From owner-conlang@diku.dk Wed Jan 24 16:04:08 1996 Received: from odin.diku.dk (daemon@odin.diku.dk [130.225.96.221]) by locke.ccil.org (8.6.9/8.6.10) with ESMTP id QAA16297 for ; Wed, 24 Jan 1996 16:04:05 -0500 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by odin.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) id VAA24607 for conlang-outgoing; Wed, 24 Jan 1996 21:13:32 +0100 Received: from access1.digex.net (ql/6O0AY1b.Cw@access1.digex.net [205.197.245.192]) by odin.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA24596 for ; Wed, 24 Jan 1996 21:13:21 +0100 Received: (from lojbab@localhost) by access1.digex.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) id PAA00829 ; for ; Wed, 24 Jan 1996 15:13:15 -0500 Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 15:13:15 -0500 From: Logical Language Group Message-Id: <199601242013.PAA00829@access1.digex.net> To: mmg@risc.iris.firenze.it Subject: Re: CONLANG: Re: Project for a "lexicon exerciser" Cc: conlang@diku.dk Sender: owner-conlang@diku.dk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Logical Language Group Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1510 >Have I to wait for someone to come up with "a sophisticated flash card >algorithm" program for each of them? What about those who have no net access? > >Why not to have a basic engine to flesh up with a handful of words (or an >entire dictionary, if there is time and mind!) of the language I want to >practice today? > LogFlash was specifically designed to be usable for other langauges as well. There are some limitations, but it is a general tool (I used it some in my Russian studies, for example). The main problem with any general tool being applied to specific languages is the devising of the language-specific data files. And that is where you will have major problems. It takes enormous amounts of time to do a data file that is good for teaching, and from what I have seen on conlang, i suspect that many of the conlang proposals that get written never even put that much time into developing the conlang in the first place. The LogFlash gismu list file has had perhaps as much as a half a person-year put into it, since we made the flash card word list also the central focus word list for the whole language design. Whereas some conlang proposals seem to get created and forgotten within a couple of months of spare time effort. With no particular insult intended, for example, the more-thorogh-than-average Ferengi proposal has had only a fraction of the work put into it that any of the Lojban word lists had - and that is for the whole language. lojbab