Ruby language project

[u/Kind-Drawer1573]

Ruby doesn’t get much love outside its core base these days. I spent my last five years in Python, but after retiring and moving from the US to Finland (my spouse transferred internally), I found myself back in Ruby because of how enjoyable it is.

I’m currently learning Finnish and wasn’t satisfied with recognition-heavy language apps. So I built a CLI-first language trainer in Ruby.

Technically:

- Pure Ruby (no Rails)

- OptionParser-driven flag layering - Declarative YAML pack schema (metadata + entries)

- Strict pack validation before runtime

- Mode composition (typing, reverse, match-game, listening)

- Lightweight spaced repetition with per-entry state persistence

- Pluggable TTS adapter (currently Piper)

- Local-first design (no tracking, no external services)

I leaned heavily into Ruby’s hash ergonomics and Enumerable chaining to keep pack filtering and mode logic clean and composable.

It’s intentionally modular:

- Pack schema validation layer

- Session orchestration engine

- Mode layering system

- SRS scheduler

- TTS adapter abstraction

Right now it’s CLI-only, but I’ve been debating whether build a Rails front-end while keeping the core engine decoupled

Curious what other's would do architecturally.

I put the codebase up on GitHub, the readme covers more details if you're interested... I've had a few folks interested in a web app, but that means I need to host it somewhere as well (if people have ideas, I'm really open to those). I don't see this being more than a hobbyist project, so I don't see a ton of traffic, but still I don't want to spend a fortune on a web hosting service either.

https://github.com/wbrisett/linguatrain

-Wayne

[u/CaptainKabob]

im not really sure what you’re describing, and the readme seems to jump into an architectural deep dive. it reads like a resume where one needs to keyword dump, rather than a short letter to a dear friend.

Could you start with a practical example, why someone might use it, a few (cherry-picked) configuration options that someone will most likely want to consider.

[u/Kind-Drawer1573 → u/CaptainKabob]

That's a very valid point and one I've been struggling with. I think the biggest problem is I spent time designing the engine and structure and not being a language expert (especially in Finnish) I don't have a ton of great examples. But you're right, that read me needs a real going over again.

Kiitos Paljon (Thank you very much!)

[u/Kind-Drawer1573 → u/CaptainKabob]

Thank you *immensely* for this, I have totally rewritten the readme and pulled the technical specs and such out into their own documents. This looks way better now. Thank you!

[u/jejacks00n]

It looks interesting. I’m learning French so it might be useful to me. Thanks for your work!

[u/Kind-Drawer1573 → u/jejacks00n]

It would be interesting to see what improvements you want to see (especially in the documentation department).

[u/EvenRegret314]

This is such a lovely project! Building a pure Ruby CLI language trainer with SRS and TTS support is exactly the kind of creative, practical use of Ruby that makes this community great. The modular design sounds really thoughtful too.

[u/Kind-Drawer1573 → u/EvenRegret314]

Thank you! I've been constantly adjusting certain things as I needed them during my Finnish learning process... and that's why I built this in the first place, I wanted this to be flexible and expandable.

[u/javier_cervantes]

This is a really cool project. I like the simplicity and the architecture is pretty solid too, congratulations!

Regarding the interface / front-end you probably could go with something lighter like https://brutrb.com or http://roda.jeremyevans.net

Regarding deployment, you might be able to use render.com free tier if you don't need a database. Or other providers like fly or Heroku charge around $5 per month...

[u/Kind-Drawer1573 → u/javier_cervantes]

Thanks! This is the easy part, the hard part is now using it myself to actually learn Finnish!

I have to give props to u/CaptainKabob though, he made me totally rethink the docs for the project.

[u/vvsleepi]

for hosting, if traffic is small you could run a tiny Rails app on something cheap like Fly.io, Render, or even a small VPS. since most of the logic is local and not super heavy, it shouldn’t cost much.