Traveling This Summer? Learn The Local Language First.

For much of the surf world, summer is the best time to travel to a foreign country in search of swell. You’ll want to bring some good boards, warm water wax and an ipod, but you’ll also need some knowledge of the native language to find the best eateries, haggle with street vendors and to generally grease the wheels of travel.

If you genuinely want to learn enough of the local language to get by, but never seem to find the time to study, you might like my new web app. It’s called Popling and it’s designed for people who lack the motivation to study and are online for much of their day.

Here’s how it works:

You sign up for an account and install the desktop application. You then subscribe to flash card sets which contain vocabulary or phrases in your topic of choice. Every few minutes Popling will display a small notification with a question from the flash card sets you subscribed to. If you aren’t too busy, click the notification to reveal the flash card, review it, then return to what you were doing. In just a few seconds you’ve learned a new word or phrase.

After a few days you’ll find you’ve learned quite a bit, without setting aside time to study.

Popling - Learn, without studying
Click the tiny notification window to see a card, ignore and it’ll go away.

Popling - Learn, without studying
Retention mode requires you to type the last card you learned.

Popling is just getting started. To help me get it ready for the prime time, I’m looking for some very vocal beta testers who want to learn, will report bugs and provide opinions on what could make Popling better. There are currently Poplings for basic Spanish, Indonesian, German and French with more to come.

If you are interested, go sign up for an account using the invite code: “seventy“. Be quick though, invites are limited. For more information, including a screencast of Popling in action, check out Popling.net.

Thanks, I’m looking forward to hearing from you.


12 Responses to “Traveling This Summer? Learn The Local Language First.”

  1. maggie Says:

    i learned more in a shorter amount of time. than i ever thought i would..es muy bueno!

  2. rob70 Says:

    yeah, but you just might be a little biased. :*

  3. Seamouse Says:

    Sweet Idea. I’ll be sure to sign up as soon as I’m the ‘regular’ PC.

  4. JP Says:

    I’m waiting for the rest of the world to speak english under George Bush’s plan of global gentrification.

  5. Seamouse Says:

    Signed up on a few days ago but no confirmation e-mail yet. not even in the junk.

  6. rob70 Says:

    Seamouse, check your mail.

    JP, good plan. It’ll happen soon.

  7. Sharkbait Says:

    Hi! I *REALLY* love this idea, and I’m trying to make it work. I am registered and installed. However, every time I try to “Get Poplings” or “Subscribe to Poplings” I get reverted back to the registration/login page. I login again, but the browser absolutely will not remember my login information. Basically, can’t make this work. :( Would love your help! Thanks so much!

  8. rob70 Says:

    hi there. Thanks for reporting this, something I hosed up in a recent change. Should be fixed now.

  9. Daniel Says:

    Finally a pop-up that I don’t want to block!
    I installed Popling and have been popping away for the past week or so and am happy to report that I have improved my Spanish if for no other reason than I am prompted to think in Spanish.
    Great idea.
    Cheers,
    Daniel

  10. rob70 Says:

    Awesome Daniel, exactly the response I was hoping for.

  11. BlueBottle Says:

    This rocks!
    I have been trying to learn spanish using a book, but my eyes just glaze over when I start reading lists of verbs.
    This is perfect for me – I have had it just half a day and am already a huge fan of this program.
    Install and verification went quickly and easily.
    Thank you, thank you.

  12. rob70 Says:

    Blue, that rocks my world. So glad you are getting good usage out of it. Please don’t hesitate to post or email any problems you have.

    –rob

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