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buravirgil
Joined: 23 Jan 2014 Posts: 967 Location: Jiangxi Province, China
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Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 11:26 pm Post subject: Hello Talk |
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A new mobile app(lication) for both Apple and Android.
Quickly and easily meet native-speaking language partners around the world; look for those nearest to you, by country or city, and more. And don’t be surprised when people reach out to you ... that’s one of HelloTalk’s best features: people reach out to help you learn and practice the language or languages you want to learn. And you can do the same to help people learn your native language.
Features: Voice-to-text, text-to-voice, transliteration, translation and "free" voIP calls.
Any predictions as to how disruptive this will be to our little trade? |
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water rat
Joined: 30 Aug 2014 Posts: 1098 Location: North Antarctica
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Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2015 12:15 am Post subject: |
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Considering how quickly bored most people are, and the "fast-paced" life of those who use apps, and that the top one billion visited websites on the net are porn sites, I don't see this new app as much of a threat to our bread and butter. Language learning is a tedious business, and until William Gibson's idea of plugging a foreign language 'app' into a socket behind your ear becomes a reality, we're gonna be OK. Now hand out those grammar worksheets and keep smiling. |
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Sashadroogie
Joined: 17 Apr 2007 Posts: 11061 Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise
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Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 8:09 pm Post subject: |
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Yip. Beyond the slick 'learning is easy' marketing drivel, there isn't much to this. Cute, yes. Effective... Seriously doubt it. Not like those cassettes you listen to when you are asleep. |
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esl_prof
Joined: 30 Nov 2013 Posts: 2006 Location: peyi kote solèy frèt
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Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2015 2:00 am Post subject: |
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How many people have you met that learned to speak another language fluently by using Berlitz? The Pimsleur Method? Rosetta Stone?
None, right? So even if this new-fangled ap captures twice the market share of all of these previous methods put together . . . well . . . I'm an English teacher . . . you do the math. |
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AGoodStory
Joined: 26 Feb 2010 Posts: 738
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Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2015 12:41 pm Post subject: |
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esl_prof wrote: |
How many people have you met that learned to speak another language fluently by using Berlitz? The Pimsleur Method? Rosetta Stone?
None, right?
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Fluently, no. Absolutely agree. But improvement, yes. My Spanish--listening and speaking--improved noticeably by listening to a Spanish language program whenever I was driving, around 10 hours a week at the time. CD's while driving may rival cassettes while sleeping!
As for endangering teaching jobs--not a chance!
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esl_prof
Joined: 30 Nov 2013 Posts: 2006 Location: peyi kote solèy frèt
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Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2015 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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AGoodStory wrote: |
Fluently, no. Absolutely agree. But improvement, yes . . . As for endangering teaching jobs--not a chance! |
Oh, sure. This ap coupled with other language learning resources could certainly be useful and help a great deal with improvement. Rare is the student, however, with enough self-discipline to become fluent in a language solely through self-study methods. I have a former college classmate who successfully reached a conversational level of Spanish that way. But folks like him are few and far enough between that they won't put a noticeable dent in the teaching market. |
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