Latest news with #languageeducation
Globe and Mail
9 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
Best Chinese Learning App 2025: Migaku Wins Top Position
Migaku named #1 Chinese Learning App for 2025. Immersion tools, native content, and personalized study paths for faster fluency. Migaku is proud to announce its recognition as the Best Chinese Learning App of 2025 by a panel of language education specialists and reviewers. Built for learners determined to achieve fluency, Migaku combines immersive tools, authentic content, structured guidance, and personalized feedback to accelerate learning. Migaku sets itself apart by transforming the media you already enjoy such as Netflix, YouTube, and online articles into interactive study material. With its browser extension and mobile app, learners can click any Chinese word to instantly see definitions, AI-driven explanations, audio, context, and visuals, and then create flashcards with one click. Beginners can start with guided courses like Migaku Fundamentals, which introduces Chinese characters, tones, and pronunciation, and Migaku Academy, which teaches high-frequency words and essential grammar. This foundation equips learners to understand a large share of everyday conversations and media. Each flashcard introduces one concept at a time and uses spaced repetition to ensure long-term retention. The platform continuously tracks each learner's vocabulary knowledge and comprehension across all materials, recommending content that fits their level. Students worldwide highlight Migaku's adaptability, immersion-based approach, and efficiency, often reporting faster progress than with conventional classroom methods. As the Best Chinese Learning App in 2025, Migaku continues to expand its features with AI-generated subtitles, auto-pause functions, improved playback controls, and enhanced media search tools. These updates make vocabulary building and sentence practice more seamless than ever. Whether the goal is preparing for HSK exams, pursuing professional opportunities in China, or enjoying Chinese dramas, films, and literature without subtitles, Migaku provides a reliable and engaging path to fluency. About Migaku: Migaku is a comprehensive language learning platform that enables people to study through the content they love. Supporting multiple languages, it brings together browser and mobile apps with interactive tools, AI-powered assistance, and progress tracking. Migaku turns movies, series, websites, and books into effective and immersive language learning experiences.
Associated Press
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Best Korean Learning App 2025: Migaku Wins Top Position
Migaku named #1 Korean Learning App for 2025! Immersion tools, native content, and personalized study paths for faster fluency. Migaku is proud to announce its recognition as theBest Korean Learning App of 2025by a panel of language education specialists and reviewers. Built for learners serious about fluency, Migaku combines immersive tools, real content, structured guidance, and personalized feedback to accelerate progress. Migaku distinguishes itself by transforming the media you already consume such as Netflix, YouTube, and online articles into interactive lessons. Through its browser extension and mobile app, learners can click on any Korean word to access definitions, AI-powered explanations, audio, context, and visuals, then instantly convert that into flashcards. Beginners can follow guided courses like Migaku Fundamentals, which introduces Korean Hangul and pronunciation, and Migaku Academy, which covers the most frequent words and grammar patterns. This provides enough foundation to understand much of everyday conversation and media. Each flashcard focuses on one new concept and uses spaced repetition to ensure lasting memory. The platform tracks your vocabulary knowledge and comprehension levels across all material, suggesting new content that matches your abilities. Learners around the world highlight Migaku's adaptability, immersion-driven method, and efficiency. Many report faster progress compared with traditional classroom-based approaches. As the Best Korean Learning App in 2025, Migaku continues to improve the experience with AI-based subtitles, auto-pause features, enhanced playback controls, and advanced media search functions. These tools make vocabulary building and sentence practice smoother than ever. Whether the goal is preparing for TOPIK exams, advancing professionally in Korea, or enjoying K-dramas and K-pop without subtitles, Migaku provides a proven and engaging route to fluency. About Migaku: Migaku is a complete language learning platform that enables users to study through the content they love. Supporting multiple languages, it integrates browser and mobile apps with interactive tools, AI-driven assistance, and detailed progress tracking. Migaku turns movies, dramas, websites, and books into effective and immersive learning experiences. Media Contact Company Name: Migaku Inc. Contact Person: Matteo Sanzone Email: Send Email Country: Japan Website: Press Release Distributed by To view the original version on ABNewswire visit: Best Korean Learning App 2025: Migaku Wins Top Position
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
This Magnificent Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock Is Down 26%. Buy the Dip, Or Run for the Hills?
Duolingo operates the world's most popular digital language education platform, and its stock soared to a new record high in May. The stock has since declined by 26%, despite Duolingo's strong financial results, which show rapid growth at the top and bottom line. Duolingo's valuation looks a little stretched by two popular metrics, which might explain its fading stock price. 10 stocks we like better than Duolingo › Duolingo (NASDAQ: DUOL) operates the world's most popular digital language education platform, and the company continues to deliver stellar financial results. Duolingo is elevating the learning experience with artificial intelligence (AI), which is also unlocking new revenue streams that could fuel its next phase of growth. Duolingo stock set a new record high in May, but it has since declined by 26%. It's trading at a sky-high valuation, so investors might be wondering whether the company's rapid growth warrants paying a premium. With that in mind, is the dip a buying opportunity, or should investors completely avoid the stock? Duolingo's mobile-first, gamified approach to language education is attracting hordes of eager learners. During the first quarter of 2025 (ended March 31), the platform had 130.2 million monthly active users, which was a 33% jump from the year-ago period. However, the number of users paying a monthly subscription grew at an even faster pace, thanks partly to AI. Duolingo makes money in two ways. It sells advertising slots to businesses and then shows those ads to its free users, and it also offers a monthly subscription option for users who want access to additional features to accelerate their learning experience. The number of users paying a subscription soared by 40% to a record 10.3 million during the first quarter. Duolingo's Max subscription plan continues to be a big driver of new paying users. It includes three AI-powered features: Roleplay, Explain My Answer, and Videocall. Roleplay uses an AI chatbot interface to help users practice their conversational skills, whereas Explain My Answer offers personalized feedback to users based on their mistakes in each lesson. Videocall, which is the newest addition to the Max plan, features a digital avatar named Lily, which helps users practice their speaking skills. Duolingo Max was launched just two years ago in 2023, and it's the company's most expensive plan, yet it already accounts for 7% of the platform's total subscriber base. It brings Duolingo a step closer to achieving its long-term goal of delivering a digital learning experience that rivals that of a human tutor. Duolingo delivered $230.7 million in revenue during the first quarter of 2025, which represented 38% growth from the year-ago period. It was above the high end of the company's forecast ($223.5 million), which drove management to increase its full-year guidance for 2025. Duolingo is now expected to deliver as much as $996 million in revenue, compared to $978.5 million as of the last forecast. But there is another positive story unfolding at the bottom line. Duolingo generated $35.1 million in GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) net income during the first quarter, which was a 30% increase year over year. However, the company's adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) soared by 43% to $62.8 million. This is management's preferred measure of profitability because it excludes one-off and non-cash expenses, so it's a better indicator of how much actual money the business is generating. A combination of Duolingo's rapid revenue growth and prudent expense management is driving the company's surging profits, and this trend might be key to further upside in its stock from here. Based on Duolingo's trailing 12-month earnings per share (EPS), its stock is trading at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 193.1. That is an eye-popping valuation considering the S&P 500 is sitting at a P/E ratio of 24.1 as of this writing. In other words, Duolingo stock is a whopping eight times more expensive than the benchmark index. The stock looks more attractive if we value it based on the company's future potential earnings, though. If we look ahead to 2026, the stock is trading at a forward P/E ratio of 48.8 based on Wall Street's consensus EPS estimate (provided by Yahoo! Finance) for that year. It's still expensive, but slightly more reasonable. Even if we set Duolingo's earnings aside and value its stock based on its revenue, it still looks quite expensive. It's trading at a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 22.9, which is a 40% premium to its average of 16.3 dating back to when it went public in 2021. With all of that in mind, Duolingo stock probably isn't a great buy for investors who are looking for positive returns in the next 12 months or so. However, the company will grow into its valuation over time if its revenue and earnings continue to increase at around the current pace, so the stock could be a solid buy for investors who are willing to hold onto it for the long term. A time horizon of five years (or more) will maximize the chances of earning a positive return. Before you buy stock in Duolingo, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Duolingo wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $699,558!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $976,677!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,060% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 7, 2025 Anthony Di Pizio has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Duolingo. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This Magnificent Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock Is Down 26%. Buy the Dip, Or Run for the Hills? was originally published by The Motley Fool
The Independent
29-05-2025
- General
- The Independent
The Japanese government is cracking down on unconventional children's names – here's what it means
Japan has introduced new rules to regulate how children's names written in Chinese characters, kanji, are pronounced. Kanji is one of the three core writing systems in Japanese, alongside hiragana and katakana. Originating from Chinese characters, kanji are logographic symbols that represent full words or ideas rather than sounds, making each character unique and meaningful on its own, according to Japanese tutor Alexa Bevan. Japan adopted kanji around the 8th century and later developed hiragana and katakana – two phonetic alphabets called kana – each with 46 characters to complement kanji. Mr Bevan, based in Orlando, US, said on the digital language education platform Rosetta Stone that hiragana was mainly used for native Japanese words and grammatical elements while katakana was used for foreign words and names. Unlike other alphabets where letters represent sounds, kanji convey meaning visually and can have multiple pronunciations depending on context, sometimes using the original Japanese pronunciation called kun'yomi and sometimes using a pronunciation borrowed from Chinese called on'yomi. Starting this week, Japan is enforcing a new law that limits how children's names written in kanji can be pronounced. Under the revised rules, only standard or widely accepted readings will be allowed in official records. This means parents can no longer use the unconventional or flashy kirakira name pronunciations that stray too far from the traditional meanings and sounds of the kanji characters. The revisions will prohibit parents from using some of the more extreme unconventional names, according to local media, and, for the first time in the 150-year history of Japan 's modern family registry, require phonetic annotations to ensure all names can be read as intended. The decision comes amid concerns that such kirakira names are causing confusion in schools, hospitals and other institutions of public service. The government argues the focus on standard pronunciations will help streamline the digitalisation of administrative processes, but it's also widely seen as a move to curb the rise of quirky – and often confusing – given names. Through Japan's pop culture boom of the 2000s, many parents embraced the trend of giving their children unique, attention-grabbing names as a form of personal expression. Inspired by anime, manga, celebrities, and foreign languages, these kirakira names often featured unconventional pronunciations or spellings that broke with traditional kanji readings. The goal was to create names that felt modern, fashionable, and distinctive – sometimes at the cost of clarity or cultural coherence. A 2023 New York Times article reported that Japanese children with unconventional names often faced social and practical challenges unique to their country and its written language. Acknowledging these challenges, the government is stepping in to limit the trend, while maintaining that it still allows room for parental creativity. According to the new rules, if a name is pronounced in a surprising or misleading way – like giving a traditional name a strange or foreign-sounding twist – it won't be allowed. However, some less common but already accepted pronunciations will still be okay. According to local media reports, parents of newborns may have to justify unusual readings and households will receive official notifications of registered name pronunciations, with a window to request corrections. Family registers or koseki – official documents maintained at local town halls that record details like a person's identity and family ties – will now include phonetic guides showing how names are meant to be read. In Japanese writing, these readings are typically provided using phonetic symbols to clarify pronunciation. Yuji Ogihara, associate professor in the department of psychology at Aoyama Gakuin University, authored a study in 2022 examining naming trends in Japan from 1979 to 2018. He found the move towards unique baby names was part of a larger shift toward individualism in Japanese society. 'People increasingly came to live more independently from family members. Specifically, the rate of people living alone, the rate of nuclear households, and the divorce rate increased, whereas the rate of three-generation households and the household size decreased between 1947 and 2015,' the study noted. 'These results indicated that family structure became more individual-based in Japan, suggesting that Japanese culture changed toward greater individualism.' As a result, 'unique names increased over the 40 years between 1979 and 2018, indicating that unique names increased throughout the 1980s-2010s, not just in the 2000s and 2010s'. At the start of the study period, the most popular name for boys was Daisuke and the most popular for girls was Tomoko, according to an annual survey by Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. By 2018, these traditional names had largely disappeared, replaced by kanji names most commonly read as Ren for boys and Yuzuki for girls. Mr Ogihara told the South China Morning Post that the shift towards kirakira names showed that 'Japanese culture has become more individualistic over time'. 'It now puts more emphasis on uniqueness and independence, rather than conformity and interdependence.'
ABC News
12-05-2025
- General
- ABC News
Successful Gangalidda language learning model pitched across Queensland
When Mayarr Yanner attended primary school more than a decade ago in Queensland's Gulf of Carpentaria she was taught Japanese. Her peers at Burketown State School, most of whom were Aboriginal, asked why. As a high-schooler at boarding school on the Gold Coast her peers asked if she knew her Indigenous language from back home. "I would say, 'I know a bit', but I wish I had the privilege of saying that I'm fluent in it," she said. Now 22 years of age, Ms Yanner has returned to Burketown and not only does she know much more of the Gangalidda language — she teaches it. Her role as partnership initiative officer and language teacher at Burketown State School includes delivering the Gangalidda language other than English (LOTE) program. Karen Ford is head of curriculum at Burketown State School where more than 90 per cent of students are Indigenous. Working closely with the community, she co-designed the Gangalidda LOTE subject within the Australian curriculum. "We really needed to make sure we had all the protocols right," Ms Ford said. The school started teaching non-assessable content in 2017 and developed an official curriculum by 2019. The program has been cemented this year by hiring Ms Yanner, a Gangalidda woman, as its language teacher. LOTE lessons are on a Monday, but the language is on display every day. "If you walk around Burketown State School you'll see not just English names for things but you'll also see them in language," Ms Ford said. In early primary, students learn key words and phrases: For upper primary they have developed a junior ranger program, where Indigenous rangers deliver activities using the Gangalidda language on country. This extends to the school's cultural sustainability garden, where they learn about medicinal plants and bush tucker. The Burketown State School program is being presented across Queensland as a model for other schools to consider. School staff recently travelled to the 2025 Gimuy First Nations Languages Workshop in Cairns and will soon attend the North Queensland Region Partnership Initiative Conference Townsville to encourage other schools to develop their own Indigenous LOTE programs. As of 2024, 152 state schools were investigating, developing or implementing an Aboriginal language program or a Torres Strait Islander language program, according to the Department of Education. Mossman, Yarrabah and Aurukun state schools all teach an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander language. Elder Murrandoo Yanner, the lead cultural consultant for the program, said a decades-old Gangalidda dictionary was crucial to its development. "We had a lot of fluid speakers still in the tribe in the 1990s. Before they passed on we had our dictionary recorded, both in writing and recording, for the proper pronunciation," Mr Yanner said. "A lot of senior elders from the Gangalidda people over the years … contributed." The dictionary is comprehensive, including many variations that exist in the Gangalidda language. "There's not a single word for crocodile — [there's] a crocodile, a female crocodile, male crocodile, saltwater crocodile, fresh crocodile, juvenile crocodile," Mr Yanner said. Language is sacred to Mr Yanner and the Gangalidda people. A spokesperson for the Department of Education said teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages could help increase school attendance and improve academic engagement — a sentiment shared by Mr Yanner. "I think we'll make better, brighter children … for this community," he said. Seeing his daughter Mayarr Yanner return to Burketown to teach the language has filled him with pride. "Language is a part of our culture, and my identity, so it feels good to be able to reconnect," Ms Yanner said.
