Teen-Lóng (or Tín Lóng: teen slangs, or just slangs, it's a pun) is an open dictionary for contemporary Vietnamese slangs and idioms, contributed by registered users and enjoyed by everyone, specifically older people and Vietnamese who have been abroad for a long time.
I have studied in the United States for 4 years, and as each year passed by I felt like I grew more distant with contemporary Vietnamese vernacular in Vietnam. This creates a sense of separation from my fellow countrymen back home and a loss of cultural identity. This hit me particularly hard as I am a son of two Vietnamese language teachers, so growing up, verbal dexterity has been a main part of my identity that earns me friendship and respect.
This project will be my journey back to my core identity. At the same time, it will help people from older generations to understand the younger generation vocabulary more, and with this understanding keeping the older generation young and active, as well as boosting mutual understanding cross generations. There are 4.5 million Vietnamese abroads, not including the students who tend to immigrate and reside in the host country and start a new life. There are more than 96 million Vietanmese in Vietnam, with a slight indicator of an aging population. The app aims to find a common voice for all Vietnamese.
The app layout is a dictionary, with the search bar as the most important feature. Each entry will have the definition, an example, and an optional picture. Anyone can look up and read the words, but only registered members can submit entries for words. Also, since there is no academic restriction on slangs, and words can have more than one meaning, each word can have multiple entries--each with one particular definition, example, and optional picture.
The key of the app is its content. I will prepare 100-200 first words to set a template. Afterwards, I plan to recruit high-energy high-school students to volunteer to contribute to the dictionary. Having worked in local student organizations before, I know people who have access to the young and driven high school students who will likely be interested in building the content.
Each entry will have tags to make categorizing words easier. There is also a vote feature on each entry so the entry with the most votes will appear first when a particular one is looked up. We will use React to update the app as users interact with the vote features.
With tagging I hope the app's SEO will become stronger. This is also a very imporant aspect that I will have to learn more about.
Mobile Friendly. For users who really like to use the app, they can have it on their phone as a Progressive Web App.
If I have time, I can make a top score boards for people with the most contributions, based on amount of approved submissions and votes. Also, a random Word of The Day.
For revenues, I aim to build a following first before placing ads on the app. And afterwards, I can even have merchandises with cool, trendy words where users can buy the merchandises online.
Check out the landing page at this link: (insert here, sorry we didn’t make a fake one for you.)