TL;DR: I built a web app called LangGlitch that aggregates comprehensibleāinput videos (and soon podcasts/graded readers) for multiple languages, starting with German, Vietnamese, and English. I want it to become a oneāstop place for comprehensible input for every language, including small/obscure ones, and would love your feedback and language requests.
Hey folks, Iām Stefan, a guy from Germany who loves travelling and getting lost in new cultures and languages. In school I was terrible at languages and grammar never really made sense to me, but at some point I realised I had somehow become fluent in English just by playing games and watching YouTube in English.
Looking back, what worked for me was basically ācomprehensible inputā: content that I mostly understood and actually cared about, consumed for fun rather than as āstudyā. These days I always try to learn new languages that way, but I kept running into the same problem: unless youāre learning something huge like Spanish or Japanese, good comprehensibleāinput content is scattered and hard to find.
So I decided to build something for myself and ended up turning it into a proper project: LangGlitch ā a little web app that aggregates comprehensibleāinput videos for language learners. Right now it supports German, Vietnamese, and English, with playlists grouped by difficulty, tags, and creators. You can sort for āeasiestā, filter for topics you like, and then just watch your way through material instead of hunting for the next decent video.
Iād love for LangGlitch to eventually cover every language out there, including the really small and āobscureā ones, so it can be a genuine oneāstop place for comprehensible input. If thereās a language youāre passionate about and want to see added sooner rather than later, tell me in the comments or message me and Iāll do my best to prioritise it.
Iāve just put it into free open beta, so anyone can sign up and play around with it. Iām planning to add more languages over time, plus podcasts and graded readers, and if it ever makes enough money to pay its own bills Iād love to commission new comprehensibleāinput content for underrepresented languages as well.
If you try it, Iād really appreciate honest feedback: confusing UI, missing features, annoying bugs, anything. You can leave comments here, DM me, or join the Discord (linked on the site) and yell at me there. Screenshots in the comments so you can get a feel for how it looks.
having some trouble getting registered. but youāve got two of the languages I want to learn in there, so Iām excited to try.
and yes Iām using an e-mail mask.
Love it! What a great idea.
Some Screenshots to get a better feel for the App
Got āinvalid login attemptā after creating account and validating email. Once Iām logged in maybe I can give some more based feedback.
A priori, sounds good, solid idea and I donāt think anyone can doubt that video based immersion is part of a healthy language learning diet. Question is, can it be the main course?
Iāve had a pretty similar path of learning English as yours so my main doubt is the following: I donāt believe that the experience of a video game is the same as that of a video with social/cultural significance (those come usually only in your native language and in English) which are both quite different from āsomeā video on youtube. So itās a question of level of engagement with the content.
Having said that, I would like to see what other supporting structure you have / will put into place. Codifying vocabulary and grammar as well as written and oral practice will somehow need to be tackled in a āone-stop-shopā application.
I believe wholeheartedly that video based Immersion can be the main course!
If you think back on how you learned your first/native language it follows the same concept. Your parents gave you comprehensible input in form of talking to you, letting you watch TV, reading stories to you, etc. Videos are basically the same thing, a visual cue that is combined with a word & that is enough to enable your brain to make connections and create a bigger understanding of a language. But I agree with you that these videos have to be engaging enough for you to actually stick with them, thatās why Iām trying to find as many videos as possible & put them on the platform.
Where we completely disagree is Vocabulary & Grammar. For most people these are suuuuper boring & annoying which includes me as well. Also I just donāt believe that you need to do endless grammar & vocabulary drills to learn a language because you didnāt need to for your native language so why would you need to do that for a second language. Iām a good example of this myself. If you ask me to explain grammar in German or English I just couldnāt but I can still tell you if something is wrong. You just develop a sense/feeling for the correct use of the language by using it & getting more exposure.
