Hi, I'm Matt Gordon.

I build prototypes that go viral, and I've spent years on both sides of a language classroom.

I pitched Suno on an idea last year and ended up building prototypes for them, exploring what AI-generated music makes possible. Two of the concepts I explored were later pursued as product features. I came 2nd out of 1,500+ entries in Pieter Levels' Vibe Jam, and I once used Spotify to plant 42,000 trees.

Before any of that I taught ESL, to every age from small children to retirees. So I've watched people try to learn a language up close, for years, and I've seen what actually moves them forward.

Then I tried to learn one myself

Like a lot of beginners, I spent more time researching language learning strategies and optimisations than actually learning the language.

Then I had a revelation. Just practice.

I started putting myself in difficult situations and forcing myself to speak Chinese. Whenever someone needed help translating, I did it for free.

My Chinese got better really fast. It wasn't vocab or grammar mastery — it was confidence. It was like the people I was speaking to could detect that I'd find a way around the gaps in my language knowledge, so they paid more attention and gave me more of a chance.

That matched what I'd seen as a teacher. The students who improved were never the ones with the best notes.

I really like what Pingo is doing.

I think too many people have been misled into thinking that gamified matching tests are progress. They give you the illusion of it, but ultimately they don't work.

Anyway — I built some demos that showcase my language learning philosophy.

Matt Gordon

P.S. Everything below is real and built. Happy to send TestFlights, extensions and demo links — use the contact widget in the bottom right.

Dingo

Argue your way past the guard dog

🚫 TikTok, Instagram and X are locked by default
🗣️ Talk your way in — in your target language
😭 You can already see the TikTok video — "why do i have to argue with an ai to see my friends"
⏱️ Ten minutes of access, then it locks again

🐕

Dingo

Argue your way past the guard dog

GET

🔒 blocked app → 🗣️ argument → ⏱️ 10 minutes

iPhone Screenshots

Dingo Content Blocker splash: a bouncer guarding a chained phone

9:41▮▮▮

Blocked

TikTok is behind the dog.

You've opened this app 14 times today. Convince me it's the fifteenth.

Start arguing

9:41▮▮▮

Round 1

我为什么要让你看抖音?

因为我今天学习了两个小时

"Because I studied for two hours today"

两个小时? 你昨天说三个小时。

"Two hours? Yesterday you said three."

···

It remembers what you told it yesterday

9:43▮▮▮

Unlocked

Fine. Ten minutes.

You won that in 41 seconds and used 3 words you've never used before.

Open TikTok

9:41▮▮▮

This week

37 arguments won

4h 12m spoken
212 new words used under pressure
9 arguments lost

The losses are the good ones. That's where the gaps are.

Textbook

Every text you send is a rep

⌨️ A system keyboard — works in every app you already use
🀄 You type in the target language, it sends in English
💡 Stuck on a word? It offers it, then makes you type it
🤫 Nobody you're texting has to know

⌨️

Textbook

Type your way through the day

GET

🀄 你 type → 🇬🇧 they read → ♾️ every single day

iPhone Screenshots

Textbooks splash: a keyboard that makes you write in the language you're learning

Textbooks setup: add the keyboard in iOS Settings

Textbooks keyboard in use: typing pinyin and picking the Chinese characters

9:41▮▮▮

Messages · Mum

What do you want for dinner?

汉堡包

sent as "Hamburger"

Again?

···

汉堡包汉堡寒喊

9:41▮▮▮

Don't know the word?

迟到

chídào — to be late

It'll give you the word once. Then you have to type it yourself before it sends.

9:41▮▮▮

Works everywhere

WhatsApp. Slack. Hinge. The group chat.

It's a keyboard, not an app. There's nothing to remember to open.

9:41▮▮▮

Today

61 messages
written in Chinese

Longest: 23 characters
New words used: 8
Times you gave up and typed English: 4

Extension Language learning

news.website.com

迟到 chídào — to be late 对不起，我迟到了。
Sorry, I'm late. Ad Swapper

After — the ad slot is now a word from your deck

news.website.com

ADVERTISEMENT
300 × 250

Before — someone paid for that space to hold your attention

shopping.website.com

You have not spoken Chinese today. It is 4pm. This is your ninth tab. Ad Swapper

It also knows how long it’s been

chrome://extensions

1,204 ads swapped this week — 63 words you have now seen more than ten times Ad Swapper

A week of passive exposure you didn’t have to schedule

Overview

Ad Swapper strips the display ads out of the web and puts your target language in the hole they leave behind. A word, its gloss, and one example sentence — in the slot where a banner used to be.

You are not doing a lesson. You are reading the news. The lesson happens in your peripheral vision, a few hundred times a day.

• Blocks banner and display ads on every site you visit
• Fills the space with vocab cards from your Pingo deck
• Mixes in motivational ads that know how long it's been
• Built on a real blocking engine, so pages get faster, not slower

Sleeptalk

Learn asleep. Argue awake.

🌊 Vocab murmured over brown noise as you drift off
⏰ The alarm is a phone call, not a siren
🗣️ You dismiss it by arguing your way out — out loud
🙅 Snooze exists. It costs you an extra round.

🌙

Sleeptalk

Learn asleep. Argue awake.

GET

😴 8 hours of vocab → ⏰ 6am → 🗣️ one argument

iPhone Screenshots

Sleeptalk splash: a sleeper with vocab cards drifting overhead,

Sleeptalk set-the-alarm sheet: wake at 06:00, the alarm arrives as a call

23:14▮▮▮

Drifting

把

bǎ — to take, to hold

Brown noise · 8h · fades at 02:00

03:02▮▮▮

Still going

You are asleep.
It is not.

Words are chosen from the ones you got wrong yesterday, repeated at the volume of a radiator.

06:00▮▮▮

Incoming

Pingo is calling.

"You said 6am. It's 6am. Tell me in Chinese why you're still lying down."

Answer

06:04▮▮▮

Alarm dismissed

4 min 12 s of arguing

First word spoken: 06:00:31
Snoozes: 1 (cost you a round)
You're awake now. Genuinely awake.

Mother Tongue

Your worst critic, on speed dial

📞 Unannounced calls, at the worst possible times
😤 Entirely in your target language, no subtitles
🏆 Constant unfavourable comparison to a boy named 小明
💔 A disappointment score you can never quite clear

📞

Mother Tongue

Your worst critic, on speed dial

GET

📞 unexpected call → 😬 20 minutes → 📈 retention

iPhone Screenshots

Mother Tongue splash screen: The nagging parent you didn't know you needed

Mother Tongue incoming call screen from Mum, Decline and Accept

Mother Tongue in-call screen: Mum on the line, Interrupt and Her turn controls

A real message thread with a mother turning a plea for sympathy into a guilt trip

21:12▮▮▮

爸爸

mobile · he does not call twice

Remind Me Message

Decline Accept

20:09▮▮▮

Call ended · 20:14

Disappointment
level: high

You spoke for 6m 22s.
You apologised 11 times.
You said 小明 out loud 4 times.

That is twenty minutes of spoken practice you would never have chosen to do.

9:41▮▮▮

Choose your critic

Who’s calling?

妈妈 — disappointed, relentless
爸爸 — silent, then devastating
Your old teacher — professionally sad
小明’s mother — smug, unbearable

Schedule calls

Rush Order

Talk fast or lose

🍜 Guide an AI cook through a dinner rush, out loud
⏳ No menus, no buttons — speaking is the only control
🤖 It does what you said, not what you meant
📱 Every run is a shareable clip

🍜

Rush Order

Talk fast or lose

GET

🗣️ your voice → 👨‍🍳 the cook → 🔥 disaster

iPhone Screenshots

9:41▮▮▮

Table 4 · 0:22 left

Two noodles.
One no coriander.

Queue: 6 orders · Patience: dropping

🎙️ listening — say it

9:41▮▮▮

You said

两碗面，一个不要香菜

The cook heard

两碗面，一个不要相册

"Two noodles, one without a photo album."

Tones matter. Sorry.

9:41▮▮▮

Rush over

14 served
9 walked out

Words spoken: 231
Understood first time: 68%
Worst tone: 3rd, obviously

Share the clip

9:41▮▮▮

Why it works

You're not being tested.
You're being understood, or not.

Nobody has ever practised pronunciation for 40 minutes straight because a flashcard asked them to.

Six apps, one idea

None of these teach you anything. They just make it impossible to get through a normal day without speaking, typing or reading the language you say you're learning.

They're also all very easy to film. That's not an accident — each one has a single visual hook that fits in a nine-second clip:

Someone arguing with their phone to get into TikTok
A mum getting a text in Chinese and not noticing
Every ad on the internet turning into a vocab card
Someone woken at 6am and losing an argument in a second language
A fake mother comparing you unfavourably to 小明
A kitchen burning down because of a third tone

All of them end in the same place — the person watching wants to know what the app is. That's the top of Pingo's funnel.

Happy to send TestFlights and demo links for any of these. Contact widget's in the bottom right.

Frequently Asked Questions

Got a different question? Contact me via the widget in the bottom right

Who made this?

Hi I'm Matt. I previously made viral apps Bufferi.ng and TwikTwok. I used Spotify to plant 42,000 trees. Other projects I've made have been featured positively in Martin Lewis' T.V show (multiple times), Vice, el Pais, Hypebeast, Mail Online, The Sun and loads of other online and offline media.

How to contact you?

Contact me via the widget in the bottom right