[HN Gopher] Making $10k/m from a French learning app
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Making $10k/m from a French learning app
Author : geocrasher
Score : 73 points
Date : 2023-05-26 17:14 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.highsignal.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.highsignal.io)
| supertofu wrote:
| Wow! I was a French major in college but my ability to speak
| French plummeted after I returned from studying in Paris. I love
| this app's recording feature! It's so helpful to record yourself
| speaking and then compare your recording to the native speaker. I
| only wish the app had an advanced track! I'm pretty sure I'll
| have exhausted all the intermediate lessons by 6 months from now.
|
| In any case, I am absolutely delighted by this app and it has
| brought out my inner Francophile :)
| kieloo wrote:
| Hey! I'm the app creator. I'm really glad you are enjoying it.
|
| I plan on adding more advanced lessons and an constantly
| improving it so there could be an advanced track within the
| next few months.
|
| In any case, feel free to shout me an email if you have any
| feedback/feature request.
| Adiqq wrote:
| Personally I find it hard to believe that it's simple for people
| to start profitable online business. Some people might be lucky
| and can promote themselves well, but how many fail? How often
| freelancers are approached with "great ideas for application",
| but there's zero chance to find paying clients for it. How much
| can anyone do alone, in comparison to all these big corporations
| or even smaller companies with dozens employees dedicated to some
| specific niche?
|
| Maybe I'm overthinking, but I can't see how single person can do
| this, without really good idea.
| Pete-Codes wrote:
| Cheers for posting this. That's my site! It's very cool how he
| learned to code so quickly as well. I'm glad Benjamin can share
| his story with everyone.
|
| So many people want to learn languages as well so it's a huge
| market to sell to. Very smart.
|
| Plenty more stories like this coming out every Wednesday in the
| newsletter btw https://www.highsignal.io/newsletter/
| lisasays wrote:
| So real quickly - how does this app differ from the little green
| bird?
| rozenmd wrote:
| Duolingo is useless for learning to speak to people, for one
| KerrAvon wrote:
| You won't be able to hold a fluent conversation based only on
| Duolingo, but it's not _useless_.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| True. I learnt Swedish on it. Pretty high score and
| everything. Landed in Sweden. Couldn't understand a thing.
| bdcravens wrote:
| I wouldn't say it's useless. Won't make you fluent, but I've
| found the short phrases I can use (just a little over a year
| of Duolingo, plus HS Spanish classes in the late 90s) useful
| in a few situations. (I'm in the Houston area, so it's pretty
| common to encounter Hispanics who do not speak English well)
|
| Of course, we live in a world where the translations apps on
| ours phones are approaching a "universal translator" level.
| sfblah wrote:
| My experience: Essentially all consumer language learning
| apps are only useful for learning up to maybe CEFR A2 or B1.
| That makes sense, because that's all the typical consumer has
| patience for. Going beyond this basically requires hiring a
| tutor, because so few people ever progress to that point.
| omgsean wrote:
| My wife has like a 230 day streak in Duolingo and every time
| I speak any Spanish to her (I'm like early intermediate level
| maybe) she doesn't understand. She's just hooked on making
| number go up.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| 230 days is not very far in if you're doing the minimum
| each day, but something simple? ?Donde esta el gato?
| forgotusername6 wrote:
| I have a 1400+ day streak in Russian. I can only understand
| the odd word or two when I listen to a native speaker.
| nuclearwast wrote:
| Duolingo is kind of garbage. As a native french, for fun, I
| tried to quickly finish the whole french course. I quit
| well before halfway. Duolingo would refuse perfectly fine
| sentences. The accepted answers aren't flexible enough.
|
| I didn't try english though.
|
| Esperanto is super easy if you speak both french and
| english. But man there is less content on the internet than
| klingon...
| shagymoe wrote:
| True but it's not totally useless. My comprehension is
| probably north of 80% but I can't speak as fast as I'd like,
| which is frustrating.
| blamazon wrote:
| I've not used the little green bird, but quoting the French
| Together website: [1]
|
| > Your French learning journey starts by listening to a fun and
| realistic conversation between Jerome, Elodie, Stephane and the
| other professional voice actors who worked on this French.
| course.
|
| > They speak fast, don't they? That's how all French people
| speak (especially Parisians, they are the worst!) Don't worry
| though, French Together comes with audio recorded at both slow
| and normal speed.
|
| > Listening to the slow audio helps you train your ears to
| recognize French sounds while listening to the normal audio
| prepares you for real life French.
|
| > Do this for a few weeks and you could dramatically improve
| your understanding of spoken French. Oh and the course also
| includes audio from a variety of speakers so you get used to
| different accents and intonations and don't end up having to
| ask locals to repeat when you go to France.
|
| [1]: https://frenchtogether.com/?cta=blog-menu
| lisasays wrote:
| C'est bon - thanks for tidy summary.
| codyb wrote:
| Watching the Yankees in Spanish all season has really
| improved my ability to listen to Spanish. Combined with Anki
| spaced repetition flashcards (conjugation and vocabulary),
| Duo Lingo for some general practice, and Pimsleur for
| speaking and listening I suspect I'll be pretty decent by the
| end of the year!
|
| It's definitely a whole skill to be able to listen and
| disambiguate words spoken at a native speaker's pace in a
| second (or nth) language.
| canadiantim wrote:
| Pimsleur pretty clutch
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| I'm doing something similar for Spanish: listening to News
| in Slow Spanish podcast, Pimsleur, Memrise and then also
| paying for a tutor through Italki which has really been
| helping.
| omgsean wrote:
| Check out Dreaming Spanish, hours and hours and hours of
| free comprehensible input content, and then some premium
| content on top of that when you run out. It's been great
| for my listening comprehension.
| droobles wrote:
| I'm (re)learning French this year and I'll check out this app,
| looks cool.
|
| It seems many newer language apps are starting to focus on the
| "comprehensible input" method touted by language learning
| influencers like Steve Kauffmann, and at least for me it's
| definitely working. Comprehensible input (video content, books)
| along with weekly practice on iTalki has absolutely skyrocketed
| my language learning progress and really I only put in ~5hrs a
| week. Lots of money in the post-covid market for language
| learning as it was a hobby a lot of people picked up in
| quarantine.
| zikohh wrote:
| Is it just me who thought there was a mobile app not a web app?
| kieloo wrote:
| I'm the app creator. I'm working on a mobile app but I wanted
| to start with a web app since I'm new to coding. I can't
| promise anything but I'm hoping to release a mobile app within
| the next few months.
| eterm wrote:
| Can we edit the title to be /month?
|
| m is usually minute, I went in expecting a vulnerability writeup,
| although the sub-header made it quickly clear it was a write-up
| of a product.
|
| Good clear write up of the product and it's journey though. Nice
| "boring technologies" of wordpress and rails.
| 1kurac wrote:
| $/mo is widely used.
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| I'd always known m in measures as meter, so I read it as
| they're making $10K per meter.
| triyambakam wrote:
| That's exactly what I thought as well, especially given it's
| re French
| youssefabdelm wrote:
| I initially thought it meant $10k per massage
| cushpush wrote:
| this is a measurement of salary for olympic swimmers?
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