We should use language to learn what we love, rather than learning a language for its own sake

I’m a language learner myself—mainly because I often need to use foreign languages at work. I’ve tried apps like Duolingo, but I found that most of the content I learned had no relevance to my real life, so I would quickly forget it. Beyond my own experience, our research and competitive analysis revealed that many people often fall into a "low dopamine state" when learning a language. This manifests as lack of focus, drowsiness, cravings for snacks, or simply a strong urge to quit. In other words, people easily get bored or frustrated with language learning.

Apps like Duolingo try to fight this "low dopamine state" by introducing gamification and reward systems, helping users feel less bored during the process. However, whether Duolingo is truly effective remains debatable. The information density in gamified learning is quite low, and Duolingo’s 28-day retention rate is under 30%, meaning the majority of users still fail to stick with their language learning routine.

So, why does language learning lead to a low dopamine state in the first place?

We found that language learning often involves a lot of repetitive, low-efficiency tasks. For example:

• Looking up words in a dictionary (you might spend 30 minutes reading an article, and 25 minutes just searching for vocabulary).
• Constant review and repetition (since what you learn doesn't show up in real life, you'll forget unless you review repeatedly).

This kind of repetitive inefficiency slows down learning progress significantly—especially for people with ADHD tendencies, who may find it even harder to accept or benefit from traditional methods.

That's why we want to find a way to reduce the friction and monotony. We aim to tackle the root cause of the low dopamine state by: Reducing repetitive and unproductive actions!

Humans are naturally wired to absorb language. So instead of learning a language for the sake of it, we should use language as a tool to explore content we actually care about

For example, after working on an English-related project for just a month, I noticed a significant improvement in my vocabulary—at least within my domain. And I didn’t use any language learning app during that time! Instead, the tool I used the most was a word translation plugin. But I realized that existing translation plugins aren't really made for language learners. Once I translated a word, nothing was saved. I couldn’t review it later, and when I came across the same word again, I often didn’t recognize it and had to translate it again. For me, this repetitive translation process is time-consuming and mentally draining. And worse—it doesn’t help me remember the vocabulary.

So I built a plugin that does more: NeonLingo. It saves every translated word to a personal vocabulary list and automatically highlights them across the web. (It's currently an MVP!) More time-saving and productivity-boosting features are on the way.

I’m excited for you to try it out, and I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback!