What is realLINGUA?
realLINGUA offers a natural way to learn languages using video and AI. It values digital content over outdated rote methods. realLINGUA uses computational linguistics to serve up actual native-speaker content with high-frequency words and phrases in a multiplicity of contexts. The same way everyone learnt their first language(s)!
The industry landscape
The language-learning industry is very hot right now! Duolingo just went public and there are huge language-learning companies, like Busuu, that a lot of people (e.g. most of North America) have never even heard of!
Rote traditional methods that over-emphasize memorizing huge vocab lists and reciting complicated verb conjugations are out. Natural language learning methods that emphasize learning the language from actual native-speaker produced language are in.
Foreign language skills are now on the fast-track to becoming the ultimate soft skills for college, career, and beyond.
How realLINGUA was established
So, looking around at the language-learning landscape, it became visible that there are a lot of traditional-based options rooted in dictionary/grammar type approaches. Everyone has experienced this — recite this list of fruit from memory and conjugate these three irregular verbs. And language-learners’ reactions to this? As a former language instructor, Keith heard it all — daunting, boring, overwhelming, difficult, pointless, etc., etc. He asked a lot of language students over the years what they wanted in a language-learning solution, and the vast majority of them had the same response — authentic language that teaches you how to really speak the language. For Keith, this was a no-brainer because he knew he already had the solution — the one that he had come up with as a junior in college. Keith also knew that he wanted to reach as many people as possible with his solution. So, while Keith enjoyed classroom teaching immensely, he knew he was being called to scale his “founder solved their own problem” to the widest audience possible, and thus realLINGUA was born.
How does realLINGUA work?
realLINGUA is a truly natural approach that eliminates the need to memorize a dictionary’s worth of vocabulary or regurgitate grammatical rules ad nauseam when trying to learn another language. It delivers immersive foreign language-learning via an innovative patent-pending approach in a self-directed learning app. Rooted in descriptive linguistics and implicit learning, it helps people make a quantum leap in their language-learning by exposing them to high-frequency language from actual native-speaker conversations. It’s the language as it’s really used everyday — unscripted, in-context, at-speed — making realLINGUA's approach as close to the way humans naturally learn language as possible! So, while it’s definitely disruptive, it’s really a back to basics approach that seeks to help the learner absorb the language in much the same way everyone learnt their first language.
Customer experience
realLINGUA recently did a 16-week pilot with a farm club of the Detroit Tigers who wanted to use its realENGLISH product in their player education program for their annual summer ESL classes. It was awesome! The players really responded well and were very engaged throughout the entire summer. Here’s a quote from one of the two professors that team taught the class:
"The classroom “vibe” is definitely different and classroom celebrations and high fives and fist bumps are the norm…"
"I have been a fan for a long time and it is gratifying to think that we are playing a small part in the future success of the team…"
The team culture
realLINGUA has a great team - remote, distributed, international, diverse! The culture they've been able to build is very much a helping one. There are no silos or sacred projects - everyone’s involved and all input and feedback is gold for the company.
check them out: realLINGUA.com
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