Tuesday, May 26th, 2020—Breaking down language-learning supplements
I am getting more sleep than I have in a long time, but somehow it's more of a struggle to climb out of bed when I hear my alarm. I used to be able to jump out of bed, and joyfully begin my day without one, so I am not sure what is happening here.
Anyway, today I am going to review foreign languages.
First, I need to start forcing myself into returning to my previous regimen. Secondly, I wanted to analyze why some of the resources that I do not favor—Duolingo and Drops—are so highly acclaimed. Perhaps their success may be attributed to their price tag—people are always more attracted to free things.
Perhaps another factor is that they inspire persistence. With the acquisition of almost any skill, practice and repetition are crucial. Although both break down the languages so much that it seems impossible to learn them in a reasonable amount of time, their simplicity makes the task less daunting every day. It minimizes hesitation.
Both have a streaks system. Drops has a very game-like system, and the way it introduces vocabulary makes one feel accomplished under the guise of tremendous progress—more on why that system seems inherently flawed to me later. Duolingo utilizes a similar disguise, but I feel like it may be slightly better at spaced repetition. I think Duolingo's main attraction might be its leaderboards. The world tends to underestimate the wonders of competitiveness, but at least Duolingo does not.
Together, these three systems keep the consumer returning each day to "learn" new words and aspects of the language. However, the assertion that everybody "learns" seems slightly dubious.
Of course, I am not attempting to denounce them. In fact, on an ideal day, I would probably have used both for around fifteen minutes. However, as I have stressed many times before, I firmly believe that they are supplements.
They are useful when learning a foreign language, but they are not the only way to learn.
Honestly, with the proper dedication, a dictionary and detailed grammar guide would be sufficient for learning a language. The keys have always been active recall and spaced repetition.
Those two techniques are famously proven to aid in memory, moreso than brute-force memorization or rereading or highlighting or summarizing or flipping through flashcards without attempting to mentally answer them first.
Active recall is about seeing the question and forcing yourself to answer it before you access the answer. I feel as if Drops fails on this because it usually asks for recognition—shows one picture and four words or vice versa and asks for the user to match the correct word with the picture—and while it does have spelling, it is a quite simplistic system and it is not useful for languages like Japanese, which has complicated kanji that would take more time and effort to memorize.
I feel like both Drops, Duolingo, and Memrise may have failed on spaced repetition, but more on that later.