The idea of ​​the application "Zubryk" (it is better to search by the phrase "Dictionary with Zubryk") arose a year ago, says the creator.

"My children and I study languages.

We realized that there is no application for learning the Belarusian language, and even more so for children, so interesting and beautiful that we would like to use it.

In addition, we moved to Poland, and here, obviously, there is a shortage of the Belarusian language.

I realized that making such an application would be good for my children as well, and someone else would need it to maintain interest in the language.

The application itself is a project that wants to live, because there is a lot of support from other people, a lot of interest.

Well, Zubrik himself is a cheerful, viable character who wants to exist," says the creator of the program Alena Zhuk.

In the photo - daughter Emilia, eldest son Tadevush, younger Frantishak and husband Denis, and the heroine Alena Zhuk herself.

Alena says that she wanted to make language learning not boring or violent.

The main character of the application is Zubrik, who receives encouragement and treats.

He can invite other animal friends to join him as the child learns the words.

"Besides, Zubrik will grow.

From one age passes to another, as progress is observed in the study of Belarusian words.

The words themselves are an interval repetition of cards from which you can hear a word, see a picture, and the last stage is to make a word from letters.

There are also plans to divide the study into three ages, because it will be difficult for the youngest to make a word from letters, but it will be enough to simply hear and see.

It turns out that there are three stages of the game, and upon completion there will be a reward with which you can treat Zubrik or invite a friend to play with him.

"My family helps me a lot"

The application is still under development.

And it started with the "Cultural Code" hackathon, organized by the Belarusian Council of Culture.

Drawing of Ksyusha Anyolova, the winner of the competition for the image of Zubrik.

"People who were interested in the project met at it, who willingly shared their experience, fresh ideas in development and design.

I have met a lot of support and interest - it is supportive and inspiring.

During the hackathon, the atmosphere was very ecological, the atmosphere of cooperation, not competition, everyone supported each other, shared the best information, abilities.

This hackathon was a good push."

At the hackathon, the winners received mini-grants on the initiative of Vitaly Samsonov, a businessman and an active member of the Belarusian diaspora in the USA.

"Thanks to this, "Zubryk" also got the opportunity to contact visual libraries, hold a competition among artists, and so on.

The application will be improved, it may be necessary to expand the team, invite someone to develop it."

Now the "Zubryka" team cooperates with Belarusian artists who create unique images for the application.

"My family helps me a lot in creating the application, for example, my daughter really wants to voice Zubrik himself, and so does my youngest son.

The family supports in many ways, the husband advises on technical issues, programming."

"Maybe less than 1% of children are educated in Belarusian"

Alena is sure that the state of the Belarusian language is now catastrophic.

"If you look at the data for 2018, only 1.3% of the city's students studied in Belarusian.

It was 10% all over Belarus, but this is due to village students.

And if earlier we saw that the Belarusian language could expand at least because these village children were learning Belarusian, now it is shrinking.

I am sure, the situation has worsened significantly, now, perhaps, less than 1% of children are educated in Belarusian."

It is very difficult for parents to create and maintain environments where a child would hear a living language and join it, Alena believes.

There is no support from the state either, she is convinced.

"We are now in Poland, and I see how strongly the Polish state supports patriotism, love for the motherland, language, and regions, at the level of kindergartens and schools.

There are a lot of visual materials: cartoons, songs, lullabies, everything else, well designed.

It can be seen that there are funds for this, that there are people working with it."

Elena advises everyone who wants to create their own project, but is afraid, to start acting, to look for like-minded people and people who would be interested in the idea.

"You need to stop being afraid and start moving, despite the fact that it may seem unnecessary, a little dangerous, wrong - but do it and see what happens," says the woman.

The project also plans to add word recognition (Artificial Intelligence for speech and object recognition) and transfer "Zubryk" to virtual reality, augmented reality.

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SAFE