[melling]

I’ve been working on my own version of “DuoLingo” for iOS for 10 years now; longer than DuoLingo. I’ve never gained much traction. I’m looking for other ideas to help language learners.

Recently, I’ve tried writing smaller apps to supplement what Duo provides because they have a great product and I’ll never compete directly as a solo developer.

Anyway, any other small app ideas that people would like to see implemented? Game ideas that help with the necessary repetition, for example?

[SkyBelow]

One idea would be to use a wide variety of pictures for learning a particular word. If I am learning what the word for room is, if the picture is always the same picture of a bedroom, my mind will be building an association with bedroom instead of room in general.

Also as someone trying to pick back up on my Japanese after letting it slide for a decade (well to be honest I never had more than enough to do greetings and basic restaurant ordering), many kana/kanji matching apps leave a lot to be desired. Katakana is a personal weak point and the apps I've tried all limit the extent of matches to picking one of the matching 3 or 4. Process of elimination makes it so that I can get 100% of these quizzes despite only knowing 80% of the material. Something that would allow customizing 10 or 20 possible answers to pick from would be nice. But I don't know if this would have any bearing on other languages to be worth developing (and there might be an existing app I just haven't found yet).

[mclehman]

I'm not sure exactly what you're after, but the Hiragana Pro/Katakana Pro apps (android only, I believe) have two practice modes: choice from three pronunciations as you mentioned, as well as typing romaji with no hints. The latter makes it abundantly clear which kana I'm shaky on.

They're also each a dollar to unlock voiced/combined readings and remove ads. My pihole did block the ads while I was just trying them out.

[SkyBelow]

I'm using both but kept missing kana due to hitting the wrong u/i/o keys as they are right next to each other. Any recommendations for kanji?

[junar]

> wide variety of pictures for learning a particular word

That idea doesn't scale. Much simpler to look at definitions and example sentences, especially for non-obvious words like abstract ideas, context-dependent words, and particles.

> Katakana is a personal weak point

Just use flash cards. It's rote memorization, so there's no substitute for time and repetition. If you're able to commit an hour each day, you should be done by the end of the week.

[SkyBelow]

The problem with looking at words is that you are learning language to language translation instead of language to thought. When I think of "pencil", I have a schema of a pencil appear in my mind. When I see enpitsu (well, the hiragana or kanji for it), if I have to think "pencil" to bring up the schema of a pencil that is an extra layer of thought that slows one down. With more abstract concepts there might now be a better solution, though with more abstract concepts you also have greater issues with things not being one to one translations.

>Just use flash cards.

That is effectively what the apps are mimicking and what I am using. What I'm bringing up in a desired feature I haven't found (granted, I've only checked out a dozen or so apps which is worlds apart from serious market research). As for why I use an app over flash cards? Phone is more convenient and always on me. Also, other than a stack of the most common kanji, flash cards don't really scale in a portable format.

But I probably should buy a deck including kanji for at home usage.

[junar]

Sure, the ideal end state is that you know the Japanese word intuitively without English or another language as an intermediate step. But starting from a totally unfamiliar word, dictionary definitions and example sentences are both fast to access and easy to copy down. (For a sufficiently advanced learner, I would encourage using Japanese language dictionaries instead of Japanese-English ones.)

And I'm only recommending flash cards and other rote tools for kana, because recalling them instantly is both important and relatively low-effort. I don't have a strong opinion on how to learn vocabulary, other than to prioritize based on actual usage: media you read/listen to, conversations, etc.