Vako: Learn Languages by Video

Learn Japanese, Spanish or Korean by watching what native speakers actually watch. Vako is a vertical feed of real short-form video in the language you are learning, with the original transcript under it, the English translation one tap away, and every word tappable for a meaning you can save. Nothing here is a lesson. It is the feed you would have scrolled anyway, in a language you are learning — which is why you open it again tomorrow. WATCH A clip plays from YouTube with its creator credited under it. The transcript sits underneath, and the word being spoken lights up as you hear it, so you can read ahead of a fast talker without losing your place in the line. Japanese words carry their kana reading above them, and you can switch that to Latin letters while you are still learning the alphabet. Korean carries a romanisation. Every clip is tagged A1 to C1, so you know what you are walking into. TAP Stop on a word you do not know and the clip holds the frame you stopped on. The card tells you what the word means, how it sounds, what part of speech it is, and how many times it has already gone past you in your feed. The example sentences are real lines from real clips, not sentences written for a textbook. KEEP Save a word and it comes back when it is due, carrying the clip you met it in. Reviews ask a real question about the word, with one right answer, and a ladder from one day to three months decides when it returns. A saved word is a record of something you watched, not a row in a list. EXPLORE Search any word and hear it everywhere it is said: real lines from real clips, filtered to your level, playable from the moment it is spoken. WHAT IT COSTS Free, with no account and no card: every clip, the transcript under it, every word, and the reviews that follow. There is nothing to buy inside the app. ABOUT THE VIDEOS Every clip is a short-form video published on YouTube by the person who made it, and it plays in YouTube's own player from their upload, with their name under it. Nothing is downloaded, re-hosted or re-cut. The transcripts come from each clip's own captions or speech, and every transcript and translation is checked against its clip before that clip is published — a caption that is slightly wrong teaches a word that is entirely wrong. IN ENGLISH, THROUGHOUT Every menu, question and button is in English. The language you are learning appears in exactly two places: the clip, and the transcript under it. You are never asked to read an interface in a language you have not learned yet. Japanese, Spanish and Korean today, with more added as their content is ready.