Loquus launches Sunday: why I built it, and what you get for free

Hi! I'm Evan, the solo developer of Loquus. It launches here on Sunday, November 1, and I want to tell you why I built it.

Why I built it

I was learning Russian and tried app after app. They taught me random words, but I never understood how the language actually worked: why the endings change, which form to use, how a sentence fits together. I needed explanations and structure, a real foundation built alongside the words, phrases and sentences.

So I built the app I needed, for myself, so I could actually learn. I put everything into it that I thought would help. What started as a hobby grew into 14 language courses, and now I want to share it and find out whether it helps you too.

How you learn

• Learn what you want, when you want. Nothing is locked: practice family members one day and asking for directions the next, or follow the guided path from your first hello.

• Real-life situations, over 1,700 of them: ordering at a café, a pharmacy visit, a hotel that gave your room away. You hear the scene, check what you understood, then say or write your part yourself.

• Conversation practice: 1,343 conversations where you reply to the other person by typing or speaking. Every character has their own voice.

• Explanations for every mistake. Pick the wrong answer and Loquus tells you what your answer actually means and why it doesn't fit.

• Spaced, adaptive review woven into every lesson. While you learn, Loquus brings back the words it thinks you need: ones you missed and ones you haven't seen in a while.

• Four learning styles: Talk First, Ear First, Eyes First and Drill Mode.

• A placement test, so you start at your level instead of at hello.

What's free

I wanted the core of learning to be free, including tools you'd usually need a separate app for:

• Three lessons a day, situations and conversations included. Each lesson has its own sessions; in Spanish that can add up to 40 or more new words, phrases and sentences a day, more than most people can take in.

• Five ways to practice: Flashcards, Recognize, Recall, Listening and Weak spots.

• A phrasebook for when you travel: over 13,000 phrases across the 14 languages, sorted by situation.

• A dictionary with over 75,000 words. Tap a word in a conversation to see what it means.

• A Grammar Center with over 1,000 topics, from 57 to 125 per language.

• Conjugation tables for 15,623 verbs and verb phrases.

• For Russian, a morphology section: how nouns, adjectives and verbs change form, plus the meanings of 38 verb prefix families.

• An alphabet and sounds guide for every language, and built-in keyboards for accents and other scripts.

• 25 free lessons per language on loquuslanguage.com, no account needed.

What Loquus Plus adds

Unlimited lessons, the Arcade with 26 quick-recall games, games in Practice, section reviews and capstones. If Loquus helps you, Plus is a way to give back, and the Arcade turns review into a game.

By the numbers

• 14 languages: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, English, Dutch, Belgian Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, Russian and Hindi

• 14,549 lessons and 154,068 cards

• Over 1,700 real-life situations and 1,343 conversations

• Spanish goes from A1 to C2 in 1,463 lessons. The other courses go from A1 to B2.

I'd love to hear what you think, especially if you try a lesson in the language you're learning.