Glossika: Language Learning 4+

Interesting but Effective

A week into the free trial I was sitting in my car repeating random Irish phrases that had been stuck in my head, and that’s when I realized I needed to get the subscription. I wasn’t stuck with one off words, I got to remember whole sentences. Pair that with studying grammar off the app, and suddenly I can break down the sentences and make my own. The only issue I have is the voice that reads the sentences. Incredible pronunciation and isn’t some botched robot you’d find on Duolingo, but it might be too native. If I was teaching someone the english sentence “I want to go to the store”, I would pronounce each word clearly. Not “I wanna go to the store.” In my natural speed. But I feel like this is how every sentence is presented to me. They skip words and blend their words together as native speakers do, but as a beginner it’s intimidating to try to pronounce. I don’t have time to practice the correct sounds when I’m flying through the sentence. And I’m not sure exactly what parts of words we’re skipping over. This feels like the instruction I’d get after I learned the language and was interacting with native speakers. The harder the sentence gets, the less I find myself repeating them on my own. Good app and good course, I would like to see it more beginner friendly though.

Phản Hồi Từ Nhà Phát Triển ,

Hi there! I'm glad that you've had this experience with the random Irish phrases popping into your head. That's exactly the early progress we want learners to see! As you keep going, this will happen with more and more phrases, and eventually you'll have a big enough "mental database" that you can recycle sentences to express yourself quite independently.

——— As for the audio being "too" natural: it's indeed a learning curve, and this is indeed something we feel strongly about. We expose learners to real audio from day one so that they learn to hear Irish as it's actually spoken, rather than being disappointed six months down the road when they discover they can't follow native speakers. Having said that, you don't need to rush! Our algorithm will push you to review each sentence several times. Do the best you can in the moment, then move on. You'll get better each time, and you'll eventually perfect even the tricky sentences... and, with time, your ears will be good enough that "tricky" sentences will be very few and far between!

——— Good luck with your language learning journey 💪 —Sami

Pretty solid overall, could use a couple of tweaks

4.5 stars

I haven’t been using the app for long, but already find it easier to listen to media in my target language, Finnish. The repetition/muscle memory model really seems to be an effective learning method for me. Also, this is one of the few resources that teach you to speak and understand spoken language, which is extremely beneficial.

That being said, just a couple of suggestions. 1. Tailor things more to individual languages. For example, Finnish has a second person plural ending when speaking to more than one person or in a more polite manner (te -tte, -nne instead of sinä -t). It would be very helpful to hear how to use this when speaking. Like I said, I’m very new to the app, so maybe it’s addresses later on, but a little over halfway through A1, still nothing. 2. Have a way to repeat the previous sentence. I think #1 of these would be the most beneficial. Other than that, great app, use it every day.

Phản Hồi Từ Nhà Phát Triển ,

Thanks for the positive review! To respond to your comments: 

——— 1) we're developing a sister platform, Viva, which will dramatically expand the amount of content we're able to offer. This will go a long ways in terms of letting us tailor our course to individual users and also highlighting unique aspects of specific languages.

———2) Strictly speaking, this isn't us not letting you do 1 review session per day. The algorithm works in real time, so at any given moment, there are only a finite amount of items that the algorithm has been determined should be reviewed now. Having said that, we're actually in the process of adjusting our algorithm, and one of the changes to be made is to let a user "overlearn" and continue reviewing, even if the algorithm doesn't have any sentences identified as "overdue for review"

———3) A "back" button has been on our radar for awhile. I can't make any promises as to when it'll be in the app, but it's something we'd like to add, at some point.

—Sami

How is this supposed to work?

I know the creators of this app are in the process of making a new product and I hope that works out for them because I like the concept of Glossika. I struggle to use flashcard apps but I know the benefits of SRS are real, I’m good at listening to things on the go and I do better with auditory memory. Thus, I finally caved and gave Glossika a try for Spanish. 5 minutes into and I was immensely underwhelmed. There’s no theme or clear progression to the words/phrases. You can go from “Is this spicy?” to “You look dreadful” to “Do you have insurance?” These are phrases I barely use in English (who even says dreadful), let alone would group together in Spanish. Now I’m not arguing for this to be a phrasebook, but the phrases are so nonsensical that the English stands out more than the Spanish. Keeping some kind of theme or pulling words previously taught into the newer sentences to help you build more connections between words would be useful. Even if it was just blocks of synonyms or similar demonstrating how sentence structure might change or stay the same when you swap out certain words, even when the sentences have close connotations. I guess what I want is context plus SRS and this isn’t it.