Three Munich students and a professor at the Technical University of Munich have developed the app halloDeutsch. It's designed to help users learn German in a fun way. We asked the founders our seven questions.
1. Who are you and what do you do? Please briefly introduce yourself and your app!
We are the team behind halloDeutsch, a novel German language learning app that uses innovative technologies to enable independent, multimedia, and playful learning. Initiated by Prof. Dr. Rudolf Bayer, Professor of Computer Science at the Technical University of Munich, and developed as part of the bachelor theses of Johannes Ismair (22, Master in Media Informatics at LMU), Robin Jespersen (26, Master of Computer Science at the Technical University of Munich) and Yaroslav Dushko (25, Master of Computer Science from the Technical University of Munich) the app is available as a product of our startup halloDeutsch UG in the Google Play Store and App Store.
2. But that's been around for a long time!
Our app differs from other language learning apps in many ways. First, we use a formal grammar to generate thousands of example sentences that help users learn like a child. Second, we offer more diverse and thoughtful games for practicing the learned content. While many apps tunnel the user through the material, we give them the freedom to choose what they want to learn.
3. What has been your biggest challenge so far?
Our biggest challenge was modeling the German language using a formal grammar. However, by investing so much time in this topic, users can now playfully explore the German language and independently discover regularities in the grammar. No more boring grammar cramming!
4. Let’s get down to business: How is business going?
Our numbers speak for themselves – 8 minutes of average usage per user per day, 701,452 returning users, and consistently excellent ratings in the app stores. We're delighted with the positive response to the app and are therefore about to release another app called halloABC for learning the alphabet.
This is what the halloDeutsch app looks like:
5. What does Munich mean to you?
Munich is our hometown. It also has great universities and an interesting startup scene.
6. How will your startup become the next unicorn? Or will we see you soon at Epic Fail Night?
We probably won't see each other at Epic Fail Night. Our numbers are already a bit further along by then. We will continuously improve our offerings and already have many more ideas for revolutionizing language learning.
7. Where is life better: in Markt Schwaben or Garching?
Apart from the internet speed – in Markt Schwaben ;).
