I am planning to make a website to help people study Japanese for a university final project.
I was wondering what kinds of issues do you encounter with studying the language?
I go through phases of procrastination/lack of focus so having accountability partners is useful.
Are there any problems that you guys have encountered whether personal or with resources?
How did you overcome them?
To add to this post.
I was thinking of making the site like some sort of social media type application where users can join groups (study groups for different textbooks or resources), and have a rich resource repository in which the community can contribute, rate and comment on.
I think this would allow people to find accountability partners and find resources that target their weak spots with learning the language.
For me the Most time consuming things to learn are:
Using the right particles
Using the right counter Word
Verbconjugation
…
Problems
Having an unbalanced Level of vocabulary and Grammar knowledge (= working fast through a Textbook, while Not learning enough vocabulary → exhaustion because you try to do the exercises while understanding Less and Less with each new Chapter)
Useful for others, probably not. Useful for you? Maybe. But that’s because there are already sites and apps that do this. LearnNatively, Renshuu, BunPro, WK(here), and countless others.
People are constantly making apps or websites to reinforce what they learned and they all try to solve the same problem, to get the person making said site/app to study more without being an expert or fluent in the language hoping to learn through making something in service of studying. I think these projects are fun to think about but unless you got a working build of something I recommend just making something that works for your studies and focus on that.
I think a site that tracks your study progress in different areas, which you can link to to sites like this, would be good. A lot of people have study logs so it may be good to have a language-learning focused one. It could be incentive based, like earning digital stickers or badges for completing goals.
I feel like focusing on social aspect is a good core idea for a project like this.
As others have mentioned, there are tons of learning resources for every imaginable purpose, so just making another one without a clear USP or intention might not be helpful to users or fun to make for developers.
Expanding on accountability partners and other social things I’m seeing on language learning websites, I’m thinking maybe it can be like a social platform for people, where they can share their achievements, struggles, study logs, etc. Sure, a lot of existing resources have a bit of social interaction with forums, but personally I don’t feel like sharing my every level up or tiny success on a forum, nor do I feel like sharing these on “normal” social media.
Maybe it’s not quite what you have in mind, but I think being able to share my WK level ups, bunpro progess, anki card counts, natively updates, or just a checklist of “I’ve done these things today” is a neat idea.
While I might start with a project that is useful to myself first, I am not someone very good in social aspect, or things like marketing
Nonetheless, too much tapping into marketable sector may actually make some profit, without making value to anyone. (Say, statistically, comparing to without, i.e. somewhat scam.)
Perhaps the correct answer is balancing between both, actual value to “someone”; and enough social to keep in the light, and reaching who might eventually need it. After all, it’s not someone have already made it, but rather the learners have found it when they need it.
Anyway, I would also say, accountability or overall planning, could be some of the values to make service of, even if it’s not particularly about the language itself – and then afterwards add language elements.
The idea wasn’t really to create another learning resource. The repository idea is to have one centralised place where people to link to neat resources they have found across the web.
Users could then favourite resources in the repo that they like to add them to their profile for quick access.
So you’d like a place where you can easily share progress without making a big forum thread? I hope I understood that right?
Thank you so much for the comment! I have a lot to think about.