Yakk

Language learning books from the future.

[Martin @martinrue]

I created a little flyer for my coworking space to make more people aware of my latest Vietnamese course on @yakkapp. 👌 🇻🇳

[Martin @martinrue]

I'm currently writing a mini guide for the awesome Vietnamese 🇻🇳 language. #langtwt #vietnamese

I'm putting everything into this, but it'll be worth it. I can't wait to release it very soon. It feels great seeing the @yakkapp experience come together bit by bit. 🚀

[Martin @martinrue]

I'm currently working on the first paid book for @yakkapp. It's aimed at nomads who want to get more out of their experience in Vietnam. 🇻🇳

It's little touches like this one that I'm really proud of putting so much work into behind the scenes.

For those not seeing what's happening here: for many people it's hard to type Vietnamese. Letters such as í, ư, and ơ (among others) aren't easily accessible on most keyboards.

I remember spending a good amount of time coding a best-effort algorithm to try to match what you typed with the correct answer. It then replaces your input with the exact Vietnamese word once accepted.

It's these tiny details that make a huge difference to the learning experience, and hopefully to the overall delight of using @yakkapp.

It brings a smile to my face that I'm insane enough to care about this stuff.

🎩 Hat tip to the creators out there putting entirely disproportionate efforts into things that make someone's day, somewhere, a tiny bit better... even if nobody ever notices.

[Martin @martinrue]

Today's "doing the thing". Working on some nice updates for @yakkapp.

[Yakk @yakkapp]

It's great to see Yakk being used in the wild. @elizabethk___ is learning some Esperanto. Bonŝancon!

[Yakk @yakkapp]

10/10 I don't know if you know this or not, but there are a lot of illegitimate barbecues in Korea. Be careful out there.

[Yakk @yakkapp]

6/10 This dish looks great. If only it came with intelligent bean sprouts.

[Yakk @yakkapp]

9/10 Speaking of false friends, in Mexico the verb "embarazar" means "to get pregnant". Unfortunately for Parker, this meant that their Mexico launch guaranteed that their lovely pens: "won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant." Well, that's good to know.

[Yakk @yakkapp]

5/10 Chances that the makers of this store front used Google Translate? 100%. Chances it was experiencing problems at the time? 1000%. Friends don't let friends use Google Translate.

[Yakk @yakkapp]

4/10 The Chinese text warns people not to eat food from outside. While the translation is questionable, it's hard to disagree that in general one really should not aspire to be edible.

[Yakk @yakkapp]

3/10 In Mandarin the text reads "Grass is resting, do not disturb". Turns out, it's not only resting, it's dreaming. I wonder what grass dreams of?

[Yakk @yakkapp]

1/10 One of the joys of learning a new language is swerving the false friends and learning how a new language is different from your own. When that process goes wrong, it can make for some hilarious mistakes. Here are our favourite language fails. Hit us with yours!

[Yakk @yakkapp]

2/10 A hotel in Iraq accidentally translated the Arabic text into English as "Paul is dead". Why? The Arabic was actually a transliteration of "m-e-a-t b-a-l-l", which in Arabic sounds like "mayit baul" – "Paul is dead". Hopefully Paul is doing fine.

[Yakk @yakkapp]

If you want to listen: https://t.co/Er9z8D13iR

[Yakk @yakkapp]

Should there be a universal language? The Freakonomics podcast episode 301 discusses this very topic. Which would be your pick? Yakk's 10 points goes to Esperanto, of course. 🧐

[Yakk @yakkapp]

Dictionaries are just really really long poems. Change my mind.

[Yakk @yakkapp]

So grateful for all the awesome feedback you've all been sending following the Yakk launch. There have been about 15 deploys in the last 48 hours, with all the corrections, bug fixes and course improvements going live as soon as they were ready. Feels great to be shipping. 👌

[Paul Haydock @PaulHaydock]

If you’re interested in learning languages, give Yakk a go!

My buddy has been working on it and would love any feedback. 🙂 🙏