Switchboardlanguage learning
Learn Chinese, Japanese, or German, a little every day.
Switchboard is a friendly phone app that takes you from your very first words to real conversations. Open it for a few minutes a day to work through a guided lesson, review what you have learned, listen, practice speaking, and play quick games. It works without an internet connection, so you can learn anywhere.
Learn, practice, review, repeat.
Every lesson moves you through the right kind of practice: a little grammar, new words, listening, speaking out loud, flashcards, and games, with your progress always in view.
A look inside the app
Simple screens that keep you moving.
Switchboard gives you four clear screens to learn with: your course at a glance, today's lesson, a place to practice, and a progress view that shows how far you've come.
Your course at a glance
Pick Chinese, Japanese, or German and see today's progress, your streak, words learned, and what's waiting to be reviewed.
Today's lesson
Each day brings a clear goal, new words and phrases, simple grammar notes, and exercises, all in one guided screen.
Practice your way
Flashcards, pronunciation, word games, and sentence-building practice are all one tap away under a single Practice tab.
See how far you've come
Watch your streak grow and track lessons finished, words learned, daily study time, and how much review is coming up.
What you can do
Everything you need to actually learn the language.
Lessons, listening, speaking, games, flashcards, and progress all live in one tidy app, so you always know what to do next.
Guided daily lessons
Follow a clear, step-by-step path with new words, handy phrases, and plain-English grammar notes that build from your first day to real conversations.
Review that remembers for you
Switchboard brings words back just before you'd forget them. Tap how well you knew each one, and it quietly plans when to show it again.
Hear it spoken
Listen to real audio and spoken examples so you know exactly how a word or phrase should sound before you try it yourself.
Practice speaking out loud
Say a phrase and get helpful feedback on your pronunciation, including tones and individual sounds, so you build confidence to speak for real.
Games that make it stick
Build sentences, match words, work on pronunciation, and solve quick puzzles. Practice feels like play, so you keep coming back.
Progress that stays with you
Your finished lessons, streaks, review history, and game scores are saved right on your device, so they're always there, even with no signal.
Made to learn anywhere
Yours to use on the bus, on a plane, or off the grid.
You don't need an account or a connection to learn. The lessons live in the app and your progress is saved on your phone, with room to grow into sync and an AI tutor down the road.
- Three languages to start: Chinese, Japanese, German
- Works offline, no account or sign-up needed
- Your progress saved safely on your phone
- Fast and smooth to tap through
- Easy on the eyes with larger text and clear contrast
- Audio and written examples side by side
- Quick to load, even with lots of words
- Built to grow, with sync and a tutor on the way
- Works on
- iPhone, Android, and the web
- Built with
- Expo, React Native, TypeScript
- Your data
- Stored on your device, nothing required online to learn
- Status
- In development
Support the project
Support the project and download Switchboard.
Switchboard is still being built. Chip in to support the work, and as soon as the first public version is ready you'll be able to download it right away. Each download link works once.
SwitchboardDonateYour donation supports the build and unlocks a download for each listed software product as it launches.
Get the software
Support the project and download a build.
Donate what you like, choose a product and your platform, and download a real installer right after checkout. Each link is single-use and time-limited.