Decode Chinese: We are building the future of Chinese education (Kickstarter coming soon)

[Jonathan-Decode]

Early access signup: https://bit.ly/decode-early-access

 

Hey everyone, Jonathan from Decode here. Two years ago, we started as a university research project with the goal of drastically reducing the time and barriers to fluency in Chinese. 

 

Today, we’re excited to finally go public with a platform that pushes the boundaries of digital language learning. Decode draws on the wisdom of the crowd to comprehensively map out languages in an incredibly detailed and structured way. With Taiwan and mainland Mandarin Chinese as the first supported languages, the Decode platform is built upon a powerful, data-driven linguistic framework that will supercharge a new generation of learning services.

 

Imagine a platform that understands the full complexity of your target language, with vocab, pronunciations, and grammar all tagged by region, formality, and frequency. Imagine a multilingual dictionary that links specific senses of words to precise translations in countless other languages. Imagine a collaborative, ever-expanding language database where contributors are rewarded and recognized for their hard work. Imagine SRS flashcards that are rapidly customizable and truly personalized, created instantly through accessing a common pool of comprehensive, reliable data. Decode is all of this, and more.

 

Learn more about Decode on our website or our Kickstarter page, and let us know your thoughts and questions here!

[becky82]

You haven't mentioned any features that don't already exist in Pleco (and users can contribute via Pleco Forums).  What are you doing that's new?  It sounds like you're trying to make another Wiktionary (+ads), which isn't terribly good.

 

Is this yet another app which downloads the freely available databases (definitions in English, word frequencies, character drawings) and makes an app out of it?

 

What is the license for user contributions?  I doubt many experts are willing to become your unpaid employees.

 

"translations in countless other languages" sounds like developer time is spent on things irrelevant to someone learning Chinese.

[Jan Finster]

On 6/16/2022 at 10:42 PM, Jonathan-Decode said:

Jonathan...

 

Jonathan, it is great to hear you are trying to add something beneficial to the language learning community.

 

Having said that, you badly need to work on your elevator pitch. This post was lots of boastful words, but I still have zero idea what you are doing. This raises lots of alarm bells.

[889]

Brings to mind that Chinese language startup with the cute-looking speaker discussed here a few years ago.

[Moshen]

I took the time to read through the complete "coming soon" announcement for Decode on the website, and I don't have a clue why I should care about your app.

 

I do get that you're intending to be a kind of Wikipedia for Chinese, but again I don't understand concretely how that would benefit me.

 

My suggestion - and I'm truly trying to be helpful here - is to create profiles for a range of users, such as beginning Chinese student, intermediate Chinese student, advanced and teacher - and explain for each, to each, how your app will make their lives easier.

 

You need to understand that here you're the latest person to come on to this forum spewing what seems on a closer look to be a lot of hot air.  If you can win over this group of skeptics, you have a good chance at success.  If not...