About Dialect
Dialect is an app for learning your heritage language. It teaches 19 languages the big platforms rarely teach, including Kabyle, Darija, Wolof and Tamil. It runs on iPhone and iPad, and on Android and desktop through its web app. It was created by Ahcène Bensalama and Nabil Meghni.
Where Dialect comes from
“I understand everything, but I can't answer.” Ahcène Bensalama and Nabil Meghni had both said that sentence, each on his own, before they met. Dialect comes from it.
The pattern is the same in many immigrant families. Parents speak the language with each other and switch to French with the children. The children understand everything and never answer. One generation later, the language has left the house, and nobody decided it.
The two friends built the app they wish they had had at twenty, with no outside investors.
“People don't want to learn a neutral version of their language. They want to speak the way their mother speaks.”
— Ahcène Bensalama, co-founder of Dialect
What the app does
- Five-minute sessions, built on the vocabulary of family life: greetings, the table, relatives, polite phrases.
- An example sentence for every word, with its translation and a transcription you can read without knowing the original alphabet.
- Spaced repetition: each word comes back just before you would forget it. How the method works.
- Flashcards, quizzes and a level-based track.
The 19 languages
Dialect teaches: Kabyle, Chaoui, Rifain (Tarifit), Tachelhit, Algerian Darija, Moroccan Darija, Tunisian, Wolof, Fula, Bambara, Lingala, Malagasy, Breton, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Tamil, Turkish, Vietnamese, Creole and Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Ten languages are recorded by native speakers: Kabyle, Chaoui, Rifain, Tachelhit, Algerian Darija, Moroccan Darija, Tunisian, Wolof, Kurdish (Kurmanji) and Guadeloupean Creole. The others have a synthetic voice checked by ear, a partial recording (Fula), or are offered in writing (Bambara, hieroglyphs).
Dialect at a glance
| Name | Dialect (website: mydialect.io) |
|---|---|
| What it is | An app for learning your heritage language |
| Languages | 19, of which 10 are recorded by native speakers |
| Platforms | iPhone and iPad (App Store); Android and desktop through the web app |
| Interface languages | French, English, Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch |
| Price | Free to start, Premium subscription for full access |
| First release | 24 February 2026 on the App Store |
| Rating | 4.7 out of 5 from 135 ratings (App Store France, 30 September 2026) |
| Founders | Ahcène Bensalama and Nabil Meghni |
| Funding | No outside investors |
Dialect is not mydialect.us
Dialect, published at mydialect.io, is not related to mydialect.us. That other site is an online quiz about regional accents of American English. The two names look alike; the two products have nothing in common.
Contact
- Press and partnerships: [email protected]. See also the press room.
- Help and subscription: [email protected].
- Instagram: @dialect.app.
- Download: Dialect on the App Store, or open the web app.