Gabriel Wyner: Raising 500K on Kickstarter

The French have a bad reputation because people come to their country and they're reading travel books and they're like bonjour. Sava bien. And they're like, "What did you say?" Like what language are you speaking to me?

This is the actual fluency podcast, helping you become a better language learner by providing motivating weekly inspiration, as well as top tips and tricks from expert guests. And now, your host, Kris Broholm.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 116 of the Actual Fluency Podcast. On today's show, I'm joined by Gabriel Weiner, the best-selling author of the book, Fluent Forever. How to learn any language fast and never forget it. On today's show, we talk primarily about his recent Kickstarter success, which saw him raise over $400,000 for his new Fluent Forever language learning app, which is in development. And we catch up since the last time he was on the show. So, please do enjoy this episode with Gabriel Weiner.

All right Gabe, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

I'm doing well, how are you doing?

Fantastically. So as we talked about just before the the recording button was hit, it's been actually almost three years since we did our last recording, which is uh quite crazy. I it it feels like last year.

Absolutely insane.

Exactly.

It definitely feels like last year, yeah.

Yeah, uh maybe it was last year and there's just been some kind of mix up in the Tadas or Matrix or whatever. But um before we get into uh the sort of recent developments, can you let all the listeners know what's been going on in your life in the last three years after the release of of your bestseller Fluent Forever?

Um I mean, yeah, I guess three years ago was pretty much right when the book came out. It came out in August, so this is about like a couple months, I guess we must have talked like a couple months after the book came out.

Yeah, exactly.

Um and God, that's nice. Um so the book came out. Um that spawned uh an entire full-time business basically. I mean, I I had I had done a Kickstarter before we talked uh that last time. Um that was to develop pronunciation trainers.

Right.

Uh which is nuts. Uh now, to be fair, uh to me slightly is that like when I when I one of the things that's tricky about Kickstarters is that you you um you set up this funding target and you set up this goal. And usually your first goal is not the only goal you want to accomplish.

Right.

Um and that was the first goal. And then that goal wasn't at all what we did. Uh, I mean, we ended up creating 65 products.

Wow.

So yeah. So the workload increased six-fold, um and it took us uh three years and 10 months to finish.

Right.

So this has been an insane insane like just insane journey. Like uh we ended up like with the Kickstarter, we ended up raising $96,000, which sounded really cool at the time. I was like, oh my God, like we're I was planning on raising $10,000. Like this is so much money and like the size of this project was like the idea of trying to do this project for $10,000, like looking back on it, is completely insane.

Right.

Um completely insane. I think each, I was just uh uh writing this this uh comment, like a response to a comment on my blog about like, hey, why are the word lists not free? And like each of the word lists cost us around a $1,000 and we've released 32 of them.

Right.

Like like this thing has been nuts. So like that's been the last four years. It's been has been that. Um, it's been just just working and working and working full-time on on developing all the stuff for the first Kickstarter. And then now like preparing and the the you know, two months ago was preparing for this uh this new Kickstarter that just happened, but like yeah, it's it's basically been create founding a small business and then realizing that my whole life is this small business and then dedicating my whole life to this small business.

That's incredible. Did you when you started making the when you wrote the book and you started making these extra products and you started the first Kickstarter, did you have that ambition in mind or did you just say, this kind of app or pronunciation trainer would be nice to have for people, it would be useful for some people?

Uh it was a few things. I mean, on one level, it was that the like I had this experience when I was writing the book where I um like the first draft of my book was was a, terrible, but b, I didn't have a clear idea as to what how to deal with pronunciation. I knew the pronunciation was super important, um but I didn't know how like a good way to get it across to people. Like I I personally my pronunciation training was like, go to opera school. And like that's not a convenient way to deal with pronunciation.

Right.

And like that's not a recommendation I can stick in a book. It's like, hey everyone, the key to your foreign language, go to opera school. So, I while while I sent in the first draft of my book, which was like like the first chapter that I sent in was this awful chapter on pronunciation. It was just like, you know, the epiglottal fricative is made in the back of the throat using the epiglottis. Like just this just wonky like technical terrible thing.

Right.

Pray pray that you find a good teacher on YouTube, basically. Um and then I came across this research that turned into the pronunciation trainers, which was this um this this minimal pair testing thing, uh using Japanese uh adults, trying to see how how can you teach them to to hear the difference between rake and lake.

Wow.

And like this this was a 10-day replacement for go to opera school.

Can you give an example of uh of that? Like just out of curiosity, I know a bit of Hungarian so it'd be fun to just hear an example of a minimal pair trained in in Hungarian.

Sure. Um sure. Things like um there was uh kar, kór, kör. Like those are three different ones.

Right.

Uh and and kar and kór, those are you know, close enough. And like those are those are far enough apart, but like kór and kör, like this extra long o, I could not hear initially. Like I was not, you know, my ears were not used to the idea of length distinctions in vowels. They were a little bit used to length distinctions in uh consonants because of like Italian, um but not at the ends of words, so things like um uh I forget things like like hal, hal, and hull.

Right.

Um where it's like, oh, it's an extra long L, but there's no vowel afterwards. Like that's new and that that I wasn't sensitive to hearing. Um, things like that. Like those those were ones in Hungarian that that I I definitely could not hear initially, and I picked up the ability to hear. Um, and super fast and I was like, oh, this is this is really effective. Like, yeah, let's do this thing.

Yeah.

Um I remember going to the the French program that I that initially sort of turned into my book. Um and I had come into there uh with a lot of French training, with a lot of French pronunciation training, specifically pronunciation. Um and I showed up and I I found that over the course of the like it was a seven-week program and by week two or three, my accent was getting worse.

Hmm.

Um and and it was because you we had like, I would say like one teacher for every five to 10 students, which was like a fine ratio. But you're talking about one native speaker for every five to 10 people who are butchering French.

Yeah.

And so you're you're getting one "bonjour" for every like for 10 like "bonjours" right next to you. And like my accent was getting worse. Like every day I was getting a little bit worse at French and I'm like, this is not good. Like what do I do?

Yeah, that's terrible, isn't it?

I'm getting worse here. Like I there's nothing I can do. I can't I can't prevent this from happening. Um, so, so yeah, that was kind of disturbing for me. Uh, and and when I saw that there was this option of uh creating something new, um I I I jumped on it. Like I I really I thought it was really important to to build.

How's that for motivation?

Oh, it's quite good for motivation. Like the the having someone who is willing to threaten your whole livelihood, uh based on your the quality of your work is like is is an amazing and very valuable and terrifying experience. Um, and I wouldn't have had that if I didn't uh, you know, if I didn't have uh this publisher. Um,

Right.

But, you know, they royalty rates are like uh 7%, I think, seven between 7 and 10% depending upon your your deal and your how many copies you've sold and stuff like that.

Right.

Um, and so they're they're taking around 93% of all profits of the book. Uh, and so there's not, you don't actually get that much for selling a book. You get uh a widespread audience is really what you're aiming for. You get a high-quality book with a wide audience.

Yeah.

Um and that's awesome. But like the the 97% thing or the 93% that's taken thing is a little um, you know, odd. Uh, and so especially from the standpoint of looking at something that you're spending uh, you know, years working on, like the book took me two years to write. And that was basically my full-time job for two years.

Of course.

Um, and there's not someone taking, you know, 92% of the royalties on those. So, so there was sort of both. There was an idea of I bet there is a business here, but also like I this thing seems important. So, let's let's do both. Let's combine both of those things.

That's really cool. And I just wanted to mention uh a couple of things based on that. The first is the original episode we did was actually called like how to improve your pronunciation or something, because I took the spin of, because it's the first chapter of the book. And also because you come came from the opera training, we had a lot of talk about the uh pronunciation, why it was so important. And also the fact you mentioned that it's so underrated, it seems. It's like, well, you can learn the language and then fix your pronunciation after, which is like completely crazy to me that you that people do this. But I see it everywhere. It's like, well, I just want to speak. Yeah, but, you know, it does help you a bit.

Oh man.

So that's pretty cool.

I'm glad I've I've left such an imprint.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't know, it doesn't help at all, does it, to see an approximation of the pronunciation. Like, what is that ever done to anyone?

It it rein it reinforces bad habits is what it does. I think it does damage.

Yeah. It's like if you taught so if you taught someone a language only through writing, and then had that person teach language to someone else. That's the quality you would get, I think.

Yeah, that's that's absolutely true. And I mean people people like the French have a bad reputation because of like books like that.

The French have a bad reputation because people come to their country and they're reading travel books and they're like bonjour. Sava bien. And they're like, "What did you say?" Like what language are you speaking to me? And and it's it's frustrating, because it's if if and like people have had this experience where people will come up to them and uh try to speak their language but speak it with a thick accent, and if it's hard to understand, then then you as a listener, like lis like you listening to your native language misspoken in some way. Um, if it's hard to understand, you will start feeling angry.

Yeah.

And and and just like frustrated. You're like, just just uh say something different. Like fix it. Cuz it it doesn't feel good to to think slowly. It doesn't feel good like when your cell phone reception is bad, you also feel like frustrated and angry. Uh cuz you can't quite hear what they're saying and like that doesn't feel good.

Yeah. I I think you're on to something there for sure. And also, just a little the last throwback uh to the last episode was we were talking about the rolled R, because that's if you ask people, what's your problem with pronunciation, most people will say the rolled R, unless you're of course from one of the countries where it's uh used. And um I a little update, you know, a project update, three years in the making. I still walk down the street saying, Pedin su pedasha, if you remember. And um

I do remember that.

It's getting close. I I will say I'm not working very hard on it, to be fair, because I'm not really well the the Russian I I do work on a little bit, which sometimes has the, well, they do use the rolled R, but it's not as uh it doesn't seem as pressing as as Spanish, which I was briefly touching a bit on this year. Um, but it's getting very close. Uh and but I'm not sure if I'm faking it sometimes, you know, or instead of like rolling the uh the tongue, it's more of like a throatal roll in a way if that makes any sense. Uh I don't know if any

That sounds like you're rolling the back, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. So so sometimes I I actually asked some Spanish speakers, uh like uh could you judge my pronunciation of this word. I think I said like, Perro or something. And they were like, wow, you you rolled the R really well. And I could just feel that it was wrong. I I don't know what I was doing, but it felt wrong. Um, so so that's uh in case people listen to the previous episode before this, uh that's kind of what's been going on. Uh but I do feel an improvement and I've been talking to other people about it and uh they say, you know, it just takes practice, like we also talked about last time.

Yeah. No, some of these things take a while. I mean, it's it's much you're trying to get your muscles to behave, which they they aren't just going to react in a day. So, yeah.

Yeah, and I don't know if people think I'm weird for walking down the street and going like. But sometimes it helps.

That kind of stuff is exactly what people need.

A bit of crazy in their everyday. Um so let's go up to present day. So right now the Kickstarter, the second one you're running, it's uh you know, going beyond what I guess anyone could have imagined. I mean, at this time it says, I think it was like $430,000 at the time of recording. Um, take us through it. Like, what happened?

I you're saying bigger than anyone has imagined. I'm I'm like sort of staring at this thing being like, you need to get to $850,000. You need to get there.

Right. But it's the most funded app of all time.

It totally is. Uh and that that was uh yes. So

How?

It's been exciting and it's been nuts. Uh, I guess let me know where you want to start.

Yeah, well, basically like when did you decide to to take the pronunciation trainers and kind of evolve that idea? Because in the in the video to the Kickstarter, you said you had the idea of the of the current app or the the one the Kickstarter that's going on now, you said you had the idea for that, or at least some of the idea for that already in 2012. So, I just wanted to know how you evolved it from the pronunciation trainers, like what was lacking back then in the in the method? Because for those people who haven't read the book, obviously, it's it's quite of a I wouldn't call it a hardcore method, but it's definitely a method that takes some work. Like you you put a lot of effort into creating some content that you can then learn off of, and you also learn from the process itself. Um, but you had the pronunciation you had, first of all, the book, of course, went into the pronunciation trainers, and I guess the first part is, you know, what's the new thing, like can you give a quick 30-second explanation of of of the new app, like the vision you have?

Sure. Um actually, maybe in answering the history question, that sort of answers what this thing is. Um, the the the source of this thing, like where it started was um I used to be I used to teach workshops, uh I I sort of stopped doing them uh after I made a big one online after I created. But I used to do workshops where I would teach my method before the book came out. Um, this was in 2012. Uh, I did a lot of them. And um they were 12 hours long, and around six to eight hours of those workshops were like, uh learning how to use Anki really well.

Right.

Um and so like I I personally don't have any problems with Anki in terms of as a platform. I think it's like it's it's it's it must exist. Like it's really important that Anki exists. Like I think it's it's a it's a it's an important thing for the world that there is a platform that can do things that that are that broad, that can really do almost anything.

Right.

And like that should not be necessary for language learning. Like the idea of of forcing someone to learn how to use a two-handed mouse plus keyboard maneuver that involves a motion with the mouse, a click with the mouse that you're holding, and holding down the Alt key, and hitting tab, but only hitting tab just once. You can't hold them both down, or else you'll switch applications a whole bunch of times. Like, it's like I'm I'm watching myself teach this and I'm like, this is ridiculous. Like I should not be spending my life teaching this. These students should not be like having to learn how to do this. Like this should not be in their way to learn a language. Like this is insane. And yet, like at that point, it was really clear, like, I I knew of no faster method for learning languages. Like for me, Anki was essential. And so I did teach it. Like I spent the six to eight hours it took to get someone to the point where they could handle, you know, this click, drag, Alt, tab thing.

Right.

To move an audio file into a box. And don't worry, if you miss the box by two pixels, then you have to start all over again. And like, all of this stuff, like this was was silly. And from that point on, it was like, it is clear this must be fixed. The this, all of this is unnecessary. All of this, the only impediment, uh, like many people will would take this workshop. Like the workshop was actually pretty good in the sense that people left that being like, okay, I feel comfortable with this. This does seem silly that I have to do this much work, but I get the idea and I'm going to try it. And and so the the the technological boundary was like, uh, uh, barrier, uh, we we could sort of overcome that over the course of this workshop. But like, if someone were just to read the book and then watch like a one-hour tutorial on my website, like there were definitely a ton of people who who saw this tutorial or whatever and were just like, this is too hard. I'm not going to do this. Interesting ideas, but I'm not going to do this.

Right.

And so I was definitely losing people. And I was losing people for for no, like no good reason. Like the only reason that I was losing people is because uh no one had done the work to make something that was easier for them. It was solid. Like the the concepts are solid. Like the only thing in the way is that right now, the route there is by learning how to use like a click, drag, Alt, tab thing into a box.

Right.

Or even that you even had to type out the word. Like if we had a list of words that you could learn, suggested words, you shouldn't have to type it at all. Um, you should never have to select the word and copy it somewhere. Like you shouldn't have to uh in in like I I created all these scripts on on my website over the last few years for searching five to 10 websites at once. Like you can search Google Images and uh and like three different dictionaries and Forvo.com for recordings and stuff. Like that's cool that you can type the word once and have it search five to 10 websites. That is time savings, but like why did you have to copy and paste that word at all?

Right.

Uh like that's a time waste. Like I I shouldn't need to to look on websites. Like there should be a way for an app to look on websites for me. And then for me to only spend my time making decisions. Because it's the decisions that are the learning experience. The decision of, you know, here's, you know, I'm going to look up the word for uh dog in French, chien, and I'm going to find that like French dogs look different than than American dogs. And I can just look at that and decide on a picture that sort of captures that memory for me. That decision process. The this process of looking at pictures and deciding things, like that's where the learning happens. And shouldn't there be a way for me to spend all of my time doing that? Like just the learning thing and spend basically none of my time click, drag, Alt, tabing or copying and pasting.

Right.

They just work. You don't need to install Anki. You don't need to like put this pronunciation trainer into Anki. It's just here's some videos, watch them, press a button saying that you watch them, and then you can study. You're done. That's it.

Yeah, that's that that's incredibly cool, because I I'm just trying to think about current solutions and there are obviously many flash card apps. In fact, I I have a big problem with flash card apps in general, because having a a even a medium-sized website in the language learning industry, you get quite a lot of, can you try my app, please? And it's all flash cards in some way or another. And I always say like, what is your sort of unique selling point based on just using, instead of just using Anki, which is like the it's been the golden standard for so many years.

Yeah.

Um, but I guess there's still, you know, you don't take away from the actual creative effort of of creating your learning materials, because you're still picking the words and the sentences that you'd like. Cause I remember in the book you you talked about how creating your own flash cards is a learning activity in it of itself. It's not just the studying of the flash cards, there's also being part of making them. And I guess you conserve that with the with the new app as well, when you pick them out.

That's the main intent of the app. I mean, the the it's one of the reasons that um a lot of language learning apps tend to fail. Um is that either they're hard to use. Um either they they don't give you anything in the sense of something like Anki, where it's like, this is just a platform you use it however you like. There's there's no there's no structure to it. It's just do whatever you want. And so you don't know where to go. And what to do. And that's been, you know, my my book and my website and stuff have all been about, you know, if you have this big open place like Anki, like this the land of Anki, then here's a structure for you.

Right.

Like you you learned the material while making it. Um, and then the experience of using someone else's study guides is is generally not very successful. Like I like generally if you grab someone else's flash cards or someone else's study guide for a test and then you look at it, like you won't do well on that test. And that's because like flash cards are flash cards are an amazing tool. There's a reason why most of the apps that are on the market have something to do with flash cards. It's because testing is uh as far as I recall, five times more effective than reading. Like if you just present information to someone as opposed to you testing them on that information, uh they they retain things five times more if you're testing.

Right. Yeah.

But if you're testing stuff that someone never learned, then like that's not a good route for learning that material.

Right. Yeah.

Like flash cards are super for remembering stuff that you've already learned, not to learn it in the first place. Um, and so for me, the the learning experience is in in looking at material and and and making decisions about it. Uh, and so that's been the whole goal of this app is, how do we preserve all the good stuff about flash card creation, uh, and get rid of the bad stuff, which is like, oh, isn't that a lot of work? Like it's just, can we get rid of the work part and leave all the the the like the good stuff, the decision part? Cuz making decisions is is fun potentially. Like it's it's not just potentially, it's fun. Like you you looking at a bunch of like like Spanish language memes about dogs and being like, that's ridiculous. I'm going to use that picture. That's fun. Like I I haven't met people who don't really enjoy that process of of of getting surprised. Like we like being surprised by what we see. But you having to do this sort of busy work of like, okay, well now I have to type this word in five times. Or now I have to select this word and like delete it and put in like put in underscores so it's a fill-in-the-blank sentence. Like, that's not fun. That's just repetitive motions over and over and over again.

Right. Yeah, it's for sure. I I keep thinking about like the existing platforms, how it's really hard to make a test or learn from a test because uh let's say you have um the the language you're learning from English to something, which is also one of the advantages of your method is that you don't have a from language in a sense. You have like a a visualization, a picture of the thing or I guess a representation of if it's a a more abstract concept. Um, that kind of gets rid of that problem where you see a sentence and you have no idea how to say it in the new language because you don't know if it's an idiomatic phrase or like, you know, if you do a cloze test for instance, you just take one word in a sentence. Like, you don't know what that word's going to be, unless you've seen the test before and then you like you're actually being tested on the test rather than the knowledge of that word word and how it works in in combination. So, yeah, it's pretty interesting.

Yeah, it's been it's it's hard. I mean, it's honestly like looking at what everything else is, like there's there's a lot of so many tools out there and like looking at those tools, like it's not like everyone's screwing it up. It's that it's hard. Like it's hard to make a good language learning tool, because this is a like you're talking about, how do you change how someone thinks in a permanent manner?

Yeah.

And like that's that's not an easy task. Uh and also, how do you do that in a way that makes them enjoy it, so that they keep using it from day to day? Like those parameters are not easy. Uh and so like there's there's not a lot of routes through that that are going to produce something that's satisfying and also works. Uh and and so I I'm not surprised looking around being like, well, hey, well this one doesn't work and that one doesn't work. Well, like, yeah, but like it's hard. Like of course it doesn't work necessarily. Cuz like it's hard to make something that that is enjoyable to use. If you find something that really uh like works, then you may well find that it's not something that people want to use.

Right. Actually, that's funny. I I wrote about that and I I didn't know what to call it. So I just called it my own name. But basically, my theory was, there are methods that are really efficient, but super boring. So you so people just get turned off of it. So that could be Anki. And then there are methods that are super fun, like watching a movie in Spanish or whatever. But you don't really learn that much from just watching the movie without thinking about it, like subtitles or scripts or like putting any active thought into it. Um, I mean, I'm sure it helps. Not not dissing the watching movies and shows, I think if you can't do anything else, definitely do that. But there was this like um some kind of gradient or like the I call this some mathematical term that I forgot. But so I definitely agree with that that there needs to be a balance because the hardest thing about learning a language is actually doing the work. And there are different ways of enjoying the process and we're all different, of course. But it has to be enjoyable. I mean, that is almost is that the most important thing? What do you what do you think?

I I do think that that's that's absolutely necessary and maybe the most important thing. You you don't actually learn things when you're bored. Right. Your brain is has has a good defense against boredom, which is just like, oh, I'm not paying attention to this because I'm bored. Like if this if you aren't having fun, like then it doesn't matter what you're doing.

Yeah.

That's my theory. Right.

Definitely, definitely. So in the video you talk about how the app is basically a companion to from complete beginner to fluency. And I don't want to talk necessarily about the debate about fluency because uh we talked about it lots of times here on the show. But I do want to talk about the developing that entire process or tools required. Is there is there a way is there a point where you take a let's say a collection of sentences or let's say 625 words, however, however many words you you need to get into a good uh point in the language and actually convert that into an actively used language. Cause I can imagine there's a difference between me being able to, you know, be tested on a sentence for words in Russian, but actually going up and using that sentence to someone. Um, you know, what what are your plans for if you have any at this point of kind of not putting into the real world because it is in the real world of course, but like how do you actually take that knowledge you gained from the app and then apply it is what I'm thinking.

Super. Yeah. Um, for the last two years, my main source of Spanish and Japanese has been uh tutors on Italki. Um, and it's been using tutors on Italki in a very, very targeted manner. Um, what I've been doing basically is uh for Japanese for instance, I started from both of them actually. I I started from scratch. I had zero words. Uh, I I hired a tutor uh for, you know, Italki's giant price of like five bucks an hour.

It's great.

Cuz Italki's amazing. And yeah. And so I have this tutor and I have uh and I send them a copy of my 625 word list. Um, and I say, all right, well, I don't know any Japanese. So, let's get started. Uh the first word in this list is, you know, the first six words are like, you know, one, white, dot, uh up, sky, star. Because we do put these these things in little clumps of like stories. So, like up in the sky, there's a a white dot in the sky and it's a star. It's sort of like this this little haiku of a of a of a of a bunch of words that I want to learn.

Wow.

Uh it's it's a gradual shift, but because I'm I'm internalizing, like literally every word that that happens, that I think is useful, uh that becomes internalized for me. Um, by the end of those like like two or three months, most of our conversations can can can stay in Japanese. Like we'll need a word uh from time to time in English, but like most of the that conversation is in Japanese.

Right.

Like it's it's a lot of things. But I I a lot. Just like 20 I like average of 10 to 20 flash cards per sentence.

How many flash cards?

Initially. Like it it goes down. Like as like three months in, I might be only getting like four to six flash cards per sentence.

Sure.

Um but initially, like everything. I'm taking everything. Uh and so, nine months in, I'm I'm holding conversations about like like and I'm I'm I'm I'm dancing instead of jumping to English when I don't know a word, I try to explain the word that I'm looking for in Japanese. And so at this point, I'm I'm able to speak like conversational Japanese at like a B1 level. Um, and I also have a thousand sentences by this point. Now I'll internalize it in my flash card deck.