93 lines
4.8 KiB
Markdown
93 lines
4.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Fun Spaced Repetition"
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date: 2023-07-25T16:23:26+02:00
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tags: ["sharing", "language learning", "knowledge"]
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---
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## Introduction
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In this post I wanted to share some ideas about language learning gamification
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with my fellow internet readers. Why? because I think they are worth a thought
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or two. I believe they have the potential to improve the language learning
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field and make it more fun to learn languages (if done right). But honestly,
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not just the language learning field.. any field that can be studied through
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spaced repetition in an efficient manner.
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My ideas revolve around an imaginary game that would implement spaced
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repetition in a fun and engaging/competitive way. The whole chain of thoughts
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about this started a year ago, when I wanted to build a fork of osu!lazer that
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would help you study japanese. I did not think of integrating any spaced
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repetition at that time though. I merely tried to replace numbers of each
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circle with random japanese characters before giving up.
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But 1-2 months ago it struck me: "Why is not there still a game for studying
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kanji/words?". Think about it, there is [all sorts of games for the two japanese
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alphabets](https://www.google.com/search?q=hiragana+katakana+game+&source=hp&ei=Bua_ZP_3Ec_kxc8P9JmWEA&iflsig=AD69kcEAAAAAZL_0Fhj46CgfzQMiCdzipSQwqpw1DRol&ved=0ahUKEwj_kpadkqqAAxVPcvEDHfSMBQIQ4dUDCAk&uact=5&oq=hiragana+katakana+game+&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6IhdoaXJhZ2FuYSBrYXRha2FuYSBnYW1lIDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgYQABgWGB4yBhAAGBYYHjIGEAAYFhgeMgYQABgWGB4yCBAAGIoFGIYDMggQABiKBRiGAzIIEAAYigUYhgMyCBAAGIoFGIYDSNQYUABYnBhwAXgAkAEAmAHjAaABhRSqAQY4LjEzLjG4AQPIAQD4AQHCAgsQLhiABBjHARjRA8ICBRAuGIAEwgIIEC4YgAQY1ALCAg4QLhiABBjHARivARiYBcICBxAAGIAEGAo&sclient=gws-wiz)
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(katakana and hiragana). Both of them can be learned in a relatively short
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period of time. After you learn them you usually move to kanji or vocabulary
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building - the step that takes the longest (usually 3-6 years from what I have
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heard).
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So why is every developer focusing on those two alphabets, that represent a
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mere 2-3% of the whole learning material (excluding grammar, language
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immersion, etc.)?
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I say there should be more focus on the other 98% of the language - which is
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where the main problem lies.
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## Ideas
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This is where the fun begins. It is time that we, as people, stand up and build
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something that will be fun and engaging.
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It does not have to be osu! level addiction. It just has to be fun and keep the
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user coming back. Allow me to (finally) share some examples:
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- Game similar to Space Invaders where vocabulary words are falling from the
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top of the player's screen. The player has to guess their meaning by typing
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the correct translation of the word, or picking a choice. If the correct
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choice is made, points are awarded. Else the player looses points.
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- Multiplayer website where a group of friends can challenge each other by
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doing reviews of spaced repetition cards. When a player selects a choice
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correctly, they have the freedom to select the question card for the next
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person. Whoever fails gets disqualified. Essentially creating a fireball
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game.
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- 2D multiplayer open world game where players get rewarded by doing small
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routines like arraging foreign vocabulary with translations, rephrasing
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sentences, etc.
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- Uno (website) alternative where each card has a (spaced repetition) word
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attached to it. Essentially allowing players to match cards together by
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vocabulary as well.
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- Chess (website) alternative that allows players to combine attacks from
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points that they earn by selecting correct translations of foreign words
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that popup during gameplay.
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- (Feeling inspired yet? [Hit me up!](mailto:jerebicakevin@gmail.com))
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At this point, the only limit is truly the imagination.
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## Development
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I am honestly surprised at the fact that nobody has built something like this so
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far. There is of course
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[KanaInvaders](https://learnjapanesepod.com/kana-invaders/), which is where a
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good part of my inspiration comes from.. but as I have said earlier, we have to
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focus on the other 98%.
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I would be super glad to see more people open up to those ideas, team up, and
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create amazing open-source projects that will make learning so much more fun!
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---
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At the time of writing this post, I have started working on
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[MonR](https://github.com/0xdeadbeer/monr) (spaced repetition backend for
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games/apps), [MonW](https://github.com/0xdeadbeer/monw) (the first Unity
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example game that implements MonR), and some other projects that are yet to
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come on Github.
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At this point, any help is indispensable - because I am afraid I will not be
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able to keep it up alone. Therefore, if you want to contribute, and you know
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you have some will power within you, I say do not hesitate to spread the word,
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[hit me up](mailto:jerebicakevin@gmail.com), or do some passive contributions
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directly on the mentioned repositories.
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Thank you. Cheers
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