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Learning with texts | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| oldearth Groupie United States Joined 4898 days ago 72 posts - 173 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 153 of 355 20 August 2011 at 1:06am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think we're being a bit harsh on LingQ. There are many reasons for LingQ to exist, and I am glad it does even if I am not personally ready to become a paying member. The community that has sprung up around the service is probably motivating for many learners. Some may even enjoy the avatar/wordcount badges. To me these are distractions, but I'm sure some people take motivation from them and I think anything that helps people learn is good. Another great thing is that LingQ has done the work of collecting materials suitable for learning, even around the A1 level, in many languages. Many people will pay for that convenience even if the podcasts and public domain books are available elsewhere for free. For instance, if I had to go out and find beginner level reading exercises with audio in Russian or Czech I wouldn't know where to begin looking. LingQ has done that for me. Convenience goes beyond finding materials. Logging into an existing website is easy. Figuring out how to run a local php server or set up your own personal website is not easy for most people. I'm a big fan of LWT, but I know that complicated installation is going to be a dealbreaker for a lot of people. If this could be rebuilt as a desktop application like AnkiSRS, with a central server to coordinate (free) desktop and (paid) mobile app activities, then I think the uptake in the language learning community would be much greater. Edited by oldearth on 20 August 2011 at 1:23am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| lwtproject Pentaglot Senior Member Netherlands https://learning-wit Joined 4895 days ago 149 posts - 264 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, German, English, Mandarin Studies: Italian | Message 154 of 355 20 August 2011 at 11:59am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Sorry, but why the LWT installation is considered so difficult?? I don't get it. (1) Download EasyPHP installer package. (2) Install EasyPHP. (3) Download LWT zip archive. (4) Create LWT directory within EasyPHP "www" directory. (5) Unpack LWT in this directory. (6) Rename the correct connect file. (7) Start EasyPHP. (8) In your browser, go to http://127.0.0.1/lwt (9) Install the demo database, or just start and set up the language you want to learn. I do these easy steps in 3 minutes. Maybe setting up a language is difficult, but the LWT installation isn't. If some people are unable to create a directory, or to unzip a zip archive or to rename a file, they should first learn how to use a personal computer - before starting to learn a foreign language ;-) Edited by lwtproject on 20 August 2011 at 12:01pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Michel1020 Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5020 days ago 365 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Dutch | Message 155 of 355 20 August 2011 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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J Pierre don't worry too much about oldearth.
I already give him the opportunity to have his own LWT site - where he could login. He is not interested so far. Either installing his own server was more easy for him than for those he called 'most people' or he is not interested in using LWT. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| oldearth Groupie United States Joined 4898 days ago 72 posts - 173 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 156 of 355 20 August 2011 at 7:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I didn't take you up on your offer, therefore my opinion is irrelevant? Wow, thanks for being so respectful of other opinions on HTLAL. First of all, I'm a woman. Second, I personally had no problems with the setup, but I am not a typical user. I have done extensive coding (but not in php) and have worked in computer tech support in the past. I have my own site going now so I don't need your help Michel1020; the only thing I didn't already know about was configuring the .htaccess file to keep it private, but I figured it out fairly easily by reading the documentation. Third, it is not arrogant of me (as you imply with your sarcastic quotes) to make a distinction between my own knowledge of computers and that of 'most people' because there is a large gap. The steps are easy if you are a person who already knows how to follow instructions. But conceptually, all this stuff is hard for regular people. Many people don't understand there is a distinction between something running locally and something running on a remote server through a web browser. When I worked as a tech support person in college you wouldn't believe some of the things we got called for. (E.g. 'Come fix my computer... Facebook isn't displaying my wall correctly.') An example: A friend recently asked me to explain what linux is. I started by making an analogy to Windows XP or Mac OSX, with the main difference that linux is free and open source. Their response: Oh, so linux is like Facebook! I was shocked. And this was a student at Harvard -- not a dumb person by any means, just not very knowledgeable about computers. Not everyone needs to be a computer scientist.
This quote insults everyone who has said they would try it but were intimidated about installation. Several respected members have commented to that effect. If you are too stubborn to recognize that a 9-step installation is a barrier for people with little understanding of computers, then you are way out of touch. A typical installation process is (1) download file, (2) double click on it. Insulting users isn't a good way to get people interested in your software. Edited by oldearth on 20 August 2011 at 7:46pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| lwtproject Pentaglot Senior Member Netherlands https://learning-wit Joined 4895 days ago 149 posts - 264 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, German, English, Mandarin Studies: Italian | Message 157 of 355 20 August 2011 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You call this sentence with a " ;-) " at the end an insult? OMG. I really don't care if people are interested in "my software" or not. I wrote it for my personal learning. It isn't my software anymore because I released it into the public domain. Everybody is invited to improve it because my knowledge has its limits. Typical installations on Linux (and even on Windows or on a Mac) need much more than "(1) download file, (2) double click". The installation of Apache, PHP and mySQL is normally a complicated one. It has been already extremely simplified in easyPHP. Maybe LWT is not made for people with little understanding of computers. For those people I recommend to sign up better at LingQ. Edited by lwtproject on 21 August 2011 at 8:43pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| lwtproject Pentaglot Senior Member Netherlands https://learning-wit Joined 4895 days ago 149 posts - 264 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, German, English, Mandarin Studies: Italian | Message 158 of 355 24 August 2011 at 11:57am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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LWT 1.2.0 released:
Tagging of terms introduced. Tags are little pieces of information (20 characters max., no spaces, no commas, case sensitive!) attached to terms to help you catagorize and organize your terms. You can import (CSV, TSV) and export (Anki, TSV) terms together with tag information. Two new tables save tag information, and they are created automatically during first usage after update. Display of example sentences is now delayed. Backup creates the database SQL file now as a gzipped file. Restore can process old unzipped or new gzipped files. Gzipped files are much smaller in size (10-20 % of original size). Documentation and screenshots updated. Please report bugs @ http://sourceforge.net/projects/lwt/forums/ forum/1813497 Edited by lwtproject on 24 August 2011 at 2:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| lwtproject Pentaglot Senior Member Netherlands https://learning-wit Joined 4895 days ago 149 posts - 264 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, German, English, Mandarin Studies: Italian | Message 159 of 355 25 August 2011 at 12:38pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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LWT 1.2.1 released:
New Rewind and Fast Forward button for audio player. User can set the time to rewind or fast forward from 1 to 10 seconds. Added a section in the help document about the setup of LWT for iPads, etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| lwtproject Pentaglot Senior Member Netherlands https://learning-wit Joined 4895 days ago 149 posts - 264 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, German, English, Mandarin Studies: Italian | Message 160 of 355 26 August 2011 at 5:23pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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LWT 1.2.2 released:
Removed a bug that prevented Strg-C/Cmd-C (and other key strokes) in text/test frames. Added column "Percentage Unknown Words" in Texts table. Removed language column in Texts/Terms tables if language filter is set. During reading a text, you can now create terms that do not occur in the text. Click on the yellow icon in the top left frame, and type in the term, translation, etc. You may now also edit the text directly. Documentation and screenshots updated. Enjoy. And don't forget to report bugs... 1 person has voted this message useful |
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