Role

Planning · Design · Development (solo)

Mobile App · Language Learning

Team

Solo development

Platforms

iOS

Date

2026 - Present

Overview

Filipino, a little bit every day

When you live in the Philippines, you can get by reasonably well with just English, but what really brings you one step closer to the locals is, in the end, their language — Tagalog (Filipino). Yet when you actually set out to learn it, it was hard to find an app that a Korean speaker could keep following consistently.

That’s why I built Salita PH, a Filipino learning app. (“Salita” means “speech · word” in Tagalog.) The goal is to help you learn naturally by listening, speaking, and writing a little bit every day.

What you can do

• Step-by-step lessons — Follow lessons divided into units and learn expressions and sentences one step at a time.
• Conversation role-play — Practice with conversations set in real-life situations, like ordering food or asking for directions.
• Pronunciation practice — Speak it yourself and get a score and feedback, so you know which parts to polish further.
• Expression review — It brings back the expressions you’ve learned to review right around when you’re about to forget them.
• Writing practice — Make it second nature by listening and taking dictation, or composing on your own.
• Skill graph — Shows at a glance what you’ve learned and what’s left.

What I cared about most while building it

• Consistency is key — With languages, “a little bit every day” is almost everything, so I put effort into things that make you want to open the app again, like daily goals, learning streaks, and weekly leaderboards.
• Not just with your eyes — If you only read, the words won’t come out of your mouth. I made listening, pronunciation, and conversation flow naturally together within a single app.
• Light and easy — I kept the screens and the flow light and simple so that a few minutes a day is enough.

Stack

• App: React Native · Expo (Expo Router), TypeScript
• Styling: NativeWind (Tailwind), Reanimated (animations)
• State · Data: Zustand, TanStack Query
• Backend: Supabase (authentication · data)
• Audio · Voice: expo-av, expo-speech (listening · pronunciation)
• Others: push notifications (learning reminders), analytics (PostHog), error tracking (Sentry)
• Main screens: lessons, conversation role-play, pronunciation practice, expression review, writing, skill graph

Now, and what’s next

I’m in the process of refining it toward a low-pressure Filipino learning experience you’ll want to open every day.

You can find it on the App Store: Salita — Learn Tagalog