About PrettyFluent
Most apps try to teach you a language, which is a years-long project most people quit, not because they’re lazy, but because they’re drowning in vocabulary they’ll never say out loud.
PrettyFluent starts from the opposite end: what you’ll genuinely say in real life, taught first. Getting through dinner, dealing with landlords, handling local bureaucracy. Nothing you won’t use, nothing to slow you down.
This site has 1,206 free lessons in 9 languages, each built around a real situation, with native audio and a roleplay to practise. The articles cover learning the language where you live, plus honest comparisons of language apps.
Erik Chan, founder
Erik is a New York–based Canadian who has spent more than twenty years living across Asia and Europe, from Hong Kong, Beijing, Taipei and Tokyo to Bordeaux. He grew up speaking Cantonese at home, learned Mandarin in Beijing, and picked up French from a French girlfriend. He also studied German for ten years in school, which didn't stop him from asking a Hamburg cab driver something wildly inappropriate when he meant to ask for directions. That's why he built PrettyFluent: to teach the language you actually need abroad, for getting through dinner, dealing with landlords and handling local bureaucracy, not the kind you study for ten years and still can't speak.