Hi,
David here.
Hilokal is designed to help language learners speak their target language. It turns out, one of the best things we can do to help you improve your speaking, is just give you an opportunity to speak.
It's truly amazing how fluent learners get on Hilokal. We've given you an audio connection and language partners, then you did all the hard work. You studied by yourself, and practiced speaking. You made friends. You asked and answered questions and shared your story. You took control of your learning journey. Nice 😎
How can we at Hilokal do more to help you improve? Well, we can recommend partners that you'd like to talk with. We can find Trainers that give great lessons and foster a culture of learning on Hilokal. We can manage the community, and remove abusive behaviour so you can focus on learning. We can fix annoying glitches and bugs so your talk time is uninterrupted. We're working on all that, all the time.
But still, it seems like we can do more. As a language learner myself, some days I feel like I'm really progressing my Korean speaking skills, but somedays I feel like I'm not progressing at all, or even moving backwards. I don't like having this uncertainty about my language learning progress. How do I know my speaking practice is paying off?
Word count feature
We might have a solution to this problem. Our latest attempt to help language learners on Hilokal improve their speaking skills is the word count feature. This feature is exactly as it sounds - it counts the words you know how to speak. Pretty simple, right?
If I speak the English sentence on Hilokal, "Hello, my name is David". These 5 words will be added to my personal word list:
- hello
- my
- name
- is
- David
In Korean, "저는 데이빗이에요", I'll get 3 words added to my list:
- 저
- 데이빗
- 이다
Of course, you can toggle on and off the word count feature at anytime, and your word list is private.
There are a number of really exciting things that come out of this word list.
First, I can measure my progress. Even on those days where I feel like i'm standing still, or moving backwards, I can see that I'm making progress towards my speaking goals. Of course, the number of words you can speak doesn't exactly mean you're beginner, intermediate or advanced. But, if you can speak 3000 words, it's a pretty good signal you've improved from when you could only speak 1000 words.
Next, I can get insights about my speaking habits. I've been using this word count beta feature and can see the frequency of different words I'm using. I saw that I use the word '이제' in Korean, which means 'now'. I usually use this word when I'm thinking of what to say next. I use it almost like 'uh' or 'hmm'. I had no idea I had this bad habit, but now with the word count, I can get insights into my speaking habits. This is just one small example of the insight I can get. As this feature develops, I can get vocabulary suggestions, grammar corrections, pronunciation training, and more.
There is a lot of potential for the word count feature, but there are also many challenges. The accuracy of voice transcription is especially difficult. As second language speakers, sometimes our words will be misunderstood. We are working hard to improve transcription accuracy. This is also the reason we are only supporting English and Korean for the word count feature. Of course we hope to expand to many other languages in the future.
Another challenge is knowing which features to put effort into, and which features to ignore. Is it helpful to track my language progress? Or is it more helpful to get insights and feedback? Is it better to see updates to my word count while on a call? Or is it better to view my word count after I'm done the call? These are just a few questions among many that we are excited to answer with your help.
We are looking for enthusiastic beta testers who can help us develop the word count feature. The best beta testers are those who can see potential in this feature and are happy to give daily, honest feedback. They are also patient for bugs, slow updates, and mistakes along the way. And for now, we are only accepting beta testers with a target language of English or Korean and we're prioritizing premium users.
Apply
To apply for this beta test, please fill out this google form. We'll send instructions on how to use the feature, via direct message in Hilokal.
To stay up to date on this word count feature, check in on my Twitter/ X profile here.
Thank you,
David
