Canary
Learn languages with music, practice with people
596 followers
Learn languages with music, practice with people
596 followers
Canary is a language learning app powered by music. Pick a song, see real-time translations, save words to your vocabulary list, sing karaoke to practice pronunciation, take quizzes on songs, and practice with others!
Canary
Hey PH Family! 👋
I’m Ben, and Canary started almost by accident.
After a small exit, I decided to do some content creation ( reached 800k+ followers mostly because of my French accent 🫠)
Six months ago, I posted a simple video of me singing in French with English translations. Nothing fancy, just lyrics and subtitles. The response was incredible. Engagement was super high.
I launched a separate page dedicated to this idea, and it grew to 100k followers in just 5 months.
That’s when I realized people love learning languages through the songs they already love.
That’s why I am building Canary.
With this beta version you can:
🐥 Pick a song and see real-time translations
🐥 Save words to your personal vocabulary list
🐥 Sing karaoke to practice pronunciation
🐥 Take quizzes on songs
🐥 Connect with others who are learning the same way
It’s still in the early MVP stages, but I would love to get your input on it.
And of course, any feedback or ideas for cool features you’d want to see would be incredibly valuable! 🙏
@bengue_z Hi Ben, can I import songs, and please, do not score me on the pitch 😂
Canary
@jojo_li hahaha we won't, believe me I am the worst singer. Recordings are private on your profile, so it's just for you! And yes, you can search and import any songs!
@bengue_z that's great, guess i will be one of these canaries then!
Canary
@jojo_li hahah I hope you will!
DaysAround
@bengue_z This is such a fun idea, I've always wished something like this existed. Learning through music just feels right.
Curious: have you seen any data or feedback from users about retention compared to traditional methods?
Canary
@vladstan Haha yes, fun definitely beats boring.
It’s still too early to draw strong conclusions on data. So far retention looks good, people come back and spend around 10 minutes on average in the app but we’ll need at least 6 months of data to really compare it properly with traditional methods.
DaysAround
@bengue_z make sense. one more question, why do you guys decided to mix this with dating :P?
Canary
@vladstan hahah fair, we’re not trying to be a dating app, but language is social by nature. A lot of users told us they want to practice with real native speakers, not just study alone.
MultiDrive
@bengue_z that's, by the way, how I learn languages :D Thank you for the app!
Canary
@tetianai me too! And you're welcome :)
@bengue_z I never thought there was such a way. It's really amazing!
Canary
@vatary thank youuu
SigniFi
800k followers is insane validation! You clearly found a gap in the market. 📈 Since you started with French content, is the app currently optimized best for French learners, or is the experience equally good for other languages like Spanish or Japanese right now?
Canary
@yoang_loo I would say it's pretty much the same experience, only difference is that I know more french songs haha so easier for me to choose the good ones for song of the week feature
minimalist phone: creating folders
Hey Ben, I was once "warned" that we should be very careful to learn languages from songs (because lyrics can have a different/wrong sentence structure etc.) – how do you prevent this? :)
Canary
@busmark_w_nika That’s true, you won’t learn 100% “perfect” grammar only from songs, and we’re not trying to turn lyrics into a grammar textbook.
We use music mainly as a memory and motivation layer: people remember words, expressions, and rhythms much better through songs than through lessons.
What most learners tell me they’re missing is pronunciation and confidence in speaking. The karaoke feature lets you actually practice saying the words out loud, not just recognizing them on a screen.
And we’re building a social layer on top of that, so native speakers can comment, correct, and help when something sounds off or isn’t natural.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@bengue_z I second that people remember words or texts in general from the music approach. Anyway, I will be thrilled to see a version that can help users to nail the grammar. :) How many languages does the app support?
Canary
@busmark_w_nika Currently only 5 ( English, French, Spanish, Italian, German), but we will add more soon!
We will train the ai agent to give more grammatical context on songs. Thanks for the feedback, super helpful!
minimalist phone: creating folders
@bengue_z Cool! Hopefully, there will be a huge demand! :)
@busmark_w_nika I’ve heard the same warning too.
Not only can sentence structure be a bit “creative” in lyrics, but the stress and intonation can also be misleading when you try to map them directly to everyday speech.
The idea is interesting, but I think it makes learning English harder. Songs often have slightly altered words or incorrect sentence structures. How is this addressed?
What a great idea Ben. Does the app feature Brazilian Portuguese? Been using the marketplace products for a while now with little success.
Ben! You beat me to it! As someone living in Montreal I've been obsessed with the idea that music and French learning needed to have a baby.
I'm so glad it exists now though! I'll definitely be using this quite a bit and I'll send any feedback. For the time being would just love to learn more (within the app) about what Premium includes besides unlocking specific songs and it looks like there are only around 8-10 French songs available. Will you be adding a few more soon?
GG 🫡
The concept of using music for education is interesting, but I'm curious about the retention rates. Have you seen any data on how much users actually remember compared to traditional methods? The UI looks solid, by the way.