Why I'm Building ChatPal

The biggest barrier to learning a language is speaking. Speaking is the most natural way to learn, it's what you're forced to do when you live in a place and are immersed in a language, it's what children do to learn their mother tongue.

Most learners get to a point where they can recognize words, follow basic grammar, and maybe even read or write at a decent level. But the moment they need to actually speak ( e.g. order something, ask a question, respond to a question, start a conversation) is where things break down.

I know this because I’ve been there many times myself!

I grew up in a bilingual household, so languages were always part of my life. As I got older, that curiosity turned into a bit of an obsession and I've lived in various places where I was committed to learn the local language. Over the years I’ve studied Spanish, French, Latin, Swahili, Dutch, and Hindi.

Some of those I learned more seriously than others. But every time I started a new language, I ran into the same wall.

Speaking.

The missing piece in language learning

I’ve tried a lot of approaches.

Living in countries where the language is spoken. Language learning apps.
Conversation meetups.
Private tutoring in person. Private tutoring online. Audio books. Podcasts.

Some of these worked extremely well. Some didn’t work as well as I expected.

But one pattern kept showing up.

The thing that accelerates your language learning the most is when you're forced to speak consistently. Regularly enough that your brain starts to adapt.

Speaking forces you to do several things at once:

• Retrieve vocabulary quickly
• Construct sentences in real time
• Understand somebody at their speed of conversation
• Navigate awkward pauses and misunderstandings
• Build the confidence to keep going anyway

There’s no shortcut around this part.

In college I was an Italian teacher. Watching students go through the same journey reinforced something I had already felt as a learner: the biggest progress always happened when people were actually speaking.

It's something that's so easy to achieve when you're living in a country where your target language is spoken, but so hard to be consistent about when you're at home.

The problem with speaking practice

If speaking is so important, why don’t more learners do it consistently?

Because it’s surprisingly hard to arrange.

You might find a tutor, but that can be expensive.
You might go to conversation events, but those happen periodically.
You might try speaking with locals, but that can feel intimidating, especially when you’re still learning. You might even have a friend or partner who speaks your target language! But pushing to speak the language you're learning can feel awkward and forced.

Even when you live in a country where the language is spoken, in a world where English is always more ubiquitous, it can be easy fall back to your native language most of the time.

So the thing that helps the most is often the hardest thing to do regularly.

That’s the problem I kept coming back to.

There’s no silver bullet

Learning a language takes time.

It takes patience, repetition, and a lot of moments where you say something slightly wrong and have to try again.

ChatPal isn’t meant to replace real human interaction. It won’t replace tutors, teachers, or traveling to places where the language is spoken.

Those experiences are incredibly valuable.

I'll always be the first to encourage you to get out in the real world and practice with anyone you can!

But ChatPal aims to give you consistent speaking practice in a format that’s accessible, low-pressure, and engaging enough that you actually come back to it regularly.

Think of it as a missing puzzle piece. Not the whole picture.

Why this is possible now

For a long time, the technology simply wasn’t ready for this kind of experience.

But Voice AI has gotten incredibly good. Speech recognition has gotten much better at understanding people with different accents and speaking styles. Text-to-speech systems can now generate voices that sound natural and expressive. AI models have become capable conversational partners that can respond quickly and adapt to the learner.

Before making ChatPal, in my own language learning journey for Hindi, I started using LLMs to try and practice speaking and it worked surprisingly well! It took a lot of work to create elaborate prompts to force speaking at a certain level, walk me through certain scenarios, etc. I thought that if I could make speaking practice with LLMs a convenient, fun experience, it would be a huge help to language learners.

Taken together, this makes something possible that didn’t really exist before: A voice-first language learning experience built around conversation.

More broadly, I believe one-on-one AI tutoring will become an important part of education. Not replacing teachers, but augmenting them. Giving people access to an enthusiastic conversation partner that’s always available, always patient, and focused entirely on helping them improve.

Who ChatPal is for

Right now, ChatPal is primarily designed for beginner/intermediate learners.

People who already have some foundation in a language, but feel stuck when it comes to using it in the real world. Maybe you can read simple texts and understand more than you can say, but starting a conversation still feels intimidating.

The goal is to help you move past that barrier and build confidence through regular speaking practice.

Over time, I hope to expand ChatPal to support two other groups as well:

• People just starting their first words in a new language
• Advanced speakers who want to push themselves with deeper conversations

But the first focus is helping learners cross that very real gap between studying a language and using it.

Building something I use every day

One of the most exciting parts of this project for me is that I’m building something I use every day and my family uses every day. This keeps me honest about what works and what doesn’t.

I'd like to stay extremely close to the people using ChatPal. The best ideas, improvements, and insights usually come directly from learners who are actually trying to speak a language every day.

So if you ever have feedback, ideas, or run into something confusing or frustrating, I’d truly love to hear from you. You can always reach me at hey at chatpal dot chat.

Thanks for being here, and wishing you the best on your language learning journey!