#The Learning App

[ruhua-langblr]

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and the endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

Transparent Language: (Languages: THE MOST! Also the one that has the widest variety of African languages! Perhaps the most diverse in ESL and learning a foreign language not in English)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)

[daemaid]

Go crazy BAAAA go stupid AAAAA

Little thing I made learning how to use Procreate Dreams.

OG comes from this :>

[foxgirl1668]

starwars things…. one day I’ll finish a full piece without giving up halfway through

[sunny-knight]

TIMELINES MUST PASS

Time Will Pass @forgettable-au fan animation :3

Decided to practice some animation with this wonderful song/animation meme/trend???

Inspiration credit:

@mannawanna on Youtube!

@Sherrickmadds on Instagram!

heheheheheHEHEEHEHEHEHEHEHAHAHAHAAHAHAAAAHAHAAHAHA I LOVE THESE GUYS SO MUCH AND THIS AUDIO JUST FELT TOO PERFECT FOR EM!!! ON WE GO TO THE ANALYSIS

The direct actions:

Sans smiles at Wingdings, who does not return it

Sans is bothered and upset by this, before closing his eyes and accepting it.

They go back to staring up at the ceiling, except Sans looks sadder now.

Wingdings continues to sing, content with this.

GASTERING TIME

Cut to the present day-post papyrus day,

Gaster is belting out happily while Sans is horrified at what his…brother??? has turned into.

Before they both come to a (reluctant on Sans’ half) acceptance at the situation.

What they’re supposed to translate to:

Sans encourages Wingdings to come out of his comfort zone. Instead of staying in the lab 247 and shutting out the rest of the world while still wanting to make it a better place with his inventions- why not grab some food at Grillbys?? (I just thought of how funny it is that Sans can’t get Papyrus to enjoy Grillbys either, for different reasons but still. CMON GUYS- GO GET SOME GREASY FOOD WITH YOUR BROTHER)

But he shuts this idea down constantly, no matter how subtle or direct Sans is, he can’t seem to stop his brother from going down an incredibly self destructive route. When he closes his eyes and looks back up at the ceiling…I wouldn’t call that “giving up on Wingdings” but definitely trying less hard. He cant force him to do anything so why try

(ofc Alphys comes in- BUT THIS IS A 24 SECOND ANIMATION, WE DONT HAVE TIME FOR THAT- CHOP CHOP!) (also just as an aside i love that when Sans realizes he cant force Wingdings outside he just brings the outside to him 😭😭)

But Wingdings is fully content with this “giving up”. He gets his way!!!

Thats when we see an interaction between these two, YEARS later. Sans is, needless to say, pretty horrified at whats happened to him (we’re ignoring lack of memories in this situation btw) but Gaster is thrilled and tells Sans that basically “I wont be here for long, i just wanted to say that despite my actions I promise I loved you” which Sans feels many emotions at- but “grief” bundles those all up in a nice trauma bow.

Gaster then goes on to say basically “this has been fun, but this is probably the last time we will ever interact because I have business to attend to, and you have Papyrus’ to attend to!!!” Sans reluctantly accepts this. Again. Gaster always staying within his comfort zone and Sans just going along with it because he cant force his stubborn as hell brother to do anything.

Basically long story short, Sans is not happy in either of these situations. Both times Wingdings puts his work above his brother.

[dyellogin]

Credit to @minkzug for the animation 🌈🌈

[lavender-rroses]

dude…let’s kill the horse

[survivetoread]

I'm a big fan of extensive reading apps for language learning, and even collaborated on such an app some 10 years ago. It eventually had to be shut down, sadly enough.

Right now, the biggest one in the market is the paywalled LingQ, which is pretty good, but well, requires money.

There's also the OG programs, LWT (Learning With Texts) and FLTR (Foreign Language Text Reader), which are so cumbersome to set up and use that I'm not going to bother with them.

I presently use Vocab Tracker as my daily driver, but I took a spin around GitHub to see what fresh new stuff is being developed. Here's an overview of what I found, as well as VT itself.

(There were a few more, like Aprelendo and TextLingo, which did not have end-user-friendly installations, so I'm not counting them).

Vocab Tracker

++ Available on web ++ 1-5 word-marking hotkeys and instant meanings makes using it a breeze ++ Supports websites

-- Default meaning/translation is not always reliable -- No custom languages -- Ugliest interface by far -- Does not always recognise user-selected phrases -- Virtually unusable on mobile -- Most likely no longer maintained/developed

Lute

++ Supports virtually all languages (custom language support), including Hindi and Sanskrit ++ Per-language, customisable dictionary settings ++ Excellent, customisable hotkey support

-- No instant meaning look-up makes it cumbersome to use, as you have to load an external dictionary for each word -- Docker installation

LinguaCafe

++ Instant meanings thanks to pre-loaded dictionaries ++ Supports ebooks, YouTube, subtitles, and websites ++ Customisable fonts ++ Best interface of the bunch

== Has 7 word learning levels, which may be too many for some

-- Hotkeys are not customisable (yet) and existing ones are a bit cumbersome (0 for known, for eg.) -- No online dictionary look-up other than DeepL, which requires an API key (not an intuitive process) -- No custom languages -- Supports a maximum of 15,000 characters per "chapter", making organising longer texts cumbersome -- Docker installation

Dzelda

++ Supports pdf and epub ++ Available on web

-- Requires confirming meaning for each word to mark that word, making it less efficient to read through -- No custom languages, supports only some Latin-script languages -- No user-customisable dictionaries (has a Google Form to suggest more dictionaries)

[superm4ks]

Libras are charming, social and intellectual. On September 30th, 1997, 27 years ago, a Bull was born who liked soccer, gokarts, maps, history, languages, Pokémon cards, FIFA and winning. And while he has remained disruptive, undiplomatic and confrontational in his racing, it is all that, coupled with extraordinary consistency, unbearable nerve, a century’s worth of talent, and a disarming gentleness, that has turned him into one of the most captivating characters on the grid. Also a top 5 driver of all time. Happy birthday to an impossible boy who made his dream inevitable. And never asks for permission. You are all that was promised and more. Thank you.

[lonelymang0]

Elphaba and Glinda fanart ✨

🩷💚

[barebevil]

stayed up way past my bedtime last night to make this

[sexybritishllama]

idk why you guys think there would be any tiktok refugees running to tumblr. why would they go from the algorithm-ruled short video app to the primarily text and photo-based microblogging website where the only attempt staff have made at an algorithm is infamously terrible and ineffective

[snarfflarf]

ok im watching dimension 20: the seven right now and ive noticed izzy will ask things like "whats 13+6" and i gotta say the way brennan just simply responds "13+6 is 19" instead of laughing or making fun of her is all i need in life. find me a man who i dont have to hide my hands under the table with when im counting on my fingers

[gomzdrawfr]

Unrequited Love

[ikiprian]

Barbara Gordon's Coding & Computer Cram School is a popular YouTube series. Tucker Foley is a star student.

Barbara Gordon's Cram School posts free online courses for both coding and computer engineering. Think Crash Course in terms of entertainment, but college lecture in terms of depth. Hundreds of thousands of viewers flock to it— students who missed a class, people looking to add new skills to a resume, even simple hobbyists. It’s a project Barbara’s proud of.

Sometimes, when she wants to relax, she’ll even hop in the comments and spend an afternoon troubleshooting a viewer’s project with them.

User “Fryer-Tuck” has especially interesting ones. Barbara finds herself seeking out his comments, checking in on whatever this crazy kid is making next. An app for collecting GPS pings and assembling them on a map in real-time, an algorithm that connects geographic points to predict something’s movement taking a hundred other variables into account, simplified versions of incredibly complex homemade programs so they can run on incredibly limited CPU’s.

(Barbara wants to buy the kid a PC. It seems he’s got natural talent, but he keeps making reference to a PDA. Talk about 90’s! This guy’s hardware probably predates his birth.)

She chats with him more and more, switching to less public PM threads, and eventually, he opens up. His latest project, though, is not something Barbara has personal experience with.

FT: so if you found, hypothetically, a mysterious glowing substance that affects tech in weird and wacky ways that could totally have potential but might be vaguely sentient/otherworldly…. what would you do and how would you experiment with it. safely, of course. and hypothetically

BG: I’d make sure all my tests were in disposable devices and quarantined programs to keep it from infecting my important stuff. Dare I ask… how weird and wacky is it?

FT: uhhh. theoretically, a person composed of this substance once used it to enter a video game. like physical body, into the computer, onto the screen? moving around and talking and fighting enemies within the game?

FT: its been experimented with before, but not on any tech with a brain. just basic shields and blasters and stuff, its an energy source. also was put in a car once

FT: i wanna see how it affects software, yk? bc i already know it can. mess around and see how far i can push it

BG: […]

FT: … barbara?

BG: Sorry, thinking. Would you mind sharing more details? You said “blasters?”

Honestly. Kid genius with access to some truly wacky materials and even wackier weapons, she needs to start a file on him before he full sends to either hero or villain.

[OR: Tucker is a self-taught hacker, but if he were to credit a teacher, he'd name Barbara Gordon's Coding & Computer Cram School! He's even caught the attention of Dr. Gordon herself. She's full of sage advice, and with how she preaches the value of a good VPN, he's sure she's not pro-government. Maybe she'll help him as he studies the many applications of ecto-tech!]