Your parents spoke it at home. Your abuela still calls to speak it with you. And somewhere between Duolingo streaks and half-remembered conjugation tables, the language still feels just out of reach. That gap between hearing Spanish your whole life and actually feeling fluent in it is one of the most common, least talked-about experiences in our comunidad.
Sonia Salvador spent 20 years in marketing and product design, including as US Communications Director for Ray-Ban. Native French and Spanish, with roots in the Basque Country, she’s lived across Spain, France, Italy, and the US. She’s the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Unedo, a daily Spanish-language magazine recently named Apple’s App of the Day and one of Apple’s Best New Apps of 2026.
In this conversation, Sonia breaks down why Unedo skips the grammar drills entirely and builds around culture instead, and what that means for anyone trying to reconnect with a language that was always theirs.
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According to Unedo co-founder Sonia Salvador, losing a language you grew up with is simply what happens without regular use, even for native speakers. She experienced this herself while living in New York, far from Spain, where fluency faded quickly without daily practice reading or listening, “even when it’s your mother tongue.”
No. Sonia Salvador points out that Spanish is spoken by roughly 500 million people across dozens of countries and regions, and it’s constantly evolving. She shares her own mix-up in New York: she said “manzana” for a city block, a Spain-Spanish word, until she picked up “cuadra” from Latin American friends, then found herself saying it back home in Spain.
Unedo is a daily Spanish-language magazine built for learners past the basics and heritage speakers reconnecting with the language. Word puzzles unlock original cultural stories, hand-written by contributors across the Spanish-speaking world, on music, food, film, history, slang, and more. Writers aren’t edited toward one “standard” Spanish, so readers see the language as it’s actually spoken in each region.
Sonia Salvador built Unedo without benchmarking heavily against other language apps, and says that’s intentional. Going too deep into competitor research, she explains, risks reshaping a product around what already exists and losing sight of the specific gap you first set out to fill. Her approach: trust the need you personally couldn’t find met anywhere else, and build for that.
LLP: Hola, Amiga. And welcome to the Latina Leadership Podcast, a podcast by Latinas for all women. Get ready, because today’s conversation is really special. All of you, and welcome to another episode of the Latina Leadership Podcast. I’m your host, Julian, and I’m here joined by a special person. I want to start this interview the way that Anjelica always starts it, and it’s asking, who are you and what do you do?
SONIA SALVADOR: I’m Sonia Salvador. I’m the cofounder of UNEDO. It’s a magazine style app for, Spanish, language learners. And the app combines culture, storytelling and word puzzles. I’m French and Spanish. I’ve lived in Spain, France, Italy and the US, and my entire life has been about moving between languages and culture, and that has shaped out who I am as a person, but also as a professional. I’ve been working in communications for more than 20 years now, and before that, I’ve always been working in communications, but in different environments. I started my career in digital agencies during the early internet, let’s put it that way, in the 2000s. Then I went to work for Ray-Ban, and I also worked for an NGO, and then as a strategy consultant. But across all of my experiences, the common thread has been always culture, storytelling, and understanding how people connect.
LLP: That’s great. So would you mind walking you through the app? How does the app work? What’s the, what inspired you on building the app?
SONIA SALVADOR: So the app, we are two founders. My co-founder is Olivier. We both have been living abroad, in different countries. So we have been learning different languages. And we realized that basically, language is not just about vocab and grammar, but about the culture and having the cultural references. And we were not finding anything on the market to fit that personal need. So that’s how we decided to create, the app. So the way it works, it’s, centered around, what we call sparks that were basically articles, that unpack, variety of topics that can be about food, that can be about movies, about TV shows, about customs, about history, everything. You basically need to discover not just the language, but, the culture and everything is written, by local writers that we have in different countries. So in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Spain. So across the Spanish speaking, world. And we also have like obviously tools as people are learning Spanish to make sure that, that helps, to unpack those cultural nuggets. Let’s put it that way, that we share in word puzzles. But yeah, the focus is really about learning language through the culture and vice versa.
LLP: And I think that’s wonderful because for the most part, I think that language is such a cultural experience. Right. Like it’s always catered to the place that you live in and the way that people speak. Because the Spanish from Chile is very different than Spanish from Mexico or the Spanish from Colombia. So I like that experience of making it a cultural thing rather than just learning grammar. That’s it. How would you feel that, app benefits those like, Latinos that leave in the US that have parents who are maybe first generation Latinos that don’t speak Spanish, but they want to connect, better to their culture. How do you think the app caters to that?
SONIA SALVADOR: As you were saying, they want to connect to the culture first. So language is the mean. But what you’re trying to do, it’s an emotional connection. So for me, it’s not something transactional or, you know, that you want to optimize is first it comes, I will say out of love. And so the way I think it works for people who are trying. I mean, I’m talking also from my personal experience, when you’re not connected, it’s hard to stay connected to the culture when you don’t live in the country of the culture. So that’s what we’re we are trying to bring through the app because even just if you try to read newspapers or watch TV shows, etc., that helps. But often there is too much of a gap. From a language standpoint, it’s too much at once. You don’t even know where to look at. So we’ll say that we curate, like, stories, you know, for, Latin, for the Latin, community also to reconnect with their culture and learn maybe things you know, that they didn’t know. It happened to me also, for example, I was living in New York and being far away from Spain. It was sometimes it was hard to keep up, you know, what was going on, etc. and even from a language standpoint, if you don’t practice it, if you don’t read or listen on a regular basis, you kind of lose it super quickly, even when it’s your mother tongue.
LLP: Brought me a new perspective on that, that it’s not only for those who want to connect with the culture of their parents or their grandparents, but also for those grandparents that live in the US or live far away and want to revisit something that’s culturally resonant to them. Yeah, it’s a way to connect more, just in a more human way. And I think that that’s that’s really cool. I do have to ask in terms of how can you adapt to so many different, ways of speaking Spanish or ways to understand Spanish?
SONIA SALVADOR: That’s an interesting one. Because, first of all, Spanish is not a monolithic language. I mean, no language is monolithic. You know, even within a country you have different accents, you have different expressions, etc.. In Spanish in particular, because it’s, spoken by 500 million people, worldwide, in so many different countries and regions, it’s constantly evolving. And so for us is, I think obviously we present like different ways of, speaking, Spanish. But I remember when I was living in New York, I was, I had like, a lot of friends from, Latin America. And for example, to say, you know, a block for building, like a block in Manhattan, you know, you have blocks that were saying quadra. And for me, from Spain, I was like, what? Cuadra? Because I say manzana, you know, and I ended up saying cuadra, I was saying cuadra, even when I went back to Spain. So it was like, yeah, it’s always, you know, evolving, and you pick things up right and left. So basically we have writers from different countries and they write in their own way. We are never like retouching the copy to make it like, oh look the same. That’s not at all the goal. So when you read the different articles, you can see like the different ways of speaking Spanish. And that’s what I think makes the magic of, language. So at the end of the day is to help people to communicate and doesn’t matter, you know, if sometimes they use a word from a region of from another, you know, so and it’s always fascinating also to see how you can express in different ways, you know, using like different words for the same thing within the same language. It’s also so much about the, the culture. So it’s almost like a game. I don’t know, I find it fascinating.
LLP: No, no. And I find it fascinating as well, because I do think that gamifying, or having some sort of game playing through the experience of understanding another culture, is a better way to absorb it in a positive way, but absorb something from that culture and kind of feel cool. But even though you do not belong to that culture, or are not part of that culture directly, and I think that that’s a beautiful part of it. I do want to ask more about building a nap and creating a tech, company or a tech first company, because I know the spaces, filled with men for the most part. So how does it feel to be a woman in that space and leading in that space? And what are the challenges that we face?
SONIA SALVADOR: And I think that for me, tech is just the means, you know, it’s not the end. So that’s also maybe a question of perspective. I have to say that at Unedo, if I think about the writers, it’s mainly women. The team is, I think, 50/50, you know, the dev team. Yeah, it’s more men. But I haven’t been feeling kind of like that. Tech provide. That’s not at all the vibe of the company. So once again, I think that we were lucky or the way we were building the company. It’s not, yeah. It’s not, that vibe. And then we see ourself more as like building a cultural products. And so the people that we work with also, it’s, Yeah, it’s not people coming from, ugly the, the tech world, and it’s also people coming from different countries, etc.. So I think that helps to not get stuck into that tech called vibe. It’s funny that we.
LLP: And in terms of achievements for the app, what was the moment where you were like, okay, we made something special. There’s something really special in our hands.
SONIA SALVADOR: I think that it’s really like people’s reaction when they tell you. For example, I remember we did an article about, Charlie Vargas and somebody wrote saying, thank you so much for making me discover that artist. I didn’t know about her. Then I went to watch a documentary and, you know, listen to her music. That’s amazing. Or we did an article about that. About the theater. So the title character’s relationship with his father, and how it inspires also the way he makes movies, and somebody wrote saying, oh, I read your article before watching Frankenstein. And they understood so many things, you know, from what he told me. So I think that is. Yeah, everybody sharing their experience about how it helped them discover things, how we are basically also kind of an entry point for people to then go look for all the things. So for me, that’s what’s, you know, it’s a moment where you say, okay, you have a special product because people really connect with the content and it makes them go explore other things.
LLP: And what are the challenges that come with that, like with building something as big as new?
SONIA SALVADOR: The challenge obviously, is like creating any products. Company is like, you need to do so many things that once, I think that it’s also about testing and sometimes failing. So far we have been pretty lucky, to be completely honest, because, yeah, we have been receiving so many positive feedback. But yeah, I will say that it’s more about like you, sometimes you doubt yourself, you don’t know if it’s going to work, if you’re going to find your audience, if people are going to like it, etc.. So, and it’s a lot of work too. But, you know, that’s part of the.
LLP: That’s part of, of being an entrepreneur. That’s part of.
SONIA SALVADOR: That’s right. Yeah.
LLP: I do have to ask, now that you mentioned writers and mentioned all the things that go behind building the app and building the experience for people. Now that I see that includes like that amount of, immediacy that we’re looking for in terms of our interactions with things, whether that would be tick tock or now with AI, the the way that people like hope for something immediate to happen. How are you fighting against that grain? Because. Because having people to read an article and do something more active, rather than passive is sort of a challenge. But it’s also sort of a fun challenge, like, how are you reacting to those things happening in culture right now?
SONIA SALVADOR: So there are a couple of things. First of all, if we talk about other language learning apps were it often feels like a core, chore. Sorry. The way we build is to do something entertaining. So, you know, every day you’re going to discover something, you’re going to learn something. So, we have a lot of users saying that it’s part of the daily routine, but really, because they enjoy it, not because they have to do it. And once again, I think that it’s because we talk about, culture. And I think that at hearts, we’re all, like, curious. And we love learning things. You know, I still have that home. So yeah, that’s how we build the, the app. And then I feel that it’s also a moment, we try to have articles that are not too long, you know, so we’re also mindful about that. It’s about, it’s a break for a lot of people. They tell us that the app is like a break that they take during the day. The way we build the app, Also, I didn’t mention it, but it’s like we do drops every day. So you have a limited amount of content every day because we want people to come and know that they have a couple of articles and games and activities to do, but it’s not like unless, you know, how can I say like, endless stream of content where you don’t know where it starts or ends. So we really create the experience. So, you know, you know that you’re coming for a limited time each day, and then you come back the next day. And that’s how we build it, in a way, because we don’t want people to feel overwhelmed, or also have what I call choice paralysis, where there is so much that you’re like, I don’t know where to start. I don’t know what to do. So, that’s something that we thought very thoroughly since the beginning, you know, about how to build it.
LLP: Not to mention competitor apps, when you were building the app, were you thinking about the competitors often?
SONIA SALVADOR: Not so much because we build the app because we were not finding as users what we wanted. So I think that you can go crazy. You know, when you start like benchmarking and checking everything on the market and being like, you know, defining yourself to match against other products or trying to imitate other products. So I think that at some point, you start a company or you build a product because you’re looking for something specific that you may not be finding. So that’s the way we use ourselves, you know, as like, what would we like to see? You know, what are we looking for? So, no, we haven’t been. We are not looking too much at the competitors. We obviously know what exists, but that’s also the feedback that we have been receiving a lot from users, is like, oh, there’s no app that I’ve been using for language learning, and sometimes some of the users, and that’s something that I noticed with language learning. They use multiple apps or ways of learning. So we are not trying to cover every single need. You know, for example, if you want like something that is just about grammar, that’s not with us, you know, and that’s fine. But, yeah, I think that is really about finding your lane in a way and just going that way and finding your audience.
LLP: But I think that that’s a wonderful lesson for entrepreneurs, because for the most part, you listen to a lot of people mentioned that, like, you need to benchmark, you need to see the opportunities of the market. You need to see all this, all these other things. But also trusting that gut instinct of being like, this is what I like. Like this is what I think best for the experience is also worth it. And it’s also worth the shot to try something different and see that sticks and see how it works. I do think that that’s a really good lesson.
SONIA SALVADOR: And I think that’s also the beauty of the internet, is that if there is something that you like, you’re going to find a community somewhere you know, that likes that same thing. We are connected to so many people. So, I think that, yeah, it’s really about because if you go benchmarking, you can go crazy. And at the end of the day, it’s a lot of noise. And I also think that you run, you have the risk to, just do like something that already exists, you know, so at some point it’s like, what are you looking for value out of your looking for it. And you know, you’re going to find your audience if you like it, somebody else going to like if it.
LLP: Does, it does give a solid case for originality. Right. Like, yeah, taking it from that perspective gives a solid case that the only way to make truly original things or truly original ideas comes from the need that we have to do something different. Yeah. And to have different experience. And I do think that for our listeners and for entrepreneurs, that is very valuable to understand it, to know, especially when built up out of the ground.
SONIA SALVADOR: Yeah. I think that we always need to, listen to what’s the cultural context you working in or building a product, that’s for sure, but that’s just understanding people, etc.. But that’s different from just, looking at the competitors. That’s a totally different approach. So for me, yes, it’s being aware of the cultural context, but then within that cultural context, whatever feel feels right for you, go for it basically.
LLP: And I’m going to tie that back to the app and the experience for Latino specifically, because you mentioned, that if you’re looking for a grammar, learning the perfect way to do things, that’s probably not going to be you. But I do think that language is evolving to a way that people are not caring that much about it, like the sense of a conversational language, whether that be English, Spanish, French to it depends a lot more on the way that you express yourself and the way that you communicate, rather than the grammar you’re including into it. What was the, like the drive that took you to make that decision? Like, it’s not going to be grammar for us. It’s going to be more of a casual, conversational, day to day use of language.
SONIA SALVADOR: First of all, because there are already products that do that, even just books, you know, there. They’re also really great books. There are apps, and then, yeah, we feel that that’s not words. The needle was basically. So, that doesn’t mean that we have articles. You know, we are also explore where the language come from or where certain expressions are. Why, for example, in Mexico, they use a lot of diminutives. I think that you say in English, you know, and how it’s tied to the culture. But for us, at the end of the day, even the way we use grammar, you know, always comes back to the culture.
LLP: How do you ensure to get it right for every culture?
SONIA SALVADOR: It’s because we have writers from the different countries. So people who live in the country writing from there. So, for example, I’m not going to write about Mexico because that’s not my culture. That’s not the culture. I can know things, but, it’s better if somebody from Mexico and for example, we have also people in different regions of, Mexico or same thing in Spain, Colombia, etc.. So people really write from places they know, things they know. So, I will say that it comes out of love. You know, we also we obviously have like editorial pillars, but then it’s also the writers coming with like, oh, I’ve read that book. It’s amazing. I think that people need to hear about it. Or there is this new TV show that everybody’s crazy about or talking about in Mexico. I want to write about it. So that’s how the editor in chief, for example, she’s Mexican. So we also have like different perspective, you know, with also the different writers. So it’s never a single voice, speaking.
LLP: It’s really interesting because when you think about the first thing that comes to your mind is devs, right? It’s going to be tech. And but now that I’m having this conversation with you, it feels way closer to newspapers, magazines which you mentioned in the beginning of the conversation. And I do think that that’s so fascinating. Right now. But let’s say I want to learn about more about Mexican culture, and I want to kind of immerse myself in that culture. Have you had cases of people from other cultures being like, you know what, I’m Latino, I’m going to learn more from this culture.
SONIA SALVADOR: So what people are interested in is that they’re learning different cultures and the interconnection between the cultures, because at the end of the day, as we share one language, it’s also fun to be able to compare, what I always talk about with the writers, you know, sometimes when they bring stories that seem obvious to them, I’m like, I don’t understand, what is that? You know, where it comes from. So, you know, even just, even if you’re interested in learning about Mexican culture, but you’re going to read something about Peru that’s going to give you a perspective on something about the Mexican culture, because, yeah, it’s inter, connected. People haven’t been asking for like, oh, I want to learn only about that one culture. You know, they have been more about like, oh, I’m discovering tons of things, you know, right. And left in a sense.
LLP: And I think we’re approaching the end of our interview. But what I want to ask is something that I always ask at the end of each episode, and it’s, if you consider yourself a leader, why or why not?
SONIA SALVADOR: I will say, yes, because of, you know, when you create a company at some points, you have no other, choice, than to be a leader. Then it depends what we mean by a leader and leadership. You know, how you inhabit that or that idea. So I will say that in the position that I have now. But I also in various positions that I have in the in the past, at the end of the day, the most exciting part is like finding the right people to work with and be able to understand what are their talents and help them to really find their way and grow. It’s also paving the way for the people coming, after you. So I will say yes. It’s not always easy to say. Do you see yourself as a leader? Yes. Of course. But, and it also comes with key, its challenges, leading by example, I will say that’s, that’s, a challenge, you know, in, good sense. I mean, is that, at some point, if you’re meant to ease other people, that means to also be able of self-reflection. See also your shortcomings, and also not to be too self-centered to leave space for other people, to be able to help other people grow to so their potential when sometimes they don’t even see themselves. So, yeah, I will say that is it’s about it’s about that.
LLP: Gives a wonderful perspective. Well, Sonia, it was amazing speaking with you and it was great to have this little time with you and learning a bit more about the app and this short cultural conversation of a lot of different things in one single space.
SONIA SALVADOR: Thank you so much for having me.
