I built StreetTongue
for myself first.

Here's the thing about learning Spanish in college: it doesn't stick. I took two semesters, retained almost nothing, and graduated thinking "I'll pick it up later." "Later" turned out to be over 15 years.

During one Christmas break I did a three week intensive program in Costa Rica. I learned more Spanish in those three weeks than in both college semesters combined. Not because the teachers were better (they were), but because I was buying groceries, ordering food, and getting lost in Spanish. I couldn't retreat to English when things got hard. That stuck with me.

Then I moved to South Korea for two years to teach English. Having a TESL certification and actually teaching a language gave me a different perspective on learning one. I saw firsthand how my Korean students struggled with the same textbook approach I'd struggled with in Spanish class. The students who improved fastest were the ones practicing real conversations, not memorizing verb tables.

Fast forward to 2021. I moved to Mexico City. My Spanish was, let's say, optimistic. I could order a beer. I could ask where the bathroom was. Beyond that, things got dicey fast.

So I did what everyone does. I downloaded Duolingo.

1,200 days later, I could tell you that the bear laughed at the telenovela while eating popcorn. Useful if I ever find myself narrating a cartoon. Less useful at the taqueria down the street when the guy is rattling off options and I'm just nodding and hoping for the best.

The real problem wasn't Duolingo specifically. It was that every app, every course, every YouTube channel was teaching me Spain Spanish. I was in Mexico City. Nobody here says "camiseta." I was learning a version of Spanish that made locals look at me funny.

I started working with a local tutor two or three times a week. She was great, but we spent a ridiculous amount of time just undoing what the apps had taught me. Different words for the same things, different slang, different pronunciation, different everything. Chilango Spanish is its own universe, and no app even acknowledged it existed.

Meanwhile, the real language was everywhere around me. At the tianguis, on the pesero, at the corner store. People were speaking a version of Spanish that wasn't in any app or textbook I'd ever seen.

So I built my own. Not for anyone else. Just for me. A personal app focused entirely on Mexican Spanish and Chilango dialect. The phrases I actually heard, the pronunciation I actually needed, the conversations I actually had. It worked. My Spanish got better, faster, in ways that years of Duolingo never came close to.

A friend saw what I was using and said "you should make this for everyone." I laughed it off. Then I thought about it. Then I couldn't stop thinking about it.