ISSEN

Hello Product Hunt! We’re pumped to share ISSEN (YC F24) with you all today, the AI realtime voice language app that my co-founder, Anton and I have been working on for the last few months. The idea came from my experience trying to learn Japanese. I’ve spent years at it going through many online tutors. I really like the experience of a dedicated teacher, but on top of being expensive and often a bit awkward, the time zones and logistics were hard for me to manage. I tried every language learning app I could get my hands on, and went super deep into Anki, but nothing really compared to having an actual teacher. [ The problem ] Conversation is essential for learning a language, yet no app provides truly free-flowing dialogue. Despite incredible advancements in AI models, current solutions are slow, boring, gamified, and not personalized. They fail to mimic the real immersion of living in a new country, or native tutors. [ The solution ] We set out to redefine what a language learning app can be by starting with the experience of a human tutor. ISSEN is a true language tutor, accessible anytime from your computer or phone. Conversations can be as structured or open-ended as you like—dive into focused grammar lessons or have a casual chat about your day. Over time, you build a relationship with your AI tutor, which means that as they get to know you, they tailor conversations and lesson plans to your needs–but will never judge you when you make a mistake! Plus, our AI tutors are deeply multi-lingual, so if you are a Danish/Mandarin Chinese native looking to learn Gujarati, ISSEN is the app for you. Our mission is to transform language learning by delivering the connection, effectiveness, and fun that, until now, only human teachers could offer. [ How you can help ] If you’re serious about improving your foreign language skills—or know someone who is—you can try the app now at issen.com. The iOS, Android, and Web Apps are all live. Just enter your email, explore the features, and share your feedback with us below or at founders@issen.com.

Supporting so many languages is amazing! 😯😯 Also, the site's clean layout makes it super easy to find the information I need. How should a complete beginner start a conversation?

I've tried my fare share of learning apps, tutors, and self-studies and let me tell you Issen is onto something here. It's why I was stoked to hunt it. @antonapostolatos and @mariano_sorgente shared it with me a little prior to the launch and I was blown away by the how useable it is. A lot of learning apps feel bloaty or try to do too much. Issen's focus on Voice is super fresh. And it's honestly a really great way to get practice for what is one of the hardest parts of learning a language, conversation. I'm currently still using @iTalki to improve my Japanese but I'm like 90% sure Issen is going to make it into my learning flow. The 10% is purely because...well....commitment issues. Major props to the makers.

The ability to have free-flowing, judgment-free conversations with an AI tutor that adapts over time is a huge step forward. How does ISSEN handle regional accents and slang variations? Super excited to try this out! and ofc, best wishes and sending wins to the team :) @mariano_sorgente

@mariano_sorgente wow, I'm impressed! I def think that the best way to learn a language is through actually speaking it. I used italki for several years but over time, some of my teachers stopped teaching so I had to find new ones and it was a challenge to find and schedule times that worked for both of us - Issen is perfect for filling in that gap for practicing speaking languages where I already have some proficiency or advanced knowledge, at any given moment I have a few spare minutes! What I found most powerful with Issen - 1) The ability to jump in and practice for however long I want, even for just a few minutes, and the ability to switch languages on the same platform at will 2) Since it's AI, I didn't feel bad telling the teacher that I wanted to switch topics, or to change their teaching style e.g. instead of asking me to make up a phrase to practice, I asked my tutor to ask me questions where I had to practice the subjunctive 3) I LOVE that my tutor remembers our past conversations. When I went back to my spanish teacher, she asked if I wanted to continue practicing the subjunctive or if I wanted to practice something else. 4) I also super appreciated the option to chose mixed or target tutor language. Choosing target tutor language is really helpful for a truly immersive learning experience, but choosing mixed was helpful for languages where I have lower proficiency. 5) Super interesting feature that I haven't seen anywhere is is tutor formality - where you can choose formal, slang or standard. This is a super thoughtful add on because for those learning multiple languages, it helps to understand in what type of context you plan to use the language. What I'd love to see 1) next to the dictation of what the student has said, it would be nice if the icon showed different ones to show only on the ones where you had errors. Otherwise, I was left clicking on all of them to see if I had errors or not after the fact. For example, a very bad one could have ! exclamation mark or something and someone with minor errors can have a different symbol, and something perfect would have a happy face or something. I spent too much time clicking to open to see the comments on each one. 2) I am not sure if it's possible, but it would be cool if there was a way that the tutor talked me through the mistakes. One of the best things about having a 1:1 session with a teacher is that they can correct my mistakes and ask me to repeat what I wanted to say but correctly. Reading the correction is different than actually practicing saying it correctly outloud. Since I was constantly conversing with the tutor, I didn't really have the time to look over my errors until I was done with the session. 3) ability to change languages without needing to go to the settings. It was funny when I tried to ask the teacher to change to another language, she tried to convince me to stay chatting with her a bit before switching - haha! It's minor, but would be nice not to have to go to the settings to change the language. 4) can the settings for the voice speed and patience be remembered per language? I found I had to keep changing it because my language proficiency in one language is different than in others. It was nice that it remembered the proficiency I chose. 5) is there a family subscription option? :) 6) I saw you have vietnamese as an option but it doesn't pull up. Is that an error? I still have a bunch of credits on italki to spend before they expire, but I will def be signing up for the paid version by month end. Would love to see a family subscription option!

How do you vet the quality of all those languages ? Polyglot here that finds LLM as exciting, but still in need of a polish for certain languages.

Learning a new language is tough, and conversation practice is often the hardest part to get right. ISSEN sounds like a great way to bridge that gap with real-time, personalized AI tutors! Definitely excited to try it out and see how natural the conversations feel. 🙌