[Firegold21]

I just briefly tried out Mondly VR, a language learning app that promises semi-immersion and speech recognition for not only learning to understand but how to speak. As a linguist (I have a BA in Linguistics), I have an interest in such things. ;-)

First, a link to an article about it on The Next Web.

Now my quick thoughts. I like the idea of VR immersion language learning, especially with speech recognition to tell if you pronounced the phrase right. However, it didn't quite work for me. I'm not sure if it was because I was wearing my bluetooth headphones or what, but I repeated the correct phrases several times and got nowhere.

That said, I do like the setup. For the greetings section, you're on a bus facing a woman who says "hi" to you. You then are presented with three options as a response. I couldn't get past that phase, but based on the article above, it should take you through a simulated conversation with the woman. There are two or three other scenarios at this point, and it doesn't look complete yet (just three or so scenarios total won't take you to complete fluency), but is a very good start.

If I can figure out the microphone issue, I'll gladly keep using it and periodically pay the in-app purchase to unlock the other scenarios. Yep; only the "hello" scenario is available without purchase.

[krisguy]

I would love an immersive style language learning product, especially since I'm trying to learn bits of Japanese and Korean.

[Firegold21]

The best way to immerse with VR would be to find someone in your target language's country (or just someone fluent in that language) and hang out in vTime or Altspace. vTime would probably be best for that, IMO, but Altspace could work as well. It can be hard to make that work, though; Mondly is trying to fill in the gap there, I think.

[Chemy JMHT]

I liked a lot this kind of initiative, sadly it's not available (so far) for the Rift, only the Gear VR at least on the Oculus Store, don't know about other platforms.

P.S. knowing that @Firegold21 does has a BA in Linguistics made me feel worried about how bad I'm writing :P

[Firegold21]

P.S. knowing that @Firegold21 does has a BA in Linguistics made me feel worried about how bad I'm writing :P

LOL. Don't worry. I save my language critiquing for those who are just being lazy with their writing. Unless there's a particularly funny typo; in which, I might just poke fun at the typo. ;-)

[iliescualex]

Hello @Firegold21,
My name is Alex, I run Mondly.
Want to thank you for trying Mondly VR.
Using bluetooth might indeed be an issue here as the app is doing a special kind of calibration to the room's noise level, to enable automatic voice detection.
Using wired headphones will give you the best experience, but it can work well without head-phones. I hope you'll manage to get it to work and I'm looking forward to your feedback.

[Chemy JMHT]

Hello @Firegold21,
My name is Alex, I run Mondly.
Want to thank you for trying Mondly VR.
Using bluetooth might indeed be an issue here as the app is doing a special kind of calibration to the room's noise level, to enable automatic voice detection.
Using wired headphones will give you the best experience, but it can work well without head-phones. I hope you'll manage to get it to work and I'm looking forward to your feedback.

Hey welcome to the Forum!

It's nice to have you here, hopefully we can try in different platforms your app soon and give you some feedback!

Here we have what we call the VR Developer Lounge perhaps something there is useful for you or you can share with others about your app.

[iliescualex]

Thanks Chemy for the warm welcome. Will do.

[Firegold21]

Hello @Firegold21,
My name is Alex, I run Mondly.
Want to thank you for trying Mondly VR.
Using bluetooth might indeed be an issue here as the app is doing a special kind of calibration to the room's noise level, to enable automatic voice detection.
Using wired headphones will give you the best experience, but it can work well without head-phones. I hope you'll manage to get it to work and I'm looking forward to your feedback.

Thanks for the comment. I tried it again last night with just a wired headset (no inline mic; my cat destroyed that cord and I haven't gotten a replacement yet) and seeing if my phone mic would work. Still didn't get anywhere. I'm going to try again and see if I can get it actually working, lol. I do think it's a great idea for a language learning app.

[Cale Hunt]

Ah very cool. I have a friend who's attempting to learn German. I'll show him this and will give it a try myself when I feel inspired :P

[Chemy JMHT]

Please keep us posted about new releases and when it will come to Rift or some other platform

[Chemy JMHT]

I was just reading another review of this app here:

Hands-On With Learn Languages VR by Mondly | Digital Trends

So it's catching attention.

Hopefully I will have the next Samsung S8 + GeaVR to try it (only if I win the lottery).

[bootnick]

desperate to use this with Rift..is there any way???