Think Auto · pronounced tā, 他, “him” in Mandarin
Meet TA, the coding friend who gets you.
TA is an AI assistant that lives in VS Code and your browser. He reads foreign-language docs for you, reads them aloud, explains errors and walks through code with you, in your own language. No switching windows, no copy and paste, and he learns more about you every day.
Sample content prepared for this demo. Read-aloud uses your browser’s built-in voices.
Code is written in English. Most of the people writing it aren’t native speakers.
More than 180 million developers build on GitHub, and roughly 5 in 6 of them are outside the United States.1 They are fluent in code, but every doc, error message, issue thread and meeting adds a small language tax. It never shows up in a sprint report, yet it’s paid every day.
A new library. The README is in English, the best issue thread is in Japanese. Two browser tabs and a translation site later, back to the editor.
A red stack trace. The words are clear one by one, but what it actually means takes ten minutes of searching.
Writing a PR description. Drafted in Chinese, pasted into a translator, fixed by hand so it doesn’t sound machine-made.
Stand-up with the overseas team. Not sure whether it’s “ku-ber-NEET-ees” or “koo-ber-NET-eez”, so the word gets avoided.
The tools exist, but they live in other windows, they don’t understand code, and they forget you every time.
Translation sites mangle code and terminology. AI chat assistants answer when asked, in English first, and start from zero in every conversation. Nothing sits where the reading actually happens, speaks the words out loud, and remembers who you are.
Wherever you get stuck, he’s already there.
TA isn’t another window to switch to. He sits right where you’re reading, and speaks up when you pause.
He helps you read
Hover over an English comment, a README or a Japanese issue and TA translates it into your language. Terms like map() and Promise stay untouched, and code is never translated.
He reads it aloud
Any text, read in English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish and more. Listen when your eyes are tired, or rehearse with him before a meeting.
He helps you debug
When the terminal turns red, TA tells you in plain words what happened, which line is most likely the cause, and what to try next.
He helps you speak up
Draft commit messages, PR descriptions and issue replies in your own language. TA rewrites them in natural engineering English and lets you compare before you send.
He reads code with you
Taking over someone else’s project? Select a block and ask “what does this do?” TA explains it step by step, in your language.
He remembers you
Your languages, the words you keep looking up, how much detail you like. TA remembers, so you never start from zero.
A good friend doesn’t need the backstory every time.
Most translation tools treat you like a stranger on every request. TA remembers your habits and your projects, so his explanations land at the right level. Memories stay in your account, and you can view or delete them anytime.
- You
Write mostly TypeScript and Python at a startup in Taipei.
- Prefs
Explanations in Traditional Chinese, tech terms kept in English.
- Often
Asked about
debouncethree times this week, so today he leads with an example. - Project
OrderSyncis your team’s order service. Never translate it. - Goal
Giving a tech talk in English next month. Practice five words a day.
Three things changed in the last two years.
Translation that understands code
Frontier models like Claude now translate technical text accurately, keep identifiers intact, and explain an error instead of just converting its words.
Natural voices in every language
Speech synthesis now sounds human in dozens of languages, and is cheap enough to read every doc and comment aloud on demand.
Assistants that can remember
Long context and memory let an assistant keep a lasting picture of one developer: their languages, projects and habits. That turns a tool into a companion.
Not another translator. Not another chatbot.
TA does one job the others skip: he sits inside the reading, speaks it, and knows who he’s talking to.
| TA | Translation sites | AI chat assistants | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Works where you read, without asking | ● Yes | ○ No | ◐ When asked |
| Leaves code and tech terms intact | ● Yes | ○ Often not | ◐ Mostly |
| Reads aloud in many languages | ● Yes | ◐ Basic | ○ Rarely |
| Teaches how to say tech terms | ● Yes | ○ No | ○ No |
| Explains errors in your language | ● Yes | ○ No | ◐ English first |
| Remembers you across days | ● Yes | ○ No | ◐ Limited |
● built in · ◐ partly · ○ not available. TA column describes the product we are building.
Start small, where we can be the obvious choice. Then widen the circle.
- 一
Mandarin-speaking developers in VS Code
Our home market, starting in Taiwan. We speak the language, know the communities, and can talk to every early user in person. VS Code is used by 75.9% of developers,2 so one extension reaches most of them.
- 二
Japanese and Korean developers
Large, English-heavy tech industries with the same daily friction. The product is the same; the voices and glossaries change.
- 三
Every developer whose first language isn’t English
From Latin America to Southeast Asia, this is most of the world’s developers, and the share keeps growing as new developers come online.
Words you type every day but aren’t sure how to say.
These are the ones that trip people up in meetings, interviews and screencasts. Tap to listen. In the editor, TA spots words like these in your own code.
Pronunciations follow American English. Some terms have more than one common reading.
Developers whose first language isn’t English.
People learning to code
Docs and error messages are almost all in English. Remove the language barrier and focus on the concepts.
Engineers on global teams
Read your teammates’ issues and write your own PRs without pasting everything into a translation site.
Anyone who has to talk tech
Before a talk, an interview or a stand-up, hear it once first. Say Kubernetes and nginx with confidence.
Free to start. Paid when TA becomes part of your day.
A generous free tier lets anyone try TA inside their editor. People who rely on him every day, and teams who want a shared vocabulary, pay a monthly subscription.
Free
For trying TA
- Hover translation, daily limit
- Read-aloud in major languages
- Pronunciation dictionary
Pro
For individual developers
- Unlimited translation and error explanations
- Writing help for commits, PRs and issues
- Memory: TA learns your languages and projects
Team
For global engineering teams
- Shared project glossary
- Consistent terminology across the team
- Admin controls and privacy settings
Plans are planned, not yet on sale. We will set pricing together with our first users.
A few rules we hold ourselves to.
A few people who love it beats many who like it
We would rather have fifty developers who can’t work without TA than five thousand who installed it once.
Talk to every early user
We onboard testers one by one, watch how they actually read and write, and let what they do, not what they say they want, decide what we build next.
Ship small, ship often
Each release does one thing better. Speed of learning matters more than polish in the early days.
Your code stays yours
TA sends only the text you point at, never trains models on your code, and lets you see and delete everything he remembers.
From one extension to a fully AI-native dev environment.
- Now · In development
VS Code extension
Hover translation, error explanations, read-aloud and native-language-to-English writing. The four things developers need every day, done well first.
- Next · Planned
Web app
Paste a docs URL or any text to get a side-by-side bilingual version that keeps code blocks intact, with full read-aloud.
- Later · Vision
Immersive environment
Docs, terminal, code review and team chat, all in your language. TA knows your whole project and becomes a real teammate inside your workspace.
“I build with AI agents every day, in a language that isn’t my first. TA is the friend I wanted next to me in the editor.”
他Austin Chang, founder · Taipei
- CompanyTA AI, Taipei, Taiwan
- StagePre-seed. VS Code extension in development
- Built onClaude for translation and reasoning, browser and cloud speech for voice
- Next milestonePrivate test with our first group of developers
- Contacthello@ta-ai.net
- GitHubgithub.com/austinchang
Frequently asked.
Which languages does TA support?
At launch: Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Spanish, translating from and into English. Read-aloud works in any language your system or our cloud voices support.
Is my code sent anywhere?
Only the text you hover or select is sent for translation. TA never uploads whole files on its own, never trains models on your code, and you can turn memory off at any time.
Which editors are supported?
VS Code first, including editors built on it. A web app for docs and articles comes next. Other editors depend on what our first users ask for.
How is this different from GitHub Copilot?
Copilot helps you write code. TA helps you understand and communicate around it: reading, listening, explaining and speaking. They work well side by side.
When can I try it?
We are opening a private test for a small group first. Join the waitlist and tell us how you work. We reply to every email personally.
We’re picking our first testers one by one.
Email us the languages you code in and the kind of foreign-language content that slows you down most. You’ll be the first to know when the extension opens for testing.