Notes on language, films, and the things we ship.
Engineering posts, release notes, and the occasional opinion about how language learning tools should work.
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How to learn French with movies and books
A practical guide to learning French with the films and books you actually want to watch and read — why comprehensible input works, what content to start with, and how to handle the gap between written and spoken French.
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How to learn Spanish with movies and books
A practical guide to learning Spanish with the films and books you actually want to watch and read — why comprehensible input works, what content to start with, and how to handle Spanish's heavy verb conjugation.
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Best LingQ alternatives in 2026
Looking for a LingQ alternative? Honest survey of Migaku, Language Reactor, Readlang, Octopus, and the Anki DIY stack — who each is for and what each costs.
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LingQ vs Octopus Lang: An honest comparison
An honest comparison of LingQ and Octopus Lang — where each tool wins, where Octopus's lemma tracking and local Whisper change the math, and who should pick which.
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Why we run Whisper on your machine
Most language tools upload your films to a server. Octopus runs Whisper locally — and it's not just a privacy talking point.