“Re-Cognate”
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Hello everyone,
and welcome to Day 20 of this year’s Advent Calendar – the final stretch. And behind today’s door is a little surprise and recommendation called
Cognate 2.0
Some of you, who followed the calendar last year, might remember that I talked about a new tool called Cognate. It was a website/webapp focused on learning vocabulary based on what you’re actually interested it. So you could have it focus on specifically medical terms, IT and soccer for example.
Quite a few of you gave it a try back then and apparently, you also provided a good amount of valuable feedback to the people behind the project.
So a couple of months ago, the founder reached out to me again, and was like “What’s good bro, you wanna talk about us again?”
And I was like “Bruh, nah bro, we already did that.”
And he was like “Bro, we rebuilt everything, added a LOT of stuff and we’d give your readers a discount.”
And I was like “Aight, imma give it a look.”
Yeah… that’s of course not really how the conversation went.
But Alejandro really did reach out to me because they had developped Cognate so much that it’s almost an entirely new and better product now. I did some testing, gave quite a bit of criticism and they addressed quite a few of the issues I found, which is amazing!!
And way more than I can say about Toucan, which I was REALLY close to reviewing, but then I didn’t because the product was just too bad. Like… I love the concept, but the implementation is just so bad that it’s not something I want to recommend. And then I found out they had like 7 Million in seed investing or something. In 2021. I really don’t know where the money is, but it for sure is not in the product.
Anyway, so Cognate really is quite open to user feedback and the product is pretty cool too, so I decided to introduce it a second time this year :)
What is Cognate 2.0
Originally, they started out as a way to gather and learn vocabulary that fits your interests, and that’s still part of their core idea.
But they’ve broadened their scope and included a curriculum and levels, so now the app slowly guides you toward the higher levels.
They also added explanations for the basic grammar, and the ones I have seen were pretty nice.
But more importantly, they added a LOT of reading practice material. Hundreds of little stories, that are written by AI but reviewed by humans and that introduce new vocabulary in context.
And they also added AI based chat bots that slowly adjust to your interests and also at least try to adjust to your proficiency level.
You can always chat with them, either “freestyle” or about one of the stories you’ve read, which is pretty cool. And they’re also planning to include voice synthesis (the one they’ll use sounds VERY good… I know it already) and they also want to use text to speech so you can actually TALK with the chatbot. None of this is too difficult to implement with today’s tech, so I’d suspect they can roll this out next year.
Now, we have to be honest… this chat bot stuff is not unique, and there are multiple apps that are offering the same. But in Cognate it’s integrated into a pretty robust vocabulary trainer and I really like that they actually review the stories they put up and not just blindly take what the AI puts out.
Oh, and they’ve also been working on making it a real app, and as far as I know the iPhone version is finished or close to finished. But you may just as well use the web based version.
How to try Cognate
Cognate has decided to offer a 7 day free trial which includes THE ENTIRE THING. So it’s not like the usual “You get the first free lessons”. No… you have 7 days to check out the entire thing with all the functionality to see if you like it. Actually, I’d sign up for the trial over the holidays so you have enough time… unless of course you want to take a break from German :). Then DON’T sign up now and waste the free 7 days.
Here’s the link to the website:
Anyway, if you like it and you decide you want to work with it for longer, you can then sign up using the following discount code:
YOURDAILYGERMAN
This will give you 25% on all the plans. And I’ll also get a little referral bonus. Yeay. That’s NOT the reason I am recommending them though. I just like their product and that they’re a small team that really cares.
So yeah… YOURDAILYGERMAN for 25% discount. Oh and yes… your account WILL also work on the actual iPhone app, but it’s better the sign up via web, because Cognate gets to keep the money and doesn’t have to pay 30% app store rent. I mean… I have nothing against Apple taking a cut, but 30% is just too much for virtually no service provided.
Anyway, that’s it for today.
Let me know in the comments if you’ve tried Cognate last year or if you’ve been using them regularly and what you think about the project. And be honest… like I said, Alejandro and the others really are open to feedback and criticism. It’s a small team and they’re trying their best to make a good product for German learners.
So yeah, try it out, let me know and have a great Wednesday, and I’ll see y’all tomorrow.
Audio Speed
Dark Mode
Hello. I just got a sponsorship subscription. Many thanks to all the people who paid a little bit extra so others can learn from this awesome platform. This helps a lot. Thank you.
Alejandro here, many thanks to Emanuel for the blog post and talking about us again this year. We are super happy with the volume of sign ups and feedback so far!
We added the voice synthesis to the articles a few minutes ago, so now you can hear the articles, not just read them. There is a little play icon button at the end of each paragraph (if you get the loading dots, be patient, it may take a bit to load if it is the first time).
Our Apple App is available at:
https://apps.apple.com/app/cognate/id6469001031
As Emanuel mentioned, if you want to purchase a subscription using the coupon code, please do so through the web (browser) version of the product (on checkout on the left-hand side of the pop-up, you will see a place to enter the coupon code, please remember to press apply before completing the checkout). You can still log into the mobile app and use it all the same regardless of where you actually pay for the subscription.
Thanks to the couple of you that have already emailed us useful feedback. We have some cool features in the pipeline and our mission is to build the app our users want. Please feel free to email us or comment here; critical feedback is often more useful than glowing reviews, although those are nice too ;)
So far, I like the Cognate trial a lot, but I’d like to know if you’re planning an Android app. I’m not sure I understand the preference for iOS when Android has 81% of the global market – you’re missing out on a lot of potential subscribers!
Hi, thanks for bringing this up; we are definitely planning to do an Android app. It is currently on our Q1 2024 development slate.
The mobile app is essentially a mirror of the web app. So in the meantime, you can create an icon/link to the https://my.cognateapp.com/ web page to put on your home screen, some handy 2-min tutorial on how to do that in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsG3NwsH5IA
If you do that, you will basically have created the Android mobile app. :D
Thanks!
As far as I know, in the United States, the majority is on iOS and the States are an important market for German learning where people can actually afford a premium subscription. That’s why many apps start with Apple app and do the Android later.
True, and I do understand that developers have limited resources. I’m very glad Cognate is planning an Android version. The Android share in the U.S. isn’t as high, but it’s still significant (around 40% or so depending on the source of the statistics). But forgive me – I’m just eager to learn (and I’m now using the workaround alexpasch suggested). Thanks for telling us about Cognate 2.0!
Thanks for the recommendation, I might give it a thought, at this moment $100 for a year sounds like a hefty sum of money but I might consider it sometimes soon.
I also wanted to thank you for your website, today marks a year since I started learning german and your articles played quite a big role, I especially read a lot of the articles in the very beginning of my learning journey, still remember how I was copying them by hand into my copybook, fun times. This year is the first one I’ve been following your advent calendar in real time (well, almost!! some days I’ve missed but then read whatever I missed in one day). So anyway, big thanks for your work again and here’s to many more years of useful, easy to understand articles and advent calenders.
Definitely do try it out before you buy a year!! Maybe try to “force” yourself to use it every day of the 7 days trial and then see if it feels like fun or a chore.
Und vielen Dank für das tolle Feedback :)!!
I’ll check it out, and will mention another service, one that I learned about here in the comments of YDG: Clozemaster. I’m not sure if what I’m about to say applies to the German section because I’m only doing Ukrainian there (only so many hours in a day), but they’ve just added ChatGPT explanations that are really, really good. In Clozemaster they give you a sentence with a blank word to fill in. After you answer you now get the “explain” button, which gives a word-by-word explanation of the grammar, vocabulary, and idiomatic features of the sentence. From a technical viewpoint, I can say that the “prompt engineering” that went into this was very well done. I did see one error so far, where it (correctly) spotted an error in the Clozemaster sentence, but was a little off in one of its suggested fixes. … Just checked the German version, and it looks good, too. Not a substitute for Emmanuel’s nuanced and “spirited” presentations, but good for basics.
That’s interesting.
So far, I didn’t like the “explain this” AI features in any of the apps I have seen them in.
Proper prompt engineering can make a big difference there, but it has limits, too.
For context… so Clozemaster is basically an app revolving around solving exercises like the one you described? Or are there other features and things to do?
A new English word for me, cloze.
“A form of written examination technique in which candidates are required to provide words that have been omitted from sentences, thereby demonstrating their knowledge and comprehension of the text.”
So, it’s all fill in the blank, with emphasis on some part of grammar.
I have been using Clozemaster for a while now. I’m in agreement with cvickery. I find it useful. It’s a good thing I have already learned a lot of German, so I notice more in the given contexts that are helpful than a beginner might.
That said, YDG is way more fun and helpful.
Frohe Weihnachten an alle!
It offers fill in the blank tests, both multiple choice, or type in (for more points); you hear the sentence spoken after trying it. You can also listen to native recordings (in various accents) and either select missing word, fill in the blanks or transcribe the whole sentence. The system uses spaced repetition and one can select subsets of the sentences (20000 for German) based on frequency (eg most frequent 500,1000, 5000… words) or based on grammar practice (articles, prepositions, w-/d- adverbs etc). They also have longer texts (eg paragraphs) clustered by topic with several gaps to fill in. Lifetime pro level is (sometimes?) available for a reasonable price – I think I paid $60-70 which for 60 language (should I ever want that many) is pretty good; as others have said probably best after A1/2 level…
Ah, sounds great. I like that it’s “limited” and you know exactly what you get and why you sign up. I might try it out, actually :)
I use the free version of Clozemaster for German. You can do 30 sentences per day for free without the bells and whistles (that I don’t need anyway). It’s just a fun daily practice for me but I’ve been doing it for over a year now and I learn new words from it every day.
Wow, 30 does sound a lot!! Quite fair that they let you do some actual work without having to pay.
Going back to my Ukrainian: Clozemaster has a lot more coverage than Duolingo for that language, for example. And going back to what RuthE said: it’s fill in the blank, but you have a choice of selecting from a set of 5 choices or typing in your answers. Lots and lots of sentences, many of them weird, often using colloquialisms on either the English or other language side.
YDG is more fun, yes, and “more helpful” too, but in a different way from the new explain feature in Clozemaster. As I said, the explanations are better for the basics than for the nuances and depth you get here.
Hallo,
A couple typos:
“back and then and apperantly” (back then and apparently)
“your proficieny level” (your proficiency level)
“they#re a small team” (they’re a small team)
I didn’t try it last year, but this seems to be something I’d quite like, considering I need vocab and the practice of speaking to someone (ok, a chat bot is not a person, but it’s WAAAAY better than nothing). I’ll have to wait for a lull in my work, otherwise I’ll be wasting the 7 days. The beginning of January is usually very quiet in my work, so I’ll give it a go then :)
Danke und bis morgen!