Show HN: Term Typer – Learn a language by typing

Muito legal mesmo!

It might be helpful to provide a way to hide the L1 definition as a way of encouraging thinking in the target language where possible.

When I took German at the Goethe-Institut, they were extremely committed to immersion and moderately discouraged the use of bilingual dictionaries, while the teachers would almost always attempt to explain vocabulary in German (or by example, like by acting something out or pointing to it). This is harder if you're very new to a language and don't have a live teacher present, but at some point it probably switches to being a benefit for many or most learners.

The German teachers also encouraged students to try to explain vocabulary (to each other) in German, on one occasion literally having us play the game Taboo (in which you have to get people to guess a word without saying that word or a few closely thematically related terms).

As an example from your site, when I tried it out with EN→PT, I encountered the defined word "joelho" 'knee' (which I already knew), and the definition used "coxa" 'thigh' which I had encountered in the past but mostly forgotten. It was helpful to me to see the Portuguese definition and possibly less helpful to see the English definition (because relying on it would have been a missed opportunity to refresh my knowledge of "coxa"). As an analogy, if I watch a movie with English subtitles, I almost always end up ignoring most of the spoken foreign language even if it's a language that I'm fairly familiar with, because the subtitles just make things too easy.

I definitely think having the L1 definition easily available is important (in particular, in case the user doesn't understand all of the L2 definition!) but I suggest at least allowing people to choose not to see it every time, so that they can practice thinking in the target language.

unhammer · 2 years ago

Yes! I learn from listening to podcasts and such, and it's somehow more fun, instead of being told "floob means chair, now say floob after me" (one new word out of eight) and being in language-learning-mode, you're just listening to someone talking about something interesting and they're trying their best to convey the information – but it happens to be in a language you don't really know. The https://www.russianwithmax.com/ podcast does this very well (though you need a bit of basics, e.g. Pimsleur, first) – I'm still trying to find comparable podcasts for other languages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TPR_Storytelling seems to be an adjacent method, TPRS .

schoen · 2 years ago

I forgot to mention that I have also gone to Latin immersion events (some run by Ørberg enthusiasts) where unfamiliar vocabulary got explained in Latin. Very fun times!

precompute · 2 years ago

I'm bilingual and the importance of understanding a language though itself can not be understated. It's like bootstrapping the compiler for your language. If you don't, then you never really learn it, you just translate.

jeanmayer · 2 years ago

that's a great point. I'll add an option to show/hide the L1. Thanks!

From the title I thought it was teaching programming languages - that would be a nice extension as well. Just type out some linux source code to learn C :)

myself248 · 2 years ago

Some years ago, I read a programing book, and it explained, paraphrasing:

> There is no disc included with the book. All the code printed on the page will have to be typed in, by you. This is deliberate. Typing is sloppy, but programming is precise, and it is imperative that you develop attention to detail if you are to program successfully. The intent is that you develop increasing attention to detail along with the programs in the book, which are in order of increasing complexity.

elbear · 2 years ago

From what I remember, Learn Python the Hard Way used a similar principle.

jeanmayer · 2 years ago

that's actually a great idea, will think about this and create something

nmstoker · 2 years ago

Fantastic if you do, as it's a nice elegant yet simple design you've created.

I totally thought it meant computer language too, but that's likely the context of viewing it here!

Anyway, great job with this tool, whether or not you can add computer languages!

johnnyanmac · 2 years ago

Yeah, same. My first thought was "oh hey, this will help me get some Rust syntax under my fingertips!"

It's a very large ask but I do look forward to other (spoken) languages being expanded. Could definitely use this for Japanese practice.

bironran · 2 years ago

This looks really great, but I wish there was a setting for "SAT level English". That could've really helped me improve my own vocabulary. Also "used in a sentence" so I could actually type something in a sentence.

And... maybe ignore typos, spaces, commas etc in the non main word? The main word is important for sure but the rest is less, just forces you to focus on what you're learning.

Yeah that makes sense, some people complained about the definition punctuation. I'll remove the validation of the definition. We have only 20 words for now, but I'll make sure to update it and add levels. Thanks!

semireg · 2 years ago

Thanks for this. Instead of a definition it’d be fun to type out an example sentence so you can learn the surrounding words. That … and highlight the place you are typing in the source language so you can immerse yourself in both languages.

I’d also enjoy paying $5 a month to nag me to spend X minutes or X words learning each day.

I can think of adding this paid feature for me to keep supporting the tool. Added to the backlog.

Highlighting the current place you're typing would be hard as the construction of sentences can be completely different between languages, but I agree that it would be awesome to have.

croemer · 2 years ago

david_allison · 2 years ago

I love everything about this, it's really clean! Doesn't support my L2s, so I won't use it long-term

Constructive feedback:

* the 'typed' word should be discarded in a few cases if you change the L1/L2

* No 'success' feedback after submitting my email for notifications

thanks for the feedback, I'll update it soon

rickcarlino · 2 years ago

I’ve been building a somewhat similar Open Source voice based app. Please reach out if you ever want to talk or collaborate. https://koala.cards

this is awesome, congratz! I'd love to hear more about the idea!

janetmissed · 2 years ago

Very nice site, it looks and functions great. However, autocorrect still works for me on MacOS, unlike other typing practice sites. Maybe not that important, but it does somewhat diminish the typing practice you can get :)

Thanks for the feedback, I'll look into how disable the browser auto correction.

jdmichal · 2 years ago

You probably want to look into the following attributes:

* spellcheck

* autocorrect (Safari non-standard)

* autocapitalize

* autocomplete

ji_zai · 2 years ago

Bug: I chose French, and I had to type “quelqu'un” - but no apostrophe I used was accepted.

Neat project though!