Fair point about the AI-built app — here's the reasoning, and the prompt so you can build your own version
Yesterday I posted Goazen, a Basque study app I built with Claude's help. Some of you didn't love that it was AI-built. That's fair feedback and I'd rather address it directly than argue with it.
Why I built it this way:
- I originally just built this app to make a textbook that I was using ‘come alive’ into a Duolingo-like system. I just ran it off the PDF. But I can’t make that publicly available without violating copyright.
- I'm not a native speaker, a linguist, or a developer. Without AI help this app doesn't exist – the alternative wasn't "a human builds it properly instead," it was "nobody builds it."
- The actual risk with AI and language content is hallucinated grammar, so I built around that specifically: every paradigm in the app is checked against Euskaltzaindia / EHU sources rather than freely generated, and it's flagged as pending native-speaker review throughout. I'd rather ship something honestly labelled and imperfect than nothing at all.
- The bigger reason: I don't want the alternative to "wait and see if Duolingo decides Basque is profitable enough to package and sell back to us." Minority and community languages get this treatment a lot – someone with a compute budget and a growth team eventually builds a slicker version of what the community could have built for itself, and then owns it. I'd rather the community had a way to build its own tools, on its own terms, even if the first pass is rough.
So instead of just asking you to test my app again, here's the actual prompt I used to build it, generalised so it'll work for any language and any textbook or course, not just mine. Point your own Claude at your own material and it'll build you a personal study app the same way. I've also attached the underlying code skeleton, so if you'd rather Claude not reinvent the architecture from scratch, you can just hand it the finished template and ask it to fill in your content.
Take it, break it, make it better than mine did.
If you try it: I'd like to know what broke, what a native speaker flagged as wrong, and what you'd want that this doesn't have.
Mila esker! Peace out ✌️ going back to studying my favourite language isolate now 🧚♀️
Link to skeleton code: https://github.com/euskera2026/Goazen
The prompt:
# Turn your textbook into a study app — a prompt for Claude
Paste everything below the line into a new Claude chat, then paste in (or attach) your own textbook chapter, notes, or a description of the course/website you're using. Claude will build you a single self-contained HTML study app you can open in a browser.
If you'd rather Claude not invent the code from scratch, also attach `study-app-template.html` (in this same post) and tell it to follow that file's structure exactly and just fill in the `LEVELS` array.
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I want you to help me turn my own language-learning material into a personal study app — a single self-contained HTML file with vocabulary, grammar, and quizzes, that I can open in a browser or run as a Claude artifact.
**Ground rules — follow these strictly, they matter more than making it look impressive:**
- Only use vocabulary, grammar rules, and forms that are actually present in the material I give you. Don't invent or guess at a form you're not sure about — language accuracy matters more than filling gaps.
- If you need an example sentence to illustrate a grammar point, build a new one, but only from vocabulary and grammar you've already confirmed from my material. Never invent a form because it's "probably right."
- Don't copy my source material's text verbatim, and don't mirror its structure paragraph by paragraph. Rewrite it as your own vocabulary lists, your own plain-English grammar notes, and new example sentences. I want a study tool, not a photocopy.
- If you're not fully confident a form is correct, mark it clearly in the app (something like "unverified — check with a teacher or native speaker"). Don't present a guess with false confidence.
- If I ask for content beyond what's in my material, say so and ask me for the source rather than filling the gap yourself.
**Here's my material:** [paste your textbook chapter / notes / describe the course, or attach a file]
**Build me:**
- A home screen
- Units organised the way my material is organised (or ask me how I'd like them grouped)
- Each unit: a short dialogue or example section, a vocabulary list, a grammar explanation (with tables where useful), and a 5-question quiz
- Progress tracking that persists in the browser
- Clean, simple design — nothing garish
**Process:**
- First, read everything I've given you and reply with a plan — proposed units, rough vocab counts, grammar points you've spotted. Don't build anything yet.
- Wait for me to confirm or correct that plan.
- Then build the app as a single HTML file (in chunks if it's long).
- At the end, tell me plainly which parts are directly grounded in my material and which are your own constructed examples — even if built only from confirmed vocabulary — so I know what still needs a human check.
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**Optional add-on:** if your language has rich word-building (case endings, particles, agglutination — Basque, Finnish, Turkish, Hungarian, Japanese, etc.), you can ask Claude to add a "build the word piece by piece" drill on top of this, once the base app is working. Don't ask for it upfront — get the core app right first.
