Learning a new language is romantic, just as it is proven to be cognitive. Fifteen years ago, this writer enrolled for a French beginner’s course at Alliance Francaise De Bombay, at Dhanraj Mahal, an Art Deco-style residence of the princely Dhanrajgir family. Its history added charm to learning French, the language of love; so did meeting like-minded souls—that girl from the burbs to be married to a businessman in France; a photographer with a daily, wanting to migrate to Canada; a college-going kid who loved French poetry. With a dictionary in tow, we dreamt of conversing in fluent French at a Parisian cafe, eating buttery croissants. It didn’t happen.

Cut to 2022; we can now learn the language online. Any language. The only bummer is that your teacher is a software, still incapable of pointing out the nuances of pronunciation; or the difference between the French accents or better even, making you fall in love with the language through movies, discourse or poetry. At times, it feels mechanical and distant. But, when we heard of instrucko, an online language class, where a teacher teaches the language in a one-on-one (or limited seating group session) online; we were inclined to try it—this time though, for our eight-year-old son.