My story
The year 2020 was strange and difficult. COVID-19 had a big impact on the whole society. But it was also a year full of challenges, unexpected friendships, and people willing to help.
During the crisis when people were disconnected I felt connected like never before. I have been working on a local anti-covid project, that later became popular in the World. One week I had a videoconference with people from Canada, next week with people from Spain, another week speaking with a guy from Romania and texting a guy from Brazil.
My motivation for learning foreign languages grew very much. I bought over 20 textbooks for around 10 languages. Here a small example.
It looks crazy, because how can one person even learn so many languages? So I was looking for any method or application that could help me with learning. There are a lot of them. But I felt that they are not enough. I even believed that I can figure out some improvements that can make those apps better.
During Christmas vacation, I have been relaxing alone at home. There were no friend's visits during Christmas in the year of COVID-19. I have been watching Netflix movies. In many foreign languages. Switching between them. And I had a really big problem with understanding them. Definitely. Suddenly I got an idea, how can I practice my listening skills to movies in a better way. In a way that I have not found in any apps yet.
Luckily, there were many free open-sourced applications improving Netflix for language learning. I didn't have to start from scratch. I just could take the work of someone else, build on it, and make my idea a reality. In the same way that can anyone take my work and use it for his ideas. And Subfilter for Netflix was created.
It is just a small piece of software that helps people with one small part of language learning. But I believe that his creation was a well-spent time.
And I hope that this is just a start. I have many ideas about how to improve Subfilter, maybe even push it on a different level. And there will be some different projects for a different part of language learning too.
The year 2020 divided our world. Language learning can help people to connect. And I want this project to be part of it.
Martin Hassman
