this right here is the most powerful tool for language learning.
My question is: How come Duolingo dominates the market with millions of users and a pricy subscription, while Readlang is barely mentioned? It’s gotta be marketing, right?
Sorry if I’m not supposed to post something like this here, but I just love this website. I don’t want it to shut down because not enough people use it. I think that the more popular a service is the likelier it is to continue operating.
You are very welcome to post this. I’m not complaining!
There’s not much risk of the service being shut down unless something very unexpected happens. The biggest risk right now is if anything happened to me since I run it completely on my own! But it’s true that the more popular it is the easier it will be for me to invest more in it. Since revenue has grown over the past couple of years I’m toying with the idea of looking for another developer to help out next year (within Spain, ideally Madrid, so that we can collaborate in person). I do zero marketing at the moment since I figure the best long term investment is to keep making the product better. For now I rely totally on word of mouth, so if you like Readlang please let other people know!
You are correct, banshee, Readlang is the best thing out there. I mention Readlang in some comments I make on YouTube, but now I realize I need to do a better job at getting the word out. Thank you for your comments!
Like many others, I’ve used many different tools in the past, including LingQ, Learning With Texts, Duolingo, Anki (with subs2srs) etc. What I love about ReadLang is that the basic workflow is just so efficient. Everything is fast and responsive, there’s zero friction. I’m a computer science student, but even I get tired of tinkering with all sorts of annoying issues with learning tools. As a tool for pure reading, this is the best I’ve tried. I’m switching to a paid subscription as soon as I’m able and also telling all my friends who might be interested in the service.
I don’t see anything topping Duolingo. They are absolutely on top of the game in terms of marketing and gamification. To be honest, I also love Duolingo. It’s great for forcing me to speak and constructing sentences and holding me accountable day after day, but obviously you need immersion and other tools as well. I’m sure ReadLang will eventually find it’s audience. The product’s great, the pricing is very reasonable.
It’s been a while since I was a marketing director, but there is a lot of power behind ‘keyword search optimisation’. By embedding key words into the website and strategically incorporating them, the site progressively rises to page 1 of the search engine. It needs constant tweaking, but given most people can’t be bothered looking further than page 1, it is invaluable.
