What is your experience with Glossika?

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Cavesa
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Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
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Re: What is your experience with Glossika?

Postby Cavesa » Mon Apr 12, 2021 1:00 pm

PeterMollenburg wrote:If you go to their website (I did this both with my phone and with my laptop), select a language and scroll down past a lot of the wordy sales pitch stuff you'll find a section stating A1 to C1 for example and next to it the number of sentences and words Glossika offers.

Thanks, I had thought I had searched everywhere on the website, but I missed that. Sometimes the most "obvious" place is the hardest one to find :-D

Oh, and the way I understand it, the content is available only in these base languages: English, French, Mandarin, Russian, as these are the languages listed at the top right of the language drop-down menu to run the website. Seems odd why you wouldn't have some more such as German, Spanish or Japanese, but I guess four base languages is better than one. As for Turkish and Czech or other such smaller languages, I don't believe such languages are offered as base languages, again due to their drop down menu being only in four languages, so by all means point me in the direction which indicates otherwise if you've discovered more base languages.


You're wrong, they are offered as base languages, just with worse quality. I know, because I tried. I just picked Czech in the settings.

The marketing presentation suggests all the combinations are available, and yes, I got content even with a Czech base. It exists. It is just most probably of worse quality, because the support recommended me to use the English version for the "full experience", or "full value" or with similar words.

Yes, agreed. While I found the old Glossika to be somewhat unique and not a carbon copy of other audio programmes out there (for example, Michel Thomas French and Paul Noble French are almost identical to each other in format and content), it's not that different to be something to rave about. I actually found a lot of the audio phrases to be similar in nature to audio found in Fluenz French in terms of sentence length and complexity (not the actual phrases). However, Fluenz has the audio recording with some kind of voice recognition technology that will mark you incorrect if your recording of your own voice repeating certain phrases doesn't match that of the pre-recorded Fluenz one sufficiently close (including intonation). Fluenz is well put together but doesn't advance in difficulty as much as it could from the first level to the last.


Yes, I'd agree. Too bad Fluenz isn't offering more languages (and progressing as you say). I'd say Glossika could shine in all the less popular languages (if only they found that to be a worthwhile market), but it is nothing too unique, when it comes to the FIGS.

The audio recognition software, which would point the learner into the right direction and add something to the usual self-evaluation, that would definitely give more value to Glossika. That's why I was so surprised to see the M. support person dismissing the usefulness.
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siouxchief
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Re: What is your experience with Glossika?

Postby siouxchief » Mon Apr 19, 2021 5:11 pm

Hi Cavesa,

I've just started using Glossika for French for the first time too so I wonder how you are getting on now?

I think I'm gonna try with 10 sentences a day in listening mode to see how I get on. I really like audio learning and just finished Paul Noble which I found very enjoyable so I was hoping Glossika will help me further.

I treat it like Pimsleur when I am revising it so I listen to the English and see if I can produce the French. The main annoying thing I find is the fact I can't hide the L2 text because I have to look away from my phone whilst listening to the English to avoid hints from the L2 text. A show/hide button on L2 text would be nice.

Would be also good if the play button was lower too to make it easier to reach on a phone but that's a smaller issue.

Anyway even only after a few days I am finding some sentences pop into my head without thinking about it much more than I've experienced before so hopefully that's progress.

Regards
Siouxchief
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Cavesa
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Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
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Re: What is your experience with Glossika?

Postby Cavesa » Mon Apr 19, 2021 5:30 pm

siouxchief wrote:Hi Cavesa,

I've just started using Glossika for French for the first time too so I wonder how you are getting on now?

I think I'm gonna try with 10 sentences a day in listening mode to see how I get on. I really like audio learning and just finished Paul Noble which I found very enjoyable so I was hoping Glossika will help me further.

I treat it like Pimsleur when I am revising it so I listen to the English and see if I can produce the French. The main annoying thing I find is the fact I can't hide the L2 text because I have to look away from my phone whilst listening to the English to avoid hints from the L2 text. A show/hide button on L2 text would be nice.

Would be also good if the play button was lower too to make it easier to reach on a phone but that's a smaller issue.

Anyway even only after a few days I am finding some sentences pop into my head without thinking about it much more than I've experienced before so hopefully that's progress.

Regards
Siouxchief


Hi, I didn't try the French version at all. Now: I am not using Glossika. As I wrote, I don't think it is worth the money right now. When I either take up a less common language, or when they add some of the promised stuff (the pronunciation check, and much more content B1-C1), I'll consider it again.

But right now, I find it a bit too passive and not offering more than the competitors. And the subscription price is not good enough even with the 20% off that I was offered, but that is up to everyone's consideration of how much they want to pay for what.

It's great to hear about your experience, I am interested in what results you're gonna have! Please, share them later too. 10 sentences a day are not bad for consistent progress. As you are more after just the listening mode, it looks like you're using it more similarly to people using the old Glossika version. I am in general not too fond of audio only resources, I learn the best from both components at once, which surely affects my opinion on Glossika.
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tacerto1018
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Languages: MA - French
Currently studying - Icelandic
Studied in the past to different levels - Portuguese, Norwegian, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Dutch, German
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=15400
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Re: What is your experience with Glossika?

Postby tacerto1018 » Wed Aug 11, 2021 12:56 am

Okay I'm back here after a few months. I have hit 10,000 reps and 50 hours using glossika for Icelandic. This is what I think.

It accessible for people who are avid learners but who have busy lifestyles. For example, I have a 5 month old and teach in three different settings. But when I watch the baby, say when we go on our morning walks, I do reps after reps after reps. And it has helped me to understand SO much more than I would've ever thought. And I'm surprised at how motivating it has been.

It's definitely not a 100% effort app; you get out of it what you put into it. That being said here is what I think as far as the method.
What is introduced is clear to me as a language learner but I'm not sure it would so evident ad someone who is less seasoned. I know how Germanic languages work from my experience with Norwegian, Dutch, and German so I can get what they introduce, such as the present perfect tense vs the preterite. However, if I were to do a language like Vietnamese or Swahili, I would be more lost in the grammatical concepts of the language, but that is just the nature of the program. As such, I am almost finished with chapter 13 in Colloquial Icelandic, and supplement with tv shows and media as my extra sources.

It's not an app to be used by itself, in conjunction with more involved grammar books and native material, though, it's absolute dynamite. I love the program frankly, I look forward to using it, the gamificatiom aspect of counting your reps and time and the little jingles and such are more inspiring than I would've guessed, and I find myself having that famous "din in the head" that comes with sentence mining and shadowing. I'm a huge fan of this program and would recommend it to anyone I can.

There are two major downsides to the program however, one is the cost, two is the lack of speakers in the Icelandic program. I wouldn't have tried it out if I had paid full price, I got a deal that they sent me for $15USD a month instead of $30. At $15 it knocks it out of the park, $30 hmmm I'm not sure.
Secondly, and I know Icelandic has as many people in the world as a small city, the lack of speakers is a little.upsetting for Icelandic, but who am I to complain? I'm just happy they have Icelandic. I have done it with French and Spanish and Danish to check out the speakers, and they had different speakers with different accents, especially for the more widely spoken languages.

All in all, it's a killer app with a great structure behind it. I give it a 9.5 out of 10. I'm impressed by how much I could pick out while watching Ófærð on Amazon Prime. It was pretty exhilarating, as Icelandic is my dream language and the spoken is so muttled and breathy. Oh, sometimes it glitches, too, which sucks but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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