I made a decision this week to get back to Italian. It’s been 5 years now and my Italian has withered. Ironically, I started Coccinella in 2001 because I was looking for a virtual world for language learning and it didn’t exist. I actually thought I might be able to do it myself. How hard could it be? Pretty hard it turns out.
We did a very thorough round of market validation – testing prototypes with likely users and recording their thoughts. (And I mean all their thoughts...we tested 60+ people and wrote down every word they said...I’ll write about that at a later date.) We also did a market size analysis (remember guys, marry an MBA) The biggest markets for language learning are English and Spanish. We decided to do Spanish first because we are closer to the customers. Get the technology right and then go onto English, Italian, French etc.
So I put the Italian aside and started learning Spanish. It’s good for everyone on the team to be learning a language all the time. My experience as a flight instructor showed me how quickly you can take your expertise for granted. Stay humble and you’ll be a better teacher. So I’ve learned quite a bit of Spanish a bit of Mandarin, and a bit of Arabic. (We have language experts for the heavy lifting) Now finally, we are working on an Italian version! Turns out, for the investment in 3DLanguage I could have bought a nice place in
What a difference it makes to be passionate about your second language! Not that I didn’t enjoy Spanish...I lived in
We are trying to make software that helps in both situations...but I hope for your sake you have fallen in love with French or Spanish or Mandarin.
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