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Free Speech - learn like a child? | ||
Tags: Software | Learning Technique/Method | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4240 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 1 of 13 19 December 2014 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've stumbled across a TED talk, which claims that there's a software engine which can easily cover a language, any language, one at the time.
The idea is simple and thus brilliant: to create maps based on plain questions. These maps are sentences in so called Free Speech. Then you can run the programme which will give you the correct sentence from grammatical point of view. What is exciting is that the engine could be created in any language, all you need is the vocabulary and the grammar. I doubt, however, that the possibilities of this software are limitless, I can barely imagine converting a really complex sentence into Free Speech, but maybe I am mistaken and it's still possible? I wanted to check the app which uses this concept, but even the lite version isn't available for me for some unknown reason. Of course the app was targeted on children with autism, but some work can turn in into a powerful programme for language learners. What do you think? Can it be used in learning, translating, anywhere else? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5538 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 13 19 December 2014 at 6:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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It looks like a pretty cool system, but to use it as a language, you'd need to add images and connections for all kinds of things:
1. Hundreds of nouns and verbs (just for the basics). Eventually just finding the right icons and telling them apart will be almost as hard as just learning vocabulary. 2. Conditionals. 3. Compound statements (there's an example in the video). So imagine a statement that combines a few of these ideas:
This would turn into a pretty large and sprawling diagram will all kinds of specialized icons and complicated links, etc. Think about how you draw "somebody" or express "if" or "without" or "at least" in pictures, and ask yourself if it's actually going to be any easier than learning a language like Esperanto. Over in the world of programming languages, people have actually tried to create sophisticated tools that allow you to write programs by hooking together tiles with arrows. These are really cute and fun, but as soon as you try to express anything complicated, they quickly because just as intimidating as any other programming language. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4539 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 3 of 13 19 December 2014 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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This just seems to be another hyped TED talk, for the reasons EMK states, but perhaps I am missing something.
I can't see how this system would work for any sort of nuanced language learning. Now that I am in the B2 range most of the words I am learning are quite subtle and I am not sure how you could easily translate them into icons. What's your thoughts about how this system could be used to learn languages? How would you learn vocab or grammar for your L2 using it? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4450 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 4 of 13 19 December 2014 at 8:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting concepts how "Free Speech" can be used as a base language for not only for learning, but for transitions
as well. At present, the best Google Translate can do is to go by expressions people use frequently as a base for going from 1 language to another. Like in French Les Jeux Olympiques would be translated as The Olympic Games or 奥林匹克运动会 in Chinese or the simplified version 奥运会. All 3 point to the same thing but using different words & phrases. If we can break sentences into distinct concepts, then we can get a much better translation than what Google can offer. On the other hand, if you have 1 paragraph or an entire newspaper article, you'd want to read the page once to get the correct context instead of trying to go by isolated sentences. For people who play music and know how to read notations would know the symbols for standard notation was invented in Italy a few hundred years ago. People who speak different languages would see a half note (an open circle with a stem) and know the note is to be played for 2 beats. Depending on how high or low it is on the Staff we'd know what pitch to play. In other words, standard notation in music is language neutral. When it comes to indicating tempo (how fast the music is to be played), you may see a term like "Vite" in French or the English "Lively" to indicate a fast piece of music instead of the Italian "Allegro" or "Vivace". Free Speech is like standard notation in music which is language neutral. It would make learning languages easier and translations more accurate. Edited by shk00design on 19 December 2014 at 8:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4539 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 5 of 13 19 December 2014 at 11:36pm | IP Logged | ||
But aren't you forgetting that Free Speech only works with the magic grammar generating box that was shown in the talk. It will only produce correct speech if the grammatical model is correct - and unfortunately our grammatical models aren't that good. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4240 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 6 of 13 20 December 2014 at 2:21am | IP Logged | ||
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emk, do kids at age 6-7 say such complex sentences? (Let's assume they aren't bookworms like me,
getting myopia cause I was reading extensively since 4-5 y.o,) I personally don't believe this programme can teach really complex things, but it seems that the creator does. Perhaps he has thought it all through if his statements were honest. patrickwilken, there's a song line I like to quote in many situations: the malison of art is knowing when to stop and knowing how to start I think it could be used at teaching basics on a level that is used by kids. Perhaps the idea is that simple. Kids surely do not begin to learn a language with an introductory lesson about the rules of pronunciation. They don't use a bridge in the form of some other language (quite an unstable bridge for me, to be honest). I was a long beginner in German, and even though now I'm past that stage, I still forget basics, still manage to get them wrong. I've learned them just in 7 lessons, just in a few Michel Thomas hours, and since I hate blunt repeating, I don't get to walk this way once more to fix my problems. If there's a way to assimilate basics better I am in for that. It's really hard to talk about things not having tried the grammar box. Was anyone able to check Avaz? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4539 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 7 of 13 20 December 2014 at 9:55am | IP Logged | ||
But I guess I just don't see how this could be used to help language learning. Can you explain the idea? I take it you learn Free Speech and then German or whatever will pop-out, but that doesn't get you any closer to German does it? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4240 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 8 of 13 20 December 2014 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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patrickwilken, for example, a learner watches a video, describes it in Free Speech and then gets the
output in TL. He might also use the language he knows to see if Free Speech was used correctly. You don't have to learn Free Speech, it's supposed to be intuitive. The point is that kids also break situation down in these little blocks and thus learn. Frankly, I fancy the idea of a translator more, but I'd adore to play with videos and describing. If your fantasy is good enough you can think about you own story not using videos, and then again check if you've used Free Speech right (should be no problem with easy sentences). Plus some bits of the method were explain in the talk itself, weren't they? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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