Speechling discussion

Ask specific questions about your target languages. Beginner questions welcome!
Ccaesar
Orange Belt
Posts: 216
Joined: Fri Apr 13, 2018 2:47 pm
Languages: Danish (N) English (B2-C1) German (B1-B2) Italian(B1), Japanese (beginner)
x 264

Speechling discussion

Postby Ccaesar » Tue Dec 08, 2020 9:20 am

Hello everyone!
First of all, I did search the forum prior to posting, but I didn't find a thread dedicated to the topic.
I came across the website speechling whilst procastrinating and daydreaming about learning languages instead of curriculum for the exams...
The premise and idea really appeals to me, since it may remedy something that's terribily difficult on your own and even with tandem partners (since they often don't mind your accent or intonation being off).
Speechling aims to remedy flaws in our pronounciation and intonation with the aid of professional tutors who listen and provide feedback within 24 hours of submitting recordings.

Can anyone add input to the discussion either positive or negative?
2 x
Hiragana practiced in hand : 48 / 48
Katakana practiced in hand : 48 / 48
Kanji : 50 / 2000
Assimil Japanese with Ease : 27 / 100

User avatar
Henkkles
Green Belt
Posts: 277
Joined: Thu Apr 07, 2016 2:13 pm
Languages: N FI | A EN SV | I EE RU | B FR LN
x 796

Re: Speechling discussion

Postby Henkkles » Tue Dec 08, 2020 9:51 am

I know of Speechling because someone from there actually reached out to me a few years ago on Reddit and I answered some questions regarding, and I had an unlimited account in the demo. I have to say I really liked it, but as I wasn't learning French at the time and that was the only language available in the demo I didn't have time to use it as much as I would have liked. I just created an account and browsed it and it looks wonderful. I'm actually glad I rediscovered it, because it seems quite fantastic. I might consider a yearly subscription actually, I'm impressed at how far they've come. The entire curriculum is free of charge as well, and they're a non-profit to boot.

I don't know if you need anyone to sing their praises, you can try it out for free for yourself and see if you like it.

Proof:

Image
Image
1 x

User avatar
lingua
Blue Belt
Posts: 951
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2016 11:23 pm
Languages: English (N)
Maintaining: italiano (B2/C1ish)
Studying: português, Latina
Dabbling: siciliano, Deutsch, français, piemontèis
Abandoned: ไทย, español
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12257
x 2024

Re: Speechling discussion

Postby lingua » Tue Dec 08, 2020 7:58 pm

I'm a fan of Speechling but I prefer the free-form. I previously used their canned sentences and found some pronunciations either off or perhaps the speaker had a different accent than what the tutor who corrects me has. The only negative I have is that there is no way to specify Portugal (instead of Brazil) for the Portuguese tutor. I'm not even sure if one exists but one of these days I'll ask. The yearly fee is a little higher than other language sites but if you use it regularly it's worth it. I believe the free access has a limited number of recordings per month. Still that's a good way to try it out.
1 x
Super Challenge 2022-23:
DE: books: 0 / 2500 film: 1654 / 4500
IT: books: 3065 / 5000 film: 5031 / 9000
PT: books: 2921 / 5000 film: 5010 / 9000

Output Challenge 2023:
IT: write: 0 / 50000 record: 84 / 3000
PT: write: 0 / 50000 record: 0 / 3000

PT: Read 100 books: 28 / 100

User avatar
Axon
Blue Belt
Posts: 775
Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2016 12:29 am
Location: California
Languages: Native English, in order of comfort: Mandarin, German, Indonesian,
Spanish, French, Russian,
Cantonese, Vietnamese, Polish.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5086
x 3288

Re: Speechling discussion

Postby Axon » Wed Dec 09, 2020 5:47 am

I think Speechling is a great product, and it compares favorably with native speaker lessons for getting you to just start talking. You get something pretty similar to Glossika, which I and a lot of others like, plus the incredible resource of tailored native feedback added on as basically an afterthought.

The feedback is really only worth it if you do lots of recordings every day, though. Your tutor has the option to mark your recordings as "Excellent!" and not record any feedback, and sometimes I felt like she did that even when I made mistakes. The recordings and feedback are also very time-limited, so if you record a full 60 seconds you'll probably only get feedback for one or two points.

Personally, I've been on the other side (not on Speechling), giving recorded feedback after listening to English recordings. It's tiring, and I can totally understand these limitations! So I don't begrudge the tutors for not giving me extremely strict feedback, especially when I brought in my own test-prep material. Here's an example prompt I used with my recording and the feedback I got.

Sie möchten einen internationalen Studentenausweis beantragen. Deshalb rufen Sie beim Studentenwerk an. Stellen Sie sich vor. Sagen Sie, warum sie anrufen. Fragen sie nach Einzelheiten zum internationalen Studentenausweis.


https://vocaroo.com/1a77mBFeNDrQ

Premium users can actually download the entire course offline, in text, audio, and Anki deck formats, and they have a popup dictionary with audio recordings too. It's a very complete resource, but I will say that the Mandarin translations at least are hardly spoken Mandarin at all. They're spoken in extremely polished broadcaster Mandarin and are much more similar to formal writing or a prepared speech without the casual flavor of the Glossika recordings.
Last edited by Axon on Wed Dec 09, 2020 4:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
4 x

Kraut
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2600
Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2017 10:37 pm
Languages: German (N)
French (C)
English (C)
Spanish (A2)
Lithuanian
x 3204

Re: Speechling discussion

Postby Kraut » Wed Dec 09, 2020 9:32 am

Here is some more feedback on your recording:

- I'm not sure about your "ich"-sound, it might be ok and only sound distorted
- "welche Ausweispapiere" brauche ich? https://www.iurastudent.de/definition/ausweispapier
- wollte: o is shorter
- ü in München is not ok
- gibt es noch mehr, WAS ich brauche
- auch ....(was für eine Identifikation brauche ich): replace "auch" with "außerdem"
Last edited by Kraut on Wed Dec 09, 2020 2:00 pm, edited 3 times in total.
2 x

Cavesa
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4960
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:46 am
Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
x 17566

Re: Speechling discussion

Postby Cavesa » Wed Dec 09, 2020 11:23 am

Speechling is one of my favourite tools these days!

It is the first source of reliable and detailed feedback on the pronunciation. One of my main complaints about today's tutoring market is the lack of serious teachers, who actually don't let mistakes pass due to their low experience or wrong beliefs (such as prefering encouragement at the expense of results, or the mistaken idea of what is good enough and what is impossible for a foreign learner). Most tutors you randomly encounter (including native teachers in a language school in the target language's country) are also very bad at pinpointing the problems. Yes, there are surely some great tutors out there, but it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack and I am tired of that. If I want to pay someone, I want quality and I want no lies about their skills.

The Speechling idea is great. And the tutors are overall of great quality and focused on pronunciation. Yes, there are better and worse ones probably, but what I've seen so far (four languages) is well above the standard available elsewhere. It's the first time a tutor is consistently much better at pronunciation feedback than just my own ears and an audio recording!!! I love the reliability.

My main complaints are very tiny issues. Like the tutor sometimes "correcting the voice actor", because they are probably from a different region. But that is a rare. And yes, there are a few moments, when even the Speechling tutor doesn't give enough info about what to do differently (but let's acknowledge that I also have rather high expectations and am used to the precision of a very good singing teacher.). But most times, Speechling does exactly what I want and the pronunciation work being hard is a good sign! It leads to progress that is very noticeable.

Some of the other functions are not that stellar and, if I were to lead Speechling (which I am not, I just decide whether it is worth my subscription and a bit of money), I would stop wasting resources on things that are not gonna be that great anyways. I have my doubts about their flashcards for example (primarily because of their curriculum, which I'll mention, and secondarily because they won't be better than the well established SRS platforms anyways) and some other things.

The curriculum is very good as the pronunciation training material, plus you are bound to remember a part of it by repetition. However, I do not believe their claims about the CEFR level allignment (I think they made it up only after they were asked), I also can't imagine Speechling as the main course. However, it is unique for the pronunciation training. If we looked at just the content you're learning, I'd say Speechling is seriously worse than for example Speakly. But that is not case, Speechling is primarily about the pronunciation and nobody else is.

There is also the option to record longer and more or less free answers. I plan to use that and read some chapters from medical textbooks, to get my professional language pronunciation corrected. But I am still a bit mistrustful towards just recording some longer and spontaneous bits, I've tried just a few times. It is hard to communicate in such a case, I even got my sentences simplified at the expense of the meaning and style, but this is really based just on a too small sample of a few attempts!! If you want to try the longer and free answers, it should still be very good for pronunciation, perhaps they are also ok with correcting grammar. But I wouldn't use Speechling for example as an oral exam opportunity, as the tool is clearly not meant to fit the cefr or any standard curriculum. Some of the tutors would probably do well, but I cannot see any guarantee, I cannot pick them, and they are probably not picked by Speechling based on this type of experience.

Btw I haven't mentioned the price yet. If you can get any kind of sale (Black Friday was 25%, perhaps there will be Christmas and the New Year sales), save some money. But even if you can't wait for any, I think Speechling is offering for this amount of money much more, than the alternatives. You get months of pronunciation training without any sauce and time waste for the price of just several hours with a tutor, who may or many not be good (in the most likely case, you will waste half the money just on sample lessons, trying to find someone passable)

It's freemium, but presenting itself with lots of noble sounding ideas. However, their idea of "charity" is rather vague (you can read a whole speech about how they believe in learning available to everybody et blablabla). It looks a bit more like a marketing tool than anything else. For free, you get everything except for the main part, the unlimited feedback. The ten free recordings per month are not gonna make you progress too much. You can use the rest of the tool sure, and then it might be a free replacement of Glossika, a collection of recordings that you compare yourself to on your own. Perhaps that is my main complaint. I am not at all against people getting paid and the price is not bad at all! I would just prefer some honesty in calling Speechling freemium instead of a charity giving tools to the people without means to pay. Because that is simply not true. Those need the feedback the most (the typical reasion: their pronunciation is an important part of making a first impression and getting a better paid job. or succeeding better as immigrants. They are usually not learning just for fun.). So, if Speechling wants to play with our emotions and play the saviour of the poor learners, they should also make these claims true, such as by allowing the paying users to donate towards full subscriptions for others, etc. Or they should stop that and just call a freemium and a for profit company with the right words.

Ccaesar wrote:The premise and idea really appeals to me, since it may remedy something that's terribily difficult on your own and even with tandem partners (since they often don't mind your accent or intonation being off).
Speechling aims to remedy flaws in our pronounciation and intonation with the aid of professional tutors who listen and provide feedback within 24 hours of submitting recordings.


Yes, this is a problem not only with the non professional tandem partners or too kind friends. It is unfortunately a problem with most standard tutors too. Speechling is right now the most serious tool on the market, in my opinion. While others are trying to sell voice recognition software (which is of limited usefulness for this purpose and won't be equal to a human in at least a decade in my opinion), they are focusing on one of the areas, where the humans cannot be replaced!

Yes, the answers arrive within 24 hours. And the software interface between you and the tutor is very easy to use, and well organised.

Henkkles wrote:I know of Speechling because someone from there actually reached out to me a few years ago on Reddit and I answered some questions regarding, and I had an unlimited account in the demo. I have to say I really liked it, but as I wasn't learning French at the time and that was the only language available in the demo I didn't have time to use it as much as I would have liked. I just created an account and browsed it and it looks wonderful. I'm actually glad I rediscovered it, because it seems quite fantastic. I might consider a yearly subscription actually, I'm impressed at how far they've come. The entire curriculum is free of charge as well, and they're a non-profit to boot.

I don't know if you need anyone to sing their praises, you can try it out for free for yourself and see if you like it.


This is so cool! As I wrote above, I have some doubts about their "non-profit to boot" nature. Because the main value of the tool is not free. Which is definitely ok! I am just a bit wary about people trying to look too charitable, when they are (very logically and reasonably) not.

I'm a paying user. If I wasn't, I don't think I'd bother with Speechling, because the free part is actually not that unique. Not sure whether the free part will change any poorer learner's life. Perhaps it would make sense to work on their "charity" issues and for example create a sort of "hanged coffee" mechanism or something else, that would give access to the valuable part to more people.

lingua wrote:I'm a fan of Speechling but I prefer the free-form. I previously used their canned sentences and found some pronunciations either off or perhaps the speaker had a different accent than what the tutor who corrects me has. The only negative I have is that there is no way to specify Portugal (instead of Brazil) for the Portuguese tutor. I'm not even sure if one exists but one of these days I'll ask. The yearly fee is a little higher than other language sites but if you use it regularly it's worth it. I believe the free access has a limited number of recordings per month. Still that's a good way to try it out.


This is interesting. Do you used to free form on just a different curriculum (like reading some coursebook dialogues, something I've considered), or fully free speech?

They let you pick between more variants of Spanish and English. Hopefully, they'll grow into differentiating Portuguese and adding more languages.

Limited access has 10 recordings per month. Which is ok for trying it out, but let's not pretend the free users get that much of a value, 10 sentences won't make them progress.
5 x

Cavesa
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4960
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:46 am
Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
x 17566

Re: Speechling discussion

Postby Cavesa » Wed Dec 09, 2020 11:45 am

Axon wrote:I think Speechling is a great product, and it compares favorably with native speaker lessons for getting you to just start talking. You get something pretty similar to Glossika, which I and a lot of others like, plus the incredible resource of tailored native feedback added on as basically an afterthought.


It's interesting, that the main valuable part was just an afterthough! Is that really so?


The feedback is really only worth it if you do lots of recordings every day, though. Your tutor has the option to mark your recordings as "Excellent!" and not record any feedback, and sometimes I felt like she did that even when I made mistakes. The recordings and feedback are also very time-limited, so if you record a full 60 seconds you'll probably only get feedback for one or two points.


Well, I do lots (a few hundred) of recordings a week, but not every day. It works really really well. I agree that making just a few recordings every now and then won't give much any result.

A funny note: I had one tutor, who was clearly new and didn't understand the marking mechanism. So, instead of marking the correct ones green and to be put aside, she was recording comments like "perfect". Which was horrible, as she was making me rerecord even stuff like "No", which I definitely have no problem with. :-D

That's a very interesting note, about the time limits on both sides. Yes, they are making the tool more efficient in some ways, the advantage is focus on pronunciation and nothing else, and not getting stuck at anything for too long. The disadvantages are sometimes not too clear feedback (I could do with more explanation of one or two points in German, how exactly to change) and also limited usefulness of the free form.


Personally, I've been on the other side, giving recorded feedback after listening to English recordings. It's tiring, and I can totally understand these limitations! So I don't begrudge the tutors for not giving me extremely strict feedback, especially when I brought in my own test-prep material.


Interesting. How were you selected, if I may ask? It is on a CV with clear pronunciation training experience? Or do they try the new tutors out somehow?

Or is the excellent result mostly the effect of the short form, the clear focus on one thing, and a sort of self selecting process, where only tutors interested in pronunciation will apply?

I don't begrudge them on that, they are mostly very strict and I really like that (but yes, there is one words I've recorded like 12 times already and it's a struggle :-D ). But you are right about the test prep material. I cannot imagine, how any test preparation could fit into the tiny time frames. And by the time you sit an exam, you are usually either very good at the pronunciation, or you can fix it with the standard curriculum. I'd say the test preparation is for a different type of service than what Speechling provides.


Premium users can actually download the entire course offline, in text, audio, and Anki deck formats, and they have a popup dictionary with audio recordings too. It's a very complete resource, but I will say that the Mandarin translations at least are hardly spoken Mandarin at all. They're spoken in extremely polished broadcaster Mandarin and are much more similar to formal writing or a prepared speech without the casual flavor of the Glossika recordings.


Do you think there is a big difference between the individual courses?

So far, I wouldn't try the FIGS courses "complete", in the sense of really being possibly the main resource getting you to a certain level. They are complete in the sense of letting you practice the whole pronunciation on words, simple sentences, and even rather long sentences.

The FIGS are not too colloquial either, but I don't think they are too formal. But that may be affected by my the initial approach, that I simply don't look at Speechling as if it was a full course, I see it as an excellent supplement filling a gap on the market.
2 x

User avatar
Axon
Blue Belt
Posts: 775
Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2016 12:29 am
Location: California
Languages: Native English, in order of comfort: Mandarin, German, Indonesian,
Spanish, French, Russian,
Cantonese, Vietnamese, Polish.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5086
x 3288

Re: Speechling discussion

Postby Axon » Wed Dec 09, 2020 9:02 pm

Cavesa wrote:It's interesting, that the main valuable part was just an afterthough! Is that really so?
...

Interesting. How were you selected, if I may ask? It is on a CV with clear pronunciation training experience? Or do they try the new tutors out somehow?
...

Do you think there is a big difference between the individual courses?


I should have been much more clear! First, I meant that I felt that although the feedback on the phrases you repeat is a major selling point, I think for some users like me, the best part is the fact that there's a huge library of interesting picture and text prompts plus the ability to bring in your own material.

I also didn't work with Speechling directly - my experience was with private students doing roughly the same thing.

And I haven't tried out the individual courses much at all! Just a few dozen sentences here and there. I'm really only interested in the feedback on the free talk exercises, so the course to me is less of a selling point.

Thanks also to Kraut for the detailed feedback! Clearly there were little problems that a reviewer with more time and energy might have focused on as opposed to just the one word choice issue.
3 x

User avatar
Axon
Blue Belt
Posts: 775
Joined: Thu Jun 16, 2016 12:29 am
Location: California
Languages: Native English, in order of comfort: Mandarin, German, Indonesian,
Spanish, French, Russian,
Cantonese, Vietnamese, Polish.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5086
x 3288

Re: Speechling discussion

Postby Axon » Wed Dec 09, 2020 9:12 pm

Kraut wrote:Here is some more feedback on your recording:
...


In einer Einführungsveranstaltung wird über die Evaluierung der Lehre an den Universitäten gesprochen. Der Diskussionsleiter, Herr Rankler, stellt die Internetportale “meinprof.de” und “spickmich.de” vor. Auf beiden Internetseiten können Studierende und Schüler Noten für Professoren und Lehrer geben. Eine Diskussionsteilnehmerin meint, dass dies sowohl für die Studierenden als auch für die Lehrenden viele Vorteile habe. Sie möchten sich auch dazu äußern. Der Diskussionsleiter erteilt Ihnen das Wort.

https://vocaroo.com/15Qd8zMCUFBm

Wann hast du zuletzt ein Insekt getötet?

https://vocaroo.com/156lAG5XBLDz

Without diverting this thread too much toward my German abilities as of a year ago (when these recordings were made), here are some examples of free responses marked "No corrections needed." Clearly there is halting speech, self-correction, and accented German to be found, but those apparently didn't bother my tutor in these cases. Of course, she never offered content or structure suggestions, just pronunciation, grammar, and word choice corrections.
2 x

User avatar
lingua
Blue Belt
Posts: 951
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2016 11:23 pm
Languages: English (N)
Maintaining: italiano (B2/C1ish)
Studying: português, Latina
Dabbling: siciliano, Deutsch, français, piemontèis
Abandoned: ไทย, español
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12257
x 2024

Re: Speechling discussion

Postby lingua » Wed Dec 09, 2020 9:23 pm

Cavesa wrote:This is interesting. Do you used to free form on just a different curriculum (like reading some coursebook dialogues, something I've considered), or fully free speech?


For German I'm using some of the dialogs from Assimil. For Italian I do different things. Most recently I was doing a lot of sentences with pronominal verbs because they don't roll off my tongue. Mostly I look for sentences from whatever it is I'm reading when I come across phrases/sentences/words that I am less fluid with. When you do free form you have to enter the words into a box so the tutor knows what you're trying to say.
3 x
Super Challenge 2022-23:
DE: books: 0 / 2500 film: 1654 / 4500
IT: books: 3065 / 5000 film: 5031 / 9000
PT: books: 2921 / 5000 film: 5010 / 9000

Output Challenge 2023:
IT: write: 0 / 50000 record: 84 / 3000
PT: write: 0 / 50000 record: 0 / 3000

PT: Read 100 books: 28 / 100


Return to “Practical Questions and Advice”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests