I’m learning Spanish with a deadline attached, and generic language apps optimise for daily streaks rather than for actually being able to hold a conversation by a specific date.
What it tracks
- Vocabulary by frequency band, not by lesson order
- Grammar concepts as a dependency graph — you can see what unlocks what
- Listening hours logged separately from study hours
- A running estimate of where I am against the target date
Why a graph, not a list
Grammar isn’t a sequence. Subjunctive doesn’t come “after” preterite, it depends on it. Modelling it as a directed graph meant I could see which single concept was blocking the most other concepts and study that next.
That one decision changed my study order significantly, and it’s the only part of this app I’d argue is genuinely novel.
Status
Working, and I use it daily, but it’s very much built for one user. The vocabulary lists are hardcoded to Castellano and the target date is in a constant somewhere.