Shenzhen-based start-up's app can help you learn Game of Thrones' fictional language
The HelloTalk language-learning app has more than 3 million users worldwide helping each other learn and translate
Sash Dothraki ezok?* If so, Zackery Ngai has created an app that will give you a helping hand.
Ngai is the founder and CEO of Shenzhen-based start-up HelloTalk, a peer-to-peer language-learning messaging app that has 3.3 million registered users around the world.
HelloTalk works by matching users who, for example, speak English and want to learn Mandarin with users who speak Mandarin and want to learn English. The app offers additional translation and voice-to-text services for a fee.
Speaking at the RISE conference in Hong Kong this week, Ngai says he came up with the language exchange idea in 2011 after his own experience learning English and Japanese.
At the time, mobile messaging apps were still in their nascent stage in China, with Tencent-owned WeChat just starting to find its footing.
"I went about looking for developers ... people with [mobile developing] experience didn't really exist then," he says, explaining that he created a small team of web developers who learned how to create a mobile app by using developer manuals. "Eventually, the app came out at the end of 2012."