Glossika Product Updates

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Re: Glossika Product Updates

Postby zenmonkey » Fri Aug 30, 2019 2:51 pm

aokoye wrote:And yeah I knew about Android Studio, but let's not pretend that it was at all easy for me to figure out how to use Android Studio.


Studio takes forever to set up right.

But once in place it is reasonably easy to download and compile. But yeah, if you aren't doing it on the regular, don't do it. And if anything goes wrong, down the rabbit hole you go.
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Re: Glossika Product Updates

Postby ryanheise » Tue Oct 01, 2019 2:45 pm

crush wrote:
Ramblurr wrote:
crush wrote:I've been using the old Glossika courses for a year or two via my Natibo app ;)


You make "Glossika Scheduler" too right? Natibo isn't in the app store, do you have an APK available or any plans to publish it?

Yep, and Natibo's on Github:
https://github.com/chickendude/Natibo


Sadly like many others, I didn't buy the old courses when they were available, and that means I won't be able to use your wonderful app.

I've been a YouTube subscriber of Michael's for a while back when he used to talk a lot on his old channel about his various language learning experiments and methods, and was fascinated by his very different approach to scheduling. I remember in a video on his Glossika channel he mentioned that he based his scheduling algorithm on the mastery model of memory where you do a whole lot of repetitions up front, rather than the forgetting model where you review just before you're about to forget. I've always wanted to experiment with this approach myself.

What I'd love to know is, would it be possible for me to create my own GLS packs using my own audio and use that with Natibo? Is there any documentation on the format of a GLS pack?
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Re: Glossika Product Updates

Postby crush » Fri Nov 08, 2019 9:05 pm

aokoye wrote:I would use your Natibo app, but I have no idea how to compile it into an apk file. Can you post instructions or link to them if you've done so already?


aokoye wrote:And yeah I knew about Android Studio, but let's not pretend that it was at all easy for me to figure out how to use Android Studio.


Sorry, i haven't stopped by the forums in a while and i missed your messages. It's not exactly trivial to set up at the moment, but if you wanted (perhaps via PM) i can help you convert your MP3/PDF courses into a format Natibo recognizes. As the original files themselves can be over 1GB, i decided it'd be better to split the courses into individual sentences rather than have them repeated over and over as the are in the mp3 files. In general, a book takes about 30-50 MB this way.

Which leads me to...
ryanheise wrote:What I'd love to know is, would it be possible for me to create my own GLS packs using my own audio and use that with Natibo? Is there any documentation on the format of a GLS pack?

Actually, yes. I made my own course for Shanghainese this way. I explained it a bit more in detail here:
https://github.com/chickendude/Natibo/issues/16#issuecomment-451834484

If you have any questions, feel free to ask via PM, opening an issue on Github, or in the Natibo thread here.
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Re: Glossika Product Updates

Postby ryanheise » Sat Nov 09, 2019 1:54 am

crush wrote:
ryanheise wrote:What I'd love to know is, would it be possible for me to create my own GLS packs using my own audio and use that with Natibo? Is there any documentation on the format of a GLS pack?

Actually, yes. I made my own course for Shanghainese this way. I explained it a bit more in detail here:
https://github.com/chickendude/Natibo/issues/16#issuecomment-451834484

If you have any questions, feel free to ask via PM, opening an issue on Github, or in the Natibo thread here.


Thank you, crush. It actually seems straightforward, thanks to the example you provided. Hopefully in a couple weeks I'll have some time to try this out.
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Re: Glossika Product Updates

Postby Henkkles » Mon Nov 25, 2019 11:58 am

Just got the email about the 47% off and I thought I'd ask here if we have any users of the current form of Glossika if it's worth it.
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Re: Glossika Product Updates

Postby mentecuerpo » Mon Nov 25, 2019 1:47 pm

Henkkles wrote:Just got the email about the 47% off and I thought I'd ask here if we have any users of the current form of Glossika if it's worth it.

In my opinion it is, and I paid full price.
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Re: Glossika Product Updates

Postby crush » Thu Nov 28, 2019 2:12 pm

I used the old version web app before they added all the typing, etc. I paid full price for a year ($30). It wasn't worth full price to me, but $15 would've been ok. Now that i haven't continued my subscription, i paid $360 (the 5-7 of the full mp3 courses) and have no access to anything.

mentecuerpo wrote:
Henkkles wrote:Just got the email about the 47% off and I thought I'd ask here if we have any users of the current form of Glossika if it's worth it.

In my opinion it is, and I paid full price.


mentecuerpo, what makes it worth it? Having to be connected online all the time was a pain and now it seems it can only be done in front of a computer with all the typing tests. I liked going for long walks and doing my Glossika reps, even if i constantly struggled with poor connections (or server issues). What's changed that you like about it? Are there language-specific sentences now? Grammar explanations/notes on potentially confusing sentences/sentence structures?
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Re: Glossika Product Updates

Postby mentecuerpo » Thu Nov 28, 2019 3:53 pm

crush wrote:I used the old version web app before they added all the typing, etc. I paid full price for a year ($30). It wasn't worth full price to me, but $15 would've been ok. Now that i haven't continued my subscription, i paid $360 (the 5-7 of the full mp3 courses) and have no access to anything.

mentecuerpo wrote:
Henkkles wrote:Just got the email about the 47% off and I thought I'd ask here if we have any users of the current form of Glossika if it's worth it.

In my opinion it is, and I paid full price.


mentecuerpo, what makes it worth it? Having to be connected online all the time was a pain and now it seems it can only be done in front of a computer with all the typing tests. I liked going for long walks and doing my Glossika reps, even if i constantly struggled with poor connections (or server issues). What's changed that you like about it? Are there language-specific sentences now? Grammar explanations/notes on potentially confusing sentences/sentence structures?


Hi Crush,

I understand your frustration with the fact that you can only work online with Glossika.

The problem: GK is designed for online use, but you want to use it offline for your review in your portable MP3 players.

The solution: Record the GK lessons.

Record the lessons in two ways, a portable Digital recorder or software.

A portable digital recorder: A smartphone works well. Or a digital recorder such as Olympus or Sony MP3 recorder. Mp3 recorders are easy to use, and If you place it near the speaker, it will record well with decent audio quality.

For software, I can think of two solutions: Windows Voice Recorder App. And Audacity.

“Windows Voice Recorder” It is preinstalled in every Windows computer. You will need a decent microphone to capture the sound.

Audacity is a free download. It requires a little bit of a learning curb. You can find all kinds of user guides on YouTube and the online manual.

Once you have learned to capture MP3 file recordings with your favorite method, it will be easy for you to extract sounds from your computer into an MP3 file for everyday use.

I am doing Glossika online German from my computer. I try to do it everyday after work. I do the repetitions and the reviews in “listening mode,” so I don’t have to use time doing the dictation and written exercise. In German, I only want to do the listening/reading exercises.

In Glossika Italian, I want to take my Italian from B1 to B2 (studying for a certification test), so I like the dictation and written exercises on GK, only for the Italian.

One thing that I like about the online GK is that I read the phrase as I am listening. For German, I am a complete beginner. Reading the sentences as I am listening is allowing me to start noticing grammatical patterns.

I think that “noticing” enhances learning. When I learned something because I figured it out by noticing, as opposed to having a book explained things to me.

I hope this helps.
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Re: Glossika Product Updates

Postby crush » Thu Nov 28, 2019 8:47 pm

mentecuerpo wrote:I am doing Glossika online German from my computer. I try to do it everyday after work. I do the repetitions and the reviews in “listening mode,” so I don’t have to use time doing the dictation and written exercise. In German, I only want to do the listening/reading exercises.

So the other modes are optional now? I had heard that for a time there was no option to disable them. "Listening mode" is basically just what the original web app was, and for what it's worth, it was nice not having to flip through PDFs and all that. But as you mentioned, you'd have to record it manually to get some sort of decent offline mode and it's not really something i want to have to do every day. And even then, you don't have access to the texts (so you're worse off than before with the mp3s/pdfs), you can't delete or star sentences, etc. I really enjoy the method, just not the execution. Though if it were half the price i'd still pay for it, despite preferring to have "forever access" than have "nothing" , which is what i have now after paying for it for a year. That's why i wrote an app to basically replicate the web app functionality but with the old mp3 courses and that's what i've been using since, essentially an offline alternative. I've given Glossika more money than i've given any other language learning company (with the possible exception to Assimil, but those books/CDs are still mine) and as a language learner i have a huge respect for Mike Campbell, i'm just waiting for Glossika to either become more affordable or actual be worth the $30 a month for me. I bought many of the mp3 courses as well and for most of the courses, it was money well spent.
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Re: Glossika Product Updates

Postby Random Review » Sat Nov 30, 2019 7:28 am

I think a lot of people exited the whole discussion about Glossika the moment the new pricing came into place. I like the method, but no method or course in the world is worth that price to people who aren't quite well off. For many, in fact, it literally would not be affordable.

I certainly couldn't afford it at all now (teaching in Indonesia) or back when I was teaching in Spain or washing pots for a living in the UK. Admittedly I could have afforded it in China (where TBH I was paid too much by local standards*); but even there I'm not sure I would have chosen to spend that much, because at that price, you're making a big choice about a fair chunk of your monthly disposable income over a longish period of time.

Hmmm.... Glossika, ChinesePod or being able to buy 3 or 4 new books to read per month for my Kindle over the period?

* Because the company I worked for paid the same wage in every city and 10k RMB may not be much in Shangha, Beijing or Guangzhoui, but it goes (or at least went) a long way in a smaller city.
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