Frequently asked questions

Nook is a language-learning platform built around real YouTube videos. We take native-speaker content — cooking shows, travel vlogs, interviews — add word-by-word bilingual transcripts, and turn every sentence into a practice opportunity. The goal is comprehensible input at scale, without the grind of traditional study apps.

Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Korean, and Spanish — with more coming. Nook is designed for adult English speakers who want to learn from natural, unscripted content rather than textbook dialogue.

There's a free tier and a paid tier. The free tier (no signup needed for the demo) includes our 10 hand-picked famous YouTube videos, full transcripts, vocab highlights, and flashcards. Sign up free to save your progress and bookmarks. Pro ($9.90/mo or $79/yr) lets you paste any YouTube URL and we'll AI-process it for you — transcript, vocab, flashcards, all in about 60 seconds. Launch deal: $99 for 2 years of Pro, first 200 customers only.

Sign-in lets Nook remember your learning progress, save your vocabulary, and personalise the library to your level. We only request your basic profile (name, email, avatar). We never ask for access to your Google Drive, Gmail, or any other Google data.

Two sources. Our 10 demo videos are curated by the Nook team — naturally spoken by native speakers, suitable for the CEFR level tagged, and interesting (food, travel, daily life, culture). Pro users can paste any YouTube URL and we'll process it on demand. All content stays embedded from YouTube — we never re-host video files.

Yes — with Pro. Paste any YouTube URL on the import page and we'll auto-generate a sentence-by-sentence transcript, vocab highlights, and flashcards in about 60 seconds. Pro gets up to 30 videos per 30-day window. We pre-check each URL against YouTube's metadata API to filter out age-restricted or removed content before processing. Free users can't add their own videos — but the 10 demo videos are enough to fall in love with the format first.

Translations are produced by Claude (Anthropic's AI) and are generally excellent for natural-sounding English. Vocab definitions are high-quality but not infallible — especially for rare grammar patterns or highly colloquial expressions. If you spot an error, use the flag button on the sentence. Community corrections are reviewed before being applied.

Each sentence in the transcript is stamped with its start time from the original caption file. As the video plays, the active sentence is highlighted and the panel scrolls to keep it visible. Clicking any sentence seeks the player to that moment.

Highlighted words are vocabulary or grammar items our AI identified as worth learning for that CEFR level. Blue = vocabulary, purple = grammar pattern, amber = idiom or fixed expression. Tap any highlight to see the definition, part of speech, difficulty level, and an example sentence.

After watching a video you can drill its vocabulary with flashcards. Each card shows the word in the source language (front) and the English definition, part of speech, and an example sentence (back). Cards are shuffled randomly each session. Spaced repetition — which surfaces cards at the optimal interval for long-term memory — is coming in the Pro tier.

Your name, email address, and avatar from Google sign-in. Your chosen learning languages and timezone. In future versions: which videos you've watched and which vocab items you've reviewed. We do not store payment card details (Stripe handles that) and we do not sell your data to anyone.

No. We use Claude (Anthropic) to generate translations during content ingestion — your personal activity data is never sent to any AI model. Anthropic's API terms also prohibit using API responses to train competing models.

Yes — self-serve from your Profile page. We permanently erase your account, bookmarks, watch progress, and all associated data. There's a confirmation step so you can't do it by accident.

Yes — join our Discord (link coming soon) and drop a request in #video-requests or #language-requests. Popular requests get prioritised. Japanese and Spanish content is being added weekly.

Not yet via UI, but it's coming. Community corrections with a voting system and native-speaker moderators are planned for v2. For now, flag errors via the sentence menu and the team will review them.

The Nook team currently reviews all ingested videos for quality. As the library grows, we plan to bring on paid part-time moderators who are native speakers or advanced learners for each supported language.