Primlo App – Learn Spoken Chinese with Audio Sentences

[Yang Chuanzhang]

Primlo is a new app that helps you learn spoken Chinese.

 

When you use Primlo, you choose from a library of packs and courses with topics like "Renting", "Arguing" or "House Parties" which contain sentences written and recorded by a native speaker. You then you study the sentences in your packs in our study mode. The first time you see a new sentence, Primlo will ask you which words are new to you and teach you those first before quizzing you on the whole sentence.

 

After you've learned the sentences, you can practice them in our speaking mode which includes shadowing, passive listening and a recording mode in which you can compare yourself to the original.

 

Finally, we are working on a chat in which you can apply your new knowledge while talking with a native speaker through audio messages.

 

Here are some more features of the app:

 

- Useful, fun, spoken Chinese, we are allergic to boring

- Thousands of sentences in dozens of packs with more being added constantly

- You have complete freedom in choosing what topics you want to learn about...

- ...but can also choose from our more structured courses

- Right now, we have one foundation course with another one almost done (should be up in a few days) that follow the structure of the Yip/Rimmington books and that take you through Chinese grammar with sentences specifically written according to the particularities of Chinese grammar

 

 

It's currently iOS only but we are hard at work at making an Android version. Primlo will be free during our open beta but we do plan to eventually charge for it.

 

I'll be responding in this thread but we also have a blog that you can check out here. We think it's sad that pretty much all the Chinese learning blogs have disappeared and we have some cool posts in the pipeline!

 

I'm grateful for any kind of feedback you have, especially things you think we could improve. It's still a little buggy and we are working on ways around the GFW, but we wanted to get something out as soon as possible and hear what everybody thinks. Sorry if Primlo crashes on you and thanks for trying it out!

 

Primlo on the App Store

 

[wibr]

That looks pretty good! I couldn't find any support traditional characters. Anything planned?

 

Edit1:

- I would always add a linebreak between question and answer

- Make the rating buttons for the flashcard a little larger and not that close to the bottom

- I think most apps ignore the silent mode of the phone if you explicitly click to play something, currently if you tap Play and the phone is silent nothing happens, so I would at least display a message

- Cool that you have some kind of stroke input for the characters, although it's a little too easy to guess strokes correctly

 

Edit2:

- The audio auto plays for every single test for every word in the sentence that I am currently studying, I think that once per sentence is sufficient, if I want to hear it again I can press Play myself

- When I leave the app (even just for a second), the state is not restored to what I would expect (It jumps back to the main menu showing the blue Study button but not the sentence I was currently studying)

- I think the speed and quality of the audio is good, although the speaker sounds a little tired :-)

- The rotating flower on the website is a little distracting

- Any plans to add support for Pleco?

- Some things could be a bit more transparent, like the study progress, there is a progress bar in the library but I think the library should be the place where you manage your packs and the Study area should show the progress somewhere...

 

Conclusion for now, a lot of potential and since it's still a free beta I would say a very good start.

[onebir]

"follow the structure of the Yip/Rimmington books and that take you through Chinese grammar with sentences specifically written according to the particularities of Chinese grammar"

 

Both books?

[OneEye]

I played around with it pre-release, a few weeks ago. It's very cool, lots of potential. 

[imron]

Looking at the last picture - You have tone marks as the answer choices, why not also use tone marks for question: yǐn vs yin3

 

(tone numbers are a pet peeve of mine)

[Flickserve]

Just downloaded but can't open the app in iOS 8.1.3

[stapler]

I had a quick look. I think this is a good idea and a good app. If I was personally to use it however I'm not sure how much I could get out of it. How much of the content do you envisage will be beginner level (like it is now) and how much will be more advanced?

 

Also, minor note, in the one module I tried I saw this sentence: 你有什麼興趣愛好嗎？ - is it a mistake having both 什麼 and 嗎?

[Yang Chuanzhang]

@wibr, Thanks for all your feedback!

 

That looks pretty good! I couldn't find any support traditional characters. Anything planned?

 

Absolutely, this is the next feature we want to release. We already have the data in our db, it's just a question of implementing it in the app.

 

 

The audio auto plays for every single test for every word in the sentence that I am currently studying, I think that once per sentence is sufficient, if I want to hear it again I can press Play myself

 

What I'm thinking right now is to auto play the word that the question is about instead of the whole sentence.

 

 

Any plans to add support for Pleco?

 

Definitely something I'd like to add but I haven't looked into it so far.

 

 

@onebir

 

Both books?

 

 I'm putting the final touches on the second Foundation course, once that's online (hopefully tomorrow or the day after), Foundation 1 and Foundation 2 will cover "Basic Chinese" and "Intermediate Chinese", yes 

 

 

@imron:

 

Looking at the last picture - You have tone marks as the answer choices, why not also use tone marks for question: yǐn vs yin3

 

(tone numbers are a pet peeve of mine)

 

The reason I didn't use tone marks initially was that they make the neutral tone the default answer and it might confuse some people if they tap on the neutral tone button and nothing happens but the more I think about it the less I think that's an issue. Might change it, thanks for the suggestion!

 

 

@Flickserve:

 

Just downloaded but can't open the app in iOS 8.1.3

 

Does it crash on start up about two seconds after you open it? We have been having problems with this bug, so far it seems to be completely random, I'll submit a new version tonight that should at least help track it down. It would be really cool if you could try the next version and tell me what happens. Sorry it hasn't worked for you so far!

 

 

@stapler:

 

I had a quick look. I think this is a good idea and a good app. If I was personally to use it however I'm not sure how much I could get out of it. How much of the content do you envisage will be beginner level (like it is now) and how much will be more advanced?

 

Thanks for the honest feedback! The second foundation course will be around intermediate to upper intermediate level with about 1200 sentences including around 50 sentences each for 把, 了, serial and causative constructions and other grammar points learners on this level typically struggle with. We also plan to eventually add some more advanced grammar packs.

 

For our topic packs, Lei just writes normal sentences she would say without thinking about difficulty levels.

 

 

Also, minor note, in the one module I tried I saw this sentence: 你有什麼興趣愛好嗎？ - is it a mistake having both 什麼 and 嗎?

 

It's not a mistake, 什麼 in this sentence means "any", the whole sentence means "Do you have any hobbies?"

[Flickserve]

@Yang

I am using it on an iPhone. I open it and within 1 second of the page with the icon displayed, it then closes.

[imron]

and it might confuse some people if they tap on the neutral tone button and nothing happens

The easiest way to solve this is to make something happen - a small shake/animation, a tick/cross that fades in/out, vibrating the phone, etc.

[Yang Chuanzhang]

I just released version 0.13.0 which uses diacritics instead of tone numbers (I updated the screen shot in the original post).

Primlo also doesn't auto-quit when the app is interrupted or closed now.

Thanks again for all the feedback, I'll work on properly handling the mute button today. Within the next two or three weeks, I'll enable the Chat feature which I think is perhaps the coolest part of Primlo.

 

@Flickserve: The new version might help with the crashing although I'm still at a loss as to why it happens.

 

I also just added another pack, "At the Doctor's", with 43 sentences that you might hear or say in a Chinese hospital.

If you have any topics you'd like to learn about, please let me know and we'll try to add them to Primlo.

[Flickserve]

@Yang,

Uninstalled the previous version, downloaded the update version, switched off phone, switched on and .... No change......a real pity

[mouse]

This looks good, but I wasn't able to add any packs to my library, nor was I able to play sentence audio. I kept getting a "can't connect to server" error message. Closed app, restarted phone, but no change.

[Yang Chuanzhang]

Hey mouse, thanks for trying out the app. Are you in China by any chance?

 

Flickserve, I'm trying everything I can think of to find the reason for these crashes right now. I'll let you know once I've gotten it fixed and sorry again for Primlo not working yet.

[mouse]

 

Are you in China by any chance?

 

No, UK.

[mouse]

Deleted the app, re-downloaded it, now it seems to work ok. Still quite buggy, but it does what it needs to do eventually. Am enjoying it so far.

[Yang Chuanzhang]

@mouse: Glad to hear it's working for you now!

 

@onebir: The second Foundation course which follows the structure of "Intermediate Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook" is online now, just uploaded it.

[Flickserve]

Hey mouse, thanks for trying out the app. Are you in China by any chance?

Flickserve, I'm trying everything I can think of to find the reason for these crashes right now. I'll let you know once I've gotten it fixed and sorry again for Primlo not working yet.

thanks for trying. I tried again last night but still no success.

[abhoriel]

I would definitely be up for testing the android version once it's ready. Do let me know

[Yang Chuanzhang]

We just released a big update that unifies most of the interface into a new dashboard that shows statistics and gives access to all major functions that Primlo has. I've attached a screenshot to this post, please let us know what you think.

 

@abhoriel

 

Absolutely, I'll let you know once we have something ready, thanks for your interest!