Lingua.ly

Lingua.ly was an EdTech company that provided a language learning platform centered on the principle of digital immersion. The firm was founded in Tel Aviv in 2011 by Dr. Jan Ihmels and Dr. Orly Furhman, academics with backgrounds from Cambridge, the Weizmann Institute, and Stanford. Ihmels, a polyglot and computational biologist, combined his personal language learning strategies with Furhman's expertise in cognitive psychology to develop the company's core technology. The journey began after Ihmels left academia and saw an opportunity to apply his extensive experience in programming and algorithm development to reinvent online language education.

The company's core offering was a cloud-based platform that included a web app, mobile apps for iOS and Android, and a Chrome browser extension. Its patent-pending algorithm analyzed a user's vocabulary and click-patterns to recommend real-world articles from the web tailored to their specific proficiency level and interests. This approach was designed to create an optimal learning environment where 90% of the words in a text were known, allowing users to infer the meaning of the remaining 10% from context, a method grounded in linguistic principles like Krashen's Input Hypothesis. Users could look up words on any website, which were then automatically saved as flashcards with images and audio for later practice through games and quizzes.

Lingua.ly targeted a broad market of language learners, from individuals engaged in self-study to students in educational institutions. The business operated on a freemium model, providing its main tools for free with plans to introduce premium features. It also aimed to form partnerships with schools and textbook companies, securing a major agreement with Israel's Center for Educational Technology (CET) to offer its technology to over a million students. After raising a total of $1.8 million in funding from various investors, the company announced in October 2016 that it was shifting its business focus and would no longer maintain its product line. Keywords: language learning, digital immersion, EdTech, vocabulary acquisition, personalized learning, content-based learning, web app, mobile learning, Chrome extension, flashcards, spaced repetition, natural language processing, Jan Ihmels, Orly Furhman, language education technology, self-study tools, online dictionary, real-world content