I want to build an app. What do you think?

[eido]

Would it be working on that or more on A, B, C for people that really can't read in Spanish?

Or is there another way of doing this? What is important here, it seems, is that the user get quick feedback on pronunciation?

I’m assuming no knowledge of how to read Spanish, since we have a lot of people in America who don’t know what sounds to associate with what. There’s the basics people know, but they butcher them. I assumed you could teach the alphabet together up to a point, because that’s how I learned Hangul. Learn the letters, then build words. Learn the exceptions. Right? Or...

And I thought competition would be good along with a real person since Duolingo’s and other app’s voice recognition apps always mark me right no matter what I say. I didn’t want to isolate anybody either. But I do see your point.

I’m still interested, just stumped. So I’ll have to think about what I want this to look like. App design requires thought, I know that. I’ll try drawing out the pronunciation card this weekend.

[zenmonkey]

To give you a bit of an idea of the drawing process... here is an example of something I'm building up now.

Idea: Build a configuration screen to set sound, reset a quiz and also provide a point for upgrading, contacting me, etc ...
The card started with a title and the list off functions I wanted (not shown), I then grouped them together ... then I drew the following:

IMG_8023.jpeg

and a couple of hours of design work and implementation (an a bit of testing with different ideas):

Simulator Screen Shot - iPhone 7 - 2018-12-13 at 15.29.47.png

I still need to add a lot of the functional code and a few sub-screens but in about 6-7 hours that entire screen is complete. There are still improvements to carry out (ex: see the upgrade icon, it should render blue, it is slightly too small, etc.) But the drawing pretty much tells me all that I'm going to have. Doing something like that is sloppy, but it is fine if I am doing the programming, if I wanted someone else to do it, I'd want a clear design document and descriptions...

[Deinonysus]

I guess I just have to learn to code, as difficult as it is. I think it's (they're) probably harder than any human language, or maybe that's just the perceived difficulty.

Depends on the language. I recommend Python or if you have a teacher, Java. Use this before you start spending money trying to learn so you can see if you actually like coding.

Umm, not for apps. Really should be Swift or Kotlin. And one can learn for free (well, and time).

Well, I guess that depends on whether she wants to learn to program in general, or really just wants to get straight into making apps.

I think Python is the best beginner language because it's easy, clear, intuitive, and general purpose. If you need to automate something at work, no matter what field you want to go into, you can write a Python script to do it (I found it equally useful for work in Biology, Statistics, and IT, although for the two former I used R more). And the general programming skills will transfer over to any other language.

I guess it's similar to the question of, "what should I learn first, Spanish or Latin?" For most people the obvious answer is Spanish, since it's much easier and more generally useful and a lot of what you learn will help you with Latin down the line. But if you're really into Roman history and literature and that's all you want to do, then by all means, dive straight into Latin!

I'm not familiar with Swift or Kotlin so I can't compare their difficulty to Python, but I think Python's a great place to start for general programming.

[David1917]

There is a language-learning software out there the name of which must not be spoken, whose pronunciation/alphabet screens are phenomenal for most languages. I wrote a similar example on the Wiki, but for Italian. Here is what they do in essence, applied to Spanish:

First and foremost, it is more instantly gratifying to learn some words/phrases, but if they are chosen carefully they can be used to immediately address issues of pronunciation/orthography. So in Spanish, we have c, g and j as some example letters which do not behave the same way as in English. You might want to include phrases with words featuring ca, ce, ci, co, and cu (carro, cena, cintura, como, cuchara). Then break them down to just these individual words comparing and contrasting: "carro - como" hard C, "cena - cintura" soft C. Then the same with ga, ge, gi, go, gu and the j in general. Of course you have to make it your own and figure out what can be done better.

[zenmonkey]

Well, I guess that depends on whether she wants to learn to program in general, or really just wants to get straight into making apps.

Well, certainly but the question being asked is not "what general purpose programming language should I learn?"

I think Python is the best beginner language because it's easy, clear, intuitive, and general purpose. If you need to automate something at work, no matter what field you want to go into, you can write a Python script to do it (I found it equally useful for work in Biology, Statistics, and IT, although for the two former I used R more). And the general programming skills will transfer over to any other language.

Phython is a useful language, no doubt. I like it all. But for interfaces for mobile apps it would be a terrible choice - you need to add Kivy or BeeWare neither of which are really mature and integrate fully with Android or iOS APIs.
It would simply be a bad choice for a first language for someone wanting to dive into mobile app building.

I guess it's similar to the question of, "what should I learn first, Spanish or Latin?" For most people the obvious answer is Spanish, since it's much easier and more generally useful and a lot of what you learn will help you with Latin down the line. But if you're really into Roman history and literature and that's all you want to do, then by all means, dive straight into Latin!

I'm not familiar with Swift or Kotlin so I can't compare their difficulty to Python, but I think Python's a great place to start for general programming.

For General programming, the same could be said of javascript (it's actually more popular than Python) and Java - both are good starting places. And certainly Python seems to be the fastest growing language (outside the mobile app development area).

But horses for courses. If someone want to travel to Portugal in the near future, I would hope we wouldn't be recommending that the person first, learn Latin, French and German - all good and useful languages, then spend money and time getting to Norway because it isn't too far. Buy a bike, they are useful too. And then carry it, on foot, to Lisboa. Not the most practical.

Swift and Kotlin are pretty easy to get going. If you take the time to install the development environments (free) Xcode on Mac or Android Studio (a few hours - not including some strange flavour of Ubuntu), pretty much anyone can create a first "Hello World" program in minutes. There are literally thousands of help videos for both languages, pretty much describing every aspect of development from making games to crypto implementation.

[eido]

First and foremost, it is more instantly gratifying to learn some words/phrases, but if they are chosen carefully they can be used to immediately address issues of pronunciation/orthography. So in Spanish, we have c, g and j as some example letters which do not behave the same way as in English. You might want to include phrases with words featuring ca, ce, ci, co, and cu (carro, cena, cintura, como, cuchara). Then break them down to just these individual words comparing and contrasting: "carro - como" hard C, "cena - cintura" soft C. Then the same with ga, ge, gi, go, gu and the j in general. Of course you have to make it your own and figure out what can be done better.

Ooh, I love that format in The Program That Shall Not Be Named. I can't believe I'd forgotten about it.

Could I mix what I thought of with that somehow?

Like, we learn some natural phrases that would be used on a bus.

"Cierra la ventana, por favor. Hace mucho frío hoy."
"¿Cómo estás?"
"Estoy a cargo de tu seguridad. Es mi trabajo."
"Gira y mira al frente del autobús. No te sientes así."
"Justo ayer ustedes eran amigos. ¿Qué pasó?"

These would be read aloud. Then the spelling rules would be broken down like you said, with soft and hard for each consonant, and a quiz would be given on the words in the phrases. Then there'd be a quiz to test the user's knowledge on whether or not they understand the issues being presented in the lesson by doing the minimal pair thing that The Program does, matching audio with spelling. The words tested in the quizzes would come up in later lessons, too to avoid learning things that didn't need to be learned.

And maybe I could describe the pronunciation card I have in my mind. It has a video of the native speaker's mouth on one side, saying the sound. This video can be repeated over and over. There's a button you can click on the bottom left that says "Flip" and this allows you to view a technical diagram of how to pronounce the sound. Like pictures of the throat and everything. Depending on resources, it may or may not be animated.

Thanks for the help, guys. This is making me think hard about how I'd be as a teacher, something I've considered doing. So this is helpful.

[David1917]

And maybe I could describe the pronunciation card I have in my mind. It has a video of the native speaker's mouth on one side, saying the sound. This video can be repeated over and over. There's a button you can click on the bottom left that says "Flip" and this allows you to view a technical diagram of how to pronounce the sound. Like pictures of the throat and everything. Depending on resources, it may or may not be animated.

This is cool. I especially like the animated throat diagram. I think without knowing IPA and linguistic terms like uvular or fricative a lot of phonological explanations can come across as obtuse to the average learner (on the contrary, strict Berlitz self-teacher style phonetics just come across as plain absurd in today's era of access to audio). This will be very beneficial in teaching Chinese - I think people end up trying to "sing" 3rd/4th tones instead of moving around in their throats.

[zenmonkey]

And maybe I could describe the pronunciation card I have in my mind. It has a video of the native speaker's mouth on one side, saying the sound. This video can be repeated over and over. There's a button you can click on the bottom left that says "Flip" and this allows you to view a technical diagram of how to pronounce the sound. Like pictures of the throat and everything. Depending on resources, it may or may not be animated.

This is cool. I especially like the animated throat diagram. I think without knowing IPA and linguistic terms like uvular or fricative a lot of phonological explanations can come across as obtuse to the average learner (on the contrary, strict Berlitz self-teacher style phonetics just come across as plain absurd in today's era of access to audio). This will be very beneficial in teaching Chinese - I think people end up trying to "sing" 3rd/4th tones instead of moving around in their throats.

Check out you glossika videos to get ideas on how this can be done...

[Cainntear]

The hardest part of making a language app isn't necessarily the coding, it may well be the content. Big software houses avoid personalised courses because you end up needing soooo much content to do it right.

Be careful about letting yourself want to make the app you want to have -- if you were wanting to make a game, you wouldn't be dreaming of making a something better than Skyrim, would you? You'd be happy making a basic single screen platform game for your first attempt.

There's a lot that goes into a language app -- there's coding, teaching styles and just loads and loads of content. You need to identify the minimum viable product (MVP) -- the smallest possible thing you can make that is worthwhile in and of itself. Make that, then expand. But multiple languages and multiple professions is too far in the future to be a good focus for now. What can you do now that gets you closer to that goal, and is worthwhile on its own?

[eido]

What can you do now that gets you closer to that goal, and is worthwhile on its own?

I don't know. Can't think of anything. I'm not gonna be happy with a flashcard app with words on it. I actually thought this was pretty simple, but eh.