Beta Test Language Learning Software: Voice and Tone Recognition

[tck921]

Hello everyone,

My name is Tom and I work for Qooco Chinese. We are developing voice and tone recognition software for Chinese learning and are currently looking for beta testers to try out the software. I have attached some screen shots of our lessons.

Ideally, we are looking for serious learners who will be willing to give valuable feedback on what we have to offer. All active testers will receive subscriptions to Qooco's lessons after the test and have the chance to win an iPhone 3GS.

You can apply to become a beta tester by clicking on the following link

http://csp.qooco.com/index_csp/index.page

If you have any questions, please email beta@qooco.com

Thanks,

Tom

ad allowed as they asked nicely. Admin

[roddy]

I've got a few free premium accounts for Qooco Chinese to give away if anyone's interested - ideally to anyone who's a regular poster on here, and is a beginning / elementary student; but everyone is welcome to ask if they want to take a look. The idea of course is that you then provide some useful feedback both for members on here and the Qooco folks themselves. Not sure how long the accounts are valid for either, but should presumably be long enough for you to have a good look at the service.

Drop me a line via the contact form if you're interested. Limited number of accounts, so be quick . . .

From the email I got this morning:

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Here are just a few of the things we have on the site now.

1.)Voice recognition interactive lessons: 3 lesson packages, over 80 lessons and 800 unique exercises.

2.)Tone pair lessons: Practice your tones on two character words. Currently only the premium tone package has tone pairs.

3.)Audio Lessons: Currently, we have audio lessons for the Foundation Chinese level. These audio lessons are free for everyone.

4.)Our first youtube video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjMkWNz-UJY

If would like to stress that while we are confident in the quality of our system, we do not view our lessons as infallible pronunciation tools. We think that the true value of the system lies in the fact that it provides a platform and environment for you to speak Chinese. Actually opening you mouth and speaking Mandarin is invaluable practice that a lot of language students just don't get. We are confident that after going through some of exercises a few times, you will see improvement in your language fluency, vocabulary retention and confidence.

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[tck921]

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to say that Qooco is using a new url now. Please go to www.qoocochinese.com to sign in.

Best,

Tom

[Yogi Han]

Some thoughts on Qooco. It is a website with great potential for early learners (Like me...) and offers things I haven't seen elsewhere. Their technology for rating the accuracy of pronunciation will be a real killer--when it works properly every time. At the moment there are still problems setting the right sound volume for recording and properly determining the start of words.

Also, there are many different exercises for each lesson, and each exercise must be clicked on and then loaded into a kind of side application. The side app has to be installed before you can use the exercises, and as you install it, the system gives a worrying warning that the app is being given unrestricted access to your computer--a serious security issue.

Next, each exercise has to load across the internet, and these are not small files. I'm an impatient learner, and found myself leaving the site as each exercise loaded. My feeling is that they will find ways to improve the usability of the site, but for now, rate it a really promising beta.