Ask HN: Startups Working on Second Language Acquisition?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24429708

by tikwidd • 6 years ago

3 3 6 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Just wondering if anyone out there is working on any novel approaches to SLA. I'm a linguist and software developer hoping to find something interesting to work on at the intersection of my two interests.

ColinWright2• 6 years ago

I have no time to work on anything new, and I don't know of any startups working in this area, but I would be happy to:

* tell you why I don't like Duo-thingy or Rosetta Stone or whatever;

* listen to your ideas about what might be done differently;

* throw random, unsupported ideas into the air;

* generally chat about the problem space.

If you put your contact details in your profile, people will be able to contact you. If you want to email me you can check out my profile.

tikwidd• 6 years ago

That's a generous offer, thanks :)

What are your biggest gripes with Duolingo et al?

I guess there are two major aspects to these apps, one is teaching the grammatical patterns and structures and other is memorising vocabulary (plus characters in the writing system, if different from the learner's native language).

The vocab side looks like a subset of a more general problem of apps that train you to memorise stuff. Spaced repetition seems to be the gold standard there. So teaching the structures and patterns (grammar) is an area where I could possibly make a dent...

ColinWright2• 6 years ago

Sorry I didn't reply earlier ... life got in the way.

I find these apps twee, patronising, and they ignore the strengths that an adult potentially has. Adults don't acquire languages like infants do, adults already have language structures, conscious motivations, and an ability to think and reason.

I agree that it's about (a) structure, and (b) vocabulary. Rapid acquisition of relevant vocab in parallel with acquisition of simple and elementary example sentence structures is something they don't really do.

Please, if you're interested, email me and I will happily tell you my ideas. I can't contact you because you don't have your contact details in your profile.

Ask HN: Startups Working on Second Language Acquisition?

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