Speakelle AI English Tutor Development

Speakelle is a live AI English tutor on the web. You talk, the tutor talks back, and it corrects you as you go. It also builds listening, reading and writing lessons at the level you choose. I designed and built it: the product, the interface, the app and the launch site. It's live at speakelle.com.

A lot of people read English well and still freeze when they have to say something out loud. A human tutor helps, but one hour with a tutor costs more than a month of Speakelle Pro, and it has to be booked ahead. Most language apps went the other way and turned practice into a game with streaks, points, placement tests and accent scores.

The people I built Speakelle for usually have one conversation coming up that matters: a job interview, a visa interview, a first week at a new job. A streak doesn't help with that. Saying the answer out loud a few times before the real thing does.

Live conversation. You speak, and the tutor answers in a natural voice and keeps the conversation moving. You can pick the tutor's voice and character.

Rehearsals. You describe a real conversation you have coming up, and the tutor plays the other person, such as the interviewer, the visa officer or your new manager.

A recap after every call. It shows what you said and a better way to say it, inside your own sentence.

Listening stories. A narrated story or dialogue, a short quiz, and a replay of the part you missed.

Read aloud. The app follows along as you read a passage and flags the words it heard go wrong.

Writing studio. You answer a prompt and get corrections marked inside your own text, the way an editor marks a draft.

The Ladder and the Practice Studio. 48 steps from beginner to advanced across all four skills, or a single topic you pick yourself.

Pathways. You say why you need English, from eight options, and your first lesson, your first Ladder steps and a rehearsal are built around it.

Mistake review. Your own mistakes come back as short drills until you get them right.

No accent score. An accent isn't a mistake. The coach tells you which words it heard go wrong and leaves your accent alone.

No placement test. You pick Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced, and every lesson is generated at that level when you ask for it.

No streaks or daily goals. People should come back because the last session helped. A counter about to reset is a bad reason to open an app.

Your real conversation comes first. The app starts from the thing you're preparing for and fills in general practice around it.

The interface is flat on purpose. It's white in light mode and near-black in dark, with no gradients or glows. The only colour comes from four muted hues, one for each skill, and each one passes 4.5:1 contrast on white.

Type carries most of the personality. Geist runs the interface, Fraunces sets the one heading per screen that's meant to be looked at, and Newsreader sets everything the learner reads, because a reading face is easier on someone working in a second language. The whole app shares three easing curves, so every screen moves the same way.

The marketing site walks through each skill with a hands-on demo built from the real lesson screens. I also made the launch motion pieces, including the wordmark animation on this page.

Speakelle is a Next.js and TypeScript web app. Supabase handles accounts and data, Stripe handles subscriptions and the free trial, and the app runs on Cloudflare. AI language and real-time speech models power the lessons and the voice tutor. I also wrote a public briefing for AI search (llms.txt), so assistants describe the product accurately when people ask about it.

Speakelle is live at speakelle.com for English, and Spanish and German are next. There are two plans, Pro and Pro+, and both start with a 7-day trial.

The screen I'm happiest with is the correction view. Your sentence stays in your own words with the fix marked in place, so the fix sticks to something you actually said.

Co-Founder. Product strategy, UX and UI design, design system, full-stack engineering, subscriptions and billing, marketing site and launch motion.

Product Design, UX Design, UI Design, Design Systems, Web App Development, Full-Stack Development, AI Product Development, Voice UI, Landing Page Design, Motion Design, Copywriting, SaaS

Next.js, React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, shadcn/ui, Supabase, Stripe, Cloudflare, Playwright