I grew up a classic one-trick-pony Brit, speaking only the mother tongue, of course! The tragedy of it all, however, is that I'm actually half Italian, so was always surrounded by a second language but never absorbed it, was never taught it and never really even wanted to learn it. But everything changed that fateful day I moved to Hong Kong for study, at the ripe old age of 20. Thrust into a group of worldly Europeans and Asians where the average number of spoken languages was a measly... 3, I think? I was flabbergasted and nothing short of embarrassed. Some of the first people I met were fluent in French, Spanish, Italian, English, with some casual Putonghua sprinkled in for good measure. And then there was yours truly: deeply proud of my English, but unashamedly ashamed that I had nothing else linguistically to offer.
So I did what any boy seeking redemption would do: enrolled in Mandarin Chinese 101. And boy did I fall head over heels for that language; I couldn't stop thinking about it. If you ask any of my friends who were around me at the time, they'd tell you how I threw myself into Mandarin Chinese without brakes. I was talking to everyone in Hong Kong in my broken Mandarin (yes, I know), trying to do everything I possibly could on nights out to enhance my skills as quickly as possible, to some — very limited — success. Myself and a good friend even found a woman from Mainland China working as a cleaner at the popular night out strip, and we'd go with the express purpose of just spending hours trying to communicate with Lisa Laoshi in probably quite painful shards of broken Chinese.
Then I discovered the art of texting in a foreign language, and everything changed. It developed my philosophy of language learning that is perhaps countercurrent to most advice out there (i.e. just speak!, speak!, speak! — which, of course, I do not deny is of tantamount importance!). But I felt as though I'd stumbled upon the hidden gem of learning a language: texting! A lot. As often as I could with native speakers. Either I'd make friendships that way or I'd break them. Not so that they can correct you, because oftentimes they won't. And not because it will offer you a structured way of learning, because it never will. But because it really shifts the onus onto you to be active. To look things up all the time — what on earth does that mean? I'd be switching between WhatsApp and Google Translate like a maniac.
And then copying the way people texted. Copying it to the T. I was like a child. I saw them say something in a cool way, and I would say that thing twenty times over the next week. And then slowly but surely, comes the confidence to traverse the fourth wall. To take that text speak and use it out there in the wild, in real life. You test it. You experiment. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. I remember once, texting one of my best buddies as I embarked on the voyage of mastering French, I must have said something ambitious (and very wrong) because he responded with a simple: "You've made my eyes bleed 😭". And yes, he's still a best friend. But the point is, call it tough love or not, this kind of native, genuine, raw feedback is truly invaluable and the scars only make you stronger. I have much deeper scars from far more embarrassing faux-pas in China, in case you're ever interested to hear…
Of course, you cannot just text. Speaking is more important than anything; we speak to people out there in the world with our mouths, after all. But the WhatsAppification of language learning was born in my head as a parallel need of equal importance.
"AI fills the gaps between real conversations. It certainly doesn't replace them."
PenpAI uses AI because it's useful, not because it's exciting. The AI is a tool, not a companion. It will never pretend otherwise. No streaks designed to manufacture habit. No gems engineered to manufacture desire. Just conversation — and the honest belief that real progress comes from real engagement, not from Pavlovian reward loops.
[Your vision — where PenpAI goes from here. Live tutors, in-person events, building real community around language learning. In your own words.]