Our Story
We’re making language learning human-centered, efficient and fun. Like language learning, Lingophant is a collaborative effort to create better understanding and personal development.
Hey, I’m Alex. I never liked language learning. It felt slow, repetitive, and boring. But I loved traveling, and the “oh wow!” moment when I realized that I can speak a language abroad was one of the nicest experiences in my life.
It’s also a symbol of freedom and safety, being able to learn any language means being able to feel at home anywhere in the world. As long as you respect the people. But learning a language is a sign of respect already. And that will also not change in times of AI.
So when I saw a real chance that this new method works better than anything before, I decided to move to the country of Georgia and it allowed me to continue working on it.
Language learning combines it all. Logic, memory, listening, empathy, muscle memory, interpretation, and cultural backgrounds are all part of the journey.
But ineffective learning feels like a waste of time.
Many stories exist of people being successful, and after a lot of experimentation and reading research I’m pretty sure this might be the fastest way that ever existed.
So what started as an idea in Amsterdam, got decided on doing in a club called Alphabet, now became a fully developed journey with modern tools.
2014-2015
Got the idea as a student
Noticing that only students with a job or frequent conversations learned the language quickly. Decided to do it in the “Alphabet” club when I forgot the word for “nothing” three times in a row.
13 July , 2017
Lingophant launches on iOS
The Lingophant app is built as a prototype to work with. 2 years later the Android version is added so it can be used in classrooms.
Feb 2, 2020
Sharing phrase sets works
Instead of just having a local version, phrases can now be shared with other people. The back-end was implemented
Feb-June 2021
4 months of working on it from Central America
Quit my job to go work on Lingophant during Covid. From an iPad. The best part of these four months was by far speaking Spanish. Traveling would simply not be the same. Realizing that just memorizing words is not enough but a full journey including listening is the only way to go.
Aug 14, 2023
Moving to Georgia
In order to work with focus on the project, Alex moves to Georgia. Costs of living are lower and the local language is one of the oldest and most difficult languages to try the method with.
თუ ქართულს ვისწავლი, ყველა ენას ვასწავლი.
As you can see, we’ve chosen the hard way, because it’s the road where we learn most. And we can move in peace while reflecting a lot on what’s really needed to learn fast.
But it really is hard, and we kind of depend on your support for continuing. Try it out with our 🌴 12-week program (doesn’t need to be done in 12 weeks), and if you like what you see, please support us with a donation of your choice.
Lingophant makes learning human and effective.
Because when you’re having fun, learning becomes easier. It makes no sense to learn the most human thing, speaking, from a robot. Because language learning can be equally fun as watching movies or other passive consumption activities.
Our goal is to get to the fun part as quickly as possible.
That’s also the best motivator, once you’re having fun it’s easy to continue. So we’re trying to make you feel a connection to the people and to get prepared for real life.
Effective learning is also fun. You feel your brain is growing, you feel you’re using your time in the best way. So we cut all inefficient methods, and only use three highly-effective methods that really support each other.
And that’s what brought us to where we are now.
Taking it easy
We didn’t want to do advertising without it being thoroughly tested. That’s why we didn’t make any money yet. lol. There are too many companies lying to people, promising the stars and delivering peanuts. They’re usually started by IT people, business people, and not necessarily language learners. How many of the CEO’s of the big companies are fluent in more than 4 languages?
It’s not the goal to make billions, the goal is to make something that actually works. Then success will come, and we can have fun with languages.
We’re an independent and global company.
100% of the company was funded by private salary and savings.
We will treat your data like we want companies to treat our own data, meaning that we won’t sell data, and won’t use voice data for e.g. training AI models. We use a simple but effective stack of technologies, to keep costs low.
Our mission is to make language learning human and genuinely enjoyable. Ultimately, we want to make the world a better place through education, technology, and collaboration.
Lingophant has worked with people from Brazil, Germany, Syria, Kazakhstan, Chile, Russia, Georgia, the US and many more. It has been a career starting board for at least 8 people.
Big thanks to Masha, Jake, Vitor, Sabi, Majd, Zhazira, Amadeo, and many more.