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Show HN: I speak 5 languages. Common apps taught me none. So I built lairner

lairner.com

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Re: Show HN: I speak 5 languages. Common apps taught me none. So I built lairner

#41

Post by wccrawford »

ranger_danger wrote: post #6

70 languages from one guy? Was this vibe-coded?

The lessons are questionable. I did the Japanese one, and despite answering all of the incredibly easy questions perfectly, it dumped me into lesson 6, which is also incredibly easy and was the same thing I'd already answered correctly.

Beyond that, some of the Japanese text didn't exactly match what was being said, and some of it was basically the same thing twice, but once with more emphasis. (An exclamation mark.) As a long-time Japanese learner I knew which to expect would be expected as the answer, but a novice would not and it would be just frustrating.

Another was a whole question spoken out loud, but just 1 word from the question as an answer. It can be used like that, but it's asking a lot for a learner to get through it. It's like asking, "Okay?" when you mean "Are you okay?" and expecting a learner to figure it out.

I'm not really sure who this is for. It doesn't seem to fit well for beginner, intermediate, or advanced learners. Beginners need more basic info and explanation. Intermediates probably need things that are more topical. Advanced users probably need things that are more... Well, advanced.

Re: Show HN: I speak 5 languages. Common apps taught me none. So I built lairner

#42

Post by Klaster_1 »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #24

Tried this with german as native language and greek as language I want to learn. First question: Wie steht es um Ihr Greek? Greek is obviously the english and not the german name of the language. But "Wie steht es um Ihr Griechisch?" wouldn't be grammatically correct either.

FYI greek has a good introductory course by Language Transfer, from which you can graduate to textbooks (available from rutracker) and ChatGPT for practice and OCR. I also maintained decent retention by converting everything I learned into Anki cards. Living in a greek-speaking country helps, but only when you are forced to communicate in EL or when you explicitly ingest new words/phrases from what you read around. Before that, I used Duolingo for the same purpose, had issues keeping the streak up and understanding the material (this was early ChatGPT era, though).

Re: Show HN: I speak 5 languages. Common apps taught me none. So I built lairner

#45

Post by rgreeko42 »

When I loaded the page I saw a bunch of placeholder text like "Hero title" for a second then an AI-generated image was the first thing I saw after that. Doesn't inspire confidence that it's "expert crafted."

70+ languages and 700+ courses would imply a staff of people were required to create something like this (if it's of any quality), but it's a "side project"?

Strains credulity.

Re: Show HN: I speak 5 languages. Common apps taught me none. So I built lairner

#46

Post by rich_sasha »

echna wrote: post #32

Seems like false advertisement > Over 700 hand-selected courses created by native speakers and linguists. when it's pure AI with a lot of mistakes (at least couple examples I did).

I guess that's what an AI would have said.

Re: Show HN: I speak 5 languages. Common apps taught me none. So I built lairner

#47

Post by darkwater »

hackyhacky wrote: post #39
darkwater wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "effort". I mean, "effort" to me in this context is what the creator of $project thinks it is worth their time. Don't you agree? If you want to learn a new computer language yourself, vibecoding will probably not help you. If you want to create something to scratch your itch, and spend time and mental effort in getting it polished, isn't that effort? It is not automatic, even with vibecoding, getting out a goo…

> It is not automatic, even with vibecoding, getting out a good app/site that solves a need in an elegant, functional manner for the user. This feels like a vibecoded comment. To address the "substance" of your "comment": yes, creating a polished product requires effort, but this is not a polished product: as pointed out by numerous commenters, it provides nothing new, and what it does provide is broken. Thus the GP'…

My rhetorical question was broader, because GP comment was a generic one, not specific to this project. I would ask you to be more mindful in your replies.
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