Spoiler alert — only for the vocabulary.
Wordspoiler shows you the hard words and phrases of an episode before you listen. Free during the beta.
Wordspoiler is for learning English. Translations into German. Spanish, Polish, Swedish, Italian, French, Hindi, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish are planned.
Never listened to a podcast? It’s like radio, but whenever you want, for example in Spotify. An easy start is BBC Learning Easy English: six minutes an episode.
Coming to Android and iPhone
Become a beta testerWords from the episode
I was reluctant to ask, the bill kept creeping up, and in the end I just had to bite the bullet.
Here in easy English. In the app, you see it in your native language. Today that is German; more languages are planned.
Some phrases are made of words you know and mean something else entirely. When you listen, you only notice once the sentence is over.
I said yes to everything, and now I’m in over my skis.
You know every word:
in over my skis
taking on more than you can handle
Those two are up to no good.
You know every word:
up to no good
planning something bad
Then there are the words you really don’t know. You see both before the episode.
When you read, you can look a word up. When you listen, the speaker keeps talking. A word you don’t know leaves a gap, and it takes the next two sentences with it.
Often only a few important words or phrases are missing. You can look at them beforehand.
You shouldn’t have to give up a podcast that interests you. That’s why Wordspoiler shows you the words before the episode.
Reading
I was reluctant to ask, so I waited.
You look it up and read on.
Listening
I was ? to ask, so I waited
The speaker keeps talking. The next words are gone too.
Choose a podcast from the catalog, or add one you already listen to.
20 to 30 words and phrases, each with its sentence from the episode and roughly where it comes up. Swipe left for “I know it,” right for “Show me.” It takes two or three minutes.
You listen in your own podcast app, as always, like Spotify or Apple Podcasts. When the word comes up, you already know it. You go over the new words later in short rounds.
Screenshots from the German version of the app.
Wordspoiler has no player of its own. You press play in your podcast app, as always. Wordspoiler comes before and after.
For example BBC Learning Easy English, Planet Money or The Rest Is History: from 3 minutes to 2 hours, from A2 to C2.
Wordspoiler isn’t in the stores yet.
20 English podcasts in the catalog. Topics: Learning English · News and business · Science and tech · History · Music and sound · Stories and people · Culture, design and humour.
Swipe a word away with “I know it” and it never comes back, in any episode, in any podcast. At the start you say how good your English is. The more episodes you run through, the better the selection fits you.
You see how many words you already know. No streaks, no points.
In a study with 93 learners of English, learning the words first did the most for listening comprehension (Aldukhayel 2023). The study is small, and others found no advantage. What is certain: the more words you know, the more you understand (Zhang & Zhang 2022, over 100 studies).
Try it with a podcast that interests you. More in the guide Words before you listen.
No. Wordspoiler has no player of its own. You run through the hard words and phrases of an episode first, then press play in your podcast app, like Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
From about A2 (you understand simple sentences) upwards, from school English to fluent. At the start you say how good your English is. After that, what counts is what you swiped away with “I know it,” so the words fit you a little better with every episode.
English only. Wordspoiler is for learning English. The app translates the words into your native language. So far that’s German. Spanish, Polish, Swedish, Italian, French, Hindi, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish are planned.
Wordspoiler is coming to Android and iPhone. I'll give a date once there is one.
It’s free during the beta, with no ads.
No cookies, no ad trackers, no third-party content. For anonymous visitor stats I use Plausible on my own server, without cookies and without storing IP addresses. Like any web server, mine also keeps access data such as IP addresses in log files for a short time. The details are in our privacy policy.
The beta is free and has no ads.
Sign up. I’ll invite you to the test: on iPhone through TestFlight, on Android through Google Play.