
Language Learning is Broken - kumarski
http://thangudu.com/2013/01/27/language-learning-is-broken/
======
jfaucett
"holy grail of language learning is the ability to learn a language outside
the country that speaks it, to a level of fluency that puts the user within 30
to 45 days of advanced reading, speaking, and vocal comprehension "

As someone who has learned several languages to near native fluency and
majored in linguistics at the University, I think the OP is right on in his
estimate of the goal. But the biggest problem software in this area is facing
is that language learning is not a one way street. You can't memorize
thousands of words in all the contexts in which they occur and expect to be
able to have any competency, at least for speaking & vocal comprehensione.
Even when the software provides dialoges and attempts to simulate
conversations (ie. "Pimsleur" and others), it fails because its the same over
and over, mostly outside of real world contexts, where background noise,
dialects, and other tasks are involved. A new language learner has to be able
to respond rapidly and fluidly in spoken conversation over a variety of
subjects if he/she wants to be able to function at the level the OP is talking
about, and current software simply doesn't provide the degree of realism in
these types of situations.

IMHO, in order for any software to be able to achieve the above stated goal, I
think it would need to first have a very good humanlike AI. why? So you can
have a "human partner" in conversations over a variety of subjects, where the
learner is forced to quickly respond and interact with the partner/software.
Otherwise, you're left with all the current options which are at best subpar
in comparison to actually living and interacting with native speakers in the
said country.

~~~
lprubin
I had a friend move to Argentina and in order to improve his Spanish, he found
a group that pairs fluent Spanish speakers learning English with fluent
English speakers learning Spanish for one-on-one conversations. It was pretty
informal in that the pair could meet wherever and whenever they wanted. Half
the time they spoke in English, half the time they spoke in Spanish.

Perhaps software that scheduled live video chats of similar conversations
between learners could help with the problem you bring up? Given that most
language software aims at multiple languages anyway, seems like the only
challenge is technical with the video chat (latency might be a problem
although audio is pretty good too) and the scheduling interface. And I suppose
enough users in each language willing to do such conversations.

~~~
JOfferijns
There are actually quite a few startups doing this already, e.g. Verbling:
<https://www.verbling.com/>

------
alex_c
This is a problem worth talking about. The good news is there's a lot of
innovation in the field, and language learning in a few more years will be
completely different than it was, say, 10 years ago.

I mostly agree with the author's four points - I've tried a number of the
well-known systems over the years, and none of them really worked for me. I
mean, sure, you _can_ brute-force your way through them, but I can probably
just pick up a dictionary and do it on my own with about the same level of
success.

The first service I've used that has actually worked for me is
<http://www.memrise.com>. I've been using it the last few months to bash my
head against the wall that is Mandarin, with surprising (for me) success so
far. The 1.0 "launch" removed some very useful features from the beta, but
overall it's still pretty good. Incidentally, I guess it's a counter-example
to "flashcard systems don't work" - they can, if done right.

Recently I found <http://www.fluentu.com/>, which I'm also very excited about.
I don't think by itself it can get anyone very far in a language, but once I'm
at an intermediate level it should be a great addition.

Did I mention both those sites are free? (bye bye #4, excessively boring
costly systems).

My point is I'm gradually cobbling together a system from multiple parts that
works for me. There's a lot of innovation in the field, and more and more new
options will become available. I don't know if we'll ever find a "holy grail"
that works for everyone at the same time, but there's no reason why it can't
be achieved for anyone by combining several free or low-cost resources.

Edit: one of the biggest problems is how boring most of the systems are.
Starting a new language from scratch is difficult enough on its own, but it
doesn't NEED to be boring. Look at children's cartoons compared to any typical
adult learning video...

~~~
kumarski
I don't know if that means bye bye #4. Those 2 solutions are flash card
systems. It might be worth testing fluentu by spending a considerable amount
of time on the system and then talking to a native speaker.

Just because it's free, doesn't mean it's free, especially if it doesn't get
you closer to the holy grail.

I think innovators should strive to get to the holy grail. The potential
upside would be huge.

~~~
alex_c
Memrise works quite well for vocabulary building, but more interestingly
they're working towards becoming a "course platform", where people can create
and sell their own courses. It's not necessarily an innovative learning method
(though the emphasis on "mems" and the practice schedule are quite effective),
but it's an interesting business model - if it works and if the quality is
reasonably high, the cost to produce and distribute the material will be much
lower than the big players.

The amazing thing about FluentU is that you can dissect videos of native
speakers and understand exactly what's going on, in context, at your own pace.
Again, I haven't used it enough to say that it works, but it _should_ be quite
effective at learning to understand the spoken language. Again, their costs
are relatively low - they use Youtube videos and all they have to do is
translate and annotate them.

Then you have an entire army of sites that let you find native speakers to
talk to over Skype, or to correct your daily written "journal", etc.

None of those by itself is the "holy grail", but there's a lot of
experimentation and innovation. I would argue that combining several of those
methods can be at least as effective as something like Pimsleur or Rosetta
Stone, at a much lower cost. And I think figuring out how to combine them into
a single coherent service _will_ be the holy grail you want.

------
createmenot
Students of language are always looking for the best way to learn, but there
isn't any "best way" in my experience. Each person learns differently.

Personal motivation is without a doubt the largest factor in whether a person
successfully learns a language. To that end, I think the goal of any classroom
or learning system should be to maintain a high level of learner motivation.
There is a strong correlation for students of foreign languages (i.e. a
language that is not spoken in the country where it is being learned) who are
strongly interested in the culture of the language they are learning and their
success at learning that language. This is because their motivation to learn,
driven by their desire to experience the culture more completely, remains high
throughout the learning process. Students who take language courses as part of
a compulsory education curriculum, or who are studying out of casual interest,
lose motivation quickly regardless of the learning system.

As a language teacher, I try to expose my students to as many learning
techniques as possible. Some students successfully increase their vocabulary
using word lists and flashcards, others require the pressure of real
communication to acquire new words.

There will never be one "best way" to learn, so my advice to any learner is to
try as many learning systems as possible, expose yourself to as much media in
that language as possible, and constantly change it up so that you don't lose
motivation.

I wouldn't say that language learning is broken, but rather that students who
begin learning a language have misguided expectations about how difficult and
time consuming it actually is. If you, as an adult learner, can learn just one
foreign language fluently in your lifetime, you are doing well.

~~~
jaimebuelta
Learning a different language is very difficult, and IMO, a certain personal
sense of necessity is necessary.

That necessity could be to be able to comunicate with others, living in a
foreign land; or to be able to understand cultural products (like songs,
books, movies, etc.), but I think if it's not present, or it's just a "I'd
like/love to" level, is almost impossible to achieve a fluent level. Think of
an English speaker that gets a lot of people just speaking to her in English,
instead on their own different languages. It is too easy just to give up.

------
gamegoblin
Something I have always been interested in is developing videogames with the
idea of teaching another language as a goal. Imagine a game such as Skyrim, a
rather large and open world, but designed such that its goal was to teach you
another language as you played the game.

Of course one can just change the language of the actual game Skyrim, and this
is decent for learning new medieval themed vocabulary, but imagine if the game
were designed with the concept of language learning in mind.

At the beginning of the game, the characters would speak clearly and with
simple vocabulary. Perhaps with subtitles of written text in the same
language. Maybe even with an English (or whatever your native language is)
subtitle if you are really having trouble with a task.

The vocabulary used would go along the same pattern of reinforcing while
slowly building more.

I think it might be a neat concept to explore, to learn a language passively
while playing a fun game.

~~~
dougk16
Totally. I did this with the Diablo games et al. to aid in learning Polish,
and it was very effective, even though language learning was probably as far
from Blizzard's mind as you can get. The problem is that you need the really
high production values of AAA games to keep people engaged. A studio
prioritizing language learning to any degree will have a very hard time
putting on the polish (not Polish...joke!) required to retain players.

I've thought a lot about this problem as well, and the best I can think of is
to create mods, so you have the solid game engine and story already in place,
and can then solve the language learning problem on top of that.

~~~
gamegoblin
Mods are indeed a good idea. I have played through Skyrim in both French and
German and, even though I already spoke those languages with a decent amount
of competency, it really helped with various grammar and vocabulary aspects.

------
GiraffeNecktie
"Flashcard systems don't work"

No one tool is going to do everything. Flashcards are actually pretty good for
acquiring masses of vocabulary. But it doesn't help you put those words
together coherently or even enable you to comprehend what you hear.

Language acquisition is all about growing a set of extremely complex
interconnections between brain cells. You need to grow a massive number of
interconnections between many areas of the brain (including to sensory and
emotional areas) and you need to strengthen those connections by repeated
firing.

Software, books, audio and video can play a supportive role but there's a big
chunk of the brain development that is only going to come from struggling to
express your own mind and to interact with real people in real time.

~~~
dpapathanasiou
" _Flashcards are actually pretty good for acquiring masses of vocabulary. But
it doesn't help you put those words together coherently or even enable you to
comprehend what you hear._ "

In my experience with Japanese, using flashcards for kanji doesn't really help
with long-term memory acquisition.

I agree with your latter point about context; it's better to find an unknown
word in a sentence and look up its meaning, then you tend to remember the word
longer b/c you understand how it's used.

~~~
da3da
Have you tried using Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji"? I have never tried to
learn Japanese, but I have heard very good things about using this book to
learn the Kanji.

~~~
oftenwrong
For anyone using "RTK" I recommend using <http://kanji.koohii.com/> . I also
recommend that you actually write the kanji out (on paper, or even just
tracing it out with your finger in the air) when reviewing, and only consider
a kanji remembered when you can render it properly, with the correct stroke
order.

------
tokenadult
From the submitted blog post:

"I believe the holy grail of language learning is the ability to learn a
language outside the country that speaks it, to a level of fluency that puts
the user within 30 to 45 days of advanced reading, speaking, and vocal
comprehension fluency once they are in the country." That sounds like an
ambitious, but reasonable, goal.

The author notes, while writing in English, "I’ve independently studied the
following languages and achieved varying levels of fluency. By competency:

1\. Spanish

2\. French

3\. German

4\. Swahili

5\. Russian

6\. Hindi

7\. Farsi

8\. Arabic

9\. Afrikaans

10\. Polish"

That list is heavy on Indo-European languages (with Swahili in the highest
place for a non-Indo-European language) and rather heavy on closely cognate
languages within the Indo-European language family that share many mutual
literary influences. Learning Japanese or learning Tamil for someone who
already knows those languages would be a good test of a new method.

AFTER EDIT AS EDIT WINDOW IS ABOUT TO EXPIRE: Yes, Arabic too is a non-Indo-
European language

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_languages>

and as a Semitic language in the Afroasiatic language family different
language family is quite a differennt language from Swahili (a language from
the Niger-Congo language family).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swahili_language>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niger%E2%80%93Congo_languages>

My (partial but suggestive) list of languages studied before appears in my
Hacker News user profile.

~~~
kumarski
I agree.

Is Arabic indo-european? I thought it wasn't. Maybe I'm mistaken though.

I don't know that my solution works, but it's a stab at it.

~~~
mitchty
Semitic if I remember my tree's correctly.

------
ollysb
I've been trying to learn Spanish for a year now, I'm struggling and I even
live in Spain! Here's the list of things I've tried:

Rosetta Stone - probably spent about 2 months working my way through this.

Language school - 6 weeks, spent most of it feeling utterly confused and
wondering why they were trying to teach me Spanish, using fluent Spanish...

Pimsleur - this did really improve my accent and some of the words I'd been
using along the way started to become second nature. Still a long way from
conversational though, did this for about 4 weeks.

Michelle Thomas - by far the best of the bunch for learning grammar, by the
end of the basic and advanced courses I pretty much knew the various
past/future tenses. Great base, but conversation still isn't happening...

Memrise - yeah actually, this really did help my vocabulary, spent about a
month using it before christmas, learnt a lot and I can see me using this in
the future to expand my vocab.

Duolingo - a good base for getting started, not sure how much if sticks
though, it has the "lack of context" problem.

Private tutor - this is hands down the winner. I've only had a few lessons but
I find this really works for me. The big difference is you can have
conversations with complete understanding of every word that is said by either
of you i.e. if you don't understand a word they say, they can write it down
for you, explain what it means (falling back to english if necessary but
generally avoided) and then move on. Likewise, if you make an error in
something you've said it's corrected on the spot, often going off on tangent
to explain some grammar before continuing the conversation. If you want to
learn at a consistent pace I think a private tutor is really the only way to
go. You're trying learn to converse in a foreign language, until computers can
do the conversation bit the other approaches are all going to fall short of
the mark. That's not to say they don't have value, and they're obviously far
cheaper than a private tutor but without the conversation part they're never
going to be enough to get you speaking fluently.

------
sakopov
Language-learning is broken and remains to be a VERY complex problem. There
are so many factors involved - language complexity, understanding of culture,
student's age & ability to learn...

I'm convinced that learning a language without complete immersion in culture
is doable for easy languages such as English, French, Spanish, but almost
impossible for Mandarin, Russian, Polish and others. I'm a native Russian
speaker and i can confidently tell you that 70% of __native __Russian speakers
cannot speak proper Russian, mangle vocabulary and sentence structure. I'd say
something like 90% cannot use proper grammar. This is after 11 consecutive
years of taking Russian in elementary, middle and high schools. This got
really bad after the collapse of Soviet Union, which took Russia's impressive
Soviet-era education system with it.

Obviously, the older you are the worse it gets. I took English lessons for 4
years in Russia. In the end, i could barely put a sentence together. After
immigrating to the US, I picked up English at 14 in less than a year and got
to the point of losing any kind of identifiable accent. If i tried to learn it
today i would likely never reach the level of fluency i'm enjoying now.

Having said that, I've only ran into one American who actually spoke Russian
possibly better than I did (my Russian is significantly worse now than at 14).
It was an intelligence agent who interviewed my father when we came to the US
14 years ago. So our government likely has a few tricks up their sleeves.

------
tokenadult
Here's a new comment, based on the other comments that have come up in this
thread now that discussion is active. As I learned Mandarin Chinese up to the
level that I was able to support my family for several years as a Chinese-
English translator and interpreter, I had to tackle several problems for which
there is not yet a one-stop-shopping software solution. For ANY pair of
languages, even closely cognate pairs of West Germanic languages like English
and Dutch, or Wu Chinese dialects like those of Shanghai and Suzhou, the two
languages differ in sound system, so that what is a phoneme in one language is
not a phoneme in the other language.

[http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/Wha...](http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAPhoneme.htm)

But a speaker of one language who is past the age of puberty will simply not
perceive many of the phonemic distinctions in sounds in the target language
(the language to be learned) without very careful training, as disregard of
those distinctions below the level of conscious attention is part of having
the sound system of the speaker's native language fully in mind. Attention to
target language phonemes has to be developed through pains-taking practice.

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10442032>

It is brutally hard for most people (after the age of puberty, and perhaps
especially for males) to learn to attend to sound distinctions that don't
exist in the learner's native language. That is especially hard when the sound
distinction signifies a grammatical distinction that also doesn't exist in the
learner's native language. For example, the distinction between "I speak" and
"he speaks" in English involves a consonant cluster at the end of a syllable,
and no such consonant clusters exist in the Mandarin sound system at all.
Worse than that, no such grammatical distinction as "first person singular"
and "third person singular" for inflecting verbs exists in Mandarin, so it is
remarkably difficult for Mandarin-speaking learners of English to learn to
distinguish "speaks" from "speak" and to say "he speaks Chinese" rather than *
"he speak Chinese" (not a grammatical phrase in spoken English).

Most software materials for learning foreign languages could be much improved
simply by including a complete chart of the sound system of the target
language (in the dialect form being taught in the software materials) with
explicit description of sounds in the terminology of articulatory phonetics

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articulatory_phonetics>

with full use of notation from the International Phonetic Alphabet.

<http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/ipachart.html>

Good language-learning materials always include a lot of focused drills on
sound distinctions (contrasting minimal pairs in the language) in the target
language, and no software program for language learning should be without
those. It is still an art of software writing to try to automate listening to
a learner's pronunciation for appropriate feedback on accuracy of
pronunciation. That is not an easy problem.

After phonology, another huge task for any language learner is acquiring
vocabulary, and this is the task that most language-learning materials are
most focused. But often the focus on vocabulary is not very thoughtful.

The classic software approach to helping vocabulary acquisition is essentially
to automate flipping flash cards. But flash cards have ALWAYS been overrated
for vocabulary acquisition. Words don't match one-to-one between languages,
not even between closely cognate languages. The map is not the territory, and
every language on earth divides the world of lived experience into a different
set of words, with different boundaries between words of similar meaning.

The royal road to learning vocabulary in a target language is massive exposure
to actual texts (dialogs, stories, songs, personal letters, articles, etc.)
written or spoken by native speakers of the language. I'll quote a master
language teacher here, the late John DeFrancis. A couple years ago, I reread
the section "Suggestions for Study" in the front matter of John DeFrancis's
book Beginning Chinese Reader, Part I, which I first used to learn Chinese
back in 1975. In that section of that book, I found this passage, "Fluency in
reading can only be achieved by extensive practice on all the interrelated
aspects of the reading process. To accomplish this we must READ, READ, READ"
(capitalization as in original). In other words, vocabulary can only be well
acquired in context (an argument he develops in detail with regard to Chinese
in the writing I have just cited) and the context must be a genuine context
produced by native speakers of the language.

I have been giving free advice on language learning since the 1990s on my
personal website,

<http://learninfreedom.org/languagebooks.html>

and the one advice I can give every language learner reading this thread is to
take advantage of radio broadcasting in your target language. Spoken-word
broadcasting (here I'm especially focusing on radio rather than on TV) gives
you an opportunity to listen and to hear words used in context. In the 1970s,
I used to have to use an expensive short-wave radio to pick up Chinese-
language radio programs in North America. Now we who have Internet access can
gain endless listening opportunities from Internet radio stations in dozens of
unlikely languages. Listen early and listen often while learning a language.
That will help with phonology (as above) and it will help crucially with
vocabulary.

The third big task of a language learner is learning grammar and syntax, which
is often woefully neglected in software language-learning materials. Every
language has hundreds of tacit grammar rules, many of which are not known
explicitly even to native speakers, but which reveal a language-learner as a
foreigner when the rules are broken. The foreign language-learner needs to
understand grammar not just to produce speech or writing that is less jarring
and foreign to native speakers, but also to better understand what native
speakers are speaking or writing. Any widely spoken modern language has thick
books reporting the grammatical rules of the language,

[http://www.amazon.com/Mandarin-Chinese-Functional-
Reference-...](http://www.amazon.com/Mandarin-Chinese-Functional-Reference-
Grammar/dp/0520066103/)

[http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Comprehensive-Grammar-
Grammars...](http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Comprehensive-Grammar-
Grammars/dp/0415150329/)

[http://www.amazon.com/Comprehensive-Grammar-English-
Language...](http://www.amazon.com/Comprehensive-Grammar-English-
Language/dp/0582517346/)

[http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Grammar-English-
Language/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Grammar-English-
Language/dp/0521431468/)

and it is well worth your while to study books like that both about your
native language(s) and about any language you are studying.

P.S. I'm puzzled about the pattern of upvotes and downvotes on my first
comment in this thread (which was the first comment posted, when it wasn't
clear whether this story would move from the new page to the main page here on
HN.) I'm not aware of any factual mistakes in the first comment I posted here,
which was a response to the submitted article, nor anything about it that
violates the Hacker News guidelines.

~~~
alex_c
>It is brutally hard for most people (after the age of puberty, and perhaps
especially for males) to learn to attend to sound distinctions that don't
exist in the learner's native language.

Do you think people who grow up bilingual have an advantage in this area? Not
necessarily just because they have a larger set of phonemes to fall back on,
but because they may find it easier to notice differences and recognize new
ones? ("this is language specific" understanding vs. "this is how it always
is")

Also, your comment about reading touches on a project I've been working on
(and have shelved for about a year). If you don't mind I'd love to hear what
you think, I'll dust it off and send you an email once I get the prototype up
and running again.

~~~
philsnow
I have read a tiny bit of the literature on language acquisition, and what I
have read says that mere exposure to the phonemes of a language (even absent
any attempts to actually teach that language) during early years (definitely
before puberty but with greater effect between the ages of 1 and 6) makes it
easier to form those phonemes later in life.

That said, I think every second-language learner (even those who will never
learn a third language) could benefit from being taught the entire
international phonetic alphabet, to aid them in mentally placing (inside the
mouth) the sounds they're supposed to be making.

Knowing the difference between 'a' (unrounded open front) and 'ɐ' (unrounded
near-open central) vowels helped me when learning the Cantonese phonetic
system. Just knowing all the sounds that are "available" and knowing which of
those sounds the target language uses is very useful.

------
melling
I studied Spanish for 10 years taking courses at Berlitz (not recommended),
The Spanish Institute (<http://spanishinstitute.org/> \- pretty good), a
private tutor (a lot more enjoyable) and finally immersion at a language
school in Antigua, Guatemala (<http://www.spanishschoolplfm.com/>).

I found immersion to be orders of magnitude better. After a few months in
Antigua I probably learned as much as the prior several years. You get so much
more out of spending your day just talking in another language. I remember
when I stopped trying to translate from English to Spanish and just spoke in
Spanish. It's quite a trip to speak so much Spanish that you find yourself
hunting for words in English when you switch back. Spanish sometimes came
first.

Unfortunately, you'll lose it quickly. My weekend project is to take what I
learned and put it on the iPhone and iPad for both myself and others.
Shameless plug:

<https://itunes.apple.com/app/id388918463>

I've got more content that I used to create a rather ugly website, which I'm
about to turn off that I will eventually put in the app. I'll spare everyone
that link. :-)

------
inspiredworlds
Sorry, bit late to this discussion. Took me a while to read through all of it.
I think there is no one system that can teach languages fluently. As a
language learner, I currently use a variety of ways - from speaking to native
speakers, watching movies, using flashcards, playing games and listening to
podcasts.

I'm also the founder of language startup called <http://www.nativetongue.com>
If you are interested check us out. We combine language learning with gaming,
to make it fun and addictive. We have the following apps available:

\- Learn Chinese with Mandarin Madness <http://itunes.apple.com/app/mandarin-
madness/id494800742>

\- Learn Spanish with Spanish Smash [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/learn-
spanish-spanish-smash/...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/learn-spanish-
spanish-smash/id524637598?mt=8)

I think the ultimate would be learning like Neo in Matrix. Just plug a cord
into the back of your head and upload the mandarin lesson module, and absorb
it in seconds!

------
johnwatson11218
I just want to add that I recently took the plunge and bought levels 1-5
Rosetta Stone for both Spanish and German. I know there are a lot of
criticisms about this system, mostly in terms of cost but I have found it to
be a huge improvement over any other self study course. Unless you are able to
take off time and go live in the other country I think Rosetta Stone is the
best option. I would go so far as to say that it is better than taking a night
course at a local community college.

I do think the system has it flaws but it is definitely a big improvement over
everything that has come before. I think the future of language learning will
resemble Rosetta Stone but that it will use machine learning to be more
dynamic and adapt itself to things that you are having trouble with, perhaps
it will seem more 'croudsourced'. Before Rosetta Stone I was making zero
progress with German, after one year using a CD/Book approach I was
continually forgetting vocabulary, unable to pronounce things, etc, etc. There
is something about Rosetta Stone that is almost like falling into hours of
mindless gaming. It never seems too hard to get stuck but it just keeps on
pushing what I know little by little. I think that they should use photoshop
to make their pictures more cheaply. Also, the milestone segments seem pretty
worthless. Sometimes it would be nice to see the grammar of a practice
sentence diagrammed so that I could go and read an analytic description of the
grammar point.

For German more than for Spanish I'm finding it helpful to treat the Rosetta
Stone as a supplement to other approaches especially as the grammar confuses
me a great deal.

So while the program is expensive (I paid $500 for Spanish on disks and $329
for one year of online only access to the German) it is the only thing I have
found worth spending money on short of immersion. If you have a 9-5 job then
most likely Rosetta Stone will be a good time vs cost trade off. That has been
my experience so far.

------
doctorpangloss
I think flashcards are popular because they're a good way to prepare the night
before the exam.

Language learning schools are popular because they're in fun places with lots
of other interesting young people.

Watching a YouTube video kind of sucks the fun out of language learning worse
than flashcards do. Not that language learning in and of itself is fun to
begin with.

------
jtheory
Most of this is beyond me; but I have a domain name originally for a
translation site that could be useful to someone looking to solve these
problems (depending on approach) -- scatterlang.com.

Let me know if anyone's interested.

