Sister of clozemaster

Language Learning
#1

I remember finding through this forum a sister site of Clozemaster that I wanted to try. I think it lets you type full sentences. (I know about the full text mode and that’s not what I am referring to.) It was definitely created by creators or Clozemaster. Is anyone familiar with it and can you help me find it again?

#2

The Great Translation Game

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#3

That is it! Thank you.

Has anyone used it extensively? Any thoughts?

I hope they offer lifetime purchase of pro at some point. Will try to free version for now.

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#4

Unrelated but perhaps also of interest: https://www.commonear.com

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#5

I just checked it out. Interesting! It seems very basic but gets the job done. The native speakers eat some of the words like in real life, so it will be good practice.

I couldn’t help but crack up upon reading that it was recommending beginners get started on Duolingo, then Clozemaster before trying Common Ear.

Thank you for the intro!

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#6

I’m doing it daily and by now I went through about 70% (out of 1200) of the modern Greek sentences. I also checked the ones in my native language (Polish) and some other languages I know relatively well. The sentences seem to be drawn from texts that are available online (probably Project Gutenberg or something similar). That means that they are coming from old fairy tales, XIX century novels, the Bible, etc. This is the opposite of Clozemaster, which is based mostly on Tatoeba sentences, which are created by users.

Pros:

  • being able to hear natives is very useful for developing the ability to understand their way of speaking
  • it’s very useful for practicing correct spelling
  • the free account gives you between 5-15 sentences per day (it says 5, but I usually get 10, sometimes even 15), which is more than enough, unless you want to review old sentences - I don’t, because of the cons below

Cons:

  • huge part of the sentences is written in obsolete, outdated language - in case of modern Greek, it means lots of words from Katharevousa (a formal, conservative variety of Modern Greek that was used until 1976) and regional dialects that are either not in general use, or they have various spelling that aren’t used nowadays
  • same in Polish, many forms used there are archaic and would be considered incorrect if used in modern context
  • the translations are machine made, so some expressions are translated literally and make no sense. Also some synonyms are wrongly translated
  • sometimes there are tiny differences between what’s written and what’s being said, which can be very confusing
  • quite a lot of missing accents in modern Greek
  • until recently there was no option of reporting mistakes - now there is, but I wouldn’t count on them being fixed, since none of the mistakes I ever reported over the years on Clozemaster has been corrected

All in all, I’d say it can be potentially useful, although limited to listening & spelling practice only. It will not teach you much useful vocabulary or phrases, but I guess this wasn’t the goal, as that’s what we have Clozemaster for. So, as a free resource it’s ok, but I wouldn’t pay for it if I had to.

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