Atlas Runa

A podcast-specific experiment with 70 adults listening to short Italian or English podcasts during ordinary daily routines for two weeks found that those hearing Italian became more sensitive to the sound patterns and initial forms of recurring Italian words — the test measured nascent word forms, not learned meanings. That gap between "it sounds familiar" and "I can actually use it" is the exact space Atlas Runa is built for. Atlas Runa is an adaptive freemium language-learning web app for Italian, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, and German that pairs listening practice with an AI tutor (Runa) giving writing and speaking corrections, AI conversation and shadowing with pronunciation scoring, thousands of free graded stories across HSK and JLPT levels, and a browser extension so practice travels with you. Free tier plus paid premium plans, made in New York.