Christophe De bont 
28/06/2019
Summer’s here and you know what that means. Holiday! Sun! Sea! Beaches! Awkward stuttering in a desperate attempt to buy an ice cream in the south of France! Dos cervezas and a super mercado por favor!
If your knowledge of foreign language is as impeccable as Brad Pitt’s Italian in Inglourious Basterds, our newest FLEGA member Linguineo will be able to help you out. Combining his love for technology with a passion for language, founder Steffen Luypaert set out to create a game where a student would be talking to virtual characters to get feedback on the language that’s being learnt.
Back in 2017, when that idea was first conceived, the speech technology needed to support this ambitious plan didn’t exist. So Linguineo decided to built it themselves. The result is unique chatbot technology that can recognise speech with an unprecedented accuracy and fluency.
The tech is impressive in its own right, but it’s just the foundation to start building groundbreaking language apps. Quickly realising that serious and educational games also need to be fun, they turned to proud FLEGA member and serious games experts Curious Cats (link in Dutch) and occasionally work together with Possibly Pixels, another FLEGA member, as well.
With the technology and partnerships in place, they’re now able to pursue the game that started it all many years ago. Language Hero is billed as The Legend of Zelda of language games. While exploring the 3D world players can learn a language by talking, both written and spoken, to virtual characters. The game also features a combat system where your language skills will be put to the test. The game received VAF funding twice and is expected to be ready in the first half of 2020.
Next to securing various loans and subsidies, Linguineo recently got approved for the imec.istart program (following in the footsteps of FLEGA family members Cybernetic Walrus and Adshot), resulting in even more funds to set a new standard for language apps. We’re very excited to welcome them in the ever growing FLEGA family and we’re expecting merveuilleux things. Parbleu!
