On Language and Learning
(or: why this exists)
I've always been suspicious of things that claim to make learning "easy." Not because I think learning should be hard—but because the human brain is spectacular at learning, and most educational technology seems designed to ignore how it actually works.
Memory research has known for decades that we remember:
The emotionally resonant
The spatially situated
The sensorially vivid
The bizarre and unexpected
This isn't controversial. It's well-documented. The Method of Loci is 2,500 years old. Tony Buzan's work on memory techniques dates to the 1970s. We know that memory champions don't have different brains—they use different methods.
And yet language learning apps are built on... repetition. Gamification. Streaks. Not because these work better for memory (they don't), but because they work better for engagement metrics.
I started building Gorgo because I wanted to learn French—actually learn it, conversationally, fluidly—and every tool felt like it was designed for someone who finds flashcards meditative. I don't. I find them numbing. But show me something surreal, something that unsettles me, something that creates an emotional or sensory response—I'll remember that forever.
I spend my days designing complex systems at Google Maps—thinking about spatial cognition, how humans navigate, how they build mental models. The same neural mechanisms that help you remember how to get home are the ones memory champions use. The hippocampus doesn't distinguish between spatial navigation and memory palace—it's the same system. Language apps don't use this. Not because it doesn't work, but because it doesn't fit the engagement model.
Gorgo is an experiment in applying actual memory research to language acquisition.
-
Who This Is For
People who know traditional methods don't work for them—even if they don't know why yet. They've tried Duolingo, failed. Tried flashcards, forgot everything. They think maybe they're just bad at language. They're not. The method was bad for them.
This is for people who:
Think in images before words
Remember dreams but struggle with vocab lists
Need spatial, sensory, visual relationships to learn
Are autistic, ADHD, synesthetic, or simply wired differently
Get bored by systems designed for "everyone"
Find beauty in the bizarre and meaning in strangeness
Want fluency, not gamification
Not for everyone. For people whose brains work through texture, not repetition. We're not attracting people who want to understand memory science. We're attracting people who need a different approach, and then we show them why it works. The science becomes our credibility, not the hook.