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Show HN: Ricotta – Language Learning to Replace Anki

ricotta.affineur.io

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Re: Show HN: Ricotta – Language Learning to Replace Anki

#41

Post by williamsss »

mlyle wrote: post #6

Things the webpage should answer: - If it's free, like you say here, that it's free. - What languages does it work for? - What's the process to start? Things I'm curious about: - Is this intended to be a business? How do we get surprised by this costing something or disappearing in the future? - Can it work in the opposite direction, e.g. to help students that speak Chinese pick up targeted English vocabulary based o…

I'll update the marketing site to expand on those thanks for the feedback.

> - If it's free, like you say here, that it's free. I'm not entirely sure but no I don't think I will charge for this, unless I had expensive features users want as I'm out of pocket on this myself. Its namely something I'm hoping to learn from with marketing and foster a community around. I'm not sure where it will go as the moment its a passion project, with a wrapper such as auth that I plan to repurpose for profit in some way such as a second company or selling the code as a starter template.

- What languages does it work for? I can easily add support for others if there's requests so far these are what I added support for: Mandarin Spanish Hindi Arabic French Portuguese German Japanese Russian Italian Malay Persian Polish Greek Czech

- What's the process to start? 1. Add a word you wish to learn 2. It will generate 4 cards for that word with examples for you 3. Review the card based on your memory recall of "good" "okay" "bad" and you'll see the card based on spaced repetition more often until you have marked it as good enough times it will come up less frequently.

- Can it work in the opposite direction, e.g. to help students that speak Chinese pick up targeted English vocabulary based on what they're working on? I'm open to adding internationalization! But want to get the english app at a point I can justify the time commitment.

Re: Show HN: Ricotta – Language Learning to Replace Anki

#42

Post by williamsss »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #19
mlyle wrote: post #6

Things the webpage should answer: - If it's free, like you say here, that it's free. - What languages does it work for? - What's the process to start? Things I'm curious about: - Is this intended to be a business? How do we get surprised by this costing something or disappearing in the future? - Can it work in the opposite direction, e.g. to help students that speak Chinese pick up targeted English vocabulary based o…

One I’d add is, “Can it be used offline/without a browser?” That’s something that’s been nice about Anki. As long as I’ve got my laptop I can do reviews, even if I don’t have a connection or the internet is awful or costs money (flights, etc). It runs on everything too which has worked nicely on the Linux ultraportable I’ve dedicated to study purposes.

There isn't offline use no - but I'll have read into how I could accomplish this. Happy to add support if there's significant demand for it.

If anyone has articles for offline web apps I'll have a read through.

Re: Show HN: Ricotta – Language Learning to Replace Anki

#43

Post by williamsss »

AyyEye wrote: post #16
mlyle wrote: post #6

Things the webpage should answer: - If it's free, like you say here, that it's free. - What languages does it work for? - What's the process to start? Things I'm curious about: - Is this intended to be a business? How do we get surprised by this costing something or disappearing in the future? - Can it work in the opposite direction, e.g. to help students that speak Chinese pick up targeted English vocabulary based o…

> Is this intended to be a business? How do we get surprised by this costing something or disappearing in the future? The bottom says: Ricotta developed by Affineur Ventures Their website says: > Find the Perfect Buyer or Investor. Exit on Top. I give it a high likelyhood of enshittification, as soon as profitable

I'm trying to create a brand that will sell apps outside of this app. I don't think this app is one people would pay much for its a passion project that has helped refine a business wrapper as I go through it such as Auth system, legal docs system etc.

Re: Show HN: Ricotta – Language Learning to Replace Anki

#44

Post by williamsss »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #15

I'd have to see some serious stats to believe whatever SRS algorithm you use is better than FSRS (which is supported in Anki). Stats for FSRS here (and elsewhere) [0]. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/18csuer/fsrs_is_now_t...

It uses the same FSRS as Anki. You can see some of the logic in my open source version of the app here https://github.com/Amber-Williams/language-flashcard-app-gpt...

Anki uses this FSRS which is an open sourced algorithm https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki

Re: Show HN: Ricotta – Language Learning to Replace Anki

#45

Post by williamsss »

marcusbuffett wrote: post #22
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #15

I'd have to see some serious stats to believe whatever SRS algorithm you use is better than FSRS (which is supported in Anki). Stats for FSRS here (and elsewhere) [0]. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/18csuer/fsrs_is_now_t...

Yeah as someone working on educational software, anything hand-rolling their own SRS is a pretty big red flag. Beating FSRS is going to be next to impossible, especially FSRS with parameters optimized from your users’ review history.

The app is using the same Anki FSRS algo its open source https://github.com/open-spaced-repetition/fsrs4anki

Agreed would be swimming against the tide rolling a custom one. Anki's is awesome! This app functions much the same just makes card generation MUCH faster than Anki.

Re: Show HN: Ricotta – Language Learning to Replace Anki

#46

Post by williamsss »

barnabyjones wrote: post #28

It doesn't handle homonyms well, since the AI isn't given contextual reference. The sentences are also too simple on advanced level, so you don't get much more out of it than just reviewing the words. The AI coming up with words for you doesn't add a ton of value, most languages have standardized tests with good word lists that learners should already be using. Adding the issues others mentioned, I think this is feas…

This is incredibly valuable feedback.

>The AI coming up with words for you doesn't add a ton of value, most languages have standardized tests with good word lists that learners should already be using. Adding the issues others mentioned, I think this is feasible but needs agents taking additional steps to mimic what a real tutor would do and formulate a useful short lesson.

I plan to refine the content certainly. If you have examples I could use for a baseline to achieve what you want that would help me back test against I'll try to add that into the next release batch.

> If this could come up with Duolingo-esque lessons for different levels I might use it to supplement. I see the app to be used in tandem with a structured lesson rather than structured lessons in the app. Similar to an Anki study deck.

I had looked into lessons for the app on my 3rd iteration of this and went through a massive refactor for it all to be lesson based. In the end, it felt like AI slop so I kept it simple with vocab to start. In any case, I will refine the marketing copy to reflect that.

Re: Show HN: Ricotta – Language Learning to Replace Anki

#47

Post by dankwizard »

david_allison wrote: post #21
dankwizard wrote: post #10

What algorithm are you using for SRS? Anki recently updated to include (the much better) FSRS4.5 algorithm alongside their usual (and still default) SM-2.

In-case you haven't updated: FSRS 5.0 was released in Anki 24.11

Thank you, I hadn't noticed!

Re: Show HN: Ricotta – Language Learning to Replace Anki

#48

Post by williamsss »

michaelgolden44 wrote: post #8

I am a working to learn a second language right now, one of the elements I have encountered is that I don't like is the anki apps UI, and the variety of stylings of anki cards from deck to deck, and how audio plays (or doesn't) depending on the app (web, mac, ios). Lot's of little UX frustrations that push me away from using it myself constantly. I see from your LinkedIn for the site that the application: "automatica…

Sure I started from this app which is open source https://github.com/Amber-Williams/language-flashcard-app-gpt...

You're welcome to repurpose the code. It uses web text-speech api which I had a fair amount of beta feedback that the voices sounded robotic. So moved to a TTS model in the backend. This came with a load of heavy processing along with a translation model which crashed my app when I initially released it on r/languagelearning that had I had fun challenges to scale.

If its an app just for you, you can get away with more and greatly simplify the app.

Re: Show HN: Ricotta – Language Learning to Replace Anki

#49

Post by williamsss »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #5

Creating Anki decks takes time, how does Ricotta speed up the process? Does it have built in decks? If I'm learning Hindi, why should I switch? Will it really have great Hindi pronunciation? Is my data being used for anything? Congrats on the launch. The website and the product seem really slick and you should be proud. The above questions are my honest reaction to seeing your site.

It supports Hindi! I haven't had any feedback from a Hindi native nor learner. If there's any feedback you can give, even if its to say the app is shit I would appreciate your take.

I have a test account and demo video I'm working on. I'll shoot it over later this week when I have one or the other so you can check it out without commitment or data concerns.

Thanks for the feedback!

Re: Show HN: Ricotta – Language Learning to Replace Anki

#50

Post by williamsss »

dankwizard wrote: post #10

What algorithm are you using for SRS? Anki recently updated to include (the much better) FSRS4.5 algorithm alongside their usual (and still default) SM-2.

It uses an older version of FSRS. Now that I know I'll update later this week to v5. Thanks
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