Glossika - any good?

Japanese
#1

Hi there Bunpro pals!

Just wondering if any of you have used Glossika for Japanese. If so, how have you found it? what do you use it for (shadowing, listening practice, more example sentences)? how helpful do you think it is for a beginner?

A bit more info about me: I’ve already got a Glossika subscription (for Cantonese) so I am able to access it, but as I’m a Japanese beginner I can’t assess its accuracy or usefulness. I have noticed that it doesn’t clarify politeness levels though. I wouldn’t be using it as a sole resource: I’ve started みんなの日本語1 and am currently using bunpro for grammar and memrise for the MNN vocab.

TIA :blush:

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#2

Never heard of it before, but also curious if anyone has experience with it.

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#3

Never heard of it either, how’s your experience been so far? Good luck learning Canto! Despite living over there for a few years I never could pick it up, but maybe that was due to me being a teenager who just wanted to play at the arcade and mess about haha.

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#4

Thanks! I find it really helpful for Canto - I’m learning as a heritage speaker so more interested in learning to speak & listen, rather than read & write, so it’s been perfect for increasing my vocabulary and grammar constructions. There aren’t that many Canto resources available, and I’m also fortunate to know native speakers who can explain anything confusing that comes up, so all in all it works really well for me as my primary learning site.
However, I’m not sure how well these aspects translate across to Japanese. I think Canto grammar is more straightforward for English speakers (no conjugations of verbs or adjectives for persons/tense; SVO word order; etc.). I don’t know how intuitive Japanese grammar would be to pick up from sentences alone, and as translations tend to be more meanings-based rather than literal word-for-word it might be tricky to find the related Bunpro point if I haven’t come across that type of construction before. We’ll see I guess!

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#5

If you do end up trying the Japanese course for Glossika please share your experiences! It sounds interesting but the monthly price is expensive.

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#6

It’s still pretty horrible now, but I’m really glad more stuff is becoming available to learners like yourself! When I was there in ~2009, there was literally nothing except going to hole-in-the-walls with friends after school and trying to pick up on what the cooks were saying hahaha. Do you ever plan to go visit HK any time soon? If so, please feel free to reach out and I’d love to discuss it with you sometime! Best of luck in your language learning journeys though!

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#7

Hmmm…free 7 day trial O_O

Welp…free is free so I’ll give it a shot

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#8

I tried it a few years ago. I remember I thought it was great at first, but then I quickly got annoyed with it. Honestly I can’t remember exactly why I stopped, but I want to say it just felt slow and clunky after a while.

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#9

They have a large discount for students (requires a uni email address) but yes, it is sadly really expensive as they don’t offer plans for individual languages

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#10

Aw thank you, and likewise!! :blush: Would love to make it over to HK (and Japan ofc) soon, will have to see how the pandemic and border stuff goes. Best wishes for your language learning!

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#11

Well I gave Glossika a shot and…well I just don’t see myself using it. It’s not that it is bad or offensive or there is anything wrong with it. I just don’t see a point to it at all. It’s just someone saying sentences with a translation. Which isn’t bad or anything but you’d get the same thing by listening to anything in japanese with english subtitles. And with it’s expensive price tag I just do not see myself using it. That’s my review of it for you but I do understand I could easily be missing something. Also if you really just wanted sentences being spoken you could do that in anki for free.

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