Cheung Hoi KitSelf-access Language Learning in Hong Kong

Google Android Smartphones – a new source of

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Smartphones, including the Iphones, windows phones and Symbiams, have become an indispensible part of life for a lot of people. While in the last three years, the Google powered Android phones have been a fast rising force in the smartphones industry. After the release of Android 1.0 in Q3 2008, Android has had 5 major updates and became the world’s best-selling smartphone platform in Q4 2010 (Techgeeze, 2011). Supported by a huge number of apps (applications) available in the Market, the Android phones are well-known for their great freedom to be customized, their working functionality and their entertaining capacity. As a Spanish learner, I have also found out that there are quite a lot of apps in the Android system that are very suitable for self-access language learning. I would like to demonstrate this by my experience in learning Spanish, however, one should notice that similar apps for different languages are available, so the great convenience of Android applies to other languages too.

The first app that I need to introduce is a dictionary, an essential part of language learning. You don’t need me to tell you how convenient it is to have a dictionary in your mobile device, so I will just recommend my favorite dictionary app. While there are a wide variety of Spanish dictionaries in the Market, my personal choice is the ColorDict. The reason that I choose ColorDict is three-fold. First of all, it has a very adequate volume of words and it is free. It is very difficult to resist quality free apps. Second, it is an off-line dictionary. This means you can still have complete access to the

Image 1 : Colordict, Spanish to English and Chinese

dictionary without connecting your phone to a 3G or WiFi network. I believe this is quite an advantage for smartphone users with a limited network data plan. Third, it gives both Chinese and English translation, and has the potential to give translation of any language you want. Just download, for example, the French data pack, then the ColorDict gives French translation and turns into a French dictionary as well. Similarly, if you check an English word, you get both Chinese and Spanish translation. This feature of ColorDict is excellent for multiple language learners.

Due to culture difference or simply manners of expression that you don’t know, there are times when even though you know the meaning of every word, you still can’t understand the whole sentence. At those moments, you may think of the Google Translate, a web service that gives translation of a whole sentence or even a paragraph. Although it is known that Google Translate has some limitations, it is still a popular service to all beginners in learning languages. However, you may wonder what if there is no computer around. With the Android app version of Google Translate, this is never a problem. Being freely available in the Market, The Google Translate app, on one hand, has a simpler interface to suit a generally smaller screen on mobile device, on the other, has the exact translating functionality as the web version. Even more exciting, the app version supports voice input. Instead of the traditional keyboard input method, you can speak to the device to input. So even if you don’t know how to spell the word, you can get the translation simply by speaking to the device! I believe the Google Translate can help to improve our reading and listening skill, however, please don’t try to write passages by

Image 2: Colordict, English to Spanish

Image 3: interface of Google Translate

inputting in English to Google Translate, as this is certainly beyond the ability of Google Translate.

The last app that I want to introduce is more specifically designed for learning Spanish, however, I hope it can demonstrate how large a variety of apps that the Android Market has for learning languages.

In learning Spanish, one of the most important grammar areas is to conjugate the verbs. Different conjugations are needed in different tenses and, unlike English, for different objects. For example, the verb for ‘I eat’, ‘you eat’ and ‘he eats’ are all differently conjugated (como, comes and come). With a few more examples one may notice that the beginning part of the verb is usually kept unchanged in conjugations; however, things are complicated by irregular verbs and reflexive verbs. This feature makes learning the verbs extremely vital for beginners to even understand and write simple Spanish. As a result, apps like the Spanish Verbs are developed. This app has a list of common verbs in Spanish and English translation right next to it. By clicking the verb, you see all the conjugations for different tenses and objects. Irregularity is also shown. This app is very useful for beginners to familiarize with conjugation of verbs and to build your verbs.

It is certainly a trend to integrate all sorts of functionality to one mobile device. We have had our music player, Gameboy and PDA integrated to our phones, there is no reason why we can’t also make our phone a learning center. With the exponentially increasing number of apps in the Market, I believe the Android devices will become an excellent platform for Self-access language learning, and the content above is just the beginning.

ReferencesAndroid surpasses Symbian as world’s best-selling smartphone platform in Q4 2010. Techgeeze [internet] . 2011.Available from:http://www.techgeeze.com/2011/02/android-surpasses-symbian-as-worlds-best-selling-smartphone-platform-in-q4-2010.html