Hey, Tim here π
I've been living in Portugal for 2+ years and have used apps like Duolingo to learn Portuguese. But still I struggle understanding anything here! π΅βπ«
I just couldn't get used to the natural flow of the language in a conversation. Everything just seemed like a wall of text! π§±
So I built Understand Better: Natural Language Listening Excercises that help you jump into Conversations with native Speakers. β‘
Give it a spin, I'd love to hear your feedback!
Cheers,
Tim.
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I was very satisfied with it and I suggest that everyone use it because it is very practical and beautiful
Hi Tim! Sweet launch!
Hot take since you asked for feedback, your comment from the launch here "I've been living in Portugal for 2+ years and have used apps like Duolingo to learn Portuguese. But still I struggle understanding anything here! π΅βπ« I just couldn't get used to the natural flow of the language in a conversation. Everything just seemed like a wall of text! 𧱠"
Would rock on the landing page for your tool. I read through it, but sort of struggled to see how I could use it. (Lots of features, but not futures.)
Do you plan to add speaking in the future? (Speaking back to it?) Not sure if that's a thing haha
@esus Hey, thanks for the suggestion, good idea! Different types of lessons are definitely something I'm thinking about for the future. Understanding and comprehension are the main problems I'm solving, so listening exercises are still central.
Understand Better is more of a complimentary product. E.g. learn grammar + vocab on Duolingo etc., and get used to the flow of the language on Understand Better.
I absolutely see the value of speaking exercises too but they're not the primary focus at the moment.
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@timkonie nice concept on an alternate immersive learning. Congrats on the launch. Best, @david_mcanulty
@david_mcanulty Cheers, David! And good luck with your upcoming launch!
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Congrats on the launch! I can see this being very helpful for foreign travel especially for people who have a good understanding of the language, but struggle with native tone.
@andriyuh Hey Andrija. I've been using for a long time, actually. It's good to teach you some vocabulary and maybe grammar, but it's pretty useless in helping you understand real people in the real world. This is why I've made Understand Better.
Also, but this is more my personal situation as a Portuguese learner, Duolingo only offers Brazilian Portuguese, which is only somewhat helpful in Portugal because the accent is WAY different. Understand Better also supports European Portuguese π
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π‘ Bright idea
Congrats on the launch! We're def missing some things to improve listening in European Portuguese with almost everyone focusing on Brazillian version. Did you use AI voiceovers?
What I'd like to also get from such an app:
- an ability to choose topics
- more natural-sounding voices (but I haven't tried the advanced yet, worried I'll have to listen about Sofia and seasons for the 3rd time :D ), overall if I compare it to what I can hear on TV I hear the difference, and my goal is to understand the TV
- dialogues (maybe there are in the future lessons)
- some questions where I need to type in the answer (even if it's just a word), it's very easy to pick the right one even if you didn't understand what was said thanks to reading comprehension, not listening. "hmhm, what does she like to do in the summer, could it be... play with the snow? probably not :) "
Overall great start, thanks for doing this!
@arpole Hey Ru, thanks for the suggestions - definitely stuff I've been thinking about.
The Europ. vs. Braz. Portuguese was my personal motivation to start Understand Better π.
Diversity / quality of the texts is something I'm working on, I'm also looking into some other voices. Unfortunately TTS quality is a bit difficult to get consistent across various languages, but thanks for pointing it out!
Dialogues would be awesome, yes. But it would have been too much for the MVP.
Same goes for different types of comprehension exercises - but all of this is definitely on my mind!
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