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<rant> The thing that annoys me about all of these attempts is failing to recognize the impact of irregular forms of the verbs. So - for French - all the differ

<rant> The thing that annoys me about all of these attempts is failing to recognize the impact of irregular forms of the verbs. So - for French - all the different forms of the verb aller (go) are treated individually. I paid for ReadLang for a while, but this lack of a feature has proven too frustrating. I would have loved to have an app that runs the text through something like Google Natural Language API (https://cloud.google.com/natural-language/ https://cloud.google.com/natural-language/) and then use the results of _that_ for flashcards, noun-phrase translation, etc. Google Translate alone is just not sufficient. </rant> Of course, I have 10 pages worth of ideas about language learning and none of that implemented. So, kudos for trying to make at least something happen. Let the thousand flowers bloom and all that.

avinium 7y ago
The thing that annoys me about all of these attempts is failing to recognize the impact of irregular forms of the verbs. So - for French - all the different forms of the verb aller (go) are treated individually. I paid for ReadLang for a while, but this lack of a feature has proven too frustrating. I don't speak French so I'm having trouble understanding what you mean. Do you mind giving a bit more detail? I'm also curious about the other ideas you mentioned.
- rakoo 7y ago
  French here, I never realized it but there are at least 3 different forms depending on who does it and when: Present: Je vais, tu vas, il va, nous allons, vous allez, ils vont Future: j'irai, tu iras, il ira, nous irons, vous irez, ils iront Same goes for être (to be): Present: Je suis, tu es, il est, nous sommes, vous êtes, ils sont Future: Je serai, tu sera, il sera, nous serons, vous serez, ils seront Simple past: Je fus, tu fus, il fut, nous fûmes, vous fûtes, ils furent (No one uses simple past, but here it is) Subordinate (?): Que je sois, que tu sois, qu'il soit, que nous soyons, que vous soyez, qu'ils soient I guess it's the same in pretty much every language, especially for those 2 common verbs, there are irregular forms everywhere.
  - arafalov 7y ago
    And the challenge with the current learning software is that they treat each one of these forms as a separate flashcard. So, you are learning surface/contextualized forms of the verb rather than understanding how to use the verb itself in various contexts.
  - amaccuish 7y ago
    The subordinate is actually the present subjunctive. There's also a past subjunctive (que je fusse, tu fusses, il fût, nous fussions, vous fussiez, ils fussent) and other forms with auxliaries, if I remember my grammar properly, the formsare derived from the simple past, or the other way around, can't remember. The reason it's not subordinate is because I think there are some very rare cases where it can be used without a que, but I can't think over one off the top of my head.
MattKelly 7y ago
Flowlingo dev here. Thanks for the feedback! It's been a while since I've taken French, but one thing we plan on adding is translations of individual words in-context. For example, in Spanish, if you tapped an individual verb, the translation would be properly conjugated in relation to the sentence. We'd love to hear your other feedback, feel free to chat with us in the app (tap "Help" and scroll to the bottom), or email us at support@getflowlingo.com.
- ramblerman 7y ago
  Not sure if you fully understood OP. I think what he is saying that he wants just one flash card for all variations of Come como comer comiste etc. And not one for each
- arafalov 7y ago
  I think you would find it difficult to conjugate _the translation_ as the conjugation tables/rules differ between the languages and the mapping is not one of one. For example, English only has 'you' but French has both singular and plural forms. Russian has the declension as well (Именительный, Родительный...) I think it would make more sense to normalize at the _source_ language as I wrote originally. See also the other comments in the same sub-thread. As to the other ideas, like I said "10 pages". And a lot of them about the system that really accumulates the knowledge about you to give you the best training. See, for example, https://solaresearch.org/ https://solaresearch.org/ for academic foundation of that and https://french.kwiziq.com/ https://french.kwiziq.com/. But here is a couple of other thoughts. Feel free to contact me if they spark anything: * Synchronized text and audio (e.g. Amazon Whispersync). Has been done by many people but was usually done by hand (was too expensive) or by text-to-speech on the fly (which was awful at the time); yet it was always welcomed. TTS is now much better, but also maybe some work can be pre-calculated (rather than immediate). * Use the Google API mentioned before (syntax tree) to extract sub-sequences (named entities, stable expressions, etc) and present those instead of individual words; this helps to see them over and over within different sentences. Even showing a verb and its dependencies is useful. This also allows to include grammar references for tenses/irregular verbs/expressions, etc. * Dictionary entries by the normalized form (lemma) of the verb, noun. Flashcards that first show the multiple contexts line of the same verb in the same form, then same verb in other forms and only then translation. * Color code the text being read by word type. So all verbs as red, all nouns as blue, all adjectives as green, etc. Also see https://langliter.com/ https://langliter.com/, they do (and lemmas) that as "highlights". * Color code the text by words known. Green as those learned already in that exact form. Yellow as those learned in different form (different tense, different conjugation, etc). Red as those unknown. * Pre-flash. Analyze text (small chunk), compare again flashcards and compile the list of words/expressions and let person practice them first. Then read the actual text with the hope to increase the speed of comprehension. * Slightly further along are things like "Words of the day" emails that analyze your flashcards to give you more words in the same category (arm+leg=>offer head). Or touch typing game using your own flashcard words. Or conjugation table training using collected context.

avinium 7y ago

The thing that annoys me about all of these attempts is failing to recognize the impact of irregular forms of the verbs. So - for French - all the different forms of the verb aller (go) are treated individually. I paid for ReadLang for a while, but this lack of a feature has proven too frustrating. I don't speak French so I'm having trouble understanding what you mean. Do you mind giving a bit more detail? I'm also curious about the other ideas you mentioned.

rakoo 7y ago
French here, I never realized it but there are at least 3 different forms depending on who does it and when: Present: Je vais, tu vas, il va, nous allons, vous allez, ils vont Future: j'irai, tu iras, il ira, nous irons, vous irez, ils iront Same goes for être (to be): Present: Je suis, tu es, il est, nous sommes, vous êtes, ils sont Future: Je serai, tu sera, il sera, nous serons, vous serez, ils seront Simple past: Je fus, tu fus, il fut, nous fûmes, vous fûtes, ils furent (No one uses simple past, but here it is) Subordinate (?): Que je sois, que tu sois, qu'il soit, que nous soyons, que vous soyez, qu'ils soient I guess it's the same in pretty much every language, especially for those 2 common verbs, there are irregular forms everywhere.
- arafalov 7y ago
  And the challenge with the current learning software is that they treat each one of these forms as a separate flashcard. So, you are learning surface/contextualized forms of the verb rather than understanding how to use the verb itself in various contexts.
- amaccuish 7y ago
  The subordinate is actually the present subjunctive. There's also a past subjunctive (que je fusse, tu fusses, il fût, nous fussions, vous fussiez, ils fussent) and other forms with auxliaries, if I remember my grammar properly, the formsare derived from the simple past, or the other way around, can't remember. The reason it's not subordinate is because I think there are some very rare cases where it can be used without a que, but I can't think over one off the top of my head.

MattKelly 7y ago

Flowlingo dev here. Thanks for the feedback! It's been a while since I've taken French, but one thing we plan on adding is translations of individual words in-context. For example, in Spanish, if you tapped an individual verb, the translation would be properly conjugated in relation to the sentence. We'd love to hear your other feedback, feel free to chat with us in the app (tap "Help" and scroll to the bottom), or email us at support@getflowlingo.com.

ramblerman 7y ago
Not sure if you fully understood OP. I think what he is saying that he wants just one flash card for all variations of Come como comer comiste etc. And not one for each
arafalov 7y ago
I think you would find it difficult to conjugate _the translation_ as the conjugation tables/rules differ between the languages and the mapping is not one of one. For example, English only has 'you' but French has both singular and plural forms. Russian has the declension as well (Именительный, Родительный...) I think it would make more sense to normalize at the _source_ language as I wrote originally. See also the other comments in the same sub-thread. As to the other ideas, like I said "10 pages". And a lot of them about the system that really accumulates the knowledge about you to give you the best training. See, for example, https://solaresearch.org/ https://solaresearch.org/ for academic foundation of that and https://french.kwiziq.com/ https://french.kwiziq.com/. But here is a couple of other thoughts. Feel free to contact me if they spark anything: * Synchronized text and audio (e.g. Amazon Whispersync). Has been done by many people but was usually done by hand (was too expensive) or by text-to-speech on the fly (which was awful at the time); yet it was always welcomed. TTS is now much better, but also maybe some work can be pre-calculated (rather than immediate). * Use the Google API mentioned before (syntax tree) to extract sub-sequences (named entities, stable expressions, etc) and present those instead of individual words; this helps to see them over and over within different sentences. Even showing a verb and its dependencies is useful. This also allows to include grammar references for tenses/irregular verbs/expressions, etc. * Dictionary entries by the normalized form (lemma) of the verb, noun. Flashcards that first show the multiple contexts line of the same verb in the same form, then same verb in other forms and only then translation. * Color code the text being read by word type. So all verbs as red, all nouns as blue, all adjectives as green, etc. Also see https://langliter.com/ https://langliter.com/, they do (and lemmas) that as "highlights". * Color code the text by words known. Green as those learned already in that exact form. Yellow as those learned in different form (different tense, different conjugation, etc). Red as those unknown. * Pre-flash. Analyze text (small chunk), compare again flashcards and compile the list of words/expressions and let person practice them first. Then read the actual text with the hope to increase the speed of comprehension. * Slightly further along are things like "Words of the day" emails that analyze your flashcards to give you more words in the same category (arm+leg=>offer head). Or touch typing game using your own flashcard words. Or conjugation table training using collected context.