Wasting time on the web is not a new concept for the Internet age. But what if that time spent on Facebook, Reddit, and Tumblr could also help you learn a new language?
That’s the idea of Flipword, a venture that just won $15,000 in seed funding from University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign’s annual venture challenge, Cozad. The web application takes words that you want to learn in a different language and automatically translates them on whatever web page you’re surfing, with more words added over time. That way, learning the language becomes a natural part of a daily habit.
The idea came to UIUC computer science graduate student Thomas Reese, after studying abroad in Hong Kong. Through sheer passion and determination, Reese was able to learn Chinese in under two years. However, when he searched for resources to help him study along the way he felt the available software was lacking.
So he built an app.
Flipword is a passive tool, meaning you don’t have to actively seek out a learning exercise to benefit from it. Instead, the application changes certain words on any webpage you are browsing to whatever language you are learning. You can hover over the word to see its translation in English. For example, if you were learning French, you may see the word amis when browsing Facebook (that means “friends”). As the learner progresses, more words will be translated. Future versions of the tool will offer an audio translation and a picture along with the word.
Through various college hackathons and competitions, he worked out the kinks and issues with word translation and added UIUC undergraduate computer science student Joseph Milla to his team. Though the tool is still in the early stages, the founders say there are about 150 users worldwide. This summer they will work to further develop the product and launch it on a larger scale.
In the meantime, the duo has worked various language related apps in other competitions such as Campus 1871, where they were a part of the winning team that created Languallama; and Wisconsin’s MadHacks, where they created a language matching service called UpTalk.
“I’m super excited about language learning,” Reese said to Engineering at Illinois. “And I’m working on creating a startup to turn this into something useful to a lot of people.”
Image credit: epicantus/Pixabay
