The Hard Way App logo The Hard Way App

Discover your way to fluency.

Meet the learning workstation that blends multimedia notes,
Spaced Repetition, and human-created content.

Screenshot of The Hard Way App
Screenshot of The Hard Way App with explanations of what it does

You know what's at stake.
Not being able to integrate, to meld in.
The frustration of not understanding.
Perfect job opportunities lost right in your face.


So you enroll in a language school, install an(other) chatbot in your phone.
Lessons start easy, think you'll be fluent soon enough.


But real world conversations ain't like your lessons.


They happen between people with different accents, interrupting each other over a noisy background.
You catch some words and by the time you fill the gaps the conversation is already on a different place.


Before long you hit a plateau, lose motivation.
Give up.

How to master a language
in Three. Meaningful. Steps.

1. Build,

Screenshot of The Hard Way App showing some Danish lessons
  • Turn whatever catches your eye – books, web pages, podcasts, YouTube clips – into learning materials
  • Curate your own learning library by combining text, flashcards, audio, and images
  • Use AI to fill the gaps where you need it
  • Connect your notes with [[links]], and organize them with #tags

2. Focus,

Image of a flashcard showing butterfliesImage of a flashcard with a quote from The Little Prince

Highlight any text to spawn flashcards enriched with real-world language

Image of a flashcard with a quote from Van Gogh and a description of the features it has
  • Real native pronunciation
  • Human and AI translations
  • Human examples, definitions, synonyms, links, and more

3. Practice,

Image of a subs file uploaded as flashcards

Understand, not memorize

  • Clip any audio file to create any flashcards out of it
  • Personalize your experience with smart flashcard tags
  • Review your content with an Spaced Repetition engine tailored for language acquisition patterns
Screenshot of the screen that lets you reschedule cards

Took a break and now hundreds of cards pile up in your queue?

Reschedule them with one click

Want to sound like a native?

Type in or record the answer and compare

Screenshot of a flashcard during review

Learning many languages?

Keep them tidy
...or messy

Your call

Bonus: Celebrate.

Explore comprehensive stats that set you in the right direction. Meet your goals. Make real, tangible progress.

Screenshot of the flashcard review stats pageScreenshot of the flashcard review stats page

Easy in, easy out.

Shield icon

Private and local-first. Your content is yours, forever.

User add icon

A tool in your repertory, not an attention-hoarding machine

Mental health icon

Designed for life-long learning and deliberate practice

Not “based on” science:
built from science.

  1. Bring your own comprehensible input [1,2]
  2. Cultivate a writing habit [3,4,5]
  3. Create your own flashcards with content you can relate to [6,7,8]
  4. Practice free recall with spaced repetition [9,10,11]
  • On your computer, not your phone [12,13]
  • Distraction-free and gamification-free [14, 15]
  • The hard way [16]

Learn a language so you will actually use it.

No account required.

Arabic · Bulgarian · Mandarin Chinese · Czech · Danish · Dutch · English · Estonian · Finnish · French · German · Greek · Hungarian · Indonesian · Italian · Japanese · Korean · Latvian · Lithuanian · Norwegian · Polish · Portuguese · Romanian · Russian · Slovak · Slovenian · Spanish · Swedish · Turkish · Ukrainian