Demist for international students
A lecture in your second language runs at the speed of a native speaker, with subject vocabulary on top of the English. Stopping to translate one word costs you the next sentence, and the one after that.
What it does during a university lecture
Demist transcribes as your lecturer speaks, picks out the terms you are unlikely to know at your year of study, and puts a one-sentence explanation on screen while they are still talking. You keep listening instead of writing down a word to look up later.
Afterwards you have the full transcript, a glossary of every term that came up, a summary, and flashcards scheduled by spaced repetition so you revise something shortly before you would have forgotten it.
The kind of university terminology it explains
Formative assessment
Work that is marked to give you feedback on your progress but does not count towards your final grade.
Literature review
A written survey of what published research already says about a topic, usually the starting point for an essay or dissertation.
Peer review
The process where other experts check a piece of research before it is published, to judge whether it is sound.
Critical analysis
Evaluating an argument or piece of evidence, including its weaknesses, rather than only describing what it says.
Methodology
The reasoning behind how a study was carried out: why these methods, and what they can and cannot show.
Explanations are written for your year of study and the subject you set up, so a first year and a finalist get different levels of detail for the same word.
Use it with your university's recordings
If your university records lectures on Panopto, Teams or Zoom, you can play the recording in a browser tab and let Demist listen to that tab, pausing whenever you need to. Explanations can be translated into Mandarin, Arabic, Hindi, Spanish or French, so you can check a term in your own language without leaving the lecture.
Where your lecture audio goes
In the Windows app, live recording is transcribed, and its terms detected and explained, by AI models running on your own machine, so the audio of a live lecture never leaves your computer. Your transcript and glossary sync to your account so you can see them on the web and keep your history if you reinstall.
The browser version works differently: it sends the audio to our server to be transcribed, and sends the terms it picks out to be explained. So does uploading a recording, in any version. The privacy policy sets out exactly what goes where.
What it costs
Live explanations, translation, your glossary and your flashcards are free, with no advertising. Recording is free and unlimited in the Windows app; in the browser, free accounts get three recordings. Free accounts keep lecture history for seven days. Demist Pro keeps your whole term, records in the browser with no limit, and adds unlimited summaries and Anki export for £4.99 a month. New accounts get Pro free for their first 30 days, with no card.
Built for students who find lectures harder to follow
Demist exists for international students with a hearing impairment, with dyslexia, who find holding attention difficult, or who are studying in English as a second language. If that is you, it is worth trying for one lecture.