THE STORY BEHIND WEYD
I moved to Mexico City with zero Spanish.
Eleven months later, I passed DELE B2.
In early 2025, I landed in Mexico City for what I thought would be four months. I figured: why not learn some Spanish?
That question changed everything.
This is the story of what I built — and why I had to build it.
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THE JOURNEY
Month 1
January 2025. Mexico City. A0.
I knew a handful of words from years of passive exposure. Enough to feel like it counted. It didn't. I enrolled in a small tutoring school in Mexico City — the kind that caters to vacationers who want to pick up a little Spanish before heading home. I assessed into A0. Complete beginner. Day one in class confirmed it.
I wasn't starting cold on language learning. I'd spent four years studying Japanese and reached somewhere around B1. Japanese takes roughly twice as long to acquire as Spanish. Four years to get there.
I knew what serious language study cost. I also knew it was possible.
From day one: three hours of classes a day, plus a private tutor. I was serious about it. I just didn't know yet how serious it was going to get.
Month 2
A couple of weeks in, I reread Fluent Forever and went back through some blogs on language learning.
One claimed B1 in two months in a new language was achievable. For no reason other than "why not," I made that my first goal. I had no real idea what B1 meant as a capability. I didn't know the names of any exams or certifying bodies. It was all gibberish to me.
By the end of February, I was starting to understand what B1 actually looked like. And I already knew what happened to a B1 that stopped being maintained. I'd lived it.
Japanese had taken me four years to reach B1. Then I stopped. By the time I arrived in Mexico City, it was gone. B1, it turned out, wasn't durable enough to survive without constant upkeep — at least not for me. The math was simple: if I was going to invest serious time in this, I needed to reach a level that could hold itself up.
The way I saw it around early March 2025: C1 or go have fun.
I committed to fluency.
Month 3
Somewhere around month three, something shifted.
I stopped thinking about learning Spanish. I started thinking about becoming someone who speaks Spanish.
A monolingual life — one language, one world — wasn't something I was willing to accept anymore. I didn't know exactly what the alternative looked like. I just knew I wanted it.
Months 3–10
What followed was more intensely structured than anything I'd imposed on myself before — or seen anyone else impose on themselves.
Three UNAM CEPE intensive programs at Mexico's premier language institution. Seven weeks at Middlebury Language Schools — one of the most respected intensive programs in the US.
Multiple tools running in parallel: Anki for vocabulary, multiple tutors on Preply, Dreaming Spanish for input, Netflix for listening, ChatGPT for writing feedback, Fluent Forever, Olly Richards' books, structured classes. Not all at once — rotating based on what the gap was at each stage.
Early on I ran one experiment I still think about. I decided to consume 50 hours of content on Dreaming Spanish in 10 days. I did it. What happened next was palpable — my instructor and classmates commented on it unprompted. My fluency had jumped, even though I was still well below B1. I was also completely fried and had to build a recovery protocol.
I was vividly reminded that inputs, timing, and recovery weren't separate variables. They were one system.
I was spending 4–6 hours a day on Spanish.
A significant portion of that time wasn't Spanish — it was figuring out how to learn Spanish. Building the systems manually. Researching what actually worked, testing it, adjusting. Learning and building the framework at the same time.
The person who does this after me shouldn't have to.
And I was being my own coach for all of it.
The Problem
That last part is the one people seem to not talk about.
Every serious learner I met was doing the same thing — deciding what to practice, when to switch tools, when they were plateauing, when to push and when to rest. The apps couldn't do this. The schools couldn't do this. Even the tutors couldn't do this.
There was no product that saw the full picture.
At month 2, I tried to get my own language school to build me a structured plan. I mapped the FSI and CEFR frameworks myself. I walked the director through a personalized trajectory step by step. He still couldn't commit to a formalized structure.
So I became my own coach.
Months 10–11
By month ten, I was thinking in Spanish by default.
Having to consciously switch back to English.
I gave a 30-minute presentation — in Spanish, from a 10-page research paper on a complex topic — three days after being told it was required. My conjugations weren't always perfect. I pushed through anyway.
I passed DELE B2 in November 2025.
A0 to B2. Eleven months.
The whole time, I was building notes on what the coaching layer should actually look like.
That became Weyd.
WHAT I BUILT
The coaching layer that didn't exist.
Weyd is the plan I had to build for myself — made into a product anyone can use.
Whether you're using apps, a tutor, classes, or all of the above, Weyd builds a personalized plan around your actual goal and tells you exactly what's standing between you and it.
Not another app to add to the pile. The thing that coordinates the pile.
- →Your level, assessed precisely — not guessed
- →Your tools, mapped to your skill gaps
- →Your progress, tracked toward your actual goal
FIND YOUR GAP
Which language are you learning?
This is what knowing where you are actually looks like.
THIS IS REAL
The first person to use this methodology was me. A0 to DELE B2 in 11 months is the result.
Your next conversation is closer than you think.
I didn't start this to build a product. I started it because I needed something that didn't exist. Whatever your goal — this was built so you don't have to figure it out alone.
Start with Weyd →Takes 5 minutes to set up.
Builds your plan from the first session.
— Kevin
A0 → DELE B2, 11 months
Mexico City → weyd.io