What's the best app for learning a language?
There is NO APP that's going to teach you a language
[Danish] It's impossible to learn a language fluently just using an app
[Thai] It's just not possible to learn a language to fluency
[Thai] Using just an app
[Indonesian] It's not possible to learn any language
by just using an app
It's not possible to learn any language to fluency just by using an app.
It's impossible to learn a language fluently
Just by using an app.
So there you go - I've said it.
I know some people are going to be angry but just hear me out.
As you can see, I love languages and I've been learning languages all my life
And anyone who knows me that I love encouraging people to learn languages too.
I've been seeing lately more and more questions from people asking
What's the best app for learning Japanese, Thai, Sign Language?
People are responding - but honestly,
I have never ever EVER learnt a language from an app.
Now, I've used some apps
And I've used technology all the time to learn language
But I've never ever got an app and thought that this app is going to teach me the language.
There are a few reasons for that.
Generally, Apps are designed with a business model in mind because they have to make money.
and so businesses make apps
That individual learners are going to feel good about and want to buy.
and they want to target the maximum audience. How do you target the maximum audience?
Well, you've gotta shoot pretty low. So if you go into any bookstore.
and you look at the range of language learning books, you'll find that 85%-90%
of the books there are targeting the lowest
rung on the learning scale for language. Just beginners or even tourists.
Just looking to say a couple of sentences.
In whatever language - maybe they're doing a trip or they're just moving somewhere.
So that's the market where all the money is.
as you get into intermediate levels, you may notice that there are just a couple of books there.
And for advanced, almost never. You have to go out of your way to find them.
Or you have to roll your own - or you have to build your own resources which we DO teach in MINDKRAFT - come to mindkraft.me
or join our Discord group (QR code above) because we're all talking about that
So I believe in using TECH
for getting real language out of the environment and using it to analyse
spectographs or whatever you can to grab the data
but apps that teach me the language? It's not going to happen.
And the other thing is - for example one company wanted me to endorse their app.
And they were selling it to corporates and hotels and these places to teach
English, to teach Chinese and they asked if I could endorse it
Because they wanted me to be the 'face' of this app.
And I tried it out and I thought -whoa - I can't endorse this.
They had sentences there and different role plays
and the person learning had to repeat the sentences that were said.
Sometimes it was real people saying it and sometimes they were digitised voices.
To see whether or not the person was progressing, they'd do a comparative analysis
against the recorded voice of the learner against the
voice of the recording and so obviously they've got an algorithm
recording that - and especially for tonal languages they wanted to see if they were getting the tones and rhythms right.
And the sentence
But the thing is that's not how it works.
I'm sure that some monoglot in Silicon valley came up with this idea.
Maybe it made sense business-wise because some HR lady could tick a box and say 'X' employee
has been able to match 'X' sentences in the app.
But it's not saying anything about their fluency or their ability in the language.
Say with tonal languages - it's not just 'pitch' - it's about throat positions.
And how it fits within the registers of their voice.
So even if they did match the actual pitch note for note and frequency for frequency,
within that analysis, they could still get the tone wrong.
And sound just freaky speaking that language in the ears of native speakers.
It says nothing about their ability in the language.
Language learning is the ability to be able to SPEAK a language.
You want to be able to speak about that language to people who speak the language on whatever topic.
That's what language fluency is all about.
[Indonesian] So no matter what someone wants to speak about - religion, politics
[Thai] You can just speak with them normally and you can have a conversation.
So what does 'fluent' mean?
'Fluent' means no matter what the topic is, I can comfortably just speak about it.
I can talk about anything. This is being able to speak a language.
I'm yet to find an app that can get me there.
Because that only comes from using the language with real human beings.
Some people think that they're going sit with an app for 'X' amount of hours and they'll come out speaking - not gonna happen.
Now, there's something to be said about being exposed to real specimens
of the language before you actually start to produce the language
and the reason being is that often people may have filters from their mother tongue
and they're not hearing what's going on. So there's a fix to be able to start speaking sooner
'Faster' - not meaning 'fast speaking', but actually speaking
earlier, is that if you have the skill
to actually hear things outside of your mother tongue and you know how to pitch
so for example - a, a , a - กา gkaaa
Ka, ka - you can hear this 'ah ah ah'
Now in English, I say 'Car'
but in Thai I say กา 'gka' - the placement of the 'ah' is different.
And it has an effect on the whole range of sounds within that language.
Where I place it because the sounds of any language fit together like a glove.
If you've got foreign sounds coming in it's going to screw up your pronunciation.
and your prosody - so if you have the skill to be able to hear
outside of your mother-tongue's filters and reproduce accurately,
and if you feel or hear yourself producing it inaccurately,
you'll self correct - now THAT's a core skill and maybe apps
then could be used and you could self correct against that - but you're not using the app to correct you.
You have it within you to draw the language from any source
and then learn from it.
So, which app is going to be the best for learning 'X' language? NONE.
In saying that, ALL apps could be useful because they're giving you specimens of the language.
Maybe you're hearing really crappy specimens and the lesson is
This is a crappy specimen. Great! - so you're learning something.
Don't depend on the app to teach you.
So if you like this stuff and using your brain - whether it's language
or Morse Code, Radio, Music, Perfect Pitch
Reading books or coding or using tech to
get all of this stuff done - Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) - gathering
and using that to be a learning resource as well, you're going to love MINDKRAFT.
come to Mindkraft.me or come to our Mindkraft Discord server
and join in the discussions we have there because it's a blast
All the people in Mindkraft are just people who want to learn.
Sometimes they start with language then realise that they get a lease on a whole lot of other things as well.
So come to Mindkraft -
Sorry to those people whose business is built on apps.
I know people like Glossika - Mike Campbell - he built that app on the way in which he learns language
So there are some things that are great out there, but they're not the only learning tool that
you would use to learn the language. The app is not going to TEACH you the language.
You have to learn - you need to pull the language out of whatever resource
An app, a book, soundfile, tweets - whatever.
You need to learn the language - not expect an app to teach you.
I'm Stuart Jay Raj - i'll see you on the other side at Mindkraft.me - Bye.