The Eurovision Song Contest feature, launched this week in the lead up to the event in Tel Aviv this weekend, allows Tandem users to show their support for their country and favourite performer to help create new partnerships on the one-on-one language learning platform.

“We’re also helping to break down barriers and encourage our members to celebrate cultural diversity”

“Our Tandem members always jump at the opportunity to chat about music with their language exchange partners, which is why we wanted to bring a bit of the Eurovision magic to the app,” said Arnd Aschentrup, Tandem’s chief executive and co-founder.

“Not only are we motivating our community to practise languages, but we’re also helping to break down barriers and encourage our members to celebrate cultural diversity.”

On Tandem, learners connect to teach each other their native language and the edtech provider has long sought to create a community of users.

According to Aschentrup, one of the primary motivators for his learning app is to create friendships across the globe, and facilitating ways to show users’ interests was an essential part of developing partnerships.

“You make deeper connections and enjoy really interesting cultural experiences in the app,” he said.

With an anticipated 180 million viewers from more than 40 countries across the world, the company said Eurovision was a unique opportunity to connect fans around the world to start learning a new language and sharing their interests.

The Eurovision feature is the latest in a series of updates and timed events from Tandem, which in early 2019 launched its second phase of artificial intelligence guided learning.

A similar limited time event was run in 2018 for the FIFA World Cup in Russia.