Osa, born and raised in Nigeria, came to the United States for college. He was fluent in English, but not in American accents. So while his classmates digested information without issue, he had to be a translator before he could be a student. In that first semester, he struggled. Everyone spoke too fast, and he spent a good amount of time re-reading lectures in order to process everything.
It was exhausting. He’d get home from school or from work and have no desire to crack open a textbook or read interesting articles his friends shared with him. He’d think, “Wow, that’s fascinating. I’d really love to read that, but I’m too exhausted to do it. Can’t someone read it to me?”
As it turns out, Osa was close to a breakthrough. What he saw as laziness was not laziness at all, but simply a desire for the right learning tool. He craved a better, more efficient way to learn. He needed a way to love the act of learning, not dread it. He created Gyst Audio—and we developed Snap&Read—to give English language learners just that.
The Surprising Barriers of the English Language