Brazilian at MIT Creates Free Game for Anyone Who Wants to Learn Mandarin

12/18/2013 - 09h32

Last year, before beginning his post in business administration at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), 29 year-old Rio de Janeiro native Marcelo Zilberberg took five months off and did what anyone would do: he went to China to study Mandarin.

It was there, while taking four-hour daily classes of the main Chinese language, that he looked for ways to enhance his learning through applications. "All I found were poor or boring things", he said in a telephone interview.

"Then I had the idea to create a game to show that you can learn Chinese in a simpler way."

• Download the free app (iOS)

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The initiative became the Mandarin Journey, a free iOS app released last Thursday, which functions as an RPG: the story takes different courses depending on the decisions made throughout the game.

"The first time that you have to use Chinese is when you get to a shop. If you decide to say 'ni hao' [how are you?], she is happier than if it was said in Portuguese [tudo bem?]", he explains.

Free alternatives for learning languages are the services Duolingo and Livemocha.

Brazilian interest in learning Mandarin is high, says the engineer, who graduated from PUC-Rio (Pontifical Catholic University) and passages for (phone company) TIM and UBS Investment Bank in London.

"The response has been very good, people like it a lot. The primary demand is to include the option to record audio to enhance pronunciation. But I preferred to launch the app imperfect to make decisions along the way", he says.

In addition to Portuguese, Mandarin Journey is also available in English.

An Android version should come out in the next two months. One for Windows Phone is also on the horizon, according to Zilberberg.

Translated by STEVE HUGHES

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	Divulgação
	Mandarin Journey functions as an RPG: the story takes different courses depending on the decisions made throughout the game