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Drop in a Spanish podcast, Japanese anime episode, or Arabic news broadcast. Distill builds bilingual transcripts, grammar notes, and spaced-repetition flashcards tuned to your level.
No credit card required · 10 recordings free every month · 50% student discount with .edu email
Radio Ambulante — Episode 247.mp3
38m · Captured for language learners
The best language practice is authentic input: podcasts, shows, lectures, and conversations by native speakers for native speakers. The problem is comprehension. A B1 Spanish learner trying to follow Radio Ambulante catches maybe 40% of the words and loses the plot thread after two minutes.
Distill closes the gap. Upload any audio in any of 100+ supported languages and get back a bilingual transcript with your target language on the left and a translation on the right. Our grammar pass explains the tricky constructions — subjunctive triggers in Spanish, particle usage in Japanese, case endings in Russian — so you learn why a sentence is built that way, not just what it means.
Every session generates level-appropriate flashcards. Beginner? We pull high-frequency vocabulary and common verb conjugations. Advanced? We prioritize idioms, low-frequency collocations, and formal-register phrases that won't show up in your Duolingo tree. Cards export to Anki with embedded audio so you can drill pronunciation and recognition together.
For tutors and self-study learners, Distill also records live lessons. A 60-minute 1:1 session with your iTalki tutor becomes a reviewable artifact with corrections highlighted, new vocabulary tagged, and homework extracted. The tutor teaches. Distill remembers.
Real workflows. No fluff.
Upload any audio — a news podcast, a telenovela, a drama CD. Get a bilingual transcript with source language and translation side by side. Jump between them to check comprehension mid-episode.
Distill highlights tricky constructions — Japanese keigo, Spanish subjunctive, German case endings — and explains why the speaker used them. Learn grammar from real usage, not textbook examples.
Set your target level (A1–C2 or JLPT N5–N1). Distill filters vocabulary to match. Flashcards export to Anki with embedded audio clips from your source — you hear the exact pronunciation a native speaker used.
Record 1:1 lessons with your iTalki, Preply, or language-exchange partner. Distill extracts corrections, new vocabulary, and homework. Review the session a week later with all the hard parts tagged.
Speak a journal entry in your target language. Distill transcribes it, compares against native-like phrasing, and flags errors with corrections — like having a tutor grade your diary every night.
Stars mark the top 3 features for language learners.
| Feature | Distill | Generic AI tools |
|---|---|---|
| ★100+ language transcription | Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Korean, Chinese, Russian, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, Hindi, Turkish, Vietnamese, Thai, and 90+ more | 10–30 languages |
| ★Bilingual side-by-side transcript | Source + translation | One language only |
| ★Level-filtered vocabulary (CEFR / JLPT) | A1–C2, N5–N1 | All words extracted |
| Grammar construction explanations | In-context explanations | Not supported |
| Embedded pronunciation audio in flashcards | Native audio clips | Text only |
| Tutor-session capture + correction tagging | Built-in | Raw transcript |
| Furigana / pinyin / romanization | Toggle on/off | Not supported |
| Anki export with audio | Native .apkg with media | Text CSV |
| Long-form capture (full episodes) | Up to 15 hrs | 30 min cap |
| Handwriting recognition (Chinese/Japanese) | Upload written notes | Not supported |
“Radio Ambulante was the dream and the nightmare. Distill gave me bilingual transcripts for every episode and I finally broke through on B2 Spanish.”
Alex W.
Self-study Spanish, US
“JLPT N2 was brutal — I couldn't find real audio at my level with transcripts. Distill handles native Japanese podcasts and tags vocabulary by JLPT level. Passed on my first try.”
Yuki F.
JLPT N2 passed
“My iTalki Arabic tutor charges $30 an hour. Distill makes every session pay off twice — I review the correction tags for a week after each lesson.”
Noor S.
MSA + Levantine learner
ChatGPT and generic transcribers miss the details that matter. Distill was built for your workflow.
Duolingo teaches 'el hombre come manzanas.' Distill lets you learn from a native speaker talking fast about politics on a podcast — which is where the real gains are.
Generic tools dump every word in a transcript into your flashcard deck. Distill filters by CEFR or JLPT so you're not memorizing obscure vocabulary before you've mastered the top 1,000.
When a Japanese speaker drops a 〜てしまう, Distill explains the regret/completion nuance inline. Grammar textbooks are decontextualized; Distill grammar notes are anchored to real sentences.
A $30 iTalki session normally evaporates the moment you close Zoom. Distill makes every correction, every new word, and every homework task into a reviewable record.
Jonas had hit the plateau. Four years of Duolingo, two trips to Mexico, and a reading level that couldn't quite crack native podcasts. He committed to an aggressive input diet: one Spanish podcast episode a day.
Distill became his scaffold. Every episode got a bilingual transcript and a flashcard deck filtered to B2+ vocabulary. He drilled cards on the subway in the morning and listened to the episode blind on the walk home, checking comprehension against the transcript only when stuck.
Nine months later he sat the DELE C1 exam and passed with 78/100. His listening section score was 22/25 — his strongest — because he'd done 270 hours of native-speaker input with a built-in feedback loop.
Outcome: DELE C1 passed at 78/100 after 9 months of podcast-driven input with Distill-generated bilingual transcripts and leveled flashcards.
Plus unlocks unlimited bilingual transcription and leveled flashcards. Pro adds 15-hour sessions for drama series marathons and podcast backlogs.
Apps teach you to order coffee. Distill lets you learn from the podcasts, news, and conversations native speakers actually consume. That's where fluency lives.