What PapaGaio does

Translator

Google and DeepL answer in Brazilian Portuguese by default. Living in Portugal, that is the wrong language in small, constant ways.

• European Portuguese, always — Every answer is pt-PT, and every word a Brazilian would say differently is flagged: autocarro, not ônibus.
• A dictionary, not just a translation — For a word or a short phrase you also get its distinct meanings, each with synonyms you can actually use and the antonyms marked ≠.
• Your mistakes, named — Typos and grammar slips in what you typed are fixed openly, with the reason — never silently.
• Register — It tells you when a phrase is formal or blunt, which is how "please" turns into an order without you noticing.
• Three languages — English, Russian and Portuguese, in any direction, with the source detected automatically.
• Out loud — Hear any Portuguese line in a real pt-PT voice.

Cards that fit a day

A word met once is a word forgotten. The scheduler decides when you see it again — you do not have to.

• Spaced repetition (FSRS) — Each answer moves the card forward or back. Nothing to configure.
• Start where you are — Already speak some Portuguese? Pick A2, B1 or B2 and the easy end is booked as known — it still comes back weeks later to be checked.
• Seven kinds of exercise — Recognise, type it out, fill the gap, dictation, grammar drills, minimal pairs, and saying the word aloud.
• Pronunciation checked — Say the word; it is transcribed and compared to what you were asked for — whole words, no near-enough credit.
• Skip what you know — One tap on any card, or drop a whole topic at once.
• Undo — Answered by accident? Take it back.

AI coach

Reading a language is not speaking it. This is the part that makes you talk before it matters.

• Fifteen real scenes — The café, the bank, the doctor, AIMA, the landlord, the mechanic — each with a role that behaves the way that person actually behaves.
• You speak, it answers — Say your line; it replies in a real voice and keeps the scene going.
• Scenes end — When the business is done, it is done — and then you get every mistake you made, collected.
• Difficulty — From patient and slow to street pace.
• A course with a point — Lessons in order, each ending in a scene you can now handle.

Reader

The words worth learning are the ones in front of you, not the ones on a list.

• Paste anything — An article, an email from the landlord, a menu photographed on the street.
• It becomes a deck — The words you do not know yet are collected into cards — with the sentence you met them in.
• Tap any word — The dictionary article, the examples and the pronunciation, without leaving the text.

Dictionary & verbs

Portuguese verbs are where beginners drown.

• Every tense, laid out — Conjugations for the verbs you will actually use, including the simplified future.
• Real sentences — Examples from a human corpus, not invented ones.
• A large lexicon — Well beyond the taught deck, so looking something up rarely dead-ends.

On a levada with no signal

The app is built to be useful where the signal is not. Here is the exact line, so it is never a surprise halfway up a mountain.

Works offline

• The whole deck — Cards are stored on the device, not fetched one at a time. You can study a full session with the radio off.
• Pronunciation audio — Downloaded once and kept — every word you have met is still speakable offline.
• The dictionary, if you install it — Dictionary packs are files you own: once installed, lookups and example sentences work with no network at all.
• Your answers — Everything you answer offline is queued and syncs by itself the next time you have signal. Nothing is lost, and the scheduler catches up.
• Reminders — Scheduled on the phone itself, so cards still arrive with no connection and without Telegram.
• Progress — The last figures stay readable instead of turning into an error.

Needs a connection

• The translator and the dictionary beyond your packs — Both ask a server; there is no model small enough to live in your pocket and still be right about European Portuguese.
• The coach — It listens and answers in a voice — both happen server-side.
• Turning a text into a deck — Deciding which words are new to you is a question for your account.
• A word you have never met — Its audio has to be fetched once; after that it is yours.

What it will never do

• Free, permanently — No subscription, no premium tier, nothing locked. The whole stack runs on free tiers; there is nothing to charge for.
• No account — No email, no password, no sign-up. Your progress belongs to your device, and one code moves it between your phone and the bot.
• No shaming — Ignore three cards and it goes quiet until tomorrow. There are no streaks to break.
• Your data, yours — Export everything as JSON whenever you like, and delete all of it from inside the app.