The most exciting English language practice app for 2023
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Over the past year I’ve been working on a very exciting project. In January 2022 we launched a basic MVP of an English language practice app that combines AI, speech recognition and pre-recorded video to provide rich and engaging conversation experiences. The app is called Twyn and over the past year, we’ve been improving the product, learning what users want and learning how to explain to users what this completely new technology is. Today in February 2023 Twyn is a fully functioning app with thousands of paying subscribers.
The reason, for me, why Twyn is incredibly exciting is it’s the first and, so far, only English practice app that combines AI and voice recognition with pre-recorded video of real people, to give much more realistic conversation experiences. Various new apps have launched in the last few years that provide ‘text message’ style conversations, where a voice reads out a text. Twyn goes a huge step further by letting you see face to face the person you’re talking to, in a real world setting. Not only is this more engaging but closer to the daunting experience of using English in the real world.
By doing this, Twyn solves two big problems that intermediate English learners have:
1. A strong need to practise speaking but feeling too nervous when doing it live with real people. The conversations in Twyn remove all the pressure that an English learner would feel on a live video call or in the real world scenario.
2. A lack of easy opportunities to speak English. For learners who don’t live in an English speaking country, it’s tough to find people (especially native speakers) to speak English to. Twyn enables them to practise a conversation spontaneously at any moment, face to face with a native speaker.
That moment of delight
Over the past year I’ve watched numerous English learners try Twyn for the first time and I always enjoy seeing the looking of delight and amazement on their face when they realise the person in the pre-recorded video is responding to what they say. Many are initially confused about whether the call is live or not. I watched one guy complete an entire 2 minute conversation thinking he was in a live video call with someone. When I told him he wasn’t, his mind was blown.
Our biggest challenge so far
Probably our biggest challenge has been explaining to potential users exactly what Twyn is. They will have never seen anything like it before and their main frame of reference for English speaking practise on an app is probably in a live video call practice session with a website like iTalki or Preply. They glance at a screen shot in the app store and, because we have designed Twyn to look and feel like a live call, they assume that’s what it is. For some users this can lead to confusion or disappointed once they get into the app. We’re still finding the right way to explain to users what Twyn is and why it can be so useful for them.
