about lingro
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lingro was conceived in August 2005, when Artur decided to
practice his Spanish by reading Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal.
As a competent but non-expert speaker, he found that looking up new vocabulary
took much more time than the reading itself. Frustrated with how slow existing online
dictionaries were, he wrote a program to help him translate and learn words
in their original context.
lingro's mission is to create an on-line environment that allows anyone learning a language to quickly look up and learn the vocabulary most important to them. Whenever we're developing new tools for lingro or planning the next big step, there are two principles we always consider: |
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• Knowledge and information essential to human communication and interaction
should be free and accessible to everyone.
This is why we created the most comprehensive set of free dictionaries
available under open licenses so that anyone can contribute,
download, redistribute, and
modify the dictionaries for their own needs. These licenses guarantee that they will always remain
free and useful to society.
• To have the best dictionaries, you need to have the best tools. Every tool we create, from games, quizzes, and study tools to in-context word lookup is designed for you, the user. To us, this means that they should be intuitive, fast, easy to use, and hopefully fun. :-) |
people
Artur Janc
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Artur is a language enthusiast, fluent in English, Polish and Spanish (pero tengo que aprender más), an advanced speaker of German, and with some knowledge of Latin and Russian. Artur got his undergrad science and engineering degrees at WPI (Worcester, MA), along with minor in Spanish. Apart from a few awards and distinctions, college gave him the silly idea that it's possible to make the world a better place through writing software. When he's not busy developing the latest dictionary analysis algorithm, Artur can be found enjoying a game of blitz chess or pretending to be a good grad student. |
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Paul Kastner
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Paul spent a year studying at Berklee College of Music before getting a degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He has worked on projects ranging from studying performance implications of interference between collocated 802.11a/g ad hoc networks to building a web-controllable thermostat for his home. Paul believes in the free flow of knowledge and ideas and in the power of technology to benefit humanity. In his free time, you might find Paul practicing his Polish, setting up the lighting for a musical or rocking out on the piano or bari sax. |
advisors
HJ Manzari
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HJ Manzari is an Associate Professor of Spanish at Washington & Jefferson College in Western Pennsylvania. He is the founding editor of www.vocesdelcaribe.org, an online journal and digital archive dedicated to the preservation of Hispanic Caribbean culture. As a child, Manzari grew up in a bilingual household in Upstate New York where his interest in languages and world cultures grew. Manzari’s collaboration with Lingro and its founders first began when its founder, Artur Janc, initiated his studies of the Spanish language. Since then, they have worked together to disseminate the digital delivery of language learning in both the traditional and digital classrooms. |
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Holmes Wilson
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Holmes loves learning languages and hates it when closed content and technology get in the way of people learning and being creative. He co-founded Downhill Battle (to open up the music industry) and Miro (free / open source desktop video software to open up online video). Holmes speaks Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and wants to get his French up to speed. |
contact
The easiest way to get in touch with lingro's staff is to send us a message through this page.
You can leave your email if you'd like to hear back from us, or send the message anonymously.
email
irc
If you'd like to chat with us and you're familiar with IRC,
you can catch us on the #lingro channel on irc.freenode.net. One of us is usually available to
answer questions or cheerfully take your verbal abuse.