Language Learning for Expats

Japanese

Mandarin Chinese

Cantonese

Korean

Spanish

French

Italian

Portuguese

Dutch

Luxembourgish

Persian (Farsi)

Arabic

Hindi

Turkish

Tagalog

English

For expats

The language app built for

the country you actually moved to.

Generic phrasebooks teach you to order a coffee on holiday. Expat life is the lease, the city hall queue, the doctor’s waiting room, and dinner with your in-laws. Mynago builds lessons around your actual life abroad, in 16 languages, by a polyglot who has been the expat in eight cities.

Tokyo

Beijing

Shanghai

Hong Kong

Seoul

Brussels

Luxembourg

Alejandro Pascual

Founder, Mynago. Tokyo.

I built this app because I was tired of being the expat with the half-broken local language.

I’m Alejandro. I’m from Mexico City. I live in Tokyo now, where I run an AI consultancy called 合同会社ボクセン (Boksėn). Before this I was an expat in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, and southern Belgium near the Luxembourg border. I have been the foreigner in city hall queues, the foreigner trying to read a clinic intake form, the foreigner whose in-laws speak something the apps don’t teach.

I speak 11 languages. That sounds like a flex. It’s mostly evidence that I have used every major language app, every textbook, every flashcard system, and watched all of them fail me at the exact moment I needed them. None of them taught me the words for what was actually in my week.

Mynago is the app I wished existed every time I moved. Lessons that match the country you actually moved to. Pronunciation that sounds like the streets, not the marketing department. A dictionary that is honest about register. An AI conversation partner you can call when you need to rehearse a real situation. And, for languages like Luxembourgish that big tech ignores, an actual TTS pipeline so the words have a voice.

Six languages, six cities I have actually lived in

Each track is shaped by what I needed when I was the new expat there. Pick yours.

What an expat actually deals with:

Start the

track →

Why Mynago is built for expat life specifically

Five things tourist-grade apps quietly skip, and that decide whether you end up belonging or just functioning.

Decide with your eyes open

Mynago vs Duolingo

Why gamified streaks lose to real-life context the moment you leave the airport.

Mynago vs Pimsleur

Pimsleur taught me to listen. Here’s where Mynago picks up.

Mynago vs Assimil

I love Assimil. I also can’t open a paper book on the Yamanote line at rush hour.

How long will it take?

FSI-based calculator with realistic timelines for working expats.

Useful external resources for expats

HSBC Expat Explorer

: annual ranking of countries by quality of expat life.

InterNations Expat Insider

: language-and-integration data across 50+ countries.

Sproochentest (Luxembourg)

: official A2 oral and B1 listening test for citizenship.

Inburgering (Netherlands)

: civic-integration exam information.

JLPT

HSK

TOPIK

: official language exams for Japan, China, and Korea.

Expat FAQ

Free tier with daily lessons. Pro from $5.75/month for 10 languages. Lux from $29/month with Luxembourgish. Full breakdown on the

pricing page

Start with the country you actually live in

Pick a language, get your first real-life lesson in minutes. Free to try.

Or skim the

blog

for deeper writing on each language.