Brill is a vocabulary-first language learning app built for real life. It doesn’t teach through lessons or exercises. Instead, Brill helps you build vocabulary through repeated exposure — on your Home Screen and Lock Screen. It supports 15 languages and focuses on useful, real-world words. Customize what you see, add your own vocabulary, filter by topic, and blur translations for active recall. Lightweight and distraction-free, Brill turns everyday phone glances into steady language progress.
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Hi everyone! I originally built Brill almost 4 years ago as a small side project because I wanted a simpler way to stay exposed to vocabulary every day. Over time, I kept coming back to it — and recently decided to fully relaunch it with a lot more polish and features. Brill focuses on repeated exposure through Home screen and Lock screen widgets. You can choose light, dark, or clear widget styles, control how often words refresh, tap to cycle words instantly, and blur translations to test recall. You can also add your own custom vocabulary, filter words by tags or topics, and tailor everything to what you actually want to learn. Some of these features are part of Brill Pro, but the free plan is more than enough to get started and learn from all 15 supported languages: Japanese, Korean, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien, Filipino, French, German, Italian, Malay, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, and Dutch. Would love to hear your thoughts — what’s working, what could be better, or what you’d want to see next. I’ve also got a Discord for anyone who wants to help shape where the app goes: https://discord.gg/E5VcWyBR6j Learn more on the website: https://www.brillapp.com/ Download the app: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/br...
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Congratulations on the new launch! But why only 4 languages? With AI, it’s easy to add 100+ languages—just a few days of a programmer’s work.
Otherwise, the app idea is great. I also constantly forget basic words when I’m in a new country. It could detect your location and automatically show basic words in the local language.
Wow, Brill looks amazing! Love the idea of learning vocab right on my home screen. Super curious, how does the blurring feature work with different character-based languages like Japanese?
I'll definitely give this a spin over the holidays!
Best of luck this launch, I'm following closely behind on #11 so let's both make that top 10 today 🚀
@Brill Love the micro-learning approach through daily passive exposure on lock/home screen. behavioral psychology done right. Question: how do you balance vocabulary relevance (teaching words actually used) with the complexity of different proficiency levels across 15 languages? What's your retention/daily active rate looking like?
Lock screen drip feed is my pace. Feels like something I’ll actually use between texts. Top 1000 is a solid start. The blur recall trick sounds nice. I’ll add my own words and try it with German on coffee breaks.
Such a brilliant app! You end up picking up a language almost without trying. I find this especially useful when you’re in a foreign country - seeing the same words pop up everywhere really helps them stick.
What I like about this app is that users can add their own vocabulary that fits their background. This makes users more proactive and engaged, which could potentially lead to faster language learning.
Congratulations on your re-launch. Are you planning to add more functionality? Or sync it in any way with existing language learning apps? I mean, how does it know which word to show, how does it track your progress?