™
Learn English
A step-by-step path for anyone to learn any languagefrom their own to English, from illiteracy to performing plays
▶ Perform a play right now
If you are reading this, you are already literate in English — so Goal C, learning another language, may be the path for you. But please share these pathways with others who still need literacy or language learning.
One click, no signup — English with glosses in your language
Ready to use now
Coming soon (needs audio or more content)
Work through each step until comfortable, then come back here and move to the next.
Work through each step until comfortable, then come back here and move to the next.
Goal A: Read your own language.
To read any language, start with IPA, the foundation, the accelerator. Chinese idiographic learners start with IPA. English orthography learners start with IPA, and achieve full literacy faster. Modern dictionaries use IPA. IPA First!
A1
Learn IPA Symbols
The International Phonetic Alphabet maps every human speech sound to a symbol.
Learn to recognize the symbols for sounds you already know how to make.
Start with a common subset (44 from English) — most overlap with your language.
Goal: recognize ≥ 90% of common IPA symbols by sight and sound.
A2
IPA Transcription (hear → write in IPA)
Hear a sound or word, then build its IPA transcription symbol by symbol.
This trains you to decode speech into a visual writing system —
the core skill of literacy, practiced first with the universal alphabet.
97 IPA symbols with audio recordings, plus 790+ recorded English words.
Goal: transcribe familiar words in IPA from hearing them.
A3
Learn Your Own Script
Map your IPA knowledge onto your language's writing system.
You already know the sounds (A1–A2); now learn which letters represent them.
Scripts with audio recordings: Devanagari, Bengali, Hangul, Cyrillic, Greek.
Additional scripts available (sets only, no audio yet): Thai, Hebrew, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam.
Goal: map every letter/character in your script to its IPA sound.
A4
Read Words in Your Language
Sequence-extension drills in your own script: see or hear a word,
build it letter by letter. Moves from single-character recognition (A3)
to fluent word-level decoding.
409 English lex entries exist; L1-specific word drill sets need building
for each target language.
Goal: read novel words in your language without hesitation.
A5
Enjoy Plays in Your Language
Read and perform bilingual plays using PlayAlong.
Confirms you are literate. If you can enjoy a play, you can read.
Plays available now by language:
Hindi (74), Portuguese (74), French (52), Spanish (23), German (21),
Chinese (17), Russian (17), Japanese (17), Arabic (17), Korean (16),
Sanskrit (10), Italian (5).
Exit Goal A: you are literate in your language. Continue to Goal B to learn English.
Goal B: Learn English
You can read your own language (or are a literate speaker of any language). Now learn English.
B1
English Sound System
Learn to hear and distinguish all 44 English phonemes.
If you did Group A, you already know the IPA symbols — now focus on
the sounds that don't exist in your language
(e.g., /θ/ and /ð/ for "th", /ɹ/ vs /l/).
Goal: ≥ 90% phoneme recognition accuracy.
B2
English Spelling ↔ Pronunciation
English spelling is notoriously irregular. Learn which sounds each spelling makes:
"ea" can be /iː/ (beat), /ɛ/ (bread), or /eɪ/ (break).
Start with the 100 most common words, then work through confusor clusters
where similar-looking words have different pronunciations.
Goal: ≥ 85% accuracy on common word pronunciation.
B3
Spelling Confusor Clusters
Words that look alike but sound different: bread/breed/braid,
through/though/thought/tough/thorough. Build up IPA transcriptions
letter by letter for these tricky groups. This is where the
sequence-extension quiz shines.
Goal: decode confusor clusters without mixing them up.
B4
Vowel Contrast Drills
English has ~15 vowel sounds but only 5 vowel letters.
Drill each vowel sound with words that use it, building intuition
for which spellings map to which sounds.
Goal: hear a vowel sound and know which IPA symbol and which common spellings map to it.
B5
English in Context (PlayAlong)
Read and perform bilingual plays. Pick a play in a language you know —
you'll see English text with translations, word-by-word glosses,
and pronunciation guides. The drama gives you grammar in context,
not from a textbook.
Goal: follow a play's English text, understanding most words from context + glosses.
B6
Open Reading & Vocabulary
Look up unfamiliar words, memorize passages, and keep reading plays.
Use Teachionary for any word you don't know. Use iterciter to memorize
speeches or poems. The more you read, the more you know.
Goal: read English independently with occasional dictionary help.
Goal C: Learn another language from English.
You read English. Now turn around: pick another target language and learn it the same way — IPA first (above), then its script (above), then plays performed in it.
C1
Perform Plays in Your Target Language
Use bilingual PlayAlong setting English as your known language (L1). Pick a play in the
language you want to learn — you'll see it with English translation,
word-by-word glosses, and IPA pronunciation. Same drama-in-context method
as B5, run the other direction.
Target languages available now: Hindi (74), Portuguese (74), French (52),
Spanish (23), German (21), Chinese (17), Russian (17), Japanese (17),
Arabic (17), Korean (16), Sanskrit (10), Italian (5).
PlayAlong Entry Point -> [Start PlayAlong] -> Home
Home -> [Language] -> [L1] -> [English]
Home -> [Language] -> [L2] -> choose (13 available so far)
Home -> [Host] a Room (just for yourself) -> Hosting -> [Choose Script] -> Library
Library -> Choose from available plays, showing title, # roles (e.g. 4r), # turns (e.g. 17t).
Lobby -> [Assign Randomly] (assign yourself to all roles) -> [Start Reading]
Goal: follow and perform a play in your
target language, leaning on the English glosses less each
time.
What's Not Built Yet
Gaps between the spec and what's currently available.
- A4: L1 word lists — Needs common-word lists with audio for each L1 script. English lex entries (409) exist; need equivalent per-language word drill sets.
- Script audio gaps — A3 scripts with sets but no audio yet: Thai, Hebrew, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Arabic.
- Encounter tracking / SRS — The schema exists (
encounters.php) but the MySQL account is locked. Once live, progress carries across all tools. Local SRS (localStorage) works now for IPA drills. - English paradigm drills — Verb tenses, plurals, comparatives. Needs
seed-paradigms.jsonfor English. - Pre-play vocabulary extraction — Before a PlayAlong session, pre-drill key words from upcoming frames.
- L1 glosses — The frequency word sets should show translations in the learner's L1.
- R-tier IPA drill integration — PlayAlong now highlights unknown IPA symbols in the pronunciation tier and offers popup quizzes. Working in-app with SRS tracking.
| Apps: First IPA | Then Scripts | Practice Iterciter | Teachionary | TG PlayAlong | |
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