181–190 of 221 posts
This is where conversational AI will be an incredible asset. Imagine being able to spend your commute with a personal language coach.
I feel we are only a couple years away from a Google AI blog announcement of a AI language teacher prototype.
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Literally did the same last year with Swedish. Kind of amazing how easy it was to pick up vs French.
What kind of a time investment did it require on a day to day basis? In the last few weeks I've been eyeing Babbel and Duolingo as good options to get started learning a particular language.
Also I'd recommend looking at Memrise. Their voice seems a lot better than duolingo's at least.
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That's a really interesting approach. I wonder if there are reading apps which have that dictionary integrated, but which still require a mouseover / tap to display it for a particular word (they are just using a translation language dictionary).
Look up LingQ
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I don't think this is true. I've spent lots of money on "necessary equipment" for my hobbies, and that hasn't made me commit more time to them. People buy expensive running shoes because they see themselves as being runners, and then they never put them on.
Running shoes don't integrate from lack of use. A membership at a health club, on the other hand, goes to waste if you don't use it.
Learning a language requires immersion. That's why classes with other students are more effective than flashcards. VR has potential to really make a difference here. Imagine you load a VR level. It's a busy outdoor market in Taipei. In your inventory you have some cash. NPCs with AI and chat logic are around you interacting. Your goal is to buy some bread and get to the subway. You see a vendor with some bread, but d…
I found the article to be BS. My experience: 1) Classes with other students are just about the least effective way to learn a foreign language. You just reinforce each others' bad accents, grammar mistakes, etc. 2) Duolingo is okay for some things, but not for others. But discounting all apps after having tried one or two, though, is a lot like the famous Gates quote: "640k should be enough for anybody" (which he cla…
And yet, hundreds of millions of people have learned a foreign language that way.
In this corner of Europe it's de rigueur for everyone to study 2 or more foreign languages during middle and high school, and (some very rich kids with private tutors aside) everybody does it at foreign language schools with classes of 10-15 other people. It still works just fine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgOqJLRpYI8
And I can imagine the lessons/clip getting progressively more advanced. Has a course based on narrative clips been actually tried to anyone's knowledge?
(If it was made in the soap opera style (and budget), it wouldn't even be that expensive to make).
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I found the article to be BS. My experience: 1) Classes with other students are just about the least effective way to learn a foreign language. You just reinforce each others' bad accents, grammar mistakes, etc. 2) Duolingo is okay for some things, but not for others. But discounting all apps after having tried one or two, though, is a lot like the famous Gates quote: "640k should be enough for anybody" (which he cla…
> There are apps for watching movies for language learning (which adds subtitles, dictionaries, etc.) I've been searching for such apps (for watching movies/audio-visual content). Got any names to share? Thanks.
You get a nice overview of movies in a certain language available in your country. I don't use their Chrome extension though, so I can't say anything about that
I envy the author's persistence. 500 days of working on a task without skipping a day is impressive.
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I found the article to be BS. My experience: 1) Classes with other students are just about the least effective way to learn a foreign language. You just reinforce each others' bad accents, grammar mistakes, etc. 2) Duolingo is okay for some things, but not for others. But discounting all apps after having tried one or two, though, is a lot like the famous Gates quote: "640k should be enough for anybody" (which he cla…
> There are apps for watching movies for language learning (which adds subtitles, dictionaries, etc.) I've been searching for such apps (for watching movies/audio-visual content). Got any names to share? Thanks.
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When I started learning more languages as an adult, I found that the biggest accelerator for me personally was likewise to read novels, even if they were way beyond my nominal skill level. The first 50-100 pages would be slow grinding, looking up almost everything in the dictionary, but then it would rapidly get faster and easier as I got used to common turns of phrases, idioms etc. And it was great for maintaining r…
That's a really interesting approach. I wonder if there are reading apps which have that dictionary integrated, but which still require a mouseover / tap to display it for a particular word (they are just using a translation language dictionary).