One week ago I started to learn a new language. My last attempt to broaden my knowledge of the romance languages was some fifteen years ago when I studied Spanish at an adult education center taking evening classes. So, it’s been a while.
This time I cut my teeth on Italian. As I stated in a recent interview, it’s not what I define as a “useful” language for myself; I don’t work in fashion or the arts. But I find it a beautiful language and I always wanted to speak Italian.To start off my journey, the current weapons of choice are a MOOC by the Università per Stranieri di Siena (Foreigners University Siena) on FutureLearn and the free self-paced Italian course on Duolingo. I will talk about my experiences in more detail at the end of the first month, but so far I’ve made good progress.
Having been involved in the online language learning vertical in many different roles throughout the past decade, from tutor to blogger to consultant to student, I know a thing or two about effective language teaching and learning online. I have a lot on my mind that I want to share with you in the months ahead.
Today let’s talk about technology and its promise to save us all the work and trouble of learning a new language.
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Being in the student seat once again, I quickly noticed that self-paced, asynchronous language learning is still work and will be a lengthy process - not that this wasn’t as expected. Even with all the improvements and features like gamification that learning platforms offer today.
Hit the Ground Running...
As I wrote in the past, platforms like Livemocha, busuu, babbel and Duolingo have essentially killed the market for entry-level tutoring. I stand by my assertion. They work great in terms of learning vocabulary quickly and efficiently, get better at teaching grammar and even pronunciation. I would say that a learner can achieve an A1/A2 level just by using one of these platforms, though unfortunately the courses still miss out on conversational practice or offer it as premium feature. We will see what chatbots can deliver in this area of language acquisition, but more on that in another post.
...Hit the Wall
As I said, language learning still takes time, effort and eventually financial investment in the form of hiring a language tutor to get to the next level. As we know, for most people learning a new language remains a pipe dream, a promise you make on New Year’s eve etc but the sheer thought of grammar tables, weird pronunciations and the terror of having to order a baguette at the French boulangerie seem to be too much.
I would even go as far to say that aside from us language enthusiasts (and yes, we are a minority) people will only learn a language when it is socially or economically unavoidable. But technology is here for the rescue.
Read any Language
A couple of years ago we covered Word Lens, an app that translates written text instantly through augmented reality on your smartphone. The startup ended up being acquired by Google and we now find its technology integrated into the Google Translate app.
The idea is of course tempting. Being able to read any written text, from street names to menus in restaurants is exciting. The promo videos looked amazing but the reality was of course more clunky. The last time I played around with the app, Word Lens got about 50% right. Not bad but not good enough to be really helpful.
Understand and Speak any Language
Of course, being able to read a foreign language is great but what about conversations? Enter Google Conversation Mode.
First presented by Eric Schmidt in 2011, conversation mode translates spoken language and gives an audio output. All you need is the Google Translate app, choose the two languages of the people participating in the conversation and then let the software do the magic.
In late 2014 Microsoft threw its hat into the ring and introduced the Skype Translator Preview. While the feature does not offer audio output it translates the spoken language into text in real time and displays the translation in the chat window. To showcase the potential of the feature in a classroom setting, Microsoft published a video in which two classes in the US and Mexico interacted with each other.
The Crowd wants the Universal Translator
But Google and Microsoft are not the only tech companies working on this technology. In 2013 SIGMO set out to create a universal translator with the help of crowdfunding platform Indiegogo. They received nearly $250.000 from over 3300 backers. Unfortunately, they never delivered the product and the website is for sale. Well, not an uncommon end to crowdfunding dreams.
Three years later a new startup is promising us the universal translator, and again it is making waves on Indiegogo. Pilot puts the translation device right into your ear while a smartphone app is doing the heavy lifting of translating the conversation. Again, the promo video looks promising and to date Pilot raised nearly $2 million from over 8500 backers.
It is of course too early to tell if the Pilot will ever reach the ears of its backers but the interest in the device shows the hope of technology freeing us from the need of actually learning a foreign language. It is what we hope and eventually expect from all of our gadgets, to make our lives easier. The problem is that we lose out on related experiences and skills and we also get into a potentially ill-fated dependence on our tech gadgets and services.
Call me outdated but even with integrated spaced repetition I will print out grammar sheets and write down key vocabulary in lists to make sure it sticks.
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Picture by Julian Bucknall via Flickr