About Us

Gabble On’s mission is to build language learning tools to help high school and college students complete their homework faster and study more effectively.

I am an average language learner. I took all the classes in high school and college, I did the homework, I took the tests. I had the desire to learn, but I never had the talent or the dedication it takes to escape the “Gap”.

You know the Gap. It’s the limbo between basics and fluency. The long journey between being able to find the bathroom in a foreign country to being able to chat up someone in a cafe. And I don’t think I’m alone.

However, I believe new technology and little creativity can help us get out. That’s why I’ve built the Learning Translator, a hybrid study aid that combines the power of online language translators, the creativity of the crowd, and the sharing community of social networks. Together, these features will make homework faster, studying more productive, and languages in general easier to practice and maintain in everyday life.

The Learning Translator works by helping everyone get more out of the tools we already have and things we’re already doing. For example, every middle school, high school, and college student already types their homework into Google Translate each night. Why let them work alone and just get plain translated text back when we can also build vocabulary lists, generate flashcards, and share with classmates for the same effort? Many of us already have friends we made while traveling or studying abroad who speak different native languages, why let those relationships fade away when their Twitter and Facebook posts could be translated, used for practice, and replied to?

The technology now exists to make all this possible. While I admire the quest of some companies to build tools that will “remove the need to learn foreign languages”. I believe that there is also a corresponding need to build tools that help make us smarter instead of dumber.

If you’re a middle school, high school, or college student and you’re currently taking a foreign language class, I specifically designed this to make every minute you spend on homework or studying more efficient and productive. Give it try.

If you’re a lifetime language learner out of school, but don’t have the time or energy to set aside for dedicated study each night, I specifically designed this to help you extract little practical immersion experiences from the social channels you’re already connected to. Give it try.

Let’s cross the Gap together. We are working to constantly add new features to our Learning Translator and the other tools in our Language Learning Dashboard. Sign up, share with your friends, and give us your feedback. Gabble On.

Our Work So Far

We believe the answer is to enhance the online translation tools that students are already using. Our first step has been to answer the question, “Which Engine Translates Best?” This has led to some interesting initial results and a some simple early tools to for our website and iPhone