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by vidbina 1366 days ago
This is so dope. Wanted something like this for a while. Was about to ask about tips for folks trying to ease into a base-line language level and then started fiddling with the Translator feature (which wasn't superquick to spot but very helpful now).

For the FAQ: How long have y'all been at it? Who is in the core team and what are your backgrounds? Would love to know the background story of the team. Just figured y'all are based out of ZH (ch) and SF (us) and noted the their.news submission but know nothing else. Super curious!
2 comments
Hadjimina 1366 days ago
Hi, so most of us are based in Zurich, but the project originally started while I was writing my master's thesis at UC Berkeley.

Concreteley we are:

Philipp (that's me, technical, https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmhadjimina/ )

David (technical, https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-niederberger-aba7a7177/)

Sam (biz-wiz, https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuel-bissegger/)

and Gurnek (biz-wiz, https://www.linkedin.com/in/gurneksingh/)

Send me a DM on linkedin or at philipp@quazel.com

Background wise David and I met in while doing CS in undergrad at ETH Zurich, I know Sam since highschool and met Gurnek at UC Berkeley. I have been working on Quazel fulltime for 1 week, before then I still had to finish my thesis (which was a pain in a*), but have been working on it for a few months before then just part time.

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vidbina 1365 days ago
Nice! All the best to y'all. I can already see y'all killing it in YC BTW so pls apply. DISCLAIMER: I'm not an investor, so what do I know. Just a fanboy atm!
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insane_dreamer 1365 days ago
Kudos. Great stuff.
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vidbina 1366 days ago
Oh snap, when you sign up you get a learning track. This kicks DuoLingos ass. Like practical stuff (conversational aids) right away instead of useless practice sentences like "the monkey has a ball".

In all fairness, I bailed on Duo about a year ago after a full year of maintaining a streak and feeling I wasn't learning much.

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jacooper 1366 days ago
Honestly Duolingo is one of the worst apps to learn a language after basic levels(A1). Its repetitive and slow.

I switched to Seedlang(Learning Deustch) And its miles better, and this projects looks promising too!

Although they cover different use cases.

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