Source: https://matladu.in

# Speak everyday Telugu in 60 days.

Not the script. Not the grammar tables. The Telugu you need at a tea stall, in an auto,
at your girlfriend's grandmother's lunch table — and an app that tracks every phrase you
meet so it can hand it back the day before you would have lost it.

## What Matladu is

Matladu — Telugu for "talk" — is a story-driven web app (https://app.matladu.in) that teaches
spoken Telugu in Roman script. The Telugu script is never taught and never required:
everything is written in Roman Telugu and English — "Naaku chai kaavaali", not the script.

You play Varun. He lands in Hyderabad from Chennai for a job. He and Niharika are
serious — and her family has never met him. English will get him through the airport;
it will not get him through lunch. Sixty chapters, sixty days of Varun's life: one
chapter a day finishes the story on time, and slower is never punished — day 14 means
your day 14, not the calendar's.

The two dates the whole story is aimed at:

- **Day 30 — The parents.** Lakshmi Aunty and Prakash garu. They understand some English — that is exactly the problem. Falling back to it costs you.
- **Day 60 — Bamma.** Sitamma. Telugu only, no English rung on the ladder, and the one whose verdict actually decides. Everything before this is preparation.

### Week one — Arrival

- **Day 1 — Landing.** Rahul meets Varun outside the airport and makes the pact that starts everything: from today, only Telugu between us. You learn to say who you are. The phrase it teaches: "I am Varun." — Nenu Varun.
- **Day 3 — First auto.** Basha's auto, a fare to argue about, and a destination to name. Where, how much, stop here — the first Telugu that has to work on the first try. The phrase it teaches: "How much to Ameerpet?" — Ameerpet ki entha?
- **Day 4 — Chai at Raju's.** Raju pours, asks what you want, and waits. This is where you meet the pattern you will reuse for the next sixty days. The phrase it teaches: "I want tea." — Naaku chai kaavaali.
- **Day 5 — Salma's market.** Numbers, prices, and the small ritual of bargaining. Salma is kind, but she is not going to slow down for you. The phrase it teaches: "That is too much." — Chaala ekkuva.
- **Day 7 — Niharika calls.** The week-one test. Niharika video-calls and everything you learned has to come back at once — plus one stranger you have never met. The phrase it teaches: "What are you doing?" — Em chestunnavu?

### Week two — Making it yours

- **Day 8 — Tiffin at Venu's.** Breakfast, ordered properly. Venu is proud of the dosas and will absolutely notice if you order like a tourist. The phrase it teaches: "One dosa, please." — Oka dosa ivvandi.
- **Day 10 — Office pantry.** Divya asks what you are up to; Joshua is one lesson behind you and delighted about it. Small talk is a skill and this is where you get it. The phrase it teaches: "I like it." — Naaku nachindi.
- **Day 12 — Evening at Raju's.** Rahul, a second chai, and the whole vocabulary of agreeing, disagreeing, and hedging. Yes, no, maybe, it's fine. The phrase it teaches: "It's fine." — Parledu.
- **Day 13 — Niharika visits.** The first full-Telugu date. It goes better than it should — and then she mentions her parents. The clock starts. The phrase it teaches: "Shall we go?" — Veldhama?
- **Day 14 — The errand gauntlet.** Three strangers, three errands, no rehearsal. Rahul watches. Then he tells you family prep starts now.

## How it works

Meaning first, rules never: you are never asked to learn a rule before you use a
sentence. Patterns like Naaku ___ kaavaali surface because you meet them five times in
five situations, not because a lesson announced them. Every phrase climbs a six-stage
ladder on its own schedule — succeed and it moves up a rung, fail and it drops back
down. Each rung removes support:

1. **Exposure** (trains: meaning and sound) — English, Roman Telugu, the scene, the audio
2. **Recognition** (trains: understanding) — Telugu audio → what did that mean?
3. **Guided recall** (trains: building the sentence) — English, with the words shuffled
4. **Cued recall** (trains: retrieval with a hand) — English, and the first word only
5. **Free recall** (trains: production) — English. That's it.
6. **In the scene** (trains: saying the right thing) — A person, a situation, no prompt

A phrase only counts as known once you have produced it from free recall on two
different days. Tapping through a conversation is exposure — and exposure is worth
nothing on the ledger.

## The memory engine

The part being sold. Every phrase you meet gets its own arithmetic, run against your
own answers, every day — so what you open tomorrow is not the next page, it is the
handful of things you personally are about to forget.

### Two ledgers per phrase, not one

Understanding a phrase and producing it are different skills, so they are scheduled apart. Production comes back sooner and its gaps widen more slowly, because it is the harder of the two. You can be fluent at hearing Naaku chai kaavaali weeks before you can say it cold, and the app knows which of those two you are.

### The interval belongs to the phrase

Every answer moves that one phrase's own schedule and nothing else's. Answer instantly and the gap stretches. Miss it and the gap collapses to a quarter of what it was and the phrase drops a rung on the ladder — a phrase you had held for a month comes back in about a week. Nothing is ever scheduled more than 180 days out, so nothing quietly falls off the edge of the list.

### Claiming it was easy gets tested

About one time in four, grading yourself as instant stops the review and makes you produce the phrase cold instead. If those two disagree, every interval tightens for the next fortnight until they agree again. Self-assessment is the weak point of every review app and this is the correction for it.

### Known has a definition

A phrase counts as known once you have produced it from free recall, unaided, on two different days. Not two sessions on the same evening — two days. Tapping through a conversation is exposure, and exposure is worth nothing on the ledger.

## The library

Nine shelves and seven games, open to anyone who turns up — no sign-in, no email
address. All 597 words (carrying 803 word forms between them), every pattern,
every scene: https://app.matladu.in/library

- **Themes** — Practical vocabulary in small themed sets — the things you need this week.
- **Words** — All 597 of them, searchable from English or Roman Telugu, either direction.
- **How to say it** — Real moments, indexed by moment: ordering, greeting, bargaining, asking for help.
- **Patterns** — Reusable sentence shapes. Swap the word, keep the shape, say a hundred new things.
- **Guides** — Reference reading for the bits of spoken Telugu that only click when someone explains them.
- **People** — The whole cast, and how each of them speaks to you differently.
- **Scenarios** — Every day of the story, open to replay — or to read ahead, if that is how you like to work.
- **Games** — Seven of them, dealt from words you have actually met.
- **Word Album** — Every word you meet becomes a card, and the card levels up as you keep getting it right.

The seven games, each leaning on a different sense. Every round is dealt from words
you have actually met:

- **Picture Match** (trains: pictures) — Word to picture and back — the classic warm-up.
- **Sound Match** (trains: ears) — Hear a word, catch it among four that sound almost the same.
- **Opposites Sprint** (trains: meanings) — Flip each word to its opposite before it flips you.
- **Odd One Out** (trains: word groups) — Three words belong together. Spot the stranger.
- **Suffix Builder** (trains: word forms) — Bend a verb through time by picking the right ending.
- **What Would You Say?** (trains: register) — Right phrase, right person — friend or elder?
- **Memory Pairs** (trains: recall) — Flip and match each word with its other face.

## Pricing

The whole app is a single payment: $49 USD, or ₹999 in India. One payment. No renewal, nothing to cancel.
30 days, no questions asked, full refund.

### Free, no card

- The whole library — all 597 words, every pattern, every scene, all seven games, open without an account
- Chapters 1 through 7, the first week of the story, with a Google sign-in
- Native audio on everything
- Your progress saved to your account, on every device you sign in from

### The whole app, once — $49 USD (₹999 in India)

- The memory engine across all sixty chapters — every phrase on its own two schedules, for as long as you keep turning up
- Chapters 8 through 60 — the parents, Bamma, and the day it counts
- The challenge chapters, where nothing is prompted and nobody slows down for you
- Every correction and improvement we make to the sixty chapters, forever

## FAQ

### Is this a course?

No, and the difference is the entire product. A course is a fixed sequence of content — the same pages, in the same order, for everybody who bought it. If that is what you wanted, take it for nothing: the library already holds every word, every sentence pattern, every scene and all seven games, with no account and no email address. What you pay for is the app running on top of that. It tracks every phrase you have met on two separate schedules, and each morning it works out which handful you personally are about to lose. A course hands everyone the same page. This hands you the ones you specifically are about to lose.

### Why not just read a phrasebook or a PDF?

Because meeting a phrase was never the hard part — still having it three weeks later is. A phrasebook can hold five hundred phrases and has no way of knowing which ones have gone. You have to guess, and people guess badly: they re-read what already feels comfortable, which is exactly the material they did not need to review. Matladu meets you at the phrases you are actually failing. Recognition and production are scheduled apart, intervals stretch when you answer fast and collapse to a quarter when you miss, and a claim that something was easy occasionally gets checked. If you want the phrases without any of that, read the library for free and do not pay us. That is a real option and we would rather say so.

### What if I don't learn well from a story?

Then use one of the other eight shelves. The story is the spine, not the walls. The library is nine separate ways into the same connected world — themed vocabulary sets, a searchable dictionary of 597 words, sentence patterns, situations indexed by moment, reference guides, the cast, every scenario open to replay, seven games, and a word album where each word you meet becomes a card that levels up. Some people work through the story and never open a shelf. Some live in the games and the dictionary. The guided path always tells you what to do next if you want to be told, and never insists.

### What are the games actually for?

Seven of them, and each one leans on a different sense. Sound Match works your ears — one word among four that sound almost identical. Odd One Out works word groups. Suffix Builder works endings, bending a verb through time. What Would You Say? works register, which is the thing English never made you think about: right phrase, wrong person, and you have been rude. Memory Pairs works plain recall, Opposites Sprint works meanings, Picture Match works pictures. Every round is dealt from words you have actually met, so none of it is filler, and every round ends on a doorway — the word you missed links straight into the rest of the library. All seven are open without an account.

### Do I need to sign in?

To look around, no. To play, yes — and that is the whole of the boundary. The library is open to anyone and stays that way: every word, every sentence pattern, every scene, the games, the word of the day, with no account and no email address. Opening a chapter is where it changes. The first seven cost nothing and ask for no card, but they do ask you to sign in with Google first. What that sign-in hands over is the email address, name and picture on your Google account, and nothing else. From then on your progress is kept with that account, so the chapter you finished on your laptop is waiting on your phone, and a wiped browser costs you nothing.

### What does it cost?

Forty-nine dollars, once. Nine hundred and ninety-nine rupees in India. That buys the memory engine running across all sixty chapters, chapters 8 through 60 themselves, the challenge chapters, and every correction we make to the sixty afterwards. Set against a Telugu tutor at roughly four hours' worth, for something that works on you for sixty days. There is no second payment and no renewal. The word lifetime is doing literal work there, not marketing work.

### Is it a subscription?

No. There is no recurring charge anywhere in Matladu — no monthly plan, no annual plan, nothing to cancel, and no card kept on file for a renewal you forgot about. You pay once. If sixty days turns into six months because life happened, that costs you nothing extra.

### What if it doesn't work for me?

Thirty days, no questions asked, full refund. You do not have to justify it and you will not be asked to. Better still: play the first seven chapters before you pay anything at all. That is about seventy minutes and it ends on a story beat, which is enough to know whether this method fits the way you learn.

### What do you do with my data?

If you have only used the library, nothing at all — it never asks who you are. Signing in to play hands us what Google hands us: your email address, your name, and your profile picture. After that we store your learning progress: which chapters you have done, which phrases you have produced, and when each one is next due, because carrying it between your devices is impossible without them. Buying adds one more thing, a payment reference. No advertising, no tracking across other sites, nothing sold to anyone. The privacy policy is short because there is not much to describe.

### Do I have to learn the Telugu script?

Never. Everything is written in Roman Telugu and English — Naaku chai kaavaali, not the script. This is a spoken-language product, and reading the script is a different skill that would slow down the one you actually came for.

### Is this a grammar course?

No. You are never asked to learn a rule before you use a sentence. Patterns like Naaku ___ kaavaali surface because you meet them five times in five situations, not because a lesson announced them. Register — whether you say nuvvu or meeru — is taught as social context: who you are talking to, not which conjugation table applies.

### What is actually happening under the hood?

Every phrase you meet is tracked on two separate ledgers: can you understand it when you hear it, and can you produce it from an English thought. Those are different skills, so they are scheduled apart — production comes back sooner and its gaps widen more slowly, because it is the harder one. Each answer moves that phrase's own interval and nothing else's: answer instantly and it stretches, miss it and it collapses to a quarter of what it was and drops a rung on the ladder. Nothing is ever scheduled beyond 180 days, so nothing silently leaves the list. About one time in four, grading yourself as instant triggers a surprise production check, and if your self-assessment and your actual recall disagree, every interval tightens for a fortnight. Words ride a lighter schedule of their own — one day, three, seven, fourteen, and back in six hours if you miss — woven in among the phrase reviews so that a backlog of one never buries the other. A phrase counts as known only after free-recall production, unaided, on two different days. Tapping through a conversation is exposure, and exposure is worth nothing on the ledger.

### What does 'everything is tappable' mean?

Any Roman Telugu word, anywhere in the app, opens its own page — and that page is not a dictionary entry, it is a neighbourhood. What the word means and what it is literally doing in the sentence. Its opposite: takkuva sits under ekkuva, akkada under ikkada. Where it falls on a scale, when it belongs to one. The words it gets confused with, and the difference. Every form it bends into — 597 words carry 803 forms between them. The patterns it belongs to, and every other place in the story it is spoken, by whom and to whom. Tap a person to see every scene they are in. Tap a scene to see its people and its phrases. You can wander as deep as you like, or ignore all of it — the guided path always tells you what to do next.

### Is there a streak, hearts, XP, a leaderboard?

No hearts, no lives, no leaderboard, no currency, no shop. Mistakes cost you nothing except a phrase coming back sooner. The only thing measured is capability — what you can now say to whom — and the only celebration is a real one: you can now order food politely, you can now ask where something is.

### How long is a session?

About ten minutes: a few reviews that are due, one illustrated scene, four or five new phrases, and a short conversation that uses them. One chapter a day finishes the story in sixty days. Slower is never punished — Day 14 means your day 14, not the calendar's.

### Who made this, and why?

It was built by someone with the same deadline as Varun. The story is a game, but the reason for it is not: family, a language they don't share with you, and a real date on the calendar. Everything in here exists because it was needed first.

## Links

- The app: https://app.matladu.in
- The free library, no account needed: https://app.matladu.in/library
- Blog: https://matladu.in/blog
- Terms of service: https://matladu.in/terms
- Privacy policy: https://matladu.in/privacy
- Refund policy: https://matladu.in/refund