Who We Are .................

We are a team of native course writers and speakers with a keen interest in language learning. Beyond our native language, all of us have acquired one or more languages during our lifetime. We continue to be teachers as well as learners and know that learning a new foreign language as an adult is not difficult as such, but requires commitment and frequent practice.

Ulrike Rettig holds a PhD in Germanic Languages and Literatures from Harvard University. After a teaching career that included Vassar College and Harvard University, she became interested in self-teaching language methods. For Pimsleur Language Programs, a leading developer of audio courses, she worked as a writer for German and Dutch programs and as a development editor for a variety of languages (incl. French, Spanish, Turkish, Hungarian, Hebrew, and Arabic).

 

Chiara Magini holds a M.A. in History from the University of Pisa, Italy. Before moving to the United States, Chiara worked as a Career Advisor in Italy and perfected her English in Dublin, Ireland. She now teaches Italian and also works on Italian translations and transcriptions.

Chiara is the course writer for Italian. 

                                         

Pablo Montoya holds an M.A. in English Linguistics and Literature from the Universidad de Sevilla, Spain, and did graduate studies in Computational Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. He has broad industrial experience in diverse areas, including Natural Language Processing, Speech Technology, Translation and E-Learning. 

Pablo is the course writer for Spanish as well the Spanish speaker.

Ada Pouplard holds an M.A. in Foreign Languages from La Sorbonne, Paris, France and an M.A. in French Literature from Tulane University, where she also was a French instructor. Ada, born in the U.S., but growing up and studying in France, is fully bilingual. She was the Editor-in-Chief of Vocable, a monthly publication in Paris, France.

Ada is the course writer for French.

Native Speakers

German - Sandra Bayley, Jonas Meyer

Spanish - Inmaculada Hervás, Pablo Montoya

Italian - Chiara Monti, Mario Napolitano

French - Sophie Gordon, Philippe Jacob

Business and Software Development

Peter ImagePeter F. Rettig holds engineering degrees from the ETH, Zurich, Switzerland and Columbia University, NY. His interest in languages began while working in Switzerland, where he became fluent in French. He co-founded and then sold his professional services firm in the U.S. at the end of his consulting career. Beginning now his third career, Peter is using his technical skills and project management experience in starting up gamesforlanguage.com.

 

Martha Rettig  holds a B.A. from Simmons College in Graphic Design and Art History and a MFA in Dynamic Media from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA, where she is also an Assistant Professor for Web Design. As co-owner of Cykod, Inc with her husband Pascal, she designs all of GamesforLanguage's site and game graphics. 

 

Pascal F. Rettig, holds B.S. & MEng degrees in CS/EE from MIT, Cambridge, MA. At Cykod he developed Webiva.com, the software platform of GamesforLanguage.com. Pascal is the author of Professional HTML5 Mobile GameDevelopmentworks as CTO at Alignable, and, together with his wife Martha, is involved in all game developments and improvements.