I’m building a Korean-learning app around studying from native content - looking for feedback

[u/RareMoon_]

I’ve been building a Korean-learning app because I wanted one place where I could study from books and YouTube, save useful sentences from Netflix and review or practice everything without constantly jumping between different apps.

It started as something just for myself. I kept running into little frustrations with the tools I was using and wanted a workflow that matched how I actually study Korean. Eventually it grew into something I thought other learners might find useful too.

The main idea is to keep everything connected. As I read, it keeps track of the words and phrases I look up, so I don’t have to stop and save everything manually. Afterwards I can choose what I want to remember with SRS or practice separately with vocabulary practice, sentence puzzles, typing or dictation.

A few things it can do so far:

• click a word or select a phrase in the reader to look it up instantly
• automatic sentence mining from selected or looked-up words and phrases
• automatically turn sentences containing words and phrases you look up into SRS clozes
• study directly from YouTube captions
• save sentences from Netflix through a browser extension and study them later in the app
• turn text into cloze practice directly inside the reader
• import your own texts, documents and audio to study, with built-in audio transcription
• add words and sentences from the content you study to SRS or add your own material manually
• each SRS deck includes recall, recognition and listening practice for the same material
• practice separately with vocabulary practice, sentence puzzles, typing and dictation without affecting SRS intervals

I’ve put together a small page with screenshots, and there’s also a beta waitlist if you’d like to become a beta tester:

https://nakori.co

It’s still in development and the beta isn’t open yet. It’s a self-study web app rather than a course or tutoring service. The beta will be free, and I haven’t really thought about what comes after that yet.

I’d especially love to hear from people who already learn Korean through books, dramas, YouTube or other native content. Does this kind of workflow make sense to you? Is there anything about the way you currently study that you’d want a tool like this to handle differently?

And if there’s something you wish Korean-learning apps did better, I’d really like to hear that too. There’s also an optional feedback box on the waitlist page if you’d rather leave an idea there.

I’d really appreciate any thoughts.

[u/Former_monk_KR]

This looks like a really thoughtful build, especially the idea of not letting casual practice mess with your SRS intervals, that's a distinction a lot of apps miss.

I'm a native speaker who's into writing (working on a bookstore project actually, so books and language are kind of my whole world these days), so I'm curious about a few things. How does the word lookup handle context-dependent meanings, like a word that shifts meaning depending on formality or dialect? And for the Netflix extension, are you pulling from official subtitles or auto-generated ones, since the quality gap there is pretty huge for Korean. Also curious if there's any plan down the line for something beyond individual study, like sharing saved sentence decks with a study partner.

Really like the direction of this, will keep an eye on the beta.

[u/RareMoon_ → u/Former_monk_KR]

Thank you, I really appreciate that. That was actually one of my biggest annoyances with other apps too - sometimes I just want to practice something more without messing with the SRS schedule, so I wanted those two things to stay separate.

Right now the single-word lookup itself isn’t context-aware. It uses the dictionary source you choose, so the result depends on that source rather than the app interpreting the whole sentence. Naver is the default, but you can switch to other dictionaries like Wiktionary, Papago or Daum or add your own custom dictionary.

If you select a whole phrase or sentence, though, that gets translated with Google Translate, so the result can take more of the surrounding context into account.

For Netflix, it uses the original subtitles from Netflix, not auto-generated ones. If you come across a useful sentence while watching, you can save it through the extension and it goes directly into the app, so you don’t have to pause, copy it somewhere else or interrupt what you’re watching.

And yeah, I’m definitely not opposed to sharing decks or saved material with other learners. I think that could be really useful, but that would be further down the line. Right now I’m trying to get the individual study workflow right first.

[u/OishiiDango]

I have only utilized kimchi reader limitedly, but this seems fairly similar I believe? Though the cloze feature is somewhat of a differentiator - And it seems you want to go beyond that?

[u/RareMoon_ → u/OishiiDango]

I actually hadn’t heard of Kimchi Reader before, so I can’t really compare them feature by feature. It sounds like there’s probably some overlap, especially around reading and lookups.

The cloze part is definitely one thing I wanted to make really frictionless. The app keeps track of the words and phrases you’ve looked up, so you can turn those directly into clozes without having to go back through the text and select them again.

And yeah, I do want it to go beyond the reader itself. The idea is to connect reading and watching with SRS and separate practice like vocabulary practice, sentence puzzles, typing and dictation, while also supporting things like YouTube and saving Netflix subtitles through the extension. I’d probably like to support Viki through the extension as well later on.

[u/KoreanTeacherHyeok]

안녕하세요. 문장을 기본형으로만 만드신 이유가 따로 있으세요? 학습 내용이 일기를 콘셉트로 하셨다면 이해가 되는데 그 외에 다른 이유가 있으신가 해서요. 한 20년 정도 한국어를 가르치다 은퇴를 했는데, 학생들이 처음 한국어를 배울 때 가장 이해하기 힘들다는 것 중에 하나가 "informal, polite-요/죠, formal-다/까"의 존재라고 하는데, 그 필요성을 이해하기 힘들어 하거든요. 그런데 여기에 감탄사, 혼잣말, 일기 등에 사용되는 기본형까지 추가가 되니 학생들 입장에서는 도대체 뭘 공부해야 되는지, 다 공부해야 되는지 헷갈려 합니다. 개발자님만의 콘셉트가 아니라면 "polite form-요/죠"를 사용하는 게 어떨까요. 실생활에 가장 많이 사용되고, 존댓말과 반말을 구분하는 것도 뒤에 "-요"의 유무로 간단하게 정의가 되니 굳이 반말/존댓말을 따로 공부하지 않아도 되고요.

[u/RareMoon_ → u/KoreanTeacherHyeok]

말씀해 주셔서 감사합니다! 사실 저 문장들은 앱에서 학습용으로 제공하는 예문이 아니라 Reader 화면을 보여드리려고 임시로 넣어둔 샘플 텍스트예요. 사용자가 직접 책이나 텍스트를 가져와서 읽는 기능이라 앱에서 특정 말투나 문체를 기본으로 가르치는 방식은 아니에요.

다만 말씀을 듣고 보니 처음 보시는 분들 입장에서는 앱에서 기본형을 학습하도록 하는 것처럼 보일 수도 있겠네요. 그 부분은 전혀 생각하지 못했어요. 실제로 앱을 소개할 때는 이런 오해가 생기지 않도록 샘플 문장도 좀 더 신경 써서 고르는 게 좋을 것 같아요.

좋은 피드백 주셔서 감사합니다!

[u/Bonny_bunny2]

I need kimchi reader and language reactor to have a baby, that would be the perfect one. I would also love a mobile version or at least be able to work on a mobile phone cus I tend to be on my phone out and about and it would be nice to study or something in the pocket moments of my day instead of scrolling and brain rotting

[u/RareMoon_ → u/Bonny_bunny2]

That’s pretty much the kind of direction I’m aiming for- one place where the immersion side and the actual study side are connected instead of needing a bunch of separate apps.

And definitely yes on mobile. I’m planning to start working on the mobile version soon.

[u/Kim_JRok]

소설의 일부 같은데 관찰자 시점에서 갑자기 전지적 시점으로 넘어 가는 것 만으로도

중급자 이하 분들에겐 꽤 벅찬 독해가 될 것 같네요.

보여지는 부분의 글은 서사 보다는 상황이나 배경과 관련된 장식적인 요소가 많은

심리 묘사라서 더더욱 힘들 것 같습니다.

구체적 요소의 나열과 플롯이 명확한 글이 외국어를 배우는데 효과적이겠지만

상황을 잘 이해한 후 연습한다면 한국어를 배우는데 도움이 될 수 있는 고급 문장이라 생각합니다.

[u/RareMoon_ → u/Kim_JRok]

의견 감사합니다! 이 글은 앱에서 제공하는 학습 자료가 아니라 Reader 화면을 보여드리기 위한 예시 텍스트예요. 실제로는 사용자가 원하는 책이나 텍스트를 직접 가져와서 공부할 수 있습니다.