Problem: As the world evolves, we see that people travel to more countries, interact with colleagues from many cultures, and bump shoulders with diverse backgrounds daily. Learning more languages helps to interact and build bonds with people from other countries. It makes people more comfortable and helps them relate to you.
Despite all these benefits, learning a language is not the easiest. It can be easy to learn the alphabet, the phonetics, and basic words.
However, fluency, especially for speaking, is something that can only be gained by actually using it with people that speak that language. For example, many people take up to 4 years of Spanish in high school, but are still not able to hold a good conversation with a native Spanish speaker. Sometimes, their mind goes blank and they forget what to say to a greeting like “Hola!” Many language learning apps state that interacting with people in that language can help to improve fluency.
But, what if interacting with actual people may not be feasible? For example, if Jeffery wants to improve Mandarin before he visits China, but does not know anybody that speaks it, how should he go about improving his speaking fluency? The same can be said about many other people around the world who want to improve their speaking fluency in another language, but simply can’t.
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Solution: Imagine an AI program that can mimic a native speaker, so you can speak to it and gain fluency. As we see a massive surge in AI usage, we see that AI can respond to questions similar to a human. Why not use this same concept, but for learning languages? An AI program can be created to learn languages. Using the same idea of Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana, the AI can be given a voice so it can speak. Using this AI, people can speak to it in the language they want to learn, and the AI will respond in that same language. For example, I can speak to it in Spanish to improve my conversation skills,and and it will respond in spanish back.
As this AI program gets more developed, it can also include specific dialects from different areas. Spanish is one of the languages that has many dialects based on the area. Spanish speakers from Argentina have a different accent and slang than the people from Spain. The AI should have these different variations because it allows the learner to learn more about the language and culture and they have the option to choose specific dialects. For example, if Lucy wants to go to Colombia, she will have the option to learn the Spanish spoken in Colombia instead of general Spanish.
Source: https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/language-learning-market
According to Global Market Insights the total language learning market is approximately worth 52.7 billion dollars in 2022. Over the years 2023 - 2032, the CAGR is projected to be 20.8%. At the end of this period the market size will expand to 337.2 billion dollars. This shows that the language learning market is expanding at a fast rate. The market is expected to have more technology based applications like AR or VR even to help people learn languages. Using AI can completely change the way people go about learning languages and can make it much easier.
Competitors:
Duolingo
Babbel
Rosetta Stone
There are a ton of language learning apps, however none of them have an AI program that mimics an actual person speaking.
Monetization:
Possible partnership with other language learning apps like Duolingo
Subscription based usage
One time fee like buying an app
Contributed by: Emma Horsely (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)
Written by: Shubaan Sridhar (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)