TELA
A reading app for learning a language by reading the things you’d read anyway — books, articles, lyrics, subtitles. Every word is colored by how well you know it, and you only ever see what’s just out of reach. You just read; it tracks what you know.
Valodas apguve nav atkarīga no noteikumiem, ko mēs iemācāmies apzināti. Tā rodas, kad saprotam vēstījumu, kas ir tikai nedaudz augstāk par mūsu pašreizējo līmeni. Tāpēc lasīšana tekstu, kuri mūs interesē, ir visefektīvākais veids, kā apgūt jaunu valodu.
✎ the text colors itself as you read
I start most things the same way: I want something that doesn't exist yet. Every language app I tried optimized for streaks and points. I wanted one that optimized for the feeling of getting somewhere — and I'm convinced you get there by reading things you actually care about, just a little above your level.
So TELA tracks every word you meet as you read, and the text colors itself — new, learning, known. You never drill, never curate; you just read, and it keeps you on what's within reach.
The part I love most: the languages you already know are an accelerator. TELA follows each word back through its roots, and when it finds a relative in a language you've already touched, it hands you the head start — you learn the related word by recognition. The more languages you've met, the faster the next one comes.
You just read; it tracks what you know.
Where you come in
I wanted this for my own reading and could never find it — the taste that decides how learning should feel is the part that's me. If you'd rather read your way into German, English, Russian or Ukrainian than grind a deck, you're exactly who it's for. And if you're sizing me up as a builder: this is what it looks like when I don't let go of an idea for five years.
Where it's going
Conversational fluency from reading alone — drop in any book in a language you're learning and just read it to the point where you don't need it anymore. I'm building the reading experience to make that true, and teaching it to lean harder on the languages you already know so each new one comes faster than the last.
The languages you already know are an accelerator.
TELA traces every word through Wiktionary's etymology graph. When a word in your target language has a relative in a language you already know, TELA gives you the head start automatically — you learn related words by recognition.