a flashcard app for a dene language

An offline-first app, built to help people learn a Dene language, one of the Indigenous languages of western Canada. It teaches the language one card at a time, and it keeps working when the connection does not.

what it is

The app is a progressive web app built around spaced repetition, the method where cards you find hard come back sooner and cards you know drift further apart. The content is organized into eight thematic decks: the alphabet, then animals, the body, colors, family, greetings, nature and land, and numbers. Around a hundred cards to start.

Progress is tracked through a gentle level system that begins at a seedling, so a learner can see momentum without it feeling like a test. And because it is built as a PWA, the whole thing installs to a phone and runs offline. The screen even says so when you lose signal: you are offline, learning still works.

why offline matters here

This matters for a community language. Connectivity in and around many Indigenous communities cannot be assumed, and a learning tool that only works with a strong signal will not get used where it matters most. Building it offline-first means a kid can practice on the bus, an elder can review at the kitchen table, and neither one needs a data plan to do it.

the part beyond the code

A language app is only worth building if it serves the people whose language it is. This one was built with respect for the community’s elders and their language, and that framing shapes the whole thing. The technology is simple on purpose. Flashcards, spaced repetition, offline storage. The hard and important work is fidelity to the language and deference to the people who carry it.

Indigenous languages in Canada are under real pressure, and many are held by a shrinking number of fluent speakers. A flashcard app does not reverse that on its own. What it can do is lower the friction of practice to almost nothing and put the language in a pocket, every day, for anyone who wants to learn.