( CNN ) -- I want to translate the Web into every major language : every webpage , every video , and , yes , even Justin Bieber 's tweets . With its content split up into hundreds of languages -- and with over 50 % of it in English -- most of the Web is inaccessible to most people in the world . This problem is pressing , now more than ever , with millions of people from China , Russia , Latin America and other quickly developing regions entering the Web . In this TED talk , I introduce my new project , called Duolingo , which aims at breaking the language barrier , and thus making the Web truly `` world wide . '' We have all seen how systems such as Google Translate are improving every day at translating the gist of things written in other languages . Unfortunately , they are not yet accurate enough for my purpose : Even when what they spit out is intelligible , it 's so badly written that I ca n't read more than a few lines before getting a headache . This is why you do n't see machine-translated articles on CNN . With Duolingo , our goal is to encourage people , like you and me , to translate the Web into their native languages . Now , with billions and billions of pages on the Web , this ca n't be done with just a few volunteers , nor can we afford to pay professional translators . When Severin Hacker and I started Duolingo , we realized we needed a way to entice millions of people to help translate the Web . However , coordinating millions of contributors to translate language presents two major hurdles . First , finding enough people who are bilingual enough to help with translation is difficult . Second , motivating them to do it for free makes this next to impossible . The idea behind Duolingo is to kill two birds with one stone by solving both of these problems simultaneously . We accomplish this by transforming language translation into something that anyone can do -- not just bilinguals -- and that millions of people want to do : learning a foreign language . It is estimated that over one billion people worldwide are learning a foreign language , with millions doing so using computer programs . With Duolingo , people learn a foreign language while simultaneously translating text . When you learn on Duolingo , the website gives you exercises tailored specifically to you that teach you every aspect of the new language . You may be asked to translate a sentence , to pronounce or listen to a phrase , or to describe what you see in an image . Some of the sentences you translate come from real websites . By having multiple students translate each sentence , and then choosing the best one , Duolingo produces translations that are as accurate as those from professional language translators . Because you create valuable translations as a side effect , learning on Duolingo is 100 % free : no ads , no hidden fees , no subscriptions . Duolingo entails a new business model that allows anyone online , regardless of socioeconomic status , to have access to education . For example , the leading language-learning software sells for over $ 500 , which is beyond the means of the majority of the world 's population . If language education is offered free of charge in exchange for students ' performing useful tasks , those who can not afford to pay with money pay with their time -- time that would have been spent learning anyway . This is how I want to translate the Web . Now go on and sign up for Duolingo . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Luis von Ahn .
Luis von Ahn founded the company behind CAPTCHA . He used that technology to help digitize old books . His new project provides a free way to learn languages and thereby translate the Web .