Memrise Graded German sentences (Language Programs, Books & Tapes) Language Learning Forum

Memrise Graded German sentences
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Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes

24 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3 Next >>

Jeffers
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United Kingdom
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Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

Message 9 of 24

30 June 2014 at 11:20am | IP Logged

Thank you for posting, Oliver. It is a good reminder that copyright theft is not
victimless, especially when it concerns material made by individuals or small companies. It can be the difference between staying in business and going bust.

Oliver, I'd like to know a bit more about your programme.
-Is it only online? Or can content be downloaded to use on a computer, tablet or phone? (I notice on the page that "easy to get started" and "no need to download" are given as positive features, so that might answer my question).
-It seems there's no app. Does the website work well on phones and tablets? If so, then there's no problem that there's no app.
-Is there an SRS system for revising the cards?

Edited by Jeffers on 30 June 2014 at 11:21am
3 persons have voted this message useful

delpino
Diglot
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antosch-and-lin.com/Registered users can see my Skype Name
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Speaks: German*, English
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Message 10 of 24

30 June 2014 at 11:59am | IP Logged

Hi Jeffers,
no, you can't downloaded content and there's no app at the moment. But there is a smartphone friendly version of
the website. You can't revise the official flashcards, but you can add/edit your own flashcards and add notes to
the official flashcards. (This is a premium feature however if you upgrade one language you'll get all 12
languages, ideally for polyglots)

Edited by delpino on 30 June 2014 at 12:00pm
1 person has voted this message useful

Gemuse
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Germany
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Speaks: English
Studies: German

Message 11 of 24

30 June 2014 at 12:35pm | IP Logged

Hi Oliver,

This post is slightly business oriented.
I had a look at the German sentences. I liked them. It seems you are offering three services:
1. The written language content which is being given for free.
2. The audio content which is not free.
3. Software for content delivery and usage (mostly free).

For 3, you are competing with memrise, anki etc which have much bigger bases as they have tons of programs.
Given their presence, a pricetag of $70/year just to use your platform is unattractive to people like me.
Services 1&2: I like them, and would like them in book + audio format (à la Assimil). Have you thought about publishing in this standard format?
You could bundle in the online service for 8 months with each book purchase. People who like the book format will be happy (and they get something extra). People who like the online format will be happy as they now have access to a physical book which does not expire.
Kind of like Assimil 2.0. You have a lot of the material (but not all, more needs to be added); and you have the platform.

Edited by Gemuse on 30 June 2014 at 2:37pm
4 persons have voted this message useful

Message 12 of 24

30 June 2014 at 1:27pm | IP Logged

Thanks for the feedback. A book format is actually a good idea, if it could be outsourced and automated. I think
there are such services available. Would you have to do some research.
1 person has voted this message useful

Random review
Diglot
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United Kingdom
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Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German

Message 13 of 24

30 June 2014 at 5:52pm | IP Logged

delpino wrote:

Hello, my name is Oliver Antosch and I run flashcards.com/">http://www.german-flashcards.com/ and have created those
sentences in the last 7 years.

This was a lot of work and seeing them on a rival site with no penny being paid for it
and not even mentioned there was a bit, well unpleasant. Problem is that people might
come to my
website and think that I ripped off the content. It will also be a problem with Google
who punishes duplicate content.

So guys please don't trade pirated content and don't cover it up. I'm actually
struggling to continue adding content because not enough people are willing to support
the site financially, and
something like this is just a slap in the face and doesn't help.

I would also appreciate some feedback (from the original poster) what is not clear with
the learning system and
what features are missing compared to Anki/memrise. Thanks!

Hi, Oliver. Firstly, congratulations on your sentence collection. The German one seems
amazing. Well, to be honest, I just couldn't figure out what your software was doing or
how to use it. Now, I'm not particularly computer savvy, but I'm not dumb either: I
know that memrise is incredibly intuitive, but if I can figure out how to use Anki
(including how to use plugins and other features) but can't figure out what is
happening with your software, my guess is that at least some others may have the same
problem. I was gutted to see the sentences taken down but understand totally why you
did it and agree that you were within your rights to do so (you'll notice that in my
OP, I didn't condemn you for it and I'm not shy of condemning rights holders if I think
they are in the wrong).

Personally I couldn't afford your premium service right now (though I'm not typical as
I earn about £12k a year, which in the UK is very hard to live on and I think that
with the addition of the audio it's decent value). I hope that when I get down to
Mandarin, I'll be able to afford it as it's an amazing resource that would be useless
to me without the audio. Luckily for me, as far as German goes, you allow us to use
your site without audio for free and my German has reached a point where I don't need
the audio.

One suggestion: have you considered making your course available on Memrise as a paid
course and earning money that way? You could make it available without the audio (like
the ripped-off version) and I bet that some people would want the audio enough to join
up on your site, in addition to the income from Memrise. Just a thought.

Or maybe make the first level only available on memrise as a taster to lead people to
your site. I reckon that'd probably work quite well, actually.

I wish you and your business well for the future.

Edited by Random review on 30 June 2014 at 5:55pm
2 persons have voted this message useful

Random review
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5570 days ago
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Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German

Message 14 of 24

30 June 2014 at 7:02pm | IP Logged

I received an interesting and surprisingly nice PM from delpino asking for detailed
feedback on what I found confusing about his site.
He seems really commited to making his learning software as excellent as his content
already is and when he succeeds he'll have something pretty special IMO.

The site deserves to be better known, hopefully his appearance on this thread will be a
start in that direction.
2 persons have voted this message useful

Gemuse
Senior Member
Germany
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Speaks: English
Studies: German

Message 15 of 24

30 June 2014 at 8:29pm | IP Logged

My fear is that having only a specialized language learning flashcard like site is a difficult business model.
Memrise/Anki/Google Play make money off the platform, not so much the content.

The interesting question is what would be a good price if Oliver were to sell this course on memrise/anki?

The other direction as I mentioned is to go the Assimil 2.0 route, selling mainly the content with the software as an addon.
1 person has voted this message useful

Random review
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5570 days ago
781 posts - 1310 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German

Message 16 of 24

30 June 2014 at 9:36pm | IP Logged

Gemuse wrote:

My fear is that having only a specialized language learning flashcard
like site is a difficult business model.
Memrise/Anki/Google Play make money off the platform, not so much the content.

The interesting question is what would be a good price if Oliver were to sell this
course on memrise/anki?

The other direction as I mentioned is to go the Assimil 2.0 route, selling mainly the
content with the software as an addon.

Well that's obviously where the big money is, but this is clearly a labour of love for
Delpino and as such I'd be quite surprised if he was doing this because he wants to
make lots of money. The impression I got from him, and he can correct me if I'm wrong,
is that he just wants to make a fair and sustainable income from his hard work this
past 7 years, which IMO ought to be easily possible if more people find out about what
is in fact quite a high quality product (at least for German, I haven't used it for any
other language) and if he makes his flashcard format more user friendly for people who
aren't as tech-savvy as he is. As I said to him by PM, I had looked long and hard for a
set of high quality, reliable sentences like his and, although I had found the rip-off
Memrise course, I never found his site until very recently due to a review on Ellen
Jovin's blog. By contrast Glossika's sentence audio products that are just coming out I
knew about very quickly.

1 person has voted this message useful

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