Nik Komarov

gloss helps people who use English as a second language. Most of us understand many more words than we actually use when we write or speak. gloss moves those words from passive to active. Learning: a short word check builds your map of passive and active words. gloss then picks the words worth learning next, by how common they are, how relevant they are to you and how far along you are, and gives short practice rounds: recognise the word, recall it, then use it in a real situation, typed or out loud, with feedback on each answer. Words you later use in your own writing count as real progress. Tools that work on their own: a browser extension checks your writing on any site and fixes mistakes right where you type; a Mac menu-bar app checks text in any app and turns dictation (hold the right Option key and talk) into clean text. You can use the tools without ever practising. No sign-up: the site, the extension and the Mac app start a guest session on their own. Chrome and macOS today; the architecture is ready for Firefox and Windows. Honest scope: an early product built during the hackathon. No measured learning results yet; the extension is not in the Chrome Web Store yet, and the Mac app is an unsigned build.