More time for speech

While I am loving this course, something I'm having difficulty with as I progress through is the amount of time I have on the ‘Know It’ exercises. As the grammar gets more complex and the sentences get longer, giving users the same amount of time to say the sentence as a native speaker is frustrating. I try to line up my sentences before I speak, but I also want to practice pronouncing the words properly, which takes me more time than it does Claire. Often even when I think I've said the phrase in time the dictation shows that RocketLanguages has only caught half of what I said. Maybe I'm the only person have issues with this, but it would be nice to give learners a little bit more time to pull it all together on these sections.

Thank you for all the hard work and TLC that has been put into this course! I appreciate it!

Hi Dawn - Just confirming that you are referring to Play it, and not Know it?

Hi Jason!

I actually don't mind the limited time on ‘Play It’, since I assumed the object is to try to have a natural, flowing conversation and thus being rushed serves a purpose. My complaint is with the ‘Know It’ section with the longer sentences.

Thank you for responding so quickly!

Hi Dawn - It should be exactly the same time as the Rocket Record within the lesson itself. Can you give me an example of where you think it's different?

I'm working through some lessons today. When I come across what I am describing I'm going to record it and paste a link. Doing some Googling I also discovered that Chrome browsers seem to have some issues with RocketRecord, so it might be something specific to Chrome. I'll update when I have an example.

I have been posting from within a number of lessons on this problem. At times, it is physically impossible to speak quickly enough - and yes, I am very familiar with rapid-fire French, but even my sister-in-law, who is known among friends and family as «mitraillette» couldn't say some of the answers in the time allocated. I will keep posting as I come across them. There have also been occasions when I don't get a complete answer out but the system ‘awards’ me a correct and full response anyway. 

Hi MCK - I will look into the feedback you have reported. Can you post an example here please!

Best

Jason

MCK, I've also had the same problem of not even being done with my sentence and having it marked as correct! Jut curious, what browser are you using? I'm on Chrome (and using a Chrome book) and I'm wondering if it's an issue specific to the browser.

I'm also still working on getting a video example posted. I haven't come across any in a while, but when I get to a lesson with more complicated sentence structures I'm sure it will come up again.

Thanks Jason - unfortunately with the new (otherwise improved) reporting system for problems, I don't have a record of issues I have sent in. The only one I can note here without spending time presently re-doing lessons is in 11.2 (Renting an Apartment) where Eric says ‘et on va leur demander une caution peut-être plus élevée en raison du risque’ -  and the problem in this one was a little different. If spoken fluently, without hesitation there is (just) enough time to get the phrase in. However if slow, or even when I deliberately stopped dictating 3-4 words before the end, the system fairly regularly ‘completes’ the dictation and signifies it was correctly done. Hopefully you can also track down previous examples where totally insufficient time was allowed - I will post more if I revise some of them, or find new ones.

I don't think there's any question that the recording platform is clunky for everyone in the several ways mentioned. However, I believe the problems are inherent in the Google platform, and seriously doubt that there's anything Rocket can do about it. I'm just really grateful for a reasonably effective way to record and playback, and equally grateful that my progress does not actually depend upon the discrimination of the recording platform. The latter must never be allowed to happen.

My biggest frustration is with it's failure to record anything at all, as in, Sorry I didn't get that. It can be infuriating, and my mic and playback are both crystal clear. Aside from that, which is a rare glitch, I have ways to cope. As we all know, the recording will stop, not only if you pause, but also if you're not as fast as the tutor audio, or for some other unknown reason. So, for the re-enforcement activities, if the sentences are long, I may write them down and then read them to the recorder in order to beat its clock. Or, if I don't feel like doing that, I will rehearse them in my head and aloud until I'm satisfied, then just reveal the answer, and make my recording afterwards to check my pronunciation. Aside from that, I feel that I'm every bit as capable of deciding if what I would've said was correct. And, yes, oftentimes it will give you 100 for a wrong or incomplete answer, but I just laugh at it for that, since I don't trust it to tell me I'm right anymore than I trust it to tell me I'm wrong.

Occasionally, the platform will pick up on slight mispronunciations, which I'd fail to recognize - such as, lazy r's or missing liaisons - which is great! Especially since, where it stops recording or goes bonkers is often a clue as to where your pronunciation went awry. But ultimately, I feel that the evaluation of my recordings vis-a-vis the tutor audio is my responsibility and I need to be sufficiently critical.

I admit that I do scream at it and will probably end up with arthritis in my middle fingers from telling it what I think of it. However, I don't think it's constructive to let this tool frustrate or distract you to the extent that it hinders your progress, since, as in so much AI, the key word really is artificial, and the human oversight will nearly always be essential. And after all, when it does work the way it should, it's pretty darn cool.

Robert

I'd like to invest a few minutes in an effort to turn this discussion in a positive direction. First off:

Flashcards: Either I know very close to exactly what the English card says (marked easy) or I don't (marked hard). I could easily miss ½ of these, but ¼ to ⅓ is very encouraging.

Hear it Say it: If I can't discern what is being said well enough to repeat it correctly AND know exactly what it means, it's marked hard. I will normally miss ¼ to ⅓ here. I don't care what the voice recognition thinks unless it gives me a good clue on mispronunciation, which is not uncommon.

Write It: If I can't spell the French 100% correct, including accent marks, and except for honest typos, it is marked hard. Again, I will normally miss ¼ to ⅓ here. I also take the opportunity to record after the reveal. 

Know It: This can be hard, but I've also answered a lot of questions by now. Any mistakes or omissions, and it gets marked hard.

So, here's my constructive comment for Know It. Assuming I know the French translation, what I've learned to do is rehearse the French with my eyes closed until I have it down pat. I only look at the English so long as I need to in order to memorize the translation. I go over and over it in my head with my eyes closed, then, with my eyes still closed, I record. Hopefully the voice recognition doesn't shaft me, but if it does, I still know exactly what I said, and maybe try again, or if it's being really lame, I simply reveal.

I find this worthwhile for two reasons: 1) Trying to say the French under pressure while looking at the English can cause you to lose your train of French thought and confuse you. 2) I believe that it leads me to spend more time actually thinking in French, instead of translating. It occurs to me that this is what's taking place when I say it repeatedly with my eyes closed. I think what I want to say, and I only see French. Eventually I "see" the entire sentence before my closed eyes, and just “read” it.

And, of course, I go back through all the exercises that were marked hard, and repeat the process until I know everything, and it's likely to take three iterations for a challenging lesson.

If anyone is interested, I'd like to know what others think.

Robert