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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

#51

Post by barrell »

Throaway1982 wrote: post #26
stronglikedan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you able to take in native content with full comprehension? Only a very small percentage of people that learn a language that is not their native language can achieve that.

???? that is called fluency

Not really. Fluency is probably closer to 70-95% comprehension, combined with an ability to assume the rest. I assume the comment is talking about native level comprehension, which is still only like 99.99%

Source: native English speaker in Europe. I have to explain/reword several words/expressions per day to people who would be by all means considered fluent.

(all numbers in this comment were estimated based on experience)

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

#52

Post by powera »

I've been working on a similar app called Trakaido. (Yes, it's also AI generated content).

The demo leans heavily on "choose the words for the sentence", which avoids spelling/keyboard issues, and maybe generalizes around the problems of N->N language maps better. The "decoy selection" for multiple choice answers also isn't great - I am getting sentences mixed with numbers for the translation of "three".

It also has the Duolingo-esque audio "reward" sounds. I personally hate them, but a lot of people feel otherwise.

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

#53

Post by darkwater »

ramon156 wrote: post #36
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…

You're offering a product, not a vibe project, so I disagree. If vibe coding would lower cost while maintaining quality then this would be a fair argument, but the reality is that its a lazy way and frankly it's not programming.

GP was speaking of the first thing they now check on every new project they find is whether it's vibecoded or there is actual "effort" in it. Hence my comment.

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

#55

Post by graypegg »

moralestapia wrote: post #28
graypegg wrote: post #16

> I learned Turkish with lairner itself Honest question, how? If this is a side project so you're presumably the person making the courses, and you didn't speak Turkish before, how did you make a course that taught yourself Turkish? > We work together with some institutes of endangered languages to be able to teach them on our platform. I assume this is how? Are you a platform for these institutions to provide Duolin…

>How can you go to if you haven't been there before.

If the point of learning a language was to say new words to yourself, you can just make up words.

If you want to be understood and understand others, who ever "they" are sort of need to exist while you're learning.

I can promise you, speaking out of a phrase book burned into your brain with limited cultural knowledge from other people makes for a very boring cringeworthy conversation partner, and an awful language teacher.

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

#56

Post by ainar-g »

stronglikedan wrote: post #11
nickjantz wrote: post #4

I watched the demo. It looks like a clone of duolingo. Can you do a better job of explaining how this is different? What features does it have that duo doesn't. How does the app push you to those features vs just falling into the same pattern as duo? You say you learned Turkish with lairner. What level of fluency did you achieve? Are you able to take in native content with full comprehension? Edit: I'm not trying to…

> Are you able to take in native content with full comprehension? Only a very small percentage of people that learn a language that is not their native language can achieve that.

Have you ever learned a language? Because that's what it is for a very large percentage of people.

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

#57

Post by mrjay42 »

thunfischtoast wrote: post #22

It's always a good initiative to build something on your own. Then again, it's also good to not lie to your users. Your courses are AI-generated and not curated by experts. I tried the French beginner course, using German as my base language. The very first items were: 1. Hallo (hello) > Bonjour (I think salut would be better) 2. Guten Morgen (good morning) > Bonjour Then it asked me what Bonjour means, and selecting…

Hey dear neighbor :3

I'm no German speaker, but I'm French, and without invalidating your initial claim (about the AI generated stuff), in France we do translate "good morning" by "Bonjour", which literally means good (bon) day (jour).

Any other translation would be weird: if you'd translate "good morning" by "Bonne journée" -> that would be super weird, because this is something one could say in France to say "Goodbye" xD

I lived in Germany for a short time back in 2022, and notice that saying "Hallo" is used a little bit everywhere. However I can tell you that you are NOT supposed to say "salut" in France ANYWHERE except with your friends.

Like, imagine, you're in Germany you enter a bakery, you can say "Hallo" -> no problem. Same situation in France and you say "Salut" -> either people will react badly or assume that you don't know French or maybe they'll think you're impolite for no reasons

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

#58

Post by hackyhacky »

darkwater wrote: post #47
hackyhacky wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> My rhetorical question was broader,

It doesn't matter, the answer is the same. Using vibecoding is less effort that not using it, so of late we see a lot of low-effort vibecoding projects, of which this is one. Ergo, vibecoding is an easily-spotted red flag for projects that are not worth taking seriously.

> I would ask you to be more mindful in your replies.

You should take your own advice. Also, don't be a dick.

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

#59

Post by t17r »

casey2 wrote: post #18

Hi "Tim", are you aware that this is fraud? That this app doesn't help anyone? How do you prevent gullible users from wasting their time and money on the app rather than learning languages? From your testimonial that you learned Turkish do you at all mean to imply that a user of your app will have a higher chance of learning Turkish than if they didn't use the app vs say a conversation partner? Why sell an ineffectiv…

You can use it for free. It's not fraud.

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

#60

Post by barrell »

andsoitis wrote: post #33
barrell wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Għadni kemm bdejt nitgħallem il-Malti! I'm using my own app, and I don't want to link it here given it's someone else's launch post, but you can find many links in my profile. But if you're a self-directed type of learner, I've been making sure it works well with Maltese :)

Dak hu tajjeb ħafna! Se nagħti ħarsa. Jien ukoll għadni kif bdejt u eċċitat ħafna.

Please get in touch if you have any questions! The setup process is hit and miss, but there's a telegram community for members with many happy customers. I'm there all the time and we're all happy to help!

Plus it would be awesome to get more Maltese learners. I have no one to gush about this language with :D

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