

YC-Funded Lingt Uses Games To Turn You Into A Language Learning Addict  - transburgh
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/20/lingt-learn-chinese/

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alex_c
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.

~~~
cstejerean
any recommendations for language apps on the iPhone?

~~~
alex_c
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.

~~~
Glide
Thanks for this list. I took japanese in high school for several years and
wanted a way to refresh and expand on it.

I wonder if there are as many resources for korean.

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zach
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.

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Estragon
I did a few hundred rounds with lingt. It's fantastic. Here's a couple of
comments:

1) Perhaps there are theoretical reasons for this, but it surprised me that
the characters are always presented in conjunction with their pinyin. I would
have thought it would be better to train for recognition of the characters
unaided by the pinyin, some of the time.

2) It was taking a long time to respond to my input, at times, and this was
resulting in input I didn't intend. E.g., I would go to click "I don't know"
right near the end of the allotted time, and this would get translated into a
click on the subsequent round. Usually, that click would be in the wrong area
for that round. There were also a couple of times where the answer it offered
was clearly wrong, based on what was presented on the screen. If you want to
find these cases, you may be able to get it from your analytics. My username
is throwaway, and this happened between 8pm and 10:30pm EST last night.

3) You need a better way to highlight availability of the vocab lists, and
more information about what each list contains.

~~~
Estragon
Some further comments after playing with this a bit more:

4) The entry mechanism is going to be confusing for many people. Most people
don't know how to enter a "ü" for instance. The fact that it is case sensitive
is also going to be a problem. Also, the focus shifts are confusing. If you
click on "I don't know," the focus is still on that button when you go to the
next round, not the input field. Similarly if you click on "pause."

5) You need some way do disambiguate when there are synonyms in the vocab
list.

~~~
LargeWu
I would largely agree with the parent's suggestions. Having an option for just
the character would be especially huge, because as a native English speaker
it's easy to think of the character as just a visual aid, and as such it's
easily ignored.

Since you are in beta, I would find it helpful if there was a "report bugs"
feature. For example, sometimes I noticed I would have something typed in
correctly, but the application didn't recognize the tone marks I had
(correctly) entered, which causes me to second guess myself. Or the voice
recognition having trouble with certain words. I probably tried to pronounce
the word for ten at least a hundred times unsuccessfully. I would expect to
work at least once by accident. It would be great if I could just report this
from within the app.

Other than that, I think the interface is great, and it's really FUN to use.
Great job so far.

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durin42
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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markerdmann
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.

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araneae
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!

~~~
varenc
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.

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johnwatson11218
I wonder if they used techniques from
[http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_woznia...](http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_wozniak)
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.

~~~
varenc
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.

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algorias
I wonder if they plan to offer english as well (i.e. x to english instead of
english to x), considering the importance of english in the online world.

~~~
banjiewen
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 ;)

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burke
Very, very cool. I'd pay for this.

Why is the image for "eight, 8" a glass of... very translucent-ish milk?

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icefox
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"

~~~
varenc
Should be fixed soon!

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learnalist
Your name is incredibly close to a user here in HN who has the website
<http://www.lingq.com/>. Is he working with you on this, or is this just poor
creativity on your behalf for a name?

Not coming across in a negative way, at first I thought his site had a revamp.
Now im just confused.

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jaytee_clone
As someone who's bilingual (English, Chinese) and have taught both languages
before, my suggestion is:

You are focusing on the easier part of learning a language - listening and
reading. All of my past students struggled far more with pronouncing and
writing.

Of course recording the users' pronunciations and handwritings, and then
verifying them is a lot more technically challenging, but still doable. It
will surely impress a lot of people. (Maybe that's in your long term plan?)

Not saying what you made is not useful, it certainly is. But it's not where
the pain is in learning a language. Depending on the curriculum, it may not
make that much of a difference on each student's language ability. But then
again, our current education system is not making that much of a difference
either.

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spydertennis
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.

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cvg
I like it, though I can't figure out to type the pinyin vowels.

~~~
prawn
To "apply" a tone to a syllable, follow it with the corresponding tone number.
e.g., wo3

There's a link down the bottom of the page during those sequences that
explains how it works and how to practice.

~~~
cvg
cool, thanks!

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ccarpenterg
I just signed up and it took me more than 60 seconds to figure out how to
begin.

It reminds me of Rosetta Stone but without the pictures. I'd pay for this
service.

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bokonist
This is really cool. About time that someone made something like this for the
web. Wish I had this when I studied Chinese in college.

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mclin
1) this is very similar to smart.fm, which has been around for a year or so
now. 2) I just did the first level. It'd be pretty difficult for someone who
didn't know anything about mandarin to get anything out of that. If you really
want to learn mandarin take a course to learn correct pronunciation. Your
first attempt at a tonal language can be brutal.

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mdemare
I have a similar site for European languages: <http://inglua.com/en>

~~~
vii
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).

~~~
mclin
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.

<http://ichi2.net/anki/>

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tel
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.

~~~
tel
Ah, just found the textbook section, though it's still not easy to understand
how to find vocabulary at the appropriate level.

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simplify
Add difficulty levels. Only 50% to get to the next level? Too easy! Being able
to raise that percent will make it feel more like a difficult yet fun game.
[Some] users will want to keep trying over and over until they reach that
goal, and really feel accomplished when they do.

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stcredzero
Nintendo DS already has games like this. They already use the same principles
for motivation.

<http://amzn.com/B001BZ691C> <http://amzn.com/B000SQ5LOG>

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nex3
When I'm signing up and I have focus on the last form element, I expect the
tab key to go to the "Go" button, not to some "About" link that'll clear my
form and make me start all over again.

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DaniFong
Whoa, great idea guys! I've been looking for something like this! :-)

~~~
prawn
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.

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rfreytag
Excellent first choice language of Mandarin. The competition is either not
good or very expensive.

This is going to do very well. I'll go through the entire course.

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netcan
It would be interesting if you could get one of those language evangelist
countries to financially incentivize people to learn the language.

~~~
swolchok
You mean "financially incentivize people to cheat", right?

~~~
netcan
maybe.

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toisanji
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.

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chokma
It's not working. (Ubuntu 9.10 64 Bit / Firefox 3.5.6) \- the learning screen
does not show any words.

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reedlaw
It would be useful to include a list of HSK words (the Chinese TOEFL
equivalent).

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coffeemug
Congrats, guys! About time someone gave Rosetta Stone a run for their money.

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kingkawn
spanish! im going to mexico in < two weeks, hook me up!

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sebastianavina
it just looks like a web-version of the rosetta stone

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pvandehaar
freerice.com for other languages, basically.

