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Shout out for an app called Language Transfer that I just came across via Reddit (https://www.languagetransfer.org/ https://www.languagetransfer.org/). It teach

by ximeng 3y ago

Shout out for an app called Language Transfer that I just came across via Reddit (https://www.languagetransfer.org/ https://www.languagetransfer.org/). It teaches languages speaking first through a simple audio course. Developed by one guy, completely free and without ads. From what I’ve seen so far has a very clear focus on quickly getting up to speed with a different angle than other courses. It talks about how to build vocabulary by looking at general patterns for shared vocabulary between languages.

Onawa 3y ago
That dude needs more money to support development, because his method is amazing. The other amazing method I love and used to learn Spanish was "Fluent Forever". Stick to the book there though, the author tried to grow his empire too big and the apps aren't that great in my opinion.
- rgovostes 3y ago
  I used the Fluent Forever app to acquire about 1,000 Italian words in one year. Agree that it wouldn't win awards for polish (maybe Polish), but it fairly faithfully implements the method described in the book, which is roughly: make your own flash cards, using memorable imagery, from curated word lists designed for forming a wide range of sentences, and then study these using spaced repetition. You also get the ear training audio cues. You can do it all yourself with Anki, indeed the author of the method started that way, but I am happy to not have had to pay the Anki usability tax. Even if you don't use the app/method, the book (of the same title) is a quick and useful read about tricks used to optimize language acquisition.
  - ConSeannery 3y ago
    Not to take a dig at you but to set some context for other language learners reading this, 1000 words in a year is awful progress. It would take you 10 years to have just a semi-fluent vocabulary in a simple (for native English speakers) language like Spanish, Italian, or French, and that's not including grammar. This is the main problem with feel-good apps like Duolingo, giving all sorts of positive feedback for what amounts to very little progress. Anki + a frequency dictionary + 34 new words/day (with 80% retention due to spaced repetition) is easily doable by our brains to get to semi fluency (~10k words) in a year. Or, take a month to cram the first 2000 words and you're well on your way versus other wastes of time.
    - rgovostes 3y ago
      I agree it was not especially fast progress. I should have said, in one year of casually using FF and a weekly (very good) Italki tutor, I was able to pass a B1 CILS exam and read a children's novel, which regardless of the number of words learned per day felt like a good achievement. A back of the envelope estimate is that I spent 500 hours in high school Spanish to reach a similar level as I achieved as an adult in ~60 hours of rote vocabulary acquisition and ~60 hours of 1:1 conversation. Reaching beginner-intermediate fluency in 20 minutes average per day—half of which is spent talking with a native speaker, not on boring flash cards—is easily attainable by someone who is motivated to learn but doesn't need to go at a breakneck pace, or feels that cramming 2,000 flash cards (let alone creating them) in a month sounds like hell. I was pleased it worked for me with as little time investment as I put in. I am thinking about getting back into studying to see how chatbots have changed the experience, which could probably be used to synthesize more effective recall prompts. (I, Internet rando, argued to the FF team a few years ago that this would be disruptive tech, but they pursued their upmarket $25/session coaching service instead.) (One thing I like in theory about FF, vs Anki generally, is that it splits the top n wordlist into sets that are "compatible" (fruit, apple, red) rather than "categorical" (red, green, blue). It feels like it helps to build the inter-word connections. However once these are tossed into the grinder of the spaced repetition algorithm, I'm not sure if it makes a difference.)
    - Summershard 3y ago
      Where did you get those numbers from? 10k words is generally considered a CEFR B2/C1 level which already is a fluent level. Semi-fluent, depending on how you describe it, is anywhere between 1k and 5k words. To comfortably communicate with native speakers about simple topics you need 1000-2000 words.
multiplepointer 3y ago
Also found this app on forums and I wonder why it's not popular. It's amazing, simple and effective. And absolutely free
jcul 3y ago
Looks interesting and I'm going to try it out. Curious about what differentiates it from something like pimsleur courses, other than price of course.
- ximeng 3y ago
  He starts out with shared vocabulary between English and the target language whereas I think Pimsleur focuses more on useful phrases for e.g. travel.
  - jcul 3y ago
    Yeah Pimsleur does tend to focus on travel scenarios. Though I find it does a good job of actually getting phrases into your head and getting you thinking in the language. Looking forward to trying out this approach.
  - GirkovArpa 3y ago
    This should work fantastic in theory, since differing vocabulary (not grammar) is the main factor that determines the difficulty of a new language. Putting off this primary obstacle so one can ease into it sounds genius to me. It also agrees with the method hyped by Steve Kaufman, where one should read and speak level-appropriate material.
  - jcul 3y ago
    I listened to the initial few lessons and I was really surprised. I've already got a almost conversational level of Spanish but coincidentally have been wanting to focus on improving it, rather than jump into learning the absolute basics of another language. It's quite different to courses or classes I've tried before. Often there is a focus on keeping everything in Spanish (for example) and not using English at all. This is the complete opposite, completely leveraging the similarities between the language. I found it really enjoyable how he spoke about the shared Latin roots (even though English is primarily Germanic). I have a hobbyist interest in linguists so I found this and the etymology bits really entertaining. I hesitated to listen to the Spanish, fearing they would be too basic, but I think already I have learned things I hadn't fully realized and have improved my pronunciation. You can tell the instructor is a lover of languages and linguistics, you can hear the passion in the lessons. Going to continue with the Spanish course and I'm excited to see his take on Arabic after (of which I know zero). Planning on donating and recommending this.
timo555 3y ago
Just listened to the first couple tracks of the Complete Spanish course and it reminds me a lot of the Michel Thomas Method audio course [1], which I couldn't recommend highly enough. [1] https://www.michelthomas.com/ https://www.michelthomas.com/
cassidoo 3y ago
This app is truly the best one

by ximeng 3y ago

Onawa 3y ago

That dude needs more money to support development, because his method is amazing. The other amazing method I love and used to learn Spanish was "Fluent Forever". Stick to the book there though, the author tried to grow his empire too big and the apps aren't that great in my opinion.

rgovostes 3y ago
I used the Fluent Forever app to acquire about 1,000 Italian words in one year. Agree that it wouldn't win awards for polish (maybe Polish), but it fairly faithfully implements the method described in the book, which is roughly: make your own flash cards, using memorable imagery, from curated word lists designed for forming a wide range of sentences, and then study these using spaced repetition. You also get the ear training audio cues. You can do it all yourself with Anki, indeed the author of the method started that way, but I am happy to not have had to pay the Anki usability tax. Even if you don't use the app/method, the book (of the same title) is a quick and useful read about tricks used to optimize language acquisition.
- ConSeannery 3y ago
  Not to take a dig at you but to set some context for other language learners reading this, 1000 words in a year is awful progress. It would take you 10 years to have just a semi-fluent vocabulary in a simple (for native English speakers) language like Spanish, Italian, or French, and that's not including grammar. This is the main problem with feel-good apps like Duolingo, giving all sorts of positive feedback for what amounts to very little progress. Anki + a frequency dictionary + 34 new words/day (with 80% retention due to spaced repetition) is easily doable by our brains to get to semi fluency (~10k words) in a year. Or, take a month to cram the first 2000 words and you're well on your way versus other wastes of time.
  - rgovostes 3y ago
    I agree it was not especially fast progress. I should have said, in one year of casually using FF and a weekly (very good) Italki tutor, I was able to pass a B1 CILS exam and read a children's novel, which regardless of the number of words learned per day felt like a good achievement. A back of the envelope estimate is that I spent 500 hours in high school Spanish to reach a similar level as I achieved as an adult in ~60 hours of rote vocabulary acquisition and ~60 hours of 1:1 conversation. Reaching beginner-intermediate fluency in 20 minutes average per day—half of which is spent talking with a native speaker, not on boring flash cards—is easily attainable by someone who is motivated to learn but doesn't need to go at a breakneck pace, or feels that cramming 2,000 flash cards (let alone creating them) in a month sounds like hell. I was pleased it worked for me with as little time investment as I put in. I am thinking about getting back into studying to see how chatbots have changed the experience, which could probably be used to synthesize more effective recall prompts. (I, Internet rando, argued to the FF team a few years ago that this would be disruptive tech, but they pursued their upmarket $25/session coaching service instead.) (One thing I like in theory about FF, vs Anki generally, is that it splits the top n wordlist into sets that are "compatible" (fruit, apple, red) rather than "categorical" (red, green, blue). It feels like it helps to build the inter-word connections. However once these are tossed into the grinder of the spaced repetition algorithm, I'm not sure if it makes a difference.)
  - Summershard 3y ago
    Where did you get those numbers from? 10k words is generally considered a CEFR B2/C1 level which already is a fluent level. Semi-fluent, depending on how you describe it, is anywhere between 1k and 5k words. To comfortably communicate with native speakers about simple topics you need 1000-2000 words.

multiplepointer 3y ago

Also found this app on forums and I wonder why it's not popular. It's amazing, simple and effective. And absolutely free

jcul 3y ago

Looks interesting and I'm going to try it out. Curious about what differentiates it from something like pimsleur courses, other than price of course.

ximeng 3y ago
He starts out with shared vocabulary between English and the target language whereas I think Pimsleur focuses more on useful phrases for e.g. travel.
- jcul 3y ago
  Yeah Pimsleur does tend to focus on travel scenarios. Though I find it does a good job of actually getting phrases into your head and getting you thinking in the language. Looking forward to trying out this approach.
- GirkovArpa 3y ago
  This should work fantastic in theory, since differing vocabulary (not grammar) is the main factor that determines the difficulty of a new language. Putting off this primary obstacle so one can ease into it sounds genius to me. It also agrees with the method hyped by Steve Kaufman, where one should read and speak level-appropriate material.
- jcul 3y ago
  I listened to the initial few lessons and I was really surprised. I've already got a almost conversational level of Spanish but coincidentally have been wanting to focus on improving it, rather than jump into learning the absolute basics of another language. It's quite different to courses or classes I've tried before. Often there is a focus on keeping everything in Spanish (for example) and not using English at all. This is the complete opposite, completely leveraging the similarities between the language. I found it really enjoyable how he spoke about the shared Latin roots (even though English is primarily Germanic). I have a hobbyist interest in linguists so I found this and the etymology bits really entertaining. I hesitated to listen to the Spanish, fearing they would be too basic, but I think already I have learned things I hadn't fully realized and have improved my pronunciation. You can tell the instructor is a lover of languages and linguistics, you can hear the passion in the lessons. Going to continue with the Spanish course and I'm excited to see his take on Arabic after (of which I know zero). Planning on donating and recommending this.

timo555 3y ago

Just listened to the first couple tracks of the Complete Spanish course and it reminds me a lot of the Michel Thomas Method audio course [1], which I couldn't recommend highly enough. [1] https://www.michelthomas.com/ https://www.michelthomas.com/

cassidoo 3y ago

This app is truly the best one