BRASOV, Romania, Feb. 17, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ATi Studios,
creators of Mondly, has today released the first virtual reality
app for language education to combine the artificial intelligence
technology behind chatbots with speech recognition in virtual
reality. Learn Languages VR by Mondly allows people to experience
lifelike conversations with virtual characters, in 28 different
languages, from the comfort of home.
The new VR application is the first to realize virtual reality's
promise of rich, immersive and automated educational
experiences. The app offers instant feedback on
pronunciation, suggestions that enrich learner's vocabulary and
surprises that transform learning a language into a fun
experience.
A popular and fast-growing tech product, Mondly's language
learning platform has seen over 15 million downloads to date.
Bridging the Technologies Behind Chatbots and Speech
Recognition with VR
Mondly's conversational voice chatbot for language learning was
first released by the company in August
2016. The technology uses advanced speech recognition that
understands millions of phrases and words in 28 different
languages. Since its release, it has been used by millions of
Mondly users and has learned millions of new phrases and responses,
thanks to the chatbot's self-learning technology.
To bridge the technologies behind its chatbot, speech
recognition, and VR, the company had to develop a new automatic
voice detection system. Alexandru
Iliescu, the CEO and co-founder of ATi Studios, spoke about
the challenges involved with creating Mondly VR:
"The toughest challenge was to make the speech interaction
feel natural in VR.
Because VR is so immersive, we quickly realised that
traditional speech interaction models that require a tap or a voice
command to enable speech recognition would kill the flow of the
experience.
So we developed our own automatic voice detection system. It
calibrates to the room's background noise, and it ignores
unintentional sounds. The result is amazing, the conversations with
the virtual characters happen as naturally as real-life
conversations – they just flow."
Virtual Reality Language Training in 28 Different
Languages
Learn Languages VR by Mondly allows users to practice conversing
in a new language with virtual characters; all within realistic
situations that teach language fundamentals and help build their
confidence.
The first version offers three scenes and 28 languages to
explore:
- The Restaurant - Practice ordering food and drinks in a
small bistro.
- The Eurotrain - Have a conversation and make new friends
on a train in Europe.
- The Hotel - Check into a boutique hotel and score a room
with a view.
Having learned from the usage patterns of over 15 million Mondly
users to date, ATi Studios has created the VR application based on
what users actually need to effectively learn a new language –
instant feedback and an immersive, real-world experience to build
their confidence.
"Fluency in a language is not how many words you know, but
how well you communicate with the words you do," said Iliescu.
"Our goal with Mondly is to push the envelope of language
learning with new technologies that drive our users to become
better communicators and have richer life experiences. And
the Oculus team and the virtual reality technology they've created
offered us the perfect environment for achieving this
goal."
Full list of languages: British English, American
English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Romanian,
Greek, Portuguese, Arabic, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finish,
Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish,
Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, and Thai.
Download Learn Languages VR by Mondly for free in the
Oculus Gear VR Store
To download the general Mondly mobile application for free,
which includes the conversational voice chatbot, visit:
Google Play Store
AppleStore
Or visit Mondly on the web
About Mondly
Mondly Languages is a leading language learning platform with
more than 15,000,000 downloads worldwide. Available on iPhone,
iPad, Android and PC, it's the first to launch a VR experience for
learning languages featuring speech recognition and chatbot
technology. The mobile apps have a 4.7 star rating in the App Store
and Google Play from more than 400,000 customer ratings.
Earlier last year, Mondly briefly became the number one most
downloaded app in Arab countries, surpassing giants like Facebook,
Instagram and YouTube, upon the release of Arabic language
courses.
The app was recognized by the Apple editorial team in
Europe (UK, France, Germany and other countries) and selected
"Best New App" in January 2016.
Mondly was also included in the 2016 "Language Learning" and
"Visiting France" collections in the App Store.
Press Contact:
Addison Huegel, Media
Relations
US: +1 (415) 316 9629
Germany: +49 (0) 152 152 731
89
ahuegel@elevatorpr.com
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SOURCE ATi Studios