alan_h
alan_h on Hacker News
Posted by
alan_h on Tuesday January 15, 2013 @01:51PM
from the econerdfood.blogspot.co.uk dept.
Posted by
alan_h on Sunday January 13, 2013 @10:24AM
from the blog.alanhampson.com dept.
Good point, feature/bug fix backlog is full for the next two weeks but I'll implement something like that in the version to follow. Some like "Exam Mode" where it retests you on everything you have studied so far.
Could also have a another list which is only words that you have made a mistake on. "Revision Mode"
Good point, expect this feature a week on friday. (11th Jan)
The logo/icon is weak, it does need to be replaced. (and will be)
Nope definitely not computer generated.
I seriously recommend getting professional voice overs. Originally the demo was narrated by myself, but having a professional do it makes a HUGE difference. If I showed you the same video with my voice, you would laugh :)
I outsourced the voice over on elance.com. Lots of voice-over providers to choose from. (any language/accent you want)
Thanks for the purchase and the feedback. I'll resolve the issues you've raised. I've tested it on iphone 4 and 5, but not 4S.
It would be a big help if you identified the iOS version you are using.
Cool, I'll add in a animal wordset. I'll do the animals of the chinese zodiac (pig, dog, tiger, horse, monkeys etc). I'll also do another for the zoo (penguins, eagle etc)
Please feel free to suggest new word sets. Next major release will have new lesson sets. (two weeks from today)
There shall be more lessons in the future :) If you have suggestions for what high-level word/phrase sets you would like, let me know.
Unfortunately, at the moment I'm just guessing as to what people want.
Agreed, it does need a little more hierarchy for navigation. Too much scrolling at the moment.
#1
I outsourced all the translations (and audio recordings) on www.elance.com
#2
The goal was to spend 3-4 months playing/experimenting with product design. The project is a learning exercise in how to craft something original (hopefully) and useful (even more hopefully!). I enjoy building things and playing with ideas. I guess the end-goal is to help me shape my career direction and find my next full-time job :)
The reason for it being a Mandarin learning app is that I was frustrated by the existing products in the marketplace. Designing this was a very iterative process, I have a set of test users and tried all manner of mechanisms to help them learn. First couple of mechanisms I threw away because it didn't help recall and were too confusing. I had the luxury of being able to discard ideas that didn't work very quickly.
Excellent video btw, I will read into spaced-repetition.
Thanks for the feedback, this is something my test users also suggested. I'll prioritise this when I add new features.
Thank you sir, your thoughts after using the app would be very interesting to me :)
Thanks for point that out! Correcting it promptly!
(I renamed the app, as I prefer the name MandarinTap)
Thanks for the feedback, it should be able to support sentences up to about 7-8 characters in length. Device width is the constraint here. I'll bear this in mind for future lesson sets.
I think Rosettastone may have feature. From what I understand voice-recognition for Mandarin is a hard problem.
Thanks! I shall correct this promptly.
For Kanji, certainly. It probably won't suit Hiragana and Katakana.
Posted by
alan_h on Tuesday January 01, 2013 @08:35AM
from the show-hn dept.