How I taught English and programming at the same time
Six years ago, I was 43 years old, and I could not program at all. Well, maybe a little bit at BASIC, which was taught at the institute, as you understand, a long time ago.
In the bookstore, the book “Programming for iPhone / iPad” caught my eye and, being an inquisitive person, I decided to try. I bought the book, MacBook Air (I already had an iPad), installed XCode and started with examples from the book. When I got a general idea of ​​how things work, I wanted to do something useful. Since it is very useful, or rather even necessary, for the programmer to know English, I decided to create such an application.
Immediately came to mind a program for learning English since the time of Windows 98 called Triple Play Plus. There is absolutely no translation in it and many of the most necessary words and expressions that are proposed to be memorized with the help of pictures and simple, fascinating games. My children, when they were still schoolchildren, loved to play it and learned a lot of words and expressions, which were very useful to us on trips abroad.
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The program asked for the tablet, and I enthusiastically set about creating it. But faced with the harsh reality, I realized how little I still have the knowledge and experience, as well as a monstrous amount of work waiting for me. It was simply unrealistic, and I, having made only one screen, left this idea. It was completely uninteresting to create different calculators or players from programming lessons and I abandoned this business for a long time.
In August 2012, my wife and I flew to Thailand, deciding to spend the whole winter there. In order not to idle around all this time, we signed up for English language courses, the level of which we had at that time was like most of our compatriots, that is, zero. We must pay tribute to our teachers Angie, an Englishwoman and John to an American, as well as to the authors of the Direct Method, for the very first month we remembered and learned to pronounce an incredible amount of words and expressions. But going out into the street, where there are a lot of Americans and British trying to talk with them, we understood that we did not understand anything and we couldn’t explain anything to them.
Congestion, stiffness, uncertainty accumulated. It was necessary to do something with it. One friend advised me to watch Dmitry Petrov's “Polyglot” program and download the simulator application. We looked, downloaded, practiced - go out on the street - we can not speak, the language in your mouth is like a stone. I feel that I need to train speech, develop a language, but with whom? Who will be able to listen to my muffled moans for a long time, and how can I understand it is clear whether I said or not? The solution is obvious:
Firstly, there is no embarrassment and fear of speaking. Secondly, you can torture him as long as you like, until you get bored. And most importantly - the confidence that you speak is understandable. If you understand the device with speech recognition, then people will understand all the more.
Googling a bit, I found the English Speech Recognition Library for iOS and the open source demo application. Again, enthusiasm! He took out a dusty MacBook, downloaded an example, played with it to figure out the code for what he was responsible for, renamed it to Polyglot Sound and began reworking it into a Polyglot voice simulator.
Approximately within a week, by trial, error and artistic spell, working 12-15 hours a day, I created a working prototype that could be used for training. It was necessary only to fill it with Russian phrases and sound tracks and the corresponding English. I found some phrases on the Internet, partly from the Polyglot app I used to study before.
For about a month or two, I filled out the application with phrases lesson by lesson and at the same time tested and trained. Trained and wife. During this time, we developed the muscles of the tongue and associated with it in such a way that the courses took the lead, and on the street my hitherto more than modest spouse, who even hesitated to ask something in the store, chatted with might and main and flirted with by the Americans.
I did not expect this effect, and, having found nothing of the kind in the App Store, I decided to prepare and upload my first application there. I did not think then that this would require more time and effort from me than mastering the English language.
The hardest thing I stumbled upon is design. Everyone knows how attentively Apple refers to the design of applications, so the first version of my application with a clumsy, acute-angled design was immediately rejected by the censors. But the second and third and fourth and fifth ... the same fate awaited. I had to come up thoroughly, learn Photoshop, buy a program that allows you to draw with Objective-C code, develop a concept, select a background, and cover it with translucent clouds with hints. You understand how difficult it is for a person who does all this for the first time. It took a lot of time and effort, accepted my work when we returned to Russia, that is, a little less than a year later. But still I look at my first application, and I like it. Thanks to the moderators of Apple (how I swore them!) For achieving such results from me.
Succinctly, nothing superfluous, completely voice control and just one button - everything as I like. After receiving the green light in the App Store, I set the price at $ 4 and started preparing for the release of a free light version of the application containing only the first lesson, reasonably believing that “who will buy the cat in the bag? We need to give people a try. ” What was my surprise when a month later I saw about $ 300 on my account. As it turned out later, while the transfer of Polyglot was a huge success, a very large number of people who wanted to download applications and a small number of competitors in the App Store. Now everything is not so rosy: my application slid down, sales are few, there are a lot of apps on Polyglot in the App Store, although the voice simulator is still the only one, my Polyglot Sound .
If the ability to produce well-constructed English phrases without thinking is a merit of the Polyglot Sound application, then vocabulary, idioms, the ability to read, write, and deep knowledge of grammar (yes, it’s really easy to learn English grammar to the end, unlike Russian) is a merit of the Direct Method in which we were engaged in Thailand. And my next application was Direct English . In it, I tried to imitate the real course with a native speaker as much as possible. Three books, about a hundred lessons, a picture of almost every word or phrase, 38 dictations, a year of daily work, just a huge amount of material, and I think I did it.
The application is very simple to use, it does not give the user any choice: read means reading, dictation means dictation. Everything is like on courses. The only thing that the user can choose is the voice (American, British or Australian) and the pace of speech.
Having already had some experience, after four years, I returned to the idea of ​​developing an application for the program Triple Play Plus. Having opened an abandoned project, I was horrified, smiled, deleted it and started a new one, calling it Play English . I did even more than it was in the original, added adjectives of adverbs and verbs, the forms of irregular verbs in the game Bingo were assimilated easily and imperceptibly, added a pronunciation simulator, dictations of grammatical tasks on Polyglot. It turned out the most voluminous of my applications, but it made it possible for people of any nationality to start learning English almost from scratch and achieve an acceptable level to start language practice.
If you are interested in learning more about learning English, this can be done on my website .
In conclusion, I would like to say that you can learn how to develop mobile applications without special education, if you have an idea that is able to captivate you. Although, looking back, I would not say that it is easy. Along the way, I found out that you need to study exclusively in practice, be it a foreign language or the creation of mobile applications. In the first case, you just need to start talking, in the second - start programming. I hope that my article will be useful to someone. Thank.
In the bookstore, the book “Programming for iPhone / iPad” caught my eye and, being an inquisitive person, I decided to try. I bought the book, MacBook Air (I already had an iPad), installed XCode and started with examples from the book. When I got a general idea of ​​how things work, I wanted to do something useful. Since it is very useful, or rather even necessary, for the programmer to know English, I decided to create such an application.
Immediately came to mind a program for learning English since the time of Windows 98 called Triple Play Plus. There is absolutely no translation in it and many of the most necessary words and expressions that are proposed to be memorized with the help of pictures and simple, fascinating games. My children, when they were still schoolchildren, loved to play it and learned a lot of words and expressions, which were very useful to us on trips abroad.
')
The program asked for the tablet, and I enthusiastically set about creating it. But faced with the harsh reality, I realized how little I still have the knowledge and experience, as well as a monstrous amount of work waiting for me. It was simply unrealistic, and I, having made only one screen, left this idea. It was completely uninteresting to create different calculators or players from programming lessons and I abandoned this business for a long time.
Three years have passed
In August 2012, my wife and I flew to Thailand, deciding to spend the whole winter there. In order not to idle around all this time, we signed up for English language courses, the level of which we had at that time was like most of our compatriots, that is, zero. We must pay tribute to our teachers Angie, an Englishwoman and John to an American, as well as to the authors of the Direct Method, for the very first month we remembered and learned to pronounce an incredible amount of words and expressions. But going out into the street, where there are a lot of Americans and British trying to talk with them, we understood that we did not understand anything and we couldn’t explain anything to them.
Congestion, stiffness, uncertainty accumulated. It was necessary to do something with it. One friend advised me to watch Dmitry Petrov's “Polyglot” program and download the simulator application. We looked, downloaded, practiced - go out on the street - we can not speak, the language in your mouth is like a stone. I feel that I need to train speech, develop a language, but with whom? Who will be able to listen to my muffled moans for a long time, and how can I understand it is clear whether I said or not? The solution is obvious:
Need to talk with the device
Firstly, there is no embarrassment and fear of speaking. Secondly, you can torture him as long as you like, until you get bored. And most importantly - the confidence that you speak is understandable. If you understand the device with speech recognition, then people will understand all the more.
Googling a bit, I found the English Speech Recognition Library for iOS and the open source demo application. Again, enthusiasm! He took out a dusty MacBook, downloaded an example, played with it to figure out the code for what he was responsible for, renamed it to Polyglot Sound and began reworking it into a Polyglot voice simulator.
Approximately within a week, by trial, error and artistic spell, working 12-15 hours a day, I created a working prototype that could be used for training. It was necessary only to fill it with Russian phrases and sound tracks and the corresponding English. I found some phrases on the Internet, partly from the Polyglot app I used to study before.
For about a month or two, I filled out the application with phrases lesson by lesson and at the same time tested and trained. Trained and wife. During this time, we developed the muscles of the tongue and associated with it in such a way that the courses took the lead, and on the street my hitherto more than modest spouse, who even hesitated to ask something in the store, chatted with might and main and flirted with by the Americans.
I did not expect this effect, and, having found nothing of the kind in the App Store, I decided to prepare and upload my first application there. I did not think then that this would require more time and effort from me than mastering the English language.
The thorny path in the App Store for a novice developer
The hardest thing I stumbled upon is design. Everyone knows how attentively Apple refers to the design of applications, so the first version of my application with a clumsy, acute-angled design was immediately rejected by the censors. But the second and third and fourth and fifth ... the same fate awaited. I had to come up thoroughly, learn Photoshop, buy a program that allows you to draw with Objective-C code, develop a concept, select a background, and cover it with translucent clouds with hints. You understand how difficult it is for a person who does all this for the first time. It took a lot of time and effort, accepted my work when we returned to Russia, that is, a little less than a year later. But still I look at my first application, and I like it. Thanks to the moderators of Apple (how I swore them!) For achieving such results from me.
Succinctly, nothing superfluous, completely voice control and just one button - everything as I like. After receiving the green light in the App Store, I set the price at $ 4 and started preparing for the release of a free light version of the application containing only the first lesson, reasonably believing that “who will buy the cat in the bag? We need to give people a try. ” What was my surprise when a month later I saw about $ 300 on my account. As it turned out later, while the transfer of Polyglot was a huge success, a very large number of people who wanted to download applications and a small number of competitors in the App Store. Now everything is not so rosy: my application slid down, sales are few, there are a lot of apps on Polyglot in the App Store, although the voice simulator is still the only one, my Polyglot Sound .
Direct method
If the ability to produce well-constructed English phrases without thinking is a merit of the Polyglot Sound application, then vocabulary, idioms, the ability to read, write, and deep knowledge of grammar (yes, it’s really easy to learn English grammar to the end, unlike Russian) is a merit of the Direct Method in which we were engaged in Thailand. And my next application was Direct English . In it, I tried to imitate the real course with a native speaker as much as possible. Three books, about a hundred lessons, a picture of almost every word or phrase, 38 dictations, a year of daily work, just a huge amount of material, and I think I did it.
The application is very simple to use, it does not give the user any choice: read means reading, dictation means dictation. Everything is like on courses. The only thing that the user can choose is the voice (American, British or Australian) and the pace of speech.
Return to the abandoned
Having already had some experience, after four years, I returned to the idea of ​​developing an application for the program Triple Play Plus. Having opened an abandoned project, I was horrified, smiled, deleted it and started a new one, calling it Play English . I did even more than it was in the original, added adjectives of adverbs and verbs, the forms of irregular verbs in the game Bingo were assimilated easily and imperceptibly, added a pronunciation simulator, dictations of grammatical tasks on Polyglot. It turned out the most voluminous of my applications, but it made it possible for people of any nationality to start learning English almost from scratch and achieve an acceptable level to start language practice.
If you are interested in learning more about learning English, this can be done on my website .
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would like to say that you can learn how to develop mobile applications without special education, if you have an idea that is able to captivate you. Although, looking back, I would not say that it is easy. Along the way, I found out that you need to study exclusively in practice, be it a foreign language or the creation of mobile applications. In the first case, you just need to start talking, in the second - start programming. I hope that my article will be useful to someone. Thank.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/263475/
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