Write here what kind of efficient learning tools you would like to become available in the next 5 years.

Oh, and be slightly realistic and rational!

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So I basically have this kind of a dream for a complete book-based language learning software/system.
Not sure about whether it will be realised though.

*About 10 000 parallel-text books in all difficulty levels to become available underground, all aligned by levels 1-13.
So every difficulty level has, lets say 100+ books to choose from.

Then somewhere, on an online book list of those same 10 000 books, people can give a rating (1-10) to the book they read, and comment on the book. In some months every difficulty level would have top 10 most interesting books rated by everyone. This way you could instantly choose from 5 books that are the most likely to be interesting=you can read the best material available for your level of Japanese.

Next step:
I would like this kind of a thing to become available for those same books, premade:
You take a parallel text (japanese and english) book file to yomichan( or something similar). The parallel text is cleanly divided by lines between each sentence, and it's parallel is on the other side. Then as you read it in yomichan, you can listen to this book as an audiobook at the same time . You can pause the audio when you need.

Then you look up meanings with yomichan and add words to anki.

+ There would be an option to make an audio track for every word and sentence that you add to your anki deck. And you could automatically choose what kind of a card you want to make in yomichan:
A kanji card?
A pronunciation practice card?
A vocab card?

And it would be automatically added to your specified Kanji, pronunciation or vocab deck.

Let's say you have the word 消火器.
And you decide to put it into all decks.

Afterwards:
1. you review it in a vocab deck, you learn to recognize the word.
2. production deck. The meaning of the word is given in english and you have to produce it in japanese.
3.You review it in the kanji deck, learn to WRITE it from memory.
4. pronunciation deck. You listen to the audio and repeat orally, and then rate it according to you inner feeling.

Then at the stage when your production deck has, lets say 100 mature cards, you take a list of those 100 words and write lang-8 entries, trying to use all those 100 words in your entries.

The natives correct your mistakes. You learn from your mistakes in the use of those words. And by having written an entry you reinforce producing these words.

Then, when your pronunciation cards are mature, you paste the entry to rhino-spike and upload a recording of you reading the entry. Then the native speaker records a correction for your reading.
You pronounce your mistakes once again, to be able to say your entry more naturally.

Then you log into skype and have your list of 100 words open...online or not.
Then tell to your literature-loving japanese friend that you're going to tell him about a book, or talk about a certain topic ( you're gonna be using the contents of your topic) or just talk about random stuff.

And then in the middle of talking you look at those 100 words and try to use them, every time you use a word in the conversation you put a tick after the word.

When all your 100 words have been used, you could pretty much say that you have successfully reinforced, and that you REALLY know 100 NEW words in terms of context, meaning, pronunciation, production and writing. And most probably the next time you encounter one of those words in a book, you will read it easily.
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Don't know whether "prophecize" is the best word to use...?

By the sound of it, to you, the future of language learning is... SRS? Flashcards are only useful if don't have access to a native speaker. As computers improve, they will eventually replace the role of native speakers in language learning, thereby eliminating the need for SRS. Or else it will be replaced by targeted practice or computer-generated discussions focusing on certain words.

I imagine tablets completely devoted to language learning and containing everything necessary to reach that goal -- several levels of one or many methods, a few manuals, dictionaries, grammars, books, recordings, videos, etc.

Later, I imagine engines capable of actually having a conversation and analyzing the speech of the learners to both correct errors (orally or simultaneously in writing) and suggest exercices and grammar entries to improve upon the weaknesses. The computer itself will be the teacher, capable of understanding your errors and weaknesses and adapting to your needs. It will be able to introduce new concept or word, and then having discussing using that material, correcting you as needed, putting extra emphasis on words you forget or use improperly, etc.

Admittedly, I might optimistic in the time scale.

AlexandreC Wrote:By the sound of it, to you, the future of language learning is... SRS? Flashcards are only useful if don't have access to a native speaker. As computers improve, they will eventually replace the role of native speakers in language learning, thereby eliminating the need for SRS. Or else it will be replaced by targeted practice or computer-generated discussions focusing on certain words.

I imagine tablets completely devoted to language learning and containing everything necessary to reach that goal -- several levels of one or many methods, a few manuals, dictionaries, grammars, books, recordings, videos, etc.

Later, I imagine engines capable of actually having a conversation and analyzing the speech of the learners to both correct errors (orally or simultaneously in writing) and suggest exercices and grammar entries to improve upon the weaknesses. The computer itself will be the teacher, capable of understanding your errors and weaknesses and adapting to your needs. It will be able to introduce new concept or word, and then having discussing using that material, correcting you as needed, putting extra emphasis on words you forget or use improperly, etc.

Admittedly, I might optimistic in the time scale.

This sounds like the stuff of science fiction.

No matter how many native speakers one has on hand, you'll still need to sit down and do the boring stuff like study grammar, memorise vocabulary and whatnot.

Small handheld computers as big as your palm that contain everything you need to learn a language in one place that adjust and shift with the learners ability and interest accessing a wealth of content all contained within a single computer (it will use nanomachines inserted into your brain at birth to achieve this.) The machine will be part teacher, part media center, part native speaker, part なになに all in one place.

(Do I watch too much Ghost in the Shell?)

I imagine a tablet thing too. More like the size of the the nook or iphone.

1) Camera on front and back for AR dictionary (put it over a word)
2) Textbooks are last century -- we need interactive texts with features like touching words for audio and a search function that when you see a word or phrase from the textbook it would search the internet to show examples.
3) Advanced SRS -- like seeing the larger picture from all your decks and other practice.
4) recommended material and music etc
5) Breaks down essays or song lyrics into words and phrases and puts them into a deck with the audio (that would be so epic)

＾basically my iPhone on steroids＾

gyuujuice Wrote:I imagine a tablet thing too. More like the size of the the nook or iphone.
5) Breaks down essays or song lyrics into words and phrases and puts them into a deck with the audio (that would be so epic)

When syncing a song using MyLyrics, if you slow windows media player down enough (ctrl+shift+S), you can isolate words, but it is sort of time consuming, but can sound ok. It's probably easier with Anime though, if it has a relatively slow pace.

Still automation is the future!

Can I have your iphone? Pretty please? >

I might try the above.

Also, something I was thinking about, but haven't posted up is MCD audio cards. Just have a [...] in the sentence you are doing and have three sentences with the same format (so you can't read the word off - same word in each). You have to listen for the word. On the back is the full sentence with the word that was missing. It might be good for training up grammar recognition in audio format.