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Learning with texts

  Tags: Software
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
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oldearth
Groupie
United States
Joined 4655 days ago

72 posts - 173 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Esperanto

 
 Message 153 of 355
20 August 2011 at 1:06am | IP Logged 
Michel1020 wrote:
IMHO now that LWT exist - lingq should stop to exist or become entirely free. There is
nothing offered by lingq that is not offered elsewhere for free. And if some services are better in a commercial
relations - they do not need a third party like lingq.

The only reason for lingq to still exist is because people know them but do not know LWT - because they have
a marketing plan. Other reasons could be some people are in love with Steve Kaufmann and others think he is
god.

The only good reason is they do not read English.


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 4652 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 
oldearth wrote:
... 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. ...


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 4777 days ago

365 posts - 559 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Dutch

 
 Message 155 of 355
20 August 2011 at 6:48pm | IP Logged 

J Pierre don't worry too much about oldearth.

oldearth wrote:
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 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 4655 days ago

72 posts - 173 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Esperanto

 
 Message 156 of 355
20 August 2011 at 7:44pm | IP Logged 
Michel1020 wrote:

J Pierre don't worry too much about oldearth.

oldearth wrote:
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 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.




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.


lwtproject wrote:

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
;-)


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 4652 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 
oldearth wrote:

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.


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 4652 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 
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 4652 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 
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 4652 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 
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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