I'm building a million-dollar English learning app all by myself, and you can use it for FREE!

Why did I decide to create this app?

Why?

Hey, hello, I'm Amir.

I'm an English language teaching and assessment expert with more than 20 years of experience.

And for the past year, I have been working on an English learning app that I want to show you today.

The name of the app is ESLSherpa, also the name of this channel.

ESLSherpa, basically, is a web app that turns YouTube videos into great English learning experiences.

I'm going to show you how it works in a moment and give you a quick demo of the app.

But before I do that, let me first explain why I decided to create this app in the first place.

So let's start there.

Why did I decide to create this app?

Why?

Okay, one of the most effective English language learning methods is to consume content in English.

To watch videos, read books, and listen to podcasts in English.

Input, input, input.

Expose yourself to your new language as much as you can.

That's true.

Exposure to a language

I would say lots of exposure to a language is important.

You need to be reading novels, watching films, listening to podcasts,

authentic material in the language.

Expose yourself to more English and then you have a chance to become fluent.

It's one of the main reasons I was able to become fluent in English and reach a high level.

When I first started learning English, there wasn't such a thing as YouTube.

But at the time, I had access to the BBC News channel, and I also had access to TV series and movies.

And that's what I watched.

I watched TV series like Friends and Seinfeld.

I watched hundreds of movies.

I watched the news everyday.

But I wasn't just sitting and watching.

You can't just passively listen to something as you go about your day.

You need to be constantly looking up words and phrases that you don't understand.

Yes.

I didn't just sit and watch.

I watched with purpose.

I would look up the meaning of the words I didn't know.

I would try to understand every sentence, every conversation, and every piece of dialogue.

It was time-consuming and quite tiring, but it was also very, very effective.

I saw a major change in my ability to understand and speak English.

And if you are wondering why this method is so effective, it's mainly for two reasons.

One, the more you are exposed to a foreign language,

the more you start to notice things and learn about that language.

That is, of course, if you focus and pay attention.

And that brings me to the second reason.

When you are interested in the topic of a video or find a video entertaining,

you pay more attention and are more willing to focus.

It can be any other piece of content as well, like a web blog or a book.

If you find the content interesting and entertaining, you will naturally pay more attention

and are more motivated to try and understand what the content is about and what's being said.

So, yes, it's a very effective method.

And a lot of successful language learners,

teachers, and language teaching experts recommend consuming content

like YouTube videos, movies, articles, and podcasts as an effective way to learn English.

But there is one major problem with this method.

It takes time and effort to do it right.

Everything that I listened to and watched was in English exclusively.

Was it easy?

Definitely not

At first, my brain was boiling and it was overwhelming sometimes, and I had to look up literally every other word.

You have to constantly stop the video.

Type or copy and paste words into a dictionary.

If you decide to create flashcards, that's another extra step you have to take.

You basically need to constantly type, copy and paste, and switch between tabs and windows.

And all of that makes the process less fun and takes valuable time and focus.

Valuable time and focus that you could spend on actual learning.

And that is why I decided to build ESLSherpa.

It helps with this exact problem.

Okay, now that's enough talking about it.

Time for the big reveal.

Let me show you the app and give you a quick demo.

This is it.

ESLSherpa.com When you go on ESLSherpa.com, you can click on the videos link here at the top.

And once you click on the link, you will see all the available YouTube videos.

For now, only my YouTube videos are listed, but that will change.

I will start adding videos from other YouTube channels pretty soon.

Now, once you have decided which video you want to watch, you can click on the watch button.

And that will take you to the video.

Now, this is where the magic happens.

What you see here is a special YouTube video player

specifically designed for English language learners.

I'm going to play this video for a few seconds.

And then show you how this special video player works.

Hey, hello.

So, many people believe that living in an English-speaking country

can have a massive effect on their English development.

Okay, let's stop it here.

So, as you can see, we have the video here on the left.

And the subtitles panel here on the right.

And you can see the current subtitle here highlighted.

You can also see the current subtitle right below the video here.

So, imagine you're watching one of my videos.

And come across a word you don't know

like massive, for example.

All you need to do is click on the word.

And you will see the definition of the word in English.

You will see examples for it.

And if you click here, you can see the translation.

I've set the translation to Chinese here

but you can change it to other languages.

You just need to click on the settings button over here.

And on the settings page here, you can see the other languages available.

For example, we can change it to Farsi.

And once we do that, let's go back.

If you click on the word again,

as you can see, you have again the definition and examples

but this time, you have the translation in Farsi

if you click on the translation button.

So, no need to use a dictionary

and no need to take time to copy and paste or type words into a dictionary

You just click on the word

and you will be provided with all the information you need.

This is the core feature of the app.

It is a very simple but powerful feature.

And I know there are other apps that do the same thing

but this app does it much better,

much, much better.

And that's because it uses the latest AI models

to generate the translations and definitions.

Now, as I said, it's the main feature

but it's not the only feature.

There are a few other useful features available.

Let's have a look at those.

For example, next to some subtitles, you can see a star sign.

This means that the subtitle has a useful expression or phrase.

For example, if we click on the star sign here,

for this subtitle,

we can see that ' have a massive effect on ' is highlighted as a useful phrase.

And as you can see, an explanation and translation is provided as well.

A lot of times as language learners, we might not notice some of the useful expressions we come across

so this feature can be very useful

because it does that for us.

Not only that, but it also offers an explanation and translation as well.

Another feature I want to quickly cover is at the top above the subtitle panels here.

As you can see, there are a few checkboxes here.

And if you are past the basic stages of your English learning journey,

you know what these boxes are

and what these labels are.

These labels represent the CEFR levels.

A1 and A2 are considered basic levels,

B1 and B2 intermediate,

and C1 and also C2, which you don't see here, are advanced levels.

And the AC here, that stands for academic.

Now, the cool thing with this app

is that you can check any of the boxes

and see all the words that are at that level highlighted.

For example, if I check B1.

You can see only one word is highlighted here. Yes?

Let's check B2.

We've got a few more words for B2.

And if we check A1 and A2,

you can see that words at this level

are much more frequent.

So, these are a few of the features ESLSherpa offers.

The main goal of this app is to provide you with the tools you need

to easily study the language used in my YouTube videos.

The easier this becomes, the more you will watch my videos, and the more you will learn.

And once you study and watch enough videos,

you will start seeing improvements in your listening comprehension.

And also, little by little, it will help with your fluency

and you will start using some of the words you come across in these videos in your speaking.

Now, as I said,

the goal is to provide you with the tools you need.

And one important tool you need is a flashcard tool.

I'm happy to let you know that ESLSherpa has a solution for that as well.

I've built a feature that lets you create Anki flashcards.

If you don't know, Anki is one of the most popular apps

when it comes to spaced repetition learning and reviewing flashcards

and it's available for free On Windows, Android and Linux devices.

To use ESL Sherpa's flashcard feature you need to install Anki on your device first

and once that's done, you can import flashcards created on ESLSherpa and review them on Anki.

Let me show you how it works.

So, when you check the meaning of a word,

at the top, you will see an add to flashcard button.

This is the button you have to click to create a flashcard.

When you click on it, over here, you see an indicator

that shows the word has been added to your flashcards.

And the number shows the number of flashcards you have created.

So, if I add a few more words like for example, blame and exposed over here

and let's add an expression as well.

If I add all of these items you see that the indicator shows that I've added

four items as flashcards.

and if I want to see all of the items I've added,

I can just click on the green flashcards button here.

And once I do that, I can see all the items I have added.

And as you can see, there is also a download button that says download Anki flashcard file.

I'm going to click on that.

If you click on this button,

it creates and downloads the Anki file that you need.

Before importing the file,

you also need to import the ESLSherpa Anki template.

And this is something you have to do only once.

I'm going to skip this step because I have already done it.

And I'm going to go straight to just importing the file into Anki.

So, let's do that

Let me move the file to my desktop first so you can see it.

Okay.

Let's open Anki.

Click on file.

Import

And import the file.

And as you can see,

it shows the items that we are trying to import here.

Let's click on the import button again.

And the flashcards are added to Anki.

Let's close the window

and now you can study the flashcards whenever you want.

Let's check.

As you can see, we have four flashcards in our deck.

Let's have a look.

Click on study now.

And we can see the first of the four flashcards.

Now, here is the good part.

If you remember,

I mentioned that you need to import the ESLSherpa flashcards template once.

That's because the flashcards that ESLSherpa creates are not just normal flashcards.

They are special.

Usually with a flashcard you have the word or expression on one side

and the definition or translation for that word on the other side.

With these flashcards it's a bit different.

Let me show you.

So on the first side of this flashcard,

you have the word, examples, subtitle text, and clips.

If you click on examples, you can see two examples for the word.

This can help you refresh your memory on what the word means and how it's used.

If you click on the subtitle text button,

you will see the part or subtitle where the word was used in the video.

So if you remember in the video,

for example, the word massive was used in this context.

This again can show you how the word is used and kind of remind you of that

and refresh your memory in case you don't remember the meaning of the word.

Last but not least, if you want to see the part of the video where the word is used,

you can click on clip.

As you can see,

it will take you to the part of the video where the word massive was mentioned.

Let's play.

country

can have a massive effect on their English development.

Great.

I've included these three sections, the examples, the subtitles, and the clips section.

I've included these three sections for two reasons.

The first reason is that

the more you see a word used in context

the better you will understand how and where the word is used.

And these sections help exactly with that.

They provide you with more context.

The second reason is that when you are reviewing flashcards

and don't remember what a word means,

I don't want you to just give up and check the other side of the card right away.

Have a look at the examples.

Check where in the video the word was used.

Maybe that will help you remember the meaning of the word.

If it does and you remember the meaning, great

If not, still great because when you take this extra step of checking examples

and trying to remember the meaning, you are more engaged and active.

And being active and engaged is very important when you are learning something.

And that is it.

ESLSherpa.com, an app that gives you the tools you need to learn English through YouTube videos

For now it is only my YouTube videos.

But I have plans to change that in the future.

You can look up the meaning of words.

Useful expressions and chunks are highlighted.

And you can also easily create flashcards.

All of this provided with just a few clicks.

And don't forget,

completely free.

And by the way,

I have also made sure that ESLSherpa works just as well on mobile devices.

That is something that was very very important for me

and something I spent weeks tweaking and optimizing to get right.

I want English learners like you to easily use the app in your downtime

like when you are on a train or waiting at an appointment

so I made sure to make the app so that the mobile experience is great.

Okay.

That is all you need to know about ESLSherpa for now.

I am sure you have a good idea on what it can do for you and how you can use it.

But there is, let's say, an ideal way, a way that is most effective for studying videos.

In my next video, that is what I will talk about.

I will explain to you in detail the most effective method to learn English through video

and I will take you through the steps and things you need to pay attention to.

So that you can maximize your learning whenever you study any of my videos or other videos.

Thank you for watching this video.

I hope you found it useful

and make ESLSherpa one of your main tools in your English learning journey.

It can have a massive effect on your learning

and it will only get better as I continue working on it.

Let me know what you think of the app

and what features you think I should build next.

I will see you on the next video

and until then,

keep studying,

keep improving,

and stay motivated.

Bye.