The Fluent Forever App

General discussion about learning languages
User avatar
reineke
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3570
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
Languages: Fox (C4)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
x 6554

Re: The Fluent Forever App

Postby reineke » Fri Nov 10, 2017 8:37 pm

He got 950K through crowd funding.

"Does it work?
Why, yes! It does. "

"In Fluent Forever, you start by learning pronunciation, because when words don’t sound foreign anymore, they stick. This takes a couple of weeks.

You learn the rest of your language without memorizing translations."

"White rice is delicious."

"What do I get if I pre-order?
Glad you asked!"

"Double hyperglot."

I love it.
2 x

David1917
Blue Belt
Posts: 596
Joined: Mon Nov 06, 2017 2:36 am
Location: USA
Languages: English (N)
Professional Level: Russian, Spanish
x 1564

Re: The Fluent Forever App

Postby David1917 » Fri Nov 10, 2017 10:00 pm

I feel like all the marketing by this app, Rosetta Stone, modern Berlitz, etc. that focuses on "not having to memorize translations" is pandering to peoples' frustrations with language learning by treating the symptom rather than the cause. It is true that school-based language learning can be very difficult, and not very efficacious, for a variety of reasons. Anyone I know in the US has taken X number of semesters in Y language, but cannot speak it. They could read basic stuff and understand it, or fixate on the divergences from English (Spanish puts adjectives after nouns, wow!). But those are the only skills they are taught, and as years go on teachers are increasingly lenient, because of this perception that language learning is this insurmountable feat (see also: mathematics. You don't know hell until you're in your late 20's listening to a professor talk to a bunch of 19 year olds like they're children talking about how "hard" the subject is, instead of just teaching it better to make it relatable and understandable.)

What's the solution? I don't know, maybe instead of creating some weird rehashed app with crowd-sourced mistranslations, crowdfund a million dollars to buy your way into your local school board and redo the curriculum to save the next generation :lol:
4 x

crush
Blue Belt
Posts: 514
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 3:35 pm
Languages: EN (N), ES, ZH
Maintain: EUS, YUE, JP, HAW
Study: TGL, SV
On Hold: RU
x 953

Re: The Fluent Forever App

Postby crush » Sat Nov 11, 2017 12:49 pm

reineke wrote:He got 950K through crowd funding.

Where is that 950K number from? I saw on Indiegogo that he got $617k, but there is a "small" percentage that will go to Indiegogo for the "services" and another percentage to Amazon for processing the payments. There are supposedly also a number of payments which will not go through for various reasons. Still, safely around $550,000. And even that amount amazes me. I really have no idea how this got so much funding, i can't help but wonder what Damien Elmes (Anki) is thinking right now.

I also think the community language "feature" is an awful idea. Having native speakers review and record sentences will eat up a bit of money (assuming they get paid fairly), but i dunno. It sounds like a fairly simple app to put together and it's beyond me why you'd need an extra $150,000 to add Japanese/Korean (on top of the $150,000 for Spanish, Portuguese, etc., which i believe itself was on top of the $150,000 to add English + localization).

EDIT: Grammar
Last edited by crush on Sun Nov 12, 2017 12:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
0 x

Cainntear
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3468
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:04 am
Location: Scotland
Languages: English(N)
Advanced: French,Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Intermediate: Italian, Catalan, Corsican
Basic: Welsh
Dabbling: Polish, Russian etc
x 8657
Contact:

Re: The Fluent Forever App

Postby Cainntear » Sat Nov 11, 2017 3:58 pm

crush wrote:
reineke wrote:He got 950K through crowd funding.

Where is that 950K number from? I saw on Indiegogo that he got $617k,

Yup, that seems to be the figure. Indiegogo lets you include funds acquired through other routes in your total, so that should be the absolute total.

Indiegogo takes 5% of pledges through their site, and their credit card processor takes 3% + 30cents.
Kickstarter takes 5% and have processing fees of 3-5%, so you're in the right range -- he's sitting at between 555 and 567k after charges.

I also think the community language "feature" is an awful idea. Having native speakers review and record sentences will eat up a bit of money (assuming they get paid fairly), but i dunno.

Not as far as I can see. The money is to make the app and the sentence list packs.
It sounds like a fairly simple app to put together and it's beyond me why you'd need an extra $150,000 to add Japanese/Korean (on top of the $150,000 for Spanish, Portuguese, etc., which i believe itself was on top of the $150,000 to add English + localization).

It does, although bugs can be a bit of a bugger to track down.


The bit about languages is interesting, and note that there are already pronunciation trainers available to purchase on FF's website for all the languages mentioned -- it's only the $20 sentence lists that are still to be produced...

The base languages ($250k pledge level) are:
French, German, Italian, Latin American Spanish, Russian and Korean

That means at 250 000, they expect the app to fully support alternative alphabets, and from a technological perspective, the Hangul is about the hardest script to work with.

The next level up (400k) is US English, and if all the above languages work, English is going to be trivially easy -- no code changes required. So that's $150k for just one language. Clearly a $20 sentence list isn't going to take $150 000 to make, or the previous level wouldn't make sense (6*150000 = 900 000, which is nearly 4 times as much as the level for those 6 languages plus the app and web platform).

Then for another 150k (550k) they're going to have European Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Hebrew and Arabic.
The only potential software issue here is a possible problem with rendering right-to-left text (Arabic), but that should be handled automatically by iOS and Android, as that's dealt with at OS level now. There is still potential for difficulties within the app, but given how (in the mockups, at least) everything is split off into distinct parts of the screen, I can't imagine many problems beyond a day or two's debugging, so they're getting 30k per language for a pronunciation trainer and sentence list at this level. 30k per language seems high, but still reasonable if you think that it's equivalent to employing one person for 4 months (the estimate of cost of employment is usually 3 times annual salary, so I'm talking about a $30k pro rata paycheque here) and that's covering someone writing the sentences and someone else proofreading them (a few weeks' work) as well as paying voice actors and a recording engineer, and covering studio hire.

And then, with all the technological hurdles covered, another $150k (700k total) only gets you two more languages -- $75k each.

I might stop and analyse the stretch-goals after this (they're all technology-related) later, but that's enough for now.
2 x

Cainntear
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3468
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:04 am
Location: Scotland
Languages: English(N)
Advanced: French,Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Intermediate: Italian, Catalan, Corsican
Basic: Welsh
Dabbling: Polish, Russian etc
x 8657
Contact:

Re: The Fluent Forever App

Postby Cainntear » Sat Nov 11, 2017 4:17 pm

Aha! I now know what a sentence pack is: it contains 3 example sentences for each of 625 words (all the words in the existing wordlists).

Hmmm.... this I don't like. The sentences are "easy, medium and hard" and you're supposed to pick one that matches your level, so this appears to be literally no different from any other flashcard, as you'll only be seeing one sentence for each target term every time -- no inflections, no variations. That's 3.2 cents per word. And if he's including things like perrito... well, how many of the words are going to be genuinely useful? I don't think I've ever even used the word "perrito" outside of discussions on the diminutive suffix -ito.

Here's a question for anyone who has bought more than one of Wyner's lists in the past: are they essentially all just translations of the same thing? And if you're a Spanish speaker/learner, are there many words in there that are actually different in Mexico vs Spain (I'm guessing "carro" vs "coche", but is there any other)?
1 x

ASEAN
White Belt
Posts: 46
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 10:14 pm
Languages: English (N), Thai (A0)
x 82

Re: The Fluent Forever App

Postby ASEAN » Sat Nov 11, 2017 8:17 pm

crush wrote:I saw on Indiegogo that he got $617k, but there is a "small" percentage that will go to Indiegogo for the "services" and another percentage to Amazon for processing the payments. They are supposedly also a number of payments which will not go through for various reasons. Still, safely around $550,000. And even that amount amazes me. I really have no idea how this got so much funding, i can't help but wonder what Damien Elmes (Anki) is thinking right now.


It is my opinion that the Fluent Forever app is receiving funding from an angel investor or micro venture capitalist. These type of investors put "small" amount of money, $100k+, into startups. I assumed the investors hired a publicist which would explain the strong publicity that the app received after meeting its funding goal. Also, the investors would be the ones who are now bombarding me and others with internet ads asking for more money so we can pay for the privilege of beta testing the app for several months. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/250921 http://agilevc.com/blog/2010/10/11/what ... -and-a-vc/

There simply isn't $500k+ worth of demand for a spaced repetition app from the general public. Cleverdeck is an iOS SRS app for 12 languages. English is emblazoned on the front of cards but the app has an edit feature and that can easily be removed, plus you can customize any of the fields. The cards come with full sentences both in English and the target language, although the audio is just for the word not the full sentences, and you can create your own cards. http://cleverdeck.com/ I don't have an iTunes account, but the price appears to be $2.99/month for 3000 flashcards. There is also a free sample deck and Cleverdeck Pro for $26.99 (not sure what that entails).

The guy who created Cleverdeck has a web-based course called Turkish Tea Time that is only $10 a month. https://turkishteatime.com/ A price point of $10-$20 a month for a single language is something that Glossika and other courses should consider.
3 x

Cainntear
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3468
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:04 am
Location: Scotland
Languages: English(N)
Advanced: French,Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Intermediate: Italian, Catalan, Corsican
Basic: Welsh
Dabbling: Polish, Russian etc
x 8657
Contact:

Re: The Fluent Forever App

Postby Cainntear » Sat Nov 11, 2017 9:14 pm

ASEAN wrote:It is my opinion that the Fluent Forever app is receiving funding from an angel investor or micro venture capitalist. These type of investors put "small" amount of money, $100k+, into startups. I assumed the investors hired a publicist which would explain the strong publicity that the app received after meeting its funding goal. Also, the investors would be the ones who are now bombarding me and others with internet ads asking for more money so we can pay for the privilege of beta testing the app for several months. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/250921 http://agilevc.com/blog/2010/10/11/what ... -and-a-vc/

There simply isn't $500k+ worth of demand for a spaced repetition app from the general public.

You might think that, but if you tot up all the pledges on both sites , only $13 290 is left unaccounted for (people pledging over the basic amount -- average $2.88 per user, and 2.2% of the total take), so it looks like the money did indeed come from the public. Institutional investors faking it through Kickstarter and Indiegogo would be against the terms and conditions and would involve losing 8-10% of the investment straight away to fees and charges -- hardly good business practice. There are 4622 backers, paying an average of $133.62 each, and that's very believable, particularly when you consider that thousands have bought his book, thought "wow, this is great!" and found that they couldn't follow the instructions (building decks is pretty boring) so when he pops up and says "remember that advice I gave you that is too boring for you to do? Well here I've done all the boring stuff for you!" lots of people will put in that bit extra. It's like an unintentional cult -- pay $5 more and the secret will be revealed.

(Of course, as has already been mentioned, he's not even following his own method, as accepting the next suggested word and selecting one of three sentences really isn't "building your own deck"...)

...this is a silly thing for me to spend so much time looking at.
4 x

crush
Blue Belt
Posts: 514
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 3:35 pm
Languages: EN (N), ES, ZH
Maintain: EUS, YUE, JP, HAW
Study: TGL, SV
On Hold: RU
x 953

Re: The Fluent Forever App

Postby crush » Sun Nov 12, 2017 12:31 am

You both made interesting points, and i appreciate the time you took to analyze all that, Cainntear. I believe the pronunciation trainers for those languages have all been made (that was part of a previous kickstarter), so it's paying someone to create 3*625 sentences. I can't imagine that taking four months, a week or two seems more realistic. Arabic might cause issues, but as you mention, at least on Android (not sure about iOS), that is handled at the OS level, you likely won't have to do anything other than add the Arabic pack in and double check that it actually does work.

I suppose more languages mean that he needs to hire more "teachers", but i'm not sure what that'll end up costing.
0 x

ASEAN
White Belt
Posts: 46
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 10:14 pm
Languages: English (N), Thai (A0)
x 82

Re: The Fluent Forever App

Postby ASEAN » Sun Nov 12, 2017 6:32 am

Cainntear wrote:You might think that, but if you tot up all the pledges on both sites , only $13 290 is left unaccounted for (people pledging over the basic amount -- average $2.88 per user, and 2.2% of the total take), so it looks like the money did indeed come from the public. Institutional investors faking it through Kickstarter and Indiegogo would be against the terms and conditions and would involve losing 8-10% of the investment straight away to fees and charges -- hardly good business practice. There are 4622 backers, paying an average of $133.62 each, and that's very believable, particularly when you consider that thousands have bought his book, thought "wow, this is great!" and found that they couldn't follow the instructions (building decks is pretty boring) so when he pops up and says "remember that advice I gave you that is too boring for you to do? Well here I've done all the boring stuff for you!" lots of people will put in that bit extra. It's like an unintentional cult -- pay $5 more and the secret will be revealed.

(Of course, as has already been mentioned, he's not even following his own method, as accepting the next suggested word and selecting one of three sentences really isn't "building your own deck"...)

...this is a silly thing for me to spend so much time looking at.


Thanks for doing the research. I didn't realize that. I'm really surprised that that many people would pay $133 to access the beta version of a product. Especially when similar low-cost or free products already exist like Cleverdeck, Clozemaster, Speechling, and Lingvist.
0 x

crush
Blue Belt
Posts: 514
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 3:35 pm
Languages: EN (N), ES, ZH
Maintain: EUS, YUE, JP, HAW
Study: TGL, SV
On Hold: RU
x 953

Re: The Fluent Forever App

Postby crush » Sun Nov 12, 2017 12:07 pm

ASEAN wrote:Thanks for doing the research. I didn't realize that. I'm really surprised that that many people would pay $133 to access the beta version of a product. Especially when similar low-cost or free products already exist like Cleverdeck, Clozemaster, Speechling, and Lingvist.

Yeah, i was surprised, too. If you look at the right side of the Indiegogo and Kickstarter pages, you can see how many people claimed each perk level.

On Indiegogo, for example, six people ordered the $1000 "hyperglot" package, 22 people claimed a $300 package, 26 claimed the $150 package, and 116 people claimed the $90 package.

On Kickstarter, 18 people pledged "$1,400 or more", 260 at $800 (or more), and the $40/$75 levels have over a 1,000 each, nearly 3,000 combined.a

I don't really get it. I read (most) of his book and thought there were some interesting ideas, but as a reviewer on YouTube put it, the book would've been better titled as "How to use Anki". I have no doubt it works, but i can't imagine using nothing but Anki/flashcards to learn a language. I've found some of emk's Anki cards/ideas interesting, in particular the subs2srs experiments which i've tried a bit myself and enjoyed for a while. I guess I'll find out next year some time when it is released.
1 x


Return to “General Language Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: tastyonions and 2 guests