Frequently asked questions

One person, not a company. My name is Hans: Congolese roots, a childhood in Switzerland, and a wish to pass it on. I write and maintain this site in my free time. The Project page tells you the whole why.

Yes, completely. No hidden paid version, no bank card, not a single banner. No advertising tracker either: nobody follows you around. The only real cost is the domain name.

The bare minimum: with no account, there’s almost nothing to collect. Your language, your progress and your profile names stay in your browser, never on a server. If you write through the form, your message goes by email, and nothing is published without your consent. To know how many people come, each page view is added to the day’s totals: no cookie, no IP address kept, and nothing is sent if your browser asks not to be tracked.

Partly, and we would rather say so. The first dictionary words, the most common ones, and most Swahili translations were drafted with the help of an AI assistant, under a strict rule: when in doubt, nothing. Since then, every new Lingala word has been copied from a published source, and the rest is being checked word by word against published sources: nine wrong words have already been corrected this way. The verses always come from published editions. The Lingala interface and the examples in the Basics were written the same way: 95% of their words are attested in sources, their phrasing awaits a native speaker. A review by native speakers is still missing: if you speak Lingala, your eye is welcome.

With the Basics: the sounds, then the logic of the language. Then the Dictionary and the Numbers, and the Games and Exercises to practise without pressure. If you would rather be guided, the Programme tells you what to do each day, and the Path shows you where you stand.

The Programme says what to work on today: one week, one goal, and the words it needs. It forces nothing, it offers an order, and the games, the exercises and the dictionary stay open whenever you want. No dates anywhere: you move forward with the work done, never with the calendar. The Method page tells how it is built and what checks it.

An optional test waits for you on the Path page, and on the Programme as long as you have no place there yet: eighteen words to recognise, a few minutes, and an honest marker at the end. It isn’t a diploma: it sets the Programme to the right cycle, and never moves your place back without telling you. You can take it again whenever you like.

Lingala first, with Swahili, Kikongo and Tshiluba filling up little by little. The interface comes in French, English, German, Portuguese and Lingala. You start from zero, no judgement: no prior knowledge needed.

Nothing is required: the site opens in your browser, with no account. And if you want, you can install it like an app, on phone or computer, with the button at the bottom of every page. The pages you have already opened then stay available offline.

Yes. All eight games take two to four players, taking turns on the same device, with a final ranking. It’s made for the kitchen table: what you learn while laughing sticks better.

Yes. From around nine, a child can explore alone safely: no ads, no account, no chat with strangers, nothing to buy. The multiplayer games are a fine way to start as a family.

It’s built in: under “Who’s learning?”, on the home page or the Path page, add one first name per person. Everyone switches with one click and keeps their streak, words and path, still with no account, and everything stays on the device. If you prefer more separation, one browser profile per person works too.

In all honesty: Lingala is checked word by word against published sources (dic.lingala.be, the Lingala Bible), and what they cannot settle awaits a native speaker. Swahili, drafted with the help of an AI, has been checked against Wiktionary: more than eight translations in ten are confirmed there. Kikongo and Tshiluba fill up little by little, partly from published sources. When a word isn’t certain, we write “coming soon” rather than invent it, and the dictionary shows its coverage in figures.

Because almost nobody writes them: in Kinshasa, a message, a poster or a newspaper are written without tones. The dictionary follows that use. The tones are real, and the Basics explain them with the duel moto against motó, saying plainly that our synthetic voice does not sing them.

Always from published editions, never rewritten from memory, with their credit: Louis Segond 1910, the World English Bible, the Lutherbibel 1912, the World Portuguese Bible, and for Lingala the Biblica edition under a Creative Commons licence.

It’s generated offline from a voice published under a free licence. Since there is no synthetic Lingala voice, we pick the closest one, a Bantu voice: an honest approximation, until real recordings exist.

Write to me, it’s the best favour you can do this site. A checked correction goes out with the next update, and it helps everyone. Missing words interest me as much as mistakes do.

The dictionary is shared under a Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 licence: take it, credit the source, and share it on the same terms. The texts, the design and the code stay with their author: quoting a passage with a link is always welcome, taking whole pages is asked for first.

Learn, and tell people around you: that already counts for a lot. Then, fix a word, suggest a sentence, leave your feedback, or support it with a donation if you can and if you want to. The rest goes through the Take part page, and donations through the Donate page.

Only if you tick the box that asks for it, and both first name and country stay optional. Without that box, your feedback is read, never shown. Published feedback is reviewed one by one, by hand.