What Coupling's Been Brewing for Six Months
Fresh New Ways to Language Together
Hello Cupheads! It's been half a year since Coupling's comeback on app stores. Thanks to your early support, I've been grinding hard for months to make Coupling stronger than ever before for you and your partner to Language Together. Read what's new!
☕ Grinds: A Supercharged Learning System
Learning is now easier and more efficient with Grinds—bite-sized chunks of 10 words that take less than 3 minutes each. Do a few Grinds to keep your streak going or keep going if you feel motivated. Complete all your Grinds and earn Streak Freeze or Streak Repair in the future!
🎮 New Interactive Exercises
Learning is now much more engaging with new interactive multiple-choice quizzes! Instead of immediately asking, “What does this mean?”, Coupling gently introduces new vocabulary with easy multiple-choice exercises.
After a few repetitions, words progress into traditional active recall exercises to really lock them into memory.
In the future, I’d love to add even more exercises like pronunciation tests, matching, or sentence-arranging mini-games.
🔡 Romanization Toggle
For languages like Chinese or Japanese, Coupling now lets you hide romanization to test your reading skills. Toggle it during Grinds to reveal pronunciation if needed. Zhuyin is now supported for Taiwanese Mandarin learners!
🎁 Delights: Loving Rewards
Gift a Delight to your partner. Delights are learning goals paired with real-life gifts based on the Five Love Languages: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch.
Discover what makes your partner feel most loved, then surprise and motivate them! You’ll be amazed at how regularly giving gifts of love can add a fun new layer to your bond.
I plan to expand Delights so you can provide them as “Tips” to your partner in return for fulfilling requests, and to include a “Love Language Quiz” to help you discover which gifts make your partner feel the most loved!
🏪 The Brew Store
Brews are word packs that you ask your partner to help you learn. Choose from over 500 Brews with almost 6000 words, categorized by topics, based on your life and interests! Don't be stuck on a linear fixed course; forge your own learning path.
👶 First Word Brews
Start with the absolute basics with First Word Brews, including words like hello, goodbye, thank you, numbers, or colors. These Brews are translated and vetted by committees of native speakers and are ready for immediate use. Your partner can still personalize them for you.
🚚 Brew Categories
Or explore deeper topics in categories such as Basics, Language Essentials, Verbs & Adjectives, Everyday Objects, Hobbies & Interests, Work & Education, Food & Drinks, Love & Family, Everyday Living & Health, or Holidays. Brews provide strong building blocks for your path to language mastery. Can you master all the Brews of a category?
🤖 AI-Powered Brew Creation
Fulfilling Brews is now easier and more intuitive. AI assistance pre-generates translations, audio, sentences, and icons. Partners can personalize content easily such as recording audio or creating relevant sentences, making the learning experience more relevant and engaging.
📰 Bulletin Board: Stay Connected
Stay connected with the new Bulletin Board, a special notifications screen to get real-time updates on your partner's progress and activities. The Coupling app now updates in realtime, ensuring you and your partner are always in sync. Previously, you may have had to refresh to app to see changes. No longer!
Baristas can now also manage learner requests through a new cute ticket order screen.
🎧 Natural and Realistic AI Audio
Enjoy clearer and more realistic audio with upgraded Wavenet and AI neural audio. Cards now feature engaging audio animations, and you can request audio recordings from your partner. Slow audio playback is also available to aid pronunciation.
🎖️ Reward Stamps
Reward Stamps are badges, but they aren't just for show. Earning a reward stamp nets you Beans so you're able to learn more words. Each new word added to your deck costs 1 Bean. Earn Beans by consistently Grinding or earning Reward Stamps
There're Reward Stamps for accomplishing a total number of Grinds, or extending a long learning Streak. I intend to add Reward Stamps for learning a number of related Brews to indicate subject mastery
💸 Support the Developer
You can also purchase Beans through the app to support me and the development of Coupling Cafe! It'd be greatly appreciated as I've been working on Coupling for years on my own without any external financial support.
⚡ Improved Onboarding
Getting started is smoother with redesigned login, onboarding, and tutorials! Everything is smoother and more streamlined for new cafe visitors.
We tailor the journey to you, asking your current level, setting a goal, and setting a daily reminder time that works for you. Speaking of daily reminders, Coupling is now smarter on how it sends you daily notifications, no longer sending them daily no matter what.
🐇 Performance Enhancements and Bug Fixes
Experience a smoother, faster Coupling with comprehensive performance and UX upgrades. Bugs, crashes, and confusing elements have been addressed since the Valentine’s Day release. There's just been countless enhancements that didn't make the cut for this post!
🗺️ What’s Next?
📦 Custom and Community Brews
Personalize your learning journey by creating Custom Brews tailored to your favorite topics—whether it’s words from a beloved TV show, a language textbook, or a memorable conversation. Plus, with Community Brews, you can share your creations and explore others’ unique packs, all while earning Beans to fuel your learning.
❓ Questions & Answers
Ask your partner or AI questions about a word, its contexts, or grammar! My philosophy is to use GPTs as an assistance feature in language learning, but without over-relying on it or overshadowing the power of learning together. Such as providing personalized sentence suggestions based on what you already know, or asking AI to create mnemonics or "memory tricks" to more easily remember words.
Thanks to all of those who have been using Coupling over the past half year and providing me with feedback and support.
Give Coupling another shot and please let me know what you think!
See you at the cafe,
Kevo
Looks really nice Kevin!