Ask HN: Is building a calm, non-gamified learning app a mistake?

Not doing subscriptions for an app that has ongoing server costs is going to bite you, you may want to reconsider that.

Your biggest issue is going to be that language learning for adults is largely an unsolved problem. I know people with 1000+ day streaks on Duolingo who are nonetheless not fluent, and from everything I’ve read, it seems clear that spaced-repetition techniques are not sufficient (and possibly not necessary) to achieve fluency. Most people say you need immersion, which is difficult for an app to provide (research other people who have tried, you probably wouldn’t be the first and can save a lot of time, effort and heartbreak by learning from other people’s failures).

while I'm wary of sprinkling AI magic fairy dust on top of everything, the fact that ChatGPT voice mode and the app is fluent in many languages, an interesting conversational partner for the immersion aspect.

It's solved, look up comprehensible input: https://www.dreaming.com/blog-posts/what-is-comprehensible-i...

The problem is duolingo is particularly horrible and is intended to get people addicted, not educate.

I've been exploring the "AI as conversation partner for immersion" use case for a project I'm building and find it pretty helpful for a few reasons

1. Effectively infinite engaging comprehensible input at your level 2. Fantastic way to practice new vocabulary and grammar patterns (AI can provide correction for mistakes) 3. Somewhat fun - if you view chat as a choose your own adventure, the experience becomes more interesting

I'm always a bit weary of theoretical stuff like this. The best way to learn a new language is to move there (preferably somewhere where people don't speak or don't want to speak your native language). I know people that didn't speak a lick of Spanish, moved to Spain, and in a year they're basically fluent. Of course, still struggling with stuff they might not be used to: gendered language, conjugations, and so on. But overall, able to be fully understood by native speakers.

Theoretical educational frameworks don't replace the day-to-day struggle of trying to get shit done. (Doing this is, of course, extremely uncomfortable, and people will avoid it at all costs.)

I wonder what happened to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suggestopedia

It went from 200 words of long term retention to 3000 words.

Spaced repetition is the most inefficient efficient way to learn the vocabulary. I never have the "see once, learn forever" effect with any kind of deck.

It is a solved problem, Assimil or Michel Thomas (in person) have been making people conversational within a week of dedicated study. Plenty of language learners have reached C2 in 6+ languages including me. But it's not fun and certainly not appable (and these apps never offer anything beyond flashcards)"appable".

Go there, learn to talk then take classes there. You might not be able to speak better than the natives you can learn to grammar harder.

I just opened chatGPT's voice mode and mocked the worse accented english I could muster asking for tips on pronunciation.

chatGPT just told me that my pronunciation was perfect over an over. It's transcribing audio into text and has no sense for details needed to improve conversational skills.

It's so strange to hear you and GP talking as if no one has ever learned a foreign language without moving to another country. The US military has been teaching translators for decades at the Defense Language Institute in California, and people learn languages to conversational fluency in university, albeit inefficiently. Duolingo is a game meant to be fun and collect subscription fees, not designed to teach any useful skill.

> It's so strange to hear you and GP talking as if no one has ever learned a foreign language without moving to another country.

I speak three languages fluently (two prior to moving to said country; English, for example, is not my native tongue), so that's a weird assumption to make. With that said, I still think it's the most efficient way to learn a language, especially given how almost everyone's a nomad (especially in tech) these days.

how does one get to conversational level in a week? I would love to know!currently anki-flashcarding my way through italian...

(GP here) There’s a big difference between techniques that could be feasible for an app (presumably used by people who want to study one hour or less per day) and techniques you can use with people who are dedicating their entire professional workday to language learning for weeks/months on end.

I guess my original comment could’ve been more specific, but I figured the context was implied.

I think the point is people are well aware that living in a country that speaks the language is a great way to learn a language.

The point was what's the best way to learn a language other than by having an entire country surrounding you dedicated to that language? Many / most people can't pick up their life for a year to learn a language. People have work, people have families, people have local commitments.

> Lozanov claimed that suggestopedia cannot be compared to a placebo as he regarded placebos as being effective.

It doesn’t sound like the author of that method believes in science?? I’ll pass.

I’m pretty sure the point is to have a conversation with someone (something) who is speaking correctly.

As another poster here noted, the effect of error correction is nowhere near the effect of having correct input. (See the “comprehensible input” poster.)

I've tried speaking danish to ChatGPT and asking it very simple questions. I even tried using complete words and pronouncing them properly (inb4 kamelåså)[1], but it didn't help. I didn't manage to have it transcribe a single sentence properly.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk

I believe you, but I'm surprised it doesn't do Danish. It manages Cantonese though, which I think is fairly niche (Google translate doesn't support it).

I've managed to learn Esperanto fluently without ever moving to... er... um.

not unsolved at all. you just need to practice actually using the language instead of playing a video game

Torrent Assimil Italian and... look. Instead of doing 1 lesson per day, just do them 1 after each other. It's literally that easy.