Comment by wolverine876

2 years ago

This looks very interesting and I wish you guys the best. One suggestion - a nitpick usually that I wouldn't write, but because it's a language product, you want to give the right impression of your language skills:

In English, uni-, the prefix, means 'one'. For example, unidirectional doesn't mean 'all directions', it means 'one direction'. [0] The name of the app means something like 'one language' or 'one word'. Again, normally, who cares? But this is a language service and people need to perceive you as authorities on language whom they will trust. I read the name and thought, 'well maybe they are great programmers but they aren't using serious linguists'.

You might want omni-, such as Omniverbal, 'all words'; or ambi-, Ambiverbal, 'both words' (reflecting both languages, the learner's native language and the one they are being taught, and 'ambidextrous' - able to use both hands equally well). Both sound like fun words to me (but I'm not in marketing!).

[0] People sometimes think of uni- as all, I think because they think of the Universe and universal (from which I assume 'Univerbal' is derived). Perhaps another way of thinking of universe / universal is meaning 'the single complete thing' or 'the single thing containing everything'.

By that logic, "one language" is actually apt for an app like this, a la 1Password. I.e. one way to interpret is: the service democratizes access to languages so much that one language is all you need to start learning, or all languages are as accessible and as easy to learn as a single language.