Introducing Candid: Your guide to real-life fluency.

In 2025, I quit my job and flew to Korea with an iPhone and a dream.

I called it “The Fluency Project.” I would travel around the country, speaking Korean with strangers til I’m fluent & documenting the whole process.

There was the Grandmother in Busan who paid for my dinner & I later went back to surprise. The fisherman in Gwangju who showed me the ropes & then invited me for lunch. The stray cat who sang along with me to a Korean ballad. And many more lovely interactions with wonderful people… all in Korean :)

Over the year, many of you reached out to share your support & why you enjoy my content (Thank you 🫶)

• Foreigners often said “I love watching your Korean vlogs, the conversations help me learn Korean”

• When I shared vlogs speaking in English, Koreans said “please upload more, it’s helpful for my English”

• Plus a few people keep DMing me random emojis lol

I hoped my Instagram vlogs would inspire people to learn a language… but I never expected them to become study material for learning one! But, it makes sense. The raw conversations show you how natives actually speak. Plus, they let you see into the real, day-to-day culture, not a scripted K-Drama or 미드.

But the thing is…

Instagram is not the ideal format for learning a language. It’s designed to keep you scrolling, not learning or speaking.

And as someone who previously worked as an app designer at a startup, I couldn’t help but wonder…

What could be a better format?

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What if there was an Instagram, but for language learning? Where people could practice listening & speaking a language through authentic, daily vlogs of a native?

I couldn’t get this idea out of my head… so I jumped into Figma & Xcode, turned on some Blackpink, & started concepting it out.

A ton of Jeju Matchas & late nights later… and I’m stoked to finally share it with you all.

Candid: Your guide to real-life fluency.

The idea for Candid is basically this:

Every week, your tutor will create a new set of listening & speaking lessons based on their daily life in the country.

They’ll capture all the raw, ordinary moments of life—catching up with friends, their daily commute, a rooftop birthday party. Then we take those videos & combine them with a great UX to make effective, structured lessons for learning a language.

I chose the name Candid because I wanted to communicate the ethos of the product—learning the real, spoken language through a native’s real life in the country.

Nowadays, there’s all these “AI tutors”, and… not only do they hallucinate & explain things incorrectly, they also just feel so bland & lifeless & idk… antithetical to the whole reason I learned a language in the first place?

Language learning is all about connecting with people & culture. People & culture should be at the center of it.

For now, Candid will have two tutors—I’ll be teaching English, and my good friend Mia will be teaching Korean. It’s designed specifically for those who already have a foundation in the language but want to improve their listening & speaking abilities.

And early access is now live!

If you’re interested in trying it out, search us in the App Store or check out our website joincandid.co (please forgive me if the app crashes I tried my best 🙈)

If you have any questions or feedback, please hmu at adam@thefluencyproject.co! And if you’re interested in getting more behind the scenes updates from The Fluency Files, drop your email here:

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I’m genuinely (candidly?) so excited to share this with you guys. It feels pretty cool, and it just feels so aligned with who I am & what I value.

Ever since quitting my job & starting the The Fluency Project, my goal has been to help people learn new languages & connect with new cultures.

I hope Candid can do that 🫶

In honor of keeping things Candid, here’s a selfie of me as I finish writing this essay on a beautiful Saturday morning in Seoul.