Élan: A calmer, smarter way to learn French.
Élan is a study system I designed and built to actually learn French, around a full working life instead of fighting it. I had a concrete target to aim at, at least a B2 result on the TCF Canada exam, but I wanted the day to day to feel like learning a language, not grinding for a test.
Most of what I tried fell into two camps. Gamified apps that felt good to open but never added up to real progress, and rigid courses that felt like homework before I had even started. Both leaned on streaks and guilt to keep me coming back. I wanted something quieter and more honest, that respected the time I actually had.
So I designed and built Élan end to end with Claude: the product thinking, the interaction design, and the working React front end. It is the clearest example I have of how I now work, as a designer who also ships.
The Problem
Learning French around a real life.
Learning a language as a busy adult is its own problem. You have real reasons to learn and a real life that keeps getting in the way. I had a deadline too, the TCF Canada exam, which made the stakes concrete, but the daily challenge was simpler: how do you keep making progress when some days you only have ten minutes?
Most language tools answer that with pressure. Streaks, points, a small jolt of guilt every day. It works until the first day you miss, and then the tool becomes one more thing you are failing at.
I wanted Élan to start from an honest question instead: how much French can you really do today, and what is the most useful way to spend it?
Calibration
A setup that meets you where you are.
Before Élan plans anything, it calibrates. A short, seven-step setup asks where your French is now, where you are headed, how much time you realistically have on a weekday, your strongest and weakest skills, and the rhythm you want to keep.
None of it is framed as a test, and every answer can change later in Settings. The point is to build the plan around your real constraints from the first screen, so the daily experience never asks more of you than you signed up for.
Today
A command centre, not a to-do list.
Today is where the app opens. Instead of an endless list, it offers exactly three reasoned priorities for the session, a calm countdown to the exam, your momentum, and one clear way to begin: start a focus session.
The design job here was restraint. Everything competes for a learner's attention, so Today deliberately shows less: the few things worth doing now, and the single button that starts them.
Learn
A grammar path you can actually follow.
Learn turns the grammar you need into a clear path. A roadmap runs from A1 to C1, and each lesson pairs a short explanation with examples and a quick check, so you always know what to study next instead of guessing.
A Mistake Bank sits alongside it, quietly collecting the things you get wrong so they can come back as targeted review rather than slipping away.
Vocabulary
Build a deck that is actually yours.
Élan ships with a 459-word deck built for A2 to C2 and the TCF, grouped into the connectors, time expressions and formal register that real exam answers lean on.
You can also add your own. Any word or phrase you meet, in class or in the wild, goes in with its meaning, level and an example, and joins the same spaced-review schedule as everything else.
Spaced Review
One honest rating per card.
Review runs on spaced repetition in the spirit of Anki. A French word, a tap to reveal the meaning and an example, then four ratings: again, hard, good, easy. Pronunciation plays on demand.
That single rating is the whole engine. It sets when the card returns and quietly tunes its difficulty, so the deck keeps reshaping itself around what you personally find hard.
Capture & Translate
Capture words the moment you meet them.
A lot of learning happens in passing: a word in an article, a phrase from a conversation. Translate gives you a fast French and English lookup, with pronunciation, so you can check something without leaving the app.
Anything worth keeping saves to a personal list with one tap, ready to turn into review later. Nothing useful has to slip away.
Practice
Use it under real conditions.
Knowing words is not the same as using them. Practice covers the four language skills directly: listening and reading, plus written and spoken expression, with prompts that mirror real situations and, when it matters, the TCF's topics and timing.
Writing and speaking run in dedicated labs with a timer and gentle, specific feedback, so the pressure you feel in practice sits closer to the real thing.
A Quick Quiz, Not A Streak
Momentum you can feel, without the guilt.
Élan keeps motivation light. A sixty-second speed challenge turns a spare moment into a quick win, picking meanings as fast as you can, with no pressure beyond the one you choose.
That is the whole stance on gamification here. Progress is built from real actions, a review, a focus session, a writing submission, and a missed day never triggers a shame screen. Momentum bends instead of breaking.
No fake stats, no manufactured urgency. Just a calm tool that stays out of your way until you have genuinely done the work, which is exactly the kind of product I set out to design and build.
