The LinguaMama Blog

Language science, acquisition theory, and the intersection of human and machine learning.

Series

How LinguaMama Got Built

Part 1 · Start here

How LinguaMama Got Built, Part 1: Everyone Else Left

I spent the pandemic watching everyone on YouTube move to Thailand and Portugal. Then something shifted. Part 1 of the LinguaMama origin story.

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All 8 parts

July 12, 2026 · AI & Machine Learning

I Know It When I See It

Autonomous agents don't develop taste. They execute the taste someone was disciplined enough to write down. A worked example from a real pipeline.

June 27, 2026 · Human-Machine Synthesis

Hasta la Vista, Baby

Arnold's most famous line is a Spanish phrase in an English-language film spoken in a thick Austrian accent. What it tells us about how language acquisition actually works — and how you can learn from his mistake.

May 14, 2026 · Language Acquisition

The Affective Filter: Why Stress Makes You Stupid (in a New Language)

Anxiety about language learning doesn't just feel bad — it biologically blocks the process it's supposed to trigger. Here's what's actually happening, and what to do about it.

May 6, 2026 · Language Acquisition

When LinguaMama Is Not for You

Most companies won't tell you when their product isn't the right tool. We will. Honest guidance on who this is built for — and who should go find something else.

April 27, 2026 · Language Acquisition

You Have to Understand Before You Can Speak

Everyone asks when they'll be able to speak. It's the wrong question to start with — not because speaking isn't the goal, but because it puts the work in the wrong order.

April 27, 2026 · Language Acquisition

The Third Time You See a Word, Your Brain Does Something Different

Brain scan research shows that seeing something three times triggers a different kind of memory storage — one that actually sticks. Here's what that means for language learners.

April 23, 2026 · Language Acquisition

The 1500-Hour Map: What Language Learning Actually Looks Like

What the journey really looks like — the long stretches of fog, the sudden breakthroughs, the point where the language stops being foreign. Here's an honest map.

April 19, 2026 · Language Acquisition

Krashen's Five Hypotheses, in Plain English

Stephen Krashen proposed five interlocking ideas about language acquisition in the 1980s. Forty years of research has largely confirmed them. Here's what they actually say — without the linguistics degree.

April 15, 2026 · Language Acquisition

What Is Comprehensible Input?

The term gets thrown around a lot now. It deserves a real explanation — and once you understand it, you'll never look at language learning the same way again.

October 23, 2025 · Language Acquisition

How to Actually Use LinguaMama (And Why It's Not a Course)

Stop treating LinguaMama like Duolingo. Here's the honest truth about what this is, how it works, and why embracing partial understanding is the point.

October 18, 2025 · Our Journey

I Built an AI Language App Because Everything Else Felt Wrong

A computational linguist's journey from studying how LLMs learn language to building an app that applies those same principles to human language acquisition.

October 15, 2025 · AI & Machine Learning

Neural Language Grafting: How Your Brain Builds Mental Models

Explore how your brain's existing mental models and neural pathways enable rapid language acquisition through grafting new connections to existing concepts.

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Occasional writing on language acquisition, comprehensible input, and building LinguaMama. No app updates, no sales pitch.

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