Dominik Wallner

As early as in my school days, the study of languages filled me with great joy. Even when I learned my first foreign language - Latin - I found it extremely fascinating and exciting how different languages describe the reality that surrounds us by the most diverse means. At the age of 14 I began to collect textbooks and grammars on foreign languages. This passion continues to this day.

This interest eventually led me to study Japanese Studies, Sinology, Assyriology and Classical Indology at the Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg, which finally led to a Master's degree in Japanese and Classical Indology. Even during my studies, I was always eager to learn more foreign languages, either in courses offered by the university or through self-study. Indigenous and minority languages became a particular area of interest for me. This is how I came to learn the Ainu language, an indigenous (and highly endangered) language in northern Japan. I learned Ainu grammar and eventually completed a PhD on the topic of Ainu epic oral literature.

After receiving my PhD, I spent a year at Yale University as a Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer, and continued to devote myself to the study and teaching of Ainu. After a workshop on the Ainu at Yale in the spring of 2018, during which I taught participants the basics of the Ainu language, I grew a desire to share my passion for learning and teaching with as many people as possible. So I started a YouTube channel on Japanese grammar (in German), and that's how the idea for our language learning app came up. It is my greatest wish to contribute to the preservation of the cultural and linguistic diversity on Earth and to make it easier or even possible for people to acquire languages - and thus also the keys to other cultures.