Languages are beautiful.
It's clear to me today that language is a beautiful and fascinating subject, however I’ll admit that at school it was not my favorite class (English or otherwise!). I believe I struggled with learning a new language and exploring my own native dialect because I didn't see the relevance nor gain enjoyment from doing so at such a young age. This has been a huge regret of mine because growing into an adult and realizing just how important my ability to communicate is. I wish I had been able to engage with those classes.
One of my favorite aspects of language and literature are quotes, such as the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
So today, in the spirit of that wonderful quote, myself and the team at Curiscope are extremely proud to announce the Virtuali-Tee is now available in 11 languages (from west to east):
- English (UK and US)
- Portuguese
- Spanish
- French
- Dutch
- Italian
- German
- Polish
- Russian
- Mandarin (traditional & simplified)
- Korean
It's our hope that including these languages will contribute to changing the perception of developing language skills for young people (and adults alike!). We carefully chose to add these languages in order to make the Virtuali-Tee app available to the largest number of countries, territories and ultimately people.
You can now mix and match subtitles and Dr Glover's voice into multiple languages
Multiple languages means more people can learn about the body but we have taken this a step further and added the ability to mix and match the text and speech settings of the app, so for example you can listen in German whilst reading subtitles in Korean. This makes the Virtuali-Tee an extremely engaging tool for teaching language, as in my case if I were learning French in school using an augmented reality t-shirt, you can bet I’d have been 10x more engaged. Likewise, in English class doing a comprehension exam based on learning about the circulatory system in Augmented Reality, would have significantly raised my pulse rate (in a good way!). We also think this is super exciting for bi-lingual families, where our app can bring together a family to learn about the body using both parents' native tongue.
The app should automatically detect which region you are in and select the appropriate language but you can override the language selection within settings. Simply tap the cog icon top left and you'll have access to the language menu along with the button for switching on and off subtitles. Within the language menu you can independently select the language you would like for the voice and text.
We couldn't add every single possible language, as there are over 7111 spoken around the world today (just 23 of those account for over half the world's population!). However with the current 11 languages we now include in the Virtuali-Tee app we cover hundreds of countries. Here is a live map of the countries where languages included in our app are officially spoken:
We are very proud of our global coverage and we intend to continue to fill in the gaps! Arabic is next but if you would like to see the app translated into your language please get in touch via education@curiscope.com
Merci pour la lecture
Ben - Co-founder of Curiscope
Sources:
https://www.ethnologue.com/guides/how-many-languages
http://worldpopulationreview.com