ForeignLanguage
Latest
New international Netflix series include Salma Hayek's 'Monarca'
Netflix announced today that it's partnering with Salma Hayek's Ventanarosa production company on a new original series from Mexico. Monarca is set in the world of Mexican billionaires and focuses on a family with a tequila-born business empire. But drama ensues as one family member sets out to fight the corrupt system her family helped put into place. The series is scheduled for a global launch next year and it joins a number of other original shows Netflix is working on outside of the US.
Duolingo brings its language-learning app to the iPad
Duolingo takes a fun approach to language learning. It gamifies the process by breaking down lessons into digestible chunks and rewarding you for your progress. Starting today, you can enjoy the app on your iPad as well as your iPhone. Duolingo requires an account to keep track of your achievements and progress. You can log in with a unique username / password combination or choose to sign in with Facebook. Once you log in, you can choose the language or languages that you wish to learn. The app ships with learning modules for Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian and English. The app starts off with the basics, mainly simple words and sentences. It then gradually moves into more difficult content like phrases, plurals and vocabulary. It's designed to be used in small bursts so you can take as little as 15 minutes each day to start learning a new language. Duolingo launched as a web app and then added an iPhone app. This latest version adds the iPad to the mix, allowing you to spread your learning across your devices. Your progress across all three platforms is synced so you can complete a lesson on your iPad and start in on the next lesson on your Mac. Duolingo is for the person who wants to learn a language, but struggles to sit through long, dry courses. Duolingo is quite the opposite of your typical language course -- it's interactive, enjoyable and doesn't require a big block of time. It'll teach you the basics of a language, which you then can use as a springboard for more immersive studies. Best of all, Duolingo is available for free because it has a unique business model. As you progress through a course, you can start practicing your skills by translating documents. These documents are uploaded by companies and people who pay Duolingo for the translation. You get free instruction, companies get an affordable translation service and Duolingo makes enough money to keep innovating. You can check out the Duolingo app for free from the iOS App Store.
OLPC to bring Little Pim language teaching videos to XO laptop, underprivileged children
One Laptop Per Child is tag-teaming it up with foreign language learning company Little Pim to teach English to underprivileged children. The initiative could help to blur the line between work and fun and lead to future opportunities for kids in an ever-increasingly global economy where English is the lingua franca of many multinational groups and companies. Getting educational videos onto OLPC's affordable XO laptop is consistent with the new partnerships' philosophy that "learning should be a joyous experience and that children learn best when learning and play are seamless activities." There's no word on when the package deal will be available, but we'll be on the lookout for further info. Full PR after the break.
Robot dragon teaches kids language skills, battles impulse to terrorize city
Did you have trouble learning language skills at a young age? It's probably because you didn't have the right teacher. And by "the right teacher," we mean the right robotic dragon, naturally. This cuddly little mythical beast is the joint creation of researchers at Northeastern University, MIT and Harvard -- some of whom were behind the decidedly creepier Nexi bot. It's part of a National Science Foundation-funded program to help young children learn language skills, suggesting that forming a bond with a teacher plays an important role in the educational process. The dragon will be brought to preschool classes to help test out this hypothesis. Hopefully a robotic knight will also be on-hand, just in case.
NTT DoCoMo exhibits on-the-fly speech translation, lets both parties just talk (video)
The race to smash linguistic barriers with simultaneous speech-to-speech translation is still wide open, and Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo has just joined Google Translate and DARPA on the track. Whereas Google Translate's Conversation Mode was a turn-based affair when it was demoed back in January, requiring each party to pause awkwardly between exchanges, NTT DoCoMo's approach seems a lot more natural. It isn't based on new technology as such, but brings together a range of existing cloud-based services that recognize your words, translate them and then synthesize new speech in the other language -- hopefully all before your cross-cultural buddy gets bored and hangs up. As you'll see in the video after the break, this speed comes with the sacrifice of accuracy and it will need a lot of work after it's trialled later in the year. But hey, combine NTT DoCoMo's system with a Telenoid robot or kiss transmission device and you can always underline your meaning physically.
Google Goggles starts to get useful, adds text translation
In our experience, about the only thing Google Goggles is good for is telling you that your can of Coke looks like someone's face, but the company's just-released version 1.1 sounds like it might be on a whole new level of awesomeness. Basically, Goggles can now recognize text within the "region of interest" that you specify on the screen then give you the option to translate it to any language of your choosing. Between this and Google's already quite good Translate app, Android devices are getting dangerously close to letting monoglots (thanks for the great word, Google) travel safely and effectively in foreign lands. Other improvements in Goggles 1.1 include better barcode and image recognition (thank goodness), an improved UI, and the ability to initiate identification from your gallery, so it sounds like a must-download if you've got a phone running Android 1.6 or better. It's available now.
