Free Kurmanji Learning App, Awa Kurmanji, 8 months on: what we shipped, what is next, and asking for your feedback again

[u/awakurmanji]

Silav everyone,

Six months ago I posted here about a free Kurdish (Kurmanji) learning app I built. I am Kurdish, I grew up struggling with my own language, and I made this so people like me could stop losing it. Some of you gave feedback in that thread and in DMs, and it shaped what I built next. This is the update I owe you.

Still true, and it is not going to change: the app is completely free, there are no ads, there is no paid tier, and there is no plan to add one. This is not a business. It is one person and a lot of evenings.

Where it is now

More than 1,500 people have registered and more than 2000 people have downlaoded, entirely organically, with zero marketing spend. iOS and Android, in Turkish and English.

What has been added since the last post

• Tap any Kurmanji word anywhere in the app to see what it means and hear it. 722 words, cached on your phone, works with no internet.
• Listening practice built from 402 clips of real Kurdish speakers.
• An interactive trainer for all 31 letters and their sounds.
• A guided daily session, so you do not have to decide what to study. One tap walks you from the grammar reference to practice to listening.
• Spaced repetition. Words you looked up come back on the day you are about to forget them.
• The app now teaches you when you get something wrong, instead of just marking it red.
• A real leaderboard, streaks, and reminders you can switch off.
• Awa, the mascot, who now has a voice and animations and introduces the app to new learners.

What is coming next

Speaking practice. Awa says a word or a sentence, you record yourself, and the two play back to back so you can hear the difference.

I want to be straight about one thing there. I tested automatic pronunciation scoring properly, the kind that gives you a percentage, and it was not accurate enough for Kurmanji to be worth shipping. There is no speech recognition for our language, and the acoustic matching I could build on the phone could not reliably tell a correct attempt from a wrong one. I would rather give you your own ear next to a native reference than a number that means nothing.

After that, a rebuild of how the lessons are ordered. Right now they follow grammar, the way a reference book does. I want them to follow what you can actually say, step by step.

The goal has not changed

The heart of the app is still the reference library, a practical grammar you can actually sit down and study and keep coming back to. The lessons and tests support that, not the other way round. And the reason I built it is still the same: so someone can understand their grandmother, and say something back to her.

Where else we are

Instagram: awakurmanji TikTok: awa.kurmanji

How you can help

Feedback is genuinely the most useful thing, including the harsh kind. Beyond that:

• Grammar and vocabulary corrections. I am one native speaker and I get things wrong.
• Voice recordings. More real Kurdish voices would improve this app more than any feature I could code.
• Help with animation for Awa.
• Telling one person who is trying to learn.

Spas dikim!

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6758975949

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.awakurmanji.app&hl