immersive vocabulary acquisition

[osmo]

Hey

I've been toying with this idea for about two years - a language learning plugin for chrome that passively replaces vocabulary in your native language with words in your target language.

I've invested a fair bit of time working on promotional materials, preparing to launch a kickstarter, and the like, but what I really want to know is whether this seems like a useful tool to have in your language learning arsenal.

I think it's cool - I would use it - but I know I am not going to have the same learning style as everyone. Technically, it's not too hard to build - I've coded a pretty basic demo version myself, and I am confident that with a little bit of support and elbow grease, a stable version could be made pretty quickly.

The question is: do you think people would be interested in it? Or is it already too similar to tools already available?

Here's the promotional video if you're interested. I would be really grateful for any feedback or suggestions.




@Mods, I did read the pinned post about messaging the mods first if you're new, but I actually couldn't PM anyone. If this post is not the kind of thing that should go here: I apologise.

[Axon]

I really like the video!

You mention that there are other, similar tools out there, and indeed there have been extensions like that for most browsers for at least six years. How is your product different?

[devilyoudont]

So, something I wonder about is the grammatical element here... like, at some point, in the video it says nuevo things. But like, is it really helpful to learn nuevo things rather than things nuevas? Would verbs just be in the infinitive? Not all languages have all words, even basic words. English does not have the "personal a" of Spanish, so I guess that very common word does not ever appear within this system?

Video is very slick, and I think you could probably sell this idea.

Edit to add: also I think solución -> soluciones

[zenmonkey]

Personally I have very strong feelings against this type of method. I feel mixing languages is counter productive and results in language mixing in production and not learning a language. It's my opinion that it is important to set each language in it's own mental space with grammar and conceptual constructs.

Having said that, I do wish you the success that results in me being wrong - it seems like an easy way of learning vocabulary.

So I wouldn't use it, but that doesn't mean it won't be useful to other. There are very many different methods of learning and what works for one, doesn't for others. Please take my comment as just my own individual opinion.

[Cavesa]

I've already seen a tool like this, even though it was a much smaller one, using just a limited amount of content. Actually, a formerly reputed publisher was trying to sell it as an awesome exercise tool. And I hated it.

I think everything is wrong about this approach.

A foreign language is not a word for word translation of your native one. I can easily see this as a path to learning grammar mistakes, and also the direct opposite of what vast majority of learners strives to learn: to think in the language and use it naturally.

This is the exact opposite of immersion. Immersion is a rather wide term and we use it in context of various techniques and methods. But all of them have one thing in common: learning in context of the target language. This is the opposite and I think it could be very harmful to learners.

[jeff_lindqvist]

It reminds me of this old HTLAL thread:
Gradual Method of Learning

...and specifically the book series I mention (the amount of target language is increased gradually throughout the 50 volume series).

[reineke]

Something magical is coming to Osmo.

[osmo]

Thanks everyone for the responses. This is really helpful.

I agree about the hurdles for getting the right translated words for a given context. This is definitely a challenge, and one of the reasons I want to be clear about what the plugin would be designed to do: simply expose users to common words in the target language to (hopefully) help get to a critical mass of core vocabulary. Nothing more than that.

On top of that, I tend to think many formal components of grammar etc would still have to be learnt separately.

It's hard to say whether I'll go ahead with osmo as a commercial product, but I'll definitely keep exploring for my own interest's sake.

[Cainntear]

I agree about the hurdles for getting the right translated words for a given context. This is definitely a challenge, and one of the reasons I want to be clear about what the plugin would be designed to do: simply expose users to common words in the target language to (hopefully) help get to a critical mass of core vocabulary. Nothing more than that.

It's not just a hurdle, it's a mountain. Disambiguation and semantic awareness are the biggest problems in natural language processing and machine translation today, and this cannot simply be left as something to be addressed later -- if you do not know how to address this (and it's not an insult if I say I don't believe you do -- no-one does yet), the best this plugin will ever be can be achieved in a few days' solid work (if you know how to code plugins) so I'm sorry, but I just don't see any point Kickstarting this one.

And of course if you do know how to solve the semantic problem, you'd be better off making a much more sophisticated piece of software... or selling your secret to Google.

[Cavesa]

I agree about the hurdles for getting the right translated words for a given context. This is definitely a challenge, and one of the reasons I want to be clear about what the plugin would be designed to do: simply expose users to common words in the target language to (hopefully) help get to a critical mass of core vocabulary. Nothing more than that.

It's not just a hurdle, it's a mountain. Disambiguation and semantic awareness are the biggest problems in natural language processing and machine translation today, and this cannot simply be left as something to be addressed later -- if you do not know how to address this (and it's not an insult if I say I don't believe you do -- no-one does yet), the best this plugin will ever be can be achieved in a few days' solid work (if you know how to code plugins) so I'm sorry, but I just don't see any point Kickstarting this one.

And of course if you do know how to solve the semantic problem, you'd be better off making a much more sophisticated piece of software... or selling your secret to Google.

I agree. Just from the video:
information-información works. By accident. Spanish is really close to English in many ways.

From thousands of diferente sources and authors, we draw knowledge and entretenimiento.
Now we already see some of the problems: it is necessary, and sometimes not easy at first, that the beginner learn to place adjectives behind the nouns in Spanish. And the word would be in plural. And I don't think I've ever seen entretenimiento used together with any equiavelent of "to draw" lie sacar, atraer, arrastrar (yes, I've done a quick dictionary search for the synonymes). But automated translation could also further complicate things, if the one word you wanted to teach would be the verb to draw. Without the context (and some translating tools even with it), it could easily put dibujar in such a sentence, completely changing the meaning to nonsense.

You may think this is a stupid note, but I have seen learners do exactly this! In real life, I am not making this up. They looked a word up in a dictionary, and chose a completely different meaning making no sense in their sentence. This should be avoided, not supported.

While we read, we learn nuevo things. Again, nuevo is a completely wrong form of the word. The most common "things" equivalent would be cosas. That is a feminine noun. And in plural. Also, other translations of "things" could be used. Even if we assume the traslating tool has interpreted correctly we are probably not trying to learn asunto or objeto, I suppose there could still be several variants, as Spanish is incredibly rich in regional words and colloquialisms and they may not be feminine nouns, so not even changing the sentence to ...nueavas things would be that awesome, an adjective simply needs to fit the noun every time.

The más amazing thing. Really, stuff like this is not meant to be learnt outside of a normal sentence in one language. It doesn't work too well even for Spanish, but I can still see what you meant here. It would be completely weird for German.

Yes, the idea to introduce people to the most frequent vocabulary in real context they would normally read and be interested in, that is great. And the idea isn't being explored as often as it should. But I don't think this is the right angle.

I am not trying to be unpleasant. I am just convinced there are too many bad apps and tools on the internet and they are not helping learners in general. And I am not sure you should waste your time and talent and skills (which I don't doubt you have, I cannot imagine what creating an app or even such a video requires) on something not helpful. There are lots of other niches you could exploit with your creativity.