Entry #16
2026-09-21
5 min read
Building Hanni: How 8 years of teaching Korean led to an app
Eight years of teaching Korean
In 2018, my wife Luci wanted to create something for Spanish speakers, a place to learn Korean properly. Not just the basics, but the deeper levels most courses skip.
She built Aprende Coreano Paso a Paso letter by letter, syllable by syllable. All in Spanish. All designed for Spanish speakers learning Korean.
Aprende coreano paso a paso
Aprende coreano desde 0. Cursos gratis, vocabularios, PDF para aprender coreano. Todo en el mismo lugar. Empeza hoy a aprender coreano.
Over eight years, it became one of the biggest Spanish-Korean learning communities in the world. More than 100,000 students learned with her free PDFs. +100K YouTube subscribers. +1,100 videos in Spanish. Over 4 million views. An Instagram account with more than 100K followers, all in Spanish-Korean content.
Her work is irreplaceable. Everything Aprende Coreano is, is because of her mind and her commitment.
But Aprende Coreano was Spanish only. Videos, Instagram, YouTube, everything was in Spanish for Spanish speakers.
Then we thought, what if we could take this to the world?
That's where Hanni comes in. Hanni is the first content from Aprende Coreano that is multilingual, launching with English and Spanish from day one.
The mistake of trying to be perfect
We wanted to build an app for years. But we kept postponing because the ideas we had would take too long to execute.
Then we started researching. What were the top apps like Duolingo doing? What were they missing? We designed what we thought would be the perfect app. And then we kept adding to make it even more perfect.
We ended up with something massive, too many moving pieces, a server required from day one, a complex learning path that looked great on paper but would take forever to build, an elaborate admin dashboard, polish everywhere.
We burned out. We stopped.
That's when we learned what MVP really means.
Hanni: The right approach
Instead of building everything, we asked: what's the core value we can deliver right now?
Answer: teach Korean words well.
What if we built an app that helps you learn 500 Korean words? Maybe 1,000 eventually? That would be huge.
So we built Hanni.
Hanni: Learn Korean Adventure App - App Store
Download Hanni: Learn Korean Adventure by Maximiliano Adrian Ruti on the App Store. See screenshots, ratings and reviews, user tips, and more apps like Hanni:…
Each group of words goes through five learning steps:
- Match by images
- Match images with Korean text
- Translate images to your native language
- Translate text to text
- Audio matching
It's a progression. You build memory through repetition, not by rushing through content.
Each unit has 8-12 words, divided into lessons. To move forward, you need at least 1 star. But the real goal is to nail it—to score 3 stars so you actually know the words before moving on.
After you complete all the lessons in a unit, there's an exam: matching and multiple choice questions with variations. Pass, and you unlock the next unit.
Traveling while you learn
Each unit is a location in Korea. As you progress through the course, you're traveling around the country. There's a locations page where you can see all of them grouped by cities, learn about the places, and review the words you've already mastered.
It's gamified, but purposefully. You're not just grinding through lessons. You're on a journey.
Built for real life
The app is offline-first. Once you download it, you can use it anywhere—on a plane, in a country with bad internet, in the subway. Your learning doesn't depend on connection.
We're using RevenueCat to handle the monetization cleanly. The core learning path is freemium: 10 units free, the rest behind a monthly, yearly, or lifetime subscription. This lets us keep the project sustainable without betraying the philosophy that education should be accessible.
Beyond the core lessons, there's also practice typing to learn Korean characters and a swipe-and-learn card system, all free. But premium users get customization: choose how many words you practice, pick specific categories, and create custom lessons for the topics you want to focus on.
Plus, a full dictionary of every word in the app, useful when you're actually traveling in Korea.
Meet Hanni and friends
The main character is Hanni, inspired by Haechi (해치), a mythical Korean creature. As you learn, you earn "kimbaps" (in-game currency) to unlock outfits, accessories, and new characters.
All of Hanni's friends are inspired by Korean mythology: Goru (Gumiho), Cukku (Dokkaebi), Mumi (Imoogi), Chuchu (Bonghwang), Chandi (Bulgae), and FiuFiu (Samjok-o).
It's small, but it matters. Learning doesn't have to feel like work.
From Latinoamérica to the world
Aprende Coreano Paso a Paso was built for Spanish speakers. But Hanni is built for the world. It supports English and Spanish from day one, with plans to expand beyond that.
This is the first step of taking Luci's work global. The app is launching on iOS now, with Android coming soon.
Almost a decade, and we're just getting started
Aprende Coreano Paso a Paso is almost 10 years old. Watching it grow from an idea into a community of over 100,000 students has been incredible.
We never imagined how much the community would embrace it. How much it would mean to people learning Korean.
And now, with Hanni, we're taking that work to the next level. Not by building everything at once, but by building the right thing, the right way.
Download Hanni:
Hanni: Learn Korean on the App Store
Explore the courses:
Aprende Coreano Paso a Paso
Follow Aprende Coreano:
@coreano_paso_a_paso on Instagram