Signed up and gave it a crack. I learned basic Mandarin at high school and have been to China a few times. Found the site quick and easy to use (though I struggle with remembering the tones for the pinyin). Achievements provide a simple but effective incentive.
Would definitely use something like this were it available for Italian and Spanish as well.
Argh. Show, don't tell. I'm not going to "Sign Up or login" just to see what the interface is like. There are tons of language resources out there, and tons of different ways to learn (currently hooked on language apps on my iPhone) - I have a rough idea of what works for me and what doesn't, I should be able to tell right away what methods the site uses and if it's for me or not.
When I first read the comment I read it as overly confrontational and I didn't really like it(esp. after reading the thread on flagging.) I didn't read it as feedback because it wasn't a Rate my startup submission but a techcrunch post so it felt like a tl;dr comment. Viewing it as a constructive feedback comment makes it seem less snarky and less confrontational.
Ah, sorry - my intent wasn't to be snarky or confrontational. I automatically switched to review mode after reading that it's a YC startup, since I figured the founders would be seeing this thread.
Agree. Along the same lines, the items of the form
<span style="font-size:24px;" class="blue">Learning is a game.</span>
look like they ought to be links to describing the features (they're blue!) and so sent me needlessly changing NoScript settings, to no avail. If this is just unimplemented, then OK, but otherwise you should change the colour scheme before leaving beta, or your users will be wasting precious seconds on the front page. (Apologies if you already knew!)
I've been meaning to write a blog post about this, but here's a quick list (I've finally started to learn Japanese):
Human Japanese - basically an interactive textbook, with audio clips and interactive quizzes. Probably the best of the bunch.
Pocket Japanese - based on several series of podcasts, for different skill levels. Each lesson has a ~10min podcast, sentence by sentence breakdown, ~1-4min review track, vocabulary flashcards, and written grammar lesson. Interface can be a bit annoying, but the content and features are good.
iKana - for learning Hiragana and Katakana
AccelaStudy Japanese - for pure vocabulary cramming, very polished.
To the Lingt team - if an iPhone app isn't already on your roadmap, it definitely should be. It's a ridiculously convenient way to learn a language.
I found Lingt very similar (in concept) to Anki, which has an iPhone client. I do not have an iPhone, so I can't tell how good it is, but Anki (desktop) is fantastic. I am currently learning Mandarin, and Anki is my primary resource for vocabulary memorization.
I was lucky enough to be one of the first beta users. Their cognitive model of predicting exactly when I need to take another look at words so I don't forget them works really well.
It wouldn't surprise me, as that's probably a more lucrative market (teaching English to those in China or India); but when you're building and testing a product, it's probably better to be able to speak to your testers in your/their native language ;)
Desperately need a way to test into higher levels more quickly than just running the vocabulary. Also, it'd be wonderful to have a keyboard-based way to run the tests.
That being said, I'm almost still tempted to run through the intro vocabulary due to the achievement system.
As a game guy, I think it would be better to call them "user engagement techniques" or something instead of "gameplay elements" when gameplay is not at the core of the experience. To be fair, I guess it's like how game designers talk about "toy factor" when something is fun to play with pointlessly.
That said, I love the trend, from Yelp to all these YC companies, of deliberately planning the user experience to include these systems.
I don't thing games deserve as much credit as they sometimes get, either. I went to a Cub Scout troop where we had the same kind of points, rank and achievements that are typically denoted as "gameplay elements" today.
Just shows a big white screen when flash doesn't work or you have flashblock installed.... It should have some text box that is normally hidden saying "Please install flash"
One criticism of the levels; there should be automatic browser resizing. I have a small screen, so I had to scroll down to see all the possible answers, and then I couldn't look at the word and what the character looked like at the same time I was searching for the definition.
Also, for the part of the learning where you type in the pingin, it doesn't read English language characters as correct unless they have the little symbols on top of them. I can't find those characters fast enough to type them in!
Sorry for the sizing trouble, we'll definitely have to get better with it.
For pinyin input, there's a page that explains the input system linked to at the bottom, though we need to make it a bit more prominent. Basically you type a number 1-5 after each syllable to apply an accent to it.
Everyone who is interested in this may also be interested in skritter.com, which features a very similar interface. Skritter's focus is on reading and writing Chinese characters.
I wonder if they used techniques from http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_woznia... I am interested in using ideas from that article and incorporating them into a blackjack site I'm building.
I'm very interested in this idea of taking things that you messed up on before and presenting it back to the end user at a lower frequency.
Wozniak and similar programs have definitely been a big inspiration. One of the important things we wanted to do was bring these into a relatively easy web interface that abstracts away some of the stuff that's going on underneath.
a did a somewhat similar site a while ago: http://sanbit.com At the time, I couldn't find a suitable partner to work on it with me. I would like to continue working on it though. I had also applied to yc with this idea a year ago.
Wow! Really nice job on that! I'm doing the English -> Spanish lessons, and it's really thoroughly made (it can tell me why something was wrong, if I was close, etc.) I really like the registration process. Play with the site for a bit, and then fill in a few fields to save your progress.
This site is actually really easy to get started with and willing to let you study without bothering you.
Regarding the approach (type in a translation for the requested term), I am a bit sceptical. It seems to require that there is one unique translation for each term. Maybe multiple choice would be better? This would also solve the irritating keymap for foreign language problem (http://smart.fm solves this nicely with a custom input mechanism in flash).
I've tried Rosetta, smart.fm, others that score you based on your input, but by far the simplest and best method I've found is using Anki, which just asks you 'did you remember it?' and it's up to you to answer truthfully.
After having played with this a little, a couple of nits:
I sometimes know the mistake I made, it's minor, and I want to move on, so click the "Don't know" button in frustration. This then registers for the next question, rather than the one I was on.
I wish there was a non-click-through-a-list way to get the vocab. I'd like to be able to look at the words a little more systematically before even trying the interactive bits.
The pinyin below the symbols isn't big enough - I find myself frequently getting a word right, except I have no clue what the inflections are because they were too small to notice.
Also, maybe make it a little more clear up front about inflections - I knew Chinese was inflected going in, but some may not.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 188 ms ] threadWould definitely use something like this were it available for Italian and Spanish as well.
<span style="font-size:24px;" class="blue">Learning is a game.</span>
look like they ought to be links to describing the features (they're blue!) and so sent me needlessly changing NoScript settings, to no avail. If this is just unimplemented, then OK, but otherwise you should change the colour scheme before leaving beta, or your users will be wasting precious seconds on the front page. (Apologies if you already knew!)
Human Japanese - basically an interactive textbook, with audio clips and interactive quizzes. Probably the best of the bunch.
Pocket Japanese - based on several series of podcasts, for different skill levels. Each lesson has a ~10min podcast, sentence by sentence breakdown, ~1-4min review track, vocabulary flashcards, and written grammar lesson. Interface can be a bit annoying, but the content and features are good.
iKana - for learning Hiragana and Katakana
AccelaStudy Japanese - for pure vocabulary cramming, very polished.
To the Lingt team - if an iPhone app isn't already on your roadmap, it definitely should be. It's a ridiculously convenient way to learn a language.
I wonder if there are as many resources for korean.
It reminds me of Rosetta Stone but without the pictures. I'd pay for this service.
ni3hao3 for instance.
There's a link down the bottom of the page during those sequences that explains how it works and how to practice.
That being said, I'm almost still tempted to run through the intro vocabulary due to the achievement system.
That said, I love the trend, from Yelp to all these YC companies, of deliberately planning the user experience to include these systems.
I don't thing games deserve as much credit as they sometimes get, either. I went to a Cub Scout troop where we had the same kind of points, rank and achievements that are typically denoted as "gameplay elements" today.
Also, for the part of the learning where you type in the pingin, it doesn't read English language characters as correct unless they have the little symbols on top of them. I can't find those characters fast enough to type them in!
For pinyin input, there's a page that explains the input system linked to at the bottom, though we need to make it a bit more prominent. Basically you type a number 1-5 after each syllable to apply an accent to it.
Why is the image for "eight, 8" a glass of... very translucent-ish milk?
Regarding the approach (type in a translation for the requested term), I am a bit sceptical. It seems to require that there is one unique translation for each term. Maybe multiple choice would be better? This would also solve the irritating keymap for foreign language problem (http://smart.fm solves this nicely with a custom input mechanism in flash).
http://ichi2.net/anki/
And I use a custom js-based keymap that works on all os'es, and teach students how to enter accents.
I sometimes know the mistake I made, it's minor, and I want to move on, so click the "Don't know" button in frustration. This then registers for the next question, rather than the one I was on.
I wish there was a non-click-through-a-list way to get the vocab. I'd like to be able to look at the words a little more systematically before even trying the interactive bits.
The pinyin below the symbols isn't big enough - I find myself frequently getting a word right, except I have no clue what the inflections are because they were too small to notice.
Also, maybe make it a little more clear up front about inflections - I knew Chinese was inflected going in, but some may not.