Hey guys I started Refold back in June so about 6 months ago and thought I might do an update after 500 hours worth. I had studied Japanese on and off for a long time but was getting frustrated to the point of tears getting to make progress past the low intermediate level. I had even really really buckled down starting in 2020 during covid but was staying stuck at the low intermediate level. I found the refold site and did the 30 day video intro program and did everything they said. Based on my estimates, I think over very spread out time I might have put in 1000ish hours of classes and online tutoring, but was barely able to express myself and only caught words here and there when trying to listen to or watch something in regular full speed Japanese. Over the past 6 months I've done what refold said, focusing on input rather than output. On average I spend about an hour a day free flow watching shows, an hour doing intensive immersion with Language Reactor and Yomitan, and half an hour to an hour reviewing Anki. I feel like Refold has saved my Japanese life! After 1000 disorganized hours plus 500 Refold hours I can understand on average 75% of anything I watch. That's just a rough average because of it's stuff designed for English speakers it's definitely 99%. If it's anime it's in the 80-90% range and if it's a regular adult drama with a bunch of slang it drops maybe to 50-60% depending on what's going on. But it's still enough to follow the story! I also did a check in last month before reaching 500 hours and had no problem sloppily talking to Japanese people on Italki, who all were surprised by how well I could communicate and one of them even told me I sound like someone who has lived in Japan a couple of years, even though I've never lived there. All of this has just been a long way of saying that Refold has been great for me, and I'm looking forward to the next 500 and then 2000 hours and finally after years of stumbling accomplishing my goal of actually learning Japanese!
I want to keep this post fairly brief. I’m very thankful that I stumbled across refold 2 years or so ago. I was a Russian heritage speaker who essentially lost all active knowledge of the language.
I was very embarrassed growing up that all my friends could speak Russian and I couldn’t.
I found out about refold and gave it a shot.
2 years later I have regained fluency, work in a Russian speaking environment, and date a Ukraine girl who only recently moved to America. I am also now able to finally communicate and build relationships with some of my grandparents, with whom I was never able to get close to due to language barrier.
Refold works, and I’m eternally grateful for this community
Hi guys, I started using this method and I started almost three moths, I’m trying to learn English so maybe I’ll bad write this, don’t judge me jaja, so I have a doubts about how improving my listening, always I had problems with this, I took English class and remember that listening was my skill most lower and I watched the big bang theory ‘cause I watched before in Spanish and I’m capable to watching without subtitles and I think than understand perhaps 60% or 75% but I noticed that sometimes when I watched a different series or movies just still read subtitles and I lose the chapters or the scenes and when I try to watch something different I can’t understand a lot I just understand words that I recognize all my life or word that somebody can recognize if is beginner in English and speak Spanish.
And other thing, what next after I finished my Anki desk of 1k words? Still reading? Or I need to do myself my Anki desk?
Also I’m reading short stories with lingq, and using lute but I’m not big fan of reading so I try to read about 30 minutes sometimes almost one hour, I prefer watch series jaja I have a lot of free time now and I’m so happy to share my first post in English by reddit, don’t laugh me JAJAJ I think that I wrote like a child.
Like many here, I rely heavily on reading and listening for immersion, but I’ve always been frustrated by the existing options. LingQ has gotten absurdly expensive ($15/month) for software that feels slow and cluttered, and most free alternatives lack a seamless reading/listening workflow.
So I decided to build Lumen, a native, lightweight, and completely free desktop app designed specifically for immersion learning.
What it does:
Zero latency reading: Built with Tauri 2 and WebKit (<100MB footprint, no Electron bloat). Clean serif typography and minimal UI so you actually focus on reading.
Instant lookup & SRS grading: Click any word or highlight a phrase to see contextual meanings and save them to your vocabulary list.
Integrated YouTube & article importer: Search and watch YouTube videos directly inside the app, convert them into lessons, and read along with synchronized audio.
100% local-first audio & AI:
Ultra-fast offline TTS using Supertonic 3 (sub-millisecond natural audio for words/phrases).
Local ASR via Whisper / Qwen3-ASR for perfect audio/text alignment (with an audio resync button if drift occurs).
Offline grammar/translation support via quantized local LLMs (Qwen 3.5), or the option to plug in your own DeepSeek API key for dirt-cheap, highly nuanced context translation.
Anki-friendly: Easy CSV export with your target word, meaning, and the exact sentence context.
Why free / open source?
Language tools should be accessible. The app runs locally on your machine, stores everything in a local SQLite database, and respects your privacy.
The code is open source, and pre-built binaries (macOS / Windows) are available on GitHub:
It’s still an active project that I use daily for my own Italian immersion, so I’d love to get your feedback, bug reports, or feature requests. Hope it helps some of you streamline your input routine!
I didn't like the experience of watching something in the language I'm learning and having to stop every time I didn't understand a word or a phrase.
So - I built a tool to learn the most difficult and useful vocab before watching an episode/ listening to a song/ youtube video.
The idea:
Get 10-20 most difficult words with translations and context > Watch content with less pausing and get the new vocabulary reinforced > continue practicing the new vocab in-app or Anki
How it works:
Simply extracts most difficult words based on your level.
Works like a charm if you also use Anki and/or Plex as you can connect your Plex and get live subtitles on your phone and a notification when you start watching to practice the most difficult words.
Hello, I speak Japanese at a comfortable level. I can talk about anything as long as it's not super advanced such as politics, religion, etc.
For many years of language learning, I have considered myself conversational as I can have conversations. However, now I have noticed a sort of breakthrough / level up in my speaking where I can basically start speaking Japanese on the spot. For example, if someone asks me a random question, if it's an unfamiliar topic to me, I might need a second or two to start processing my ideas, but I can basically just start speaking in Japanese right away. If it's a topic I am familiar with, I can almost start speaking immediately after the question is asked. Keep in mind, that I make plenty of mistakes and I will always use the wrong grammar / word collocations, etc. But I know for a fact, if I sat down with a native Japanese speaker for 3+ hours, I could comfortably talk about whatever. The only thing that would start limiting me is not the area of language, but rather mental fatigue. So I am just asking this because I don't really consider myself conversational anymore as that's way too broad. I now feel like I am fluent and can consistently maintain a good flow in the language, while still making plenty of mistakes.
If anyone can provide more insight, that would be very helpful. Thank you!
I'm currently learning English using a comprehensible input approach (the Mr. Salas method / similar to Refold), combining Anki, LUTE, and passive listening.
The problem I'm facing is that since I just started (I estimate my level is around A1 or A2), all the beginner-level content I find is way too generic and a bit boring. I would love to find material that is more engaging or about topics I already know something about.
I'm mostly interested in:
Technology: AI, general programming, and occasional tech history.
Pokémon: The franchise in general, building competitive teams for different games, and Pokémon TCG Pocket.
Gaming & Anime: Indie games (like Hollow Knight) and anime in general.
Any recommendations for YouTube channels, podcasts, or reading material on these topics that might be accessible for an A1/A2 learner?
Any help is really appreciated. Thanks for reading
I have been learning Vietnamese seriously for about 6 months, I currently learn by watching comprehensive input videos, eveytime I watch a particular video I will try to extract what I consider a high frequency or useful word from the content until I have exhausted it
I’m at about 500 words now, and a problem is arising that I don’t know words to memorise
I’ve memorised the super frequent ones, and now I’m at the point where I don’t know whether it’s worth learning a particular word, I’ve been cross referencing every word i’m about to extract with a list of 1000 most common words list
It’s not unusual for a 10 minute video to take over an hour to go through (with look ups etc.), and that’s a limiting factor in knowing what words come up the most
I’m sure this isn’t unique to Vietnamese, but there are soooo many variations and compound words which adds an additional layer of complexity because even if I know I would find a particular word useful, I still don’t know which variant of it to memorise
So my question is simply how do you know which vocab to memorise
TL;DR -
I made an immersion tracker with automatic video and language detection. It remembers languages for channels and TV shows, supports custom websites and connects with Anki for detailed analytics. It tracks active/passive immersion, days, times, sources, activities and much more. I’m mainly looking for feedback on what is useful, what is confusing and what is still missing.
I have been working on a extension called Osmolog. Basically it is a language immersion tracker that I was originally going to make just for myself, but then I got addicted to adding features lol. After a while, it became a pretty comprehensive tracker that displays much more than just total hours.
I decided to release it publicly so other people could use it. I’m also sharing it because I want feedback before I continue adding things based only on what I personally want.
So, what does Osmolog do?
It automatically tracks all the different languages you immerse in, even if you switch between different languages in a day/session. It detects the language whenever possible, and if it cannot, it asks you. I tried making it less anyoing by making it remember your choices for specific channels and tv shows so you do not always have to confirm them. After you choose the same language twice for a channel/tvshow, it will automatically use it next time. Automatic detection still has priority so Osmolog will warn you if the detected language conflicts with your choice.
The analytics show how long you immersed, whether it was active or passive, day of week, time of days, activities such as reading, watching and listening, sources such as YouTube, Netflix and Twitch, and specific channels or shows. It also includes long term progress, milestones and daily, weekly, monthly and yearly goals.
There is also an Anki add-on that connects Osmolog with Anki. It tracks review time, new cards, reviews, Again, Hard, Good and Easy answers, retention, upcoming workload and more.
Custom websites are supported too. Since there are so many different video players and each has different metadata, I made it simple, add the URL and language for that site and Osmolog will automatically track that language whenever you watch something there. (might not work for all websites, depends on the player used, and cant track ads etc)
Osmolog is completely free, and all tracking and other features will remain completely free. The only possible exception is automatic full detailed history backup and sync.
Sync already exists through Chrome Sync, but it is capped on Chrome’s side, so it is more of an overview than a detailed sync. However, you can always manually export your full detailed history as a JSON file for free. If automatic full detailed history backup and sync ever become paid, it would only be to cover the database costs.
I was just browsing the Refold core vocabulary decks and something really rubbed me the wrong way. Apparently, some of them were made using recordings from native speakers (e.g., Spanish, German, Czech), while others use AI-generated audio (e.g., Mandarin Chinese, Dutch, Swedish). Here's the thing: it's absolutely baffling to me that they chose not to hire native speakers for all of their decks.
Robot voices are not native speakers, no matter how good they are. It's wild that Refold heavily stresses the importance of input while using audio that is an approximation of native-speaker pronunciation for their core vocabulary decks, instead of the actual pronunciation of native speakers. For some languages with huge dialectal variation or with complex phonological inventories, like Dutch or Mandarin Chinese, this could be an even bigger issue.
Can we have native-speaker audio for all of the decks, not just some of them? This really feels like asking for the bare minimum.
I’m giving away 20 credits (1 credit = 1 deck) for an Immersion Deck. If there is a topic you’d like to immerse yourself in on YouTube for instance (true-crime stories, personal finance, anything), my system will scan native content about this topic and build an Anki deck for you to download. All cards come with an example sentence and audio. Only vocabulary that recurs across several sources and that is crucial to understanding this topic will make it to the final deck.
In exchange I ask for your honest feedback, bugs included (the platform is still in beta).
If you want a free credit, comment "DM" and I'll send you a code!
I purchased the 1000 card Spanish frequency deck a few months ago, I’ll reach the 1000th card in a couple weeks. I think Refold claims that these are the 1000 most frequent words that are not cognates or near cognates, and that the rest of the top 4700 words are (near) cognates. Does anyone know how accurate that is?
When I finish the deck, I was thinking about speeding through a 5000 most frequent words deck, which the creator built straight from an official frequency dictionary. In theory, if Refold’s claims are accurate, almost all the cards will either be repeats from the Refold deck (quick easy button or suspend), or (near) cognates that should be quick and easy to learn (less time spent on retrieval and reviews, mostly with easy button deferment).
There are many basic words I don’t know that haven’t come up in the Refold deck. That tells me that they are probably cognates that I could even guess correctly, but I haven’t been exposed to them. Ripping through a few thousand cognates would greatly increase my output vocabulary. When I need to pull a word now that’s “probably” a cognate, I will be more confident to say it if I can remember that it’s in fact correct.
Takeaway question:
Has anyone confirmed to any degree if the whole “3700 of the top 4700 words are cognates) claim?
I'm B2+ and I immerse in English with TV shows and podcasts, no translation. Two things kept bugging me:
Looking up the words I miss is a pain. When I hit a phrase I don't get, I end up jumping to ChatGPT, DeepSeek or Google Images to figure it out. It's slow, it breaks the flow, and without the scene as context the answer is often off — I get a generic dictionary meaning, not what the phrase actually means there. As for me, ChatGPT is useful for learning languages, but sometimes it gives me excessive information I don't want to know (like why a particular grammar point is used in this sentence, or the etymology of words). I know it was designed to give you as much information as possible, but this process unfortunately gets you out of immersion.
At B2+, the new words are rare, so they don't stick. Early on you meet a word again and again naturally and it sticks on its own. Now the words I don't know show up maybe once and then not again for a long time — so natural exposure isn't enough to remember them.
So I started building a small tool around two ideas:
– explain the phrase right in the scene, in plain English, no translation;
– then bring the word back through short, compelling stories over the next days — re-exposure in context instead of flashcards. That's the part I think actually makes rare words stick.
It's still early and I mostly want honest feedback from people who actually immerse. Happy to share the link if anyone's curious — didn't want to just drop it in the post.
I’ve been tracking the time I spent watching shows in my TL, but I don’t know where to place this since it’s just me watching stuff with English subtitles. Should I completely remove this or place it somewhere else?
I tutor Portuguese as a foreign language. I struggle most with students who output early, which I think is more common for Portuguese than languages like English or Japanese because they go "I already know some Spanish from high school, I can just go ahead and practice speaking Portuguese! It's pretty much the same, right?". Then they construct sentences that, out of 10 words, a good 7 would be incorrect. I find this issue nearly impossible to reverse and correcting is useless when almost everything is wrong. It rarely ever happens with NATIVE Spanish speakers, who usually show interest in actually learning the new language instead of doing "conversation practice" on the first week...
The early output students get overly confident with their speaking, they don't get that I only understand them because I speak Spanish, while most Brazilians would struggle following what they're saying and would not have the patience to do so for very long. I emphasize that we'll focus on guided immersion and that oral practice will be limited to what has already been modeled, but they insist on just practicing "conversation" instead... Are there any short introduction posts or videos that I could send them that focus on the specific consequences of not having enough immersion when you choose to output? Something that would help them understand that they need to pause speaking for a bit and start listening and reading instead? Any tips are welcome!
1. Scramble Sentences: This Anki add-on makes it so that you see a randomly generated sentence containing your vocab word instead of the sentence you mined every time, avoiding memorizing based only on context. You need an OpenAI or Claude API key for this.
Lexical Coverage: This analyzes the front of all cards with a given tag and estimates the user's known words and CEFR level. Currently only supports spanish, but planning on expanding it to other languages and improving both the lemmatization and frequency list.
