Bengaluru student launches 'KannadaDisco' app to help learn Kannada

The app offers info under different categories such as 'reading', 'pronunciation', 'vocabulary', 'grammar', etc (Representative image)

A 17-year-old boy has developed a mobile application named 'KannadaDisco' to help people learn Kannada easily through bite-sized lessons daily.

According to The New Indian Express, Prajwal Reddy, a class 12 student at Greenwood High School, moved Bengaluru at the age of 10. He had to learn Kannada all by himself over a period of around eight months with the help of expansive modules. “I spoke to other Kannadigas who were in a similar situation as me. I was surprised to notice that many of them were not interested in learning the language as it was not required. However, those who were interested didn’t know where to start. That’s when I got the idea of combining my interests in programming and languages to develop an app,” the publication quoted Reddy as saying.

Reddy took about a year to develop the app that does not require an internet connection to provide access to the content. Users can also schedule daily reminders on the app to make sure they do not miss out on lessons.

The app has categorised content into 'reading', 'pronunciation', ‘word of the day’, 'vocabulary', and 'grammar'. It also has a conversation phrase book which includes words one can use in the market, restaurants, and government offices. All sentences in Kannada come with English translations.

So far, the app has seen 1,600 downloads.

Reddy plans to launch the app in other languages also, so that people conversant in Hindi, Telegu, and Tamil are also able to pick up Kannada easily.

His aim is to eventually create an interactive space for quizzes and language games to make learning fun. Reddy is currently planning to collaborate with schools to integrate KannadaDisco into the curriculum of primary school children.