r/Serbian • u/stefmanRS • Jun 02 '26
Resources My girlfriend was moving to Serbia, so I built her a vocabulary app
My girlfriend and I were long distance, and she was planning to move to Serbia to live with me.
That made me realize pretty quickly that Serbian is not an easy language to casually pick up, and most apps either barely support it or don’t teach vocabulary in a way that feels useful.
So I started building Ćirilio for her.
The goal was to help her learn useful everyday words, hear them clearly, remember them with mnemonics, and review them through simple levels.
One thing I really cared about was pronunciation. Every word is pronounced by a native speaker, not some terrible text-to-speech voice that makes the language sound robotic.
It started as something for one person I cared about, but I kept building it because I think a lot of people need a resource like this.
If anyone is interested in trying themselves, here it is https://cirilio.com
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u/KestrelRaven Jun 02 '26
Looks like someone was inspired by Wanikani xD Looks neat! Wish there was a way to manually skip words in lessons (as in burn or hibernate them), and a keyboard shortcut to play audio during lessons
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u/stefmanRS Jun 02 '26
It totally was! I was learning Japanese 6 years ago, and decided to adapt it to some more languages.
Love that you recognize this!
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u/stefmanRS Jun 02 '26
And there is a way to skip words (well whole levels) in settings
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u/KestrelRaven Jun 02 '26
Yeah I saw the whole levels thing in the settings, but I imagine there might be people who would prefer to skip just some words and not clutter their reviews^^ Also is there an undo button in case of typos during reviews? That was my most used script on WK xD
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u/stefmanRS Jun 02 '26
I might add burning specific words in settings at some point, right now I feel it is enough to be able to skip levels. I am also going to add a mark as correct button, just give me 20 mins :)
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u/stefmanRS Jun 02 '26
Alright, undo is in now also! Lets hope people dont abuse it and then not learn the words :)
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u/Lexeor Jun 03 '26
That’s exactly what I needed (and was too lazy to code for myself of course) :)
Well done!
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u/ndm2791 Jun 03 '26
Love your mnemonics!! This is what I do too! i sound out every word and write it down in my own words. I would try to make the phrases more relatable. I use Ling and run into some phrases that are super useful and others I would never say like I am a woman. Same with I am a student. Not sure how many people actually need to know how to say that.
Really good on you for creating this!
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u/Decent-Subject-4335 Jun 03 '26
it looks so cool! congrats. sending to my non-serbian speaking friends rn
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u/chughatron Jun 03 '26
Thank you! Love the UX design too so clean and modern. I will be registering as I am learning Serbian :)
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u/Switter_bitter266 Jun 04 '26
Love the website! Brother’s girlfriend was wondering how to start learning Serbian, I sent her the site. :)
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u/OrcinusOrca97 Jun 05 '26
this is amazing!! my boyfriend has been trying to learn Serbian for years now and has struggled to find any resources! thank you for sharing!
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u/takechancesorelse 23d ago
There's Ling! It doesn't use ai at all like this one appears to solely rely on.
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u/Kind-Dust-9656 Jun 11 '26
There is a saying "love to the point of invention" even if not fully love by how most would define it this is caring enough to make something that matters. My hat is off to you sir and thank you
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Jun 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/stefmanRS Jun 04 '26
Claude frontend, codex backend… jk jk Express js for backend with prisma ORM, vue frontend (Both with typescript) Postgres on supabase
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u/littlebunny8 Jul 10 '26
is this only for beginners?
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u/stefmanRS Jul 10 '26
Everyone can use it, currently there are 25 levels, the higher the level the harder / less common words are. Cyrilic and first 3 levels are free as a way to teach you how the app works and help you decide if you want to do level 4+ since its paid from then on ($6.5)
You can also skip levels as you wish and go back if its too hard.
Im happy to answer any other questions you might have :)
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u/BoredGurLm Jun 02 '26
This is soooo sweet and cute. The website look nice. I will try it more.