

Ask YC: Feedback on startup: learnitlists.com - mcxx
http://www.learnitlists.com/

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jgrahamc
1\. There's something very wrong with the English/German translation. It's
frequently not finding the German equivalent and just printing the English
word. e.g. It claims that the German translation of Cook is Cook.

2\. When presenting a word like Cook you really need to distinguish between
nouns and verbs. There's a big difference between der Koch and kochen.

3\. You don't present the gender of any of the words. This is very important
if you are to learn almost any language other than English. You just can't
make the adjectives etc. match if you don't know the gender (and there are
words that change meaning with gender: e.g. le tour and la tour in French).

4\. I think it would be very helpful to have the words actually spoken outloud
by your widget.

5\. My experience of learning a foreign language to fluency is that there's no
substitute for speaking to people. For my first months in France I was
constantly asking people in shops, the street, etc. to explain bits of French
to me. For example, I'd pick a word in a newspaper headline and ask the baker
what it meant. This really helped. Currently I'm learning German and find
myself asking people Wie sagt man X auf Deutsch? a lot.

~~~
hormart
Thanks .. we are working on most of what you request. The sound should be the
premium feature.

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nextmoveone
One thing that bothers me is clutter, clear messaging should be in place on
the homepage.

The _multiple_ pictures are eye grabbers so they take away from the text that
matters. Like for instance, I think "You can now learn a few words of your
chosen language every day." Should be WAY BIGGER AND IMPORTANT.

I like easy, as does everyone else, so make juice worth the squeeze.

Like : <http://www.chatterous.com/> <http://coordinatr.com/>
<http://script.aculo.us/> <http://foamee.com/> <http://rescuetime.com/forbiz>
<http://heysan.com/>

I think those have clear messaging and purpose. I dont have to think what it
is really...I think this will increase your user signups. As well as making
that sign up button _WAY_ bigger.

Additionally, that sign up page it has "I am Learning" then an options like
"German <> English"...What's that about? Why not just ask me what language I
want to learn and what language I speak don't confuse me... I mean what does
that even mean anyway...

Also, when I click one word and it loops through the list, I meant for the
word to translate on the other side, not have the flashing red words in the
top left...

And what's with the poll? lol

That's everything from me. Sorry if I tore you up, but hey at leasts it's
honest feedback, right?

~~~
hormart
No sorry at all :) And thanks for the inspirational links and a very concrete
critique.

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truebosko
Great idea, here's some thoughts: \- I signed up and it put me in a google
gadget widger page, but it's not actually a google gadget.
<http://widget.learnitlists.com/orkut/index/google_gadget> is the url I am
talking about. It was just kind of confusing to be put in there

\- I was tossed into it without any explanation and words began revealing
themselves if I clicked on things but I could not type in the words I knew (Or
is that not how it works?) It looked like I was supposed to begin
typing/guessing the words but it doesn't seem to be the case.

Great front page though, made me want to try it right away

~~~
hormart
Thanks .. we will provide some kind of explanation as we need to make the
service more user friendly.

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mullr
1\. Not too useful for lower-level Japanese (many many people, myself
included) without providing optional readings for the kanji. (The workaround
is a browser extension like RikaiChan.) 2\. Front page is cluttered 3\. Didn't
want to register, did anyway 4\. How do I get it on my iGoogle page? It wasn't
clear after about 15 seconds, which is way too long. It should have given me a
choice just after I hit "go".

~~~
mullr
Also: when you click to show the answer, it shouldn't fade in. It should show
up instantly. Fading out is okay. And the animation at the top that starts to
play every time I open the page? My GOD, it needs to go away. It probably
won't last long on my iGoogle page because of that. If it's an important part,
at least keep the transitions snappy. Fading == visual distraction, use if
VERY sparingly.

~~~
hormart
We have big discussions inside our team about the widget appearance, hopefully
we upgrade the widget soon so it is straight, clear and easy to use. Thanks :)

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mcxx
Learnitlists is a startup of a friend of mine. It is curently in beta, but
they already have 10K users. He asked me to post it here to get your feedback.
Thanks.

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NicolaLearnit
Hello all,

The english/german translation has now been verified by a professional
translator. We are now in the process of having every language verified. We've
added info about the word type - noun, verb etc. Likewise, gender. We've added
the speaking teacher to say the word, plus there is a facility for native
speakers and learners to make recordings of their daily words - this is
particularly important for languages where a text to speech engine is not
available, such as Welsh or Hindi. Immersion is the best way to learn a
language, but having a bank of 1000 words to pull from really helps
comprehension in the early days. Look out for our new release on the 1st
August. Many thanks for your feedback, Nicola

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NicolaLearnit
Hi, this is Nicola from Learnit lists.

We are currently running a private beta test of the next release of the
widget, after identifying many of the concerns raised in these posts in
previous research.

If you would be interested in helping us with a private beta test of the next
release, please contact me on info at learnitlists dot com.

Many thanks for your time.

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okeumeni
Great Idea: learning another language without much effort, certainly need
improvements. Question how do you make money?

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davidw
Some of the widgets seem slow to load. Don't want to register to try it out.

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hormart
Thanks for comments. We (=learnitlists.com) plan on improving the widget, now
2.0 version is being developed.

I would especially appreciate your thoughts about the user interface. Is the
widget easy to use?

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hormart
Thanks to everybody for honest feedback. That is what I want to hear :)

