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Re:Show HN: Flowlingo – practice a foreign language with tec... by avinium on Tuesday June 04, 2019 @10:19PM (#20100977)
The thing that annoys me about all of these attempts is failing to recognize the impact of irregular forms of the verbs. So - for French - all the different forms of the verb aller (go) are treated individually. I paid for ReadLang for a while, but this lack of a feature has proven too frustrating.

I don't speak French so I'm having trouble understanding what you mean. Do you mind giving a bit more detail?

I'm also curious about the other ideas you mentioned.

Re:Show HN: Flowlingo – practice a foreign language with tec... by rakoo on Wednesday June 05, 2019 @03:46AM (#20102312)
French here, I never realized it but there are at least 3 different forms depending on who does it and when:

Present: Je vais, tu vas, il va, nous allons, vous allez, ils vont

Future: j'irai, tu iras, il ira, nous irons, vous irez, ils iront

Same goes for être (to be):

Present: Je suis, tu es, il est, nous sommes, vous êtes, ils sont

Future: Je serai, tu sera, il sera, nous serons, vous serez, ils seront

Simple past: Je fus, tu fus, il fut, nous fûmes, vous fûtes, ils furent (No one uses simple past, but here it is)

Subordinate (?): Que je sois, que tu sois, qu'il soit, que nous soyons, que vous soyez, qu'ils soient

I guess it's the same in pretty much every language, especially for those 2 common verbs, there are irregular forms everywhere.

Re:Show HN: Flowlingo – practice a foreign language with tec... by amaccuish on Wednesday June 05, 2019 @01:04PM (#20106547)
The subordinate is actually the present subjunctive. There's also a past subjunctive (que je fusse, tu fusses, il fût, nous fussions, vous fussiez, ils fussent) and other forms with auxliaries, if I remember my grammar properly, the formsare derived from the simple past, or the other way around, can't remember.

The reason it's not subordinate is because I think there are some very rare cases where it can be used without a que, but I can't think over one off the top of my head.

Re:Show HN: Flowlingo – practice a foreign language with tec... by arafalov on Wednesday June 05, 2019 @08:21AM (#20103618)
And the challenge with the current learning software is that they treat each one of these forms as a separate flashcard. So, you are learning surface/contextualized forms of the verb rather than understanding how to use the verb itself in various contexts.