PITTSBURGH, Jun 19, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Duolingo, a combination free language education website and crowd-sourced online translation service, today became available to the public after a period of private beta. Co-founded by crowd-sourcing pioneer Luis von Ahn, who also developed CAPTCHA, reCAPTCHA and the Google Image Labeler, Duolingo is dedicated to translating the web into every language by having language students translate it while they learn a new language for free.
Access to the internet is growing worldwide, but many visitors are still unable to unlock a wealth of information, simply because of language. Duolingo addresses this problem in two ways: by helping users learn a new language and translate the web into other languages. And most importantly, the service is completely free.
"Duolingo leverages the brain power of millions of people who are currently learning a new language to help translate the web," says Luis von Ahn, co-founder of Duolingo. "So much of the web is partitioned off by language barriers. With more than a billion people on the planet learning a new language, I knew this was the ultimate opportunity to not only provide accessible education resources, but also make the internet a truly world wide web."
Language translation is at the core of Duolingo's educational service. For example, if a native English speaker seeks to learn Spanish, Duolingo will start by giving the user a level-appropriate Spanish sentence from a Spanish website to translate, along with relevant lessons and education examples. Users then have the opportunity to vote on the quality of other user translations -- ensuring the most accurate translation, all while helping the user better understand the language.
Since launching in private beta in late 2011, Duolingo has more than 125,000 active users. To date, users translated 75 million sentences. Duolingo currently offers translation and opportunities to learn English, Spanish, German and French. The website plans to expand its language offerings to Portuguese, Chinese and many others in the near future.
Duolingo is an online social platform that teaches users a new language while they simultaneously translate content across the web. Duolingo's mission is to translate the web into every language, as well as make language education accessible to the masses. Co-founded in 2011 by Luis von Ahn, the developer of CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA, and Severin Hacker, Duolingo launched to public in June 2012. The company is based in Pittsburgh, Pa. For more information, visit the site at www.duolingo.com , on Facebook at www.facebook.com/duolingo , or follow Duolingo on Twitter at @Duolingo.
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