2 ms·

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 d

by alex_c 14y ago

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 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/ 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 14y ago
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 14y ago
  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.

by alex_c 14y ago

kumarski 14y ago

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 14y ago
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.