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Statistics
It’s hard to grow if you don’t know where you’re at. I’ve added basic statistics and progress markers, including a percentage of mastery for each piece of vocabulary, size of the vocabulary, breakdown of words that are new or in progress or learned or forgotten, and total amount of time spent studying.
Later, there’ll be statistics to showcase language growth over time and more detailed statistics on each word or phrase.
Notifications
I’ve redesigned the activity log into a notification section to see what needs attention between you and your partner. Such as if your partner is requesting feedback on something or when your partner has jumped in to help.
Helping each other out or checking in on each other’s language journeys is great to do asynchronously because there’s much less pressure and embarrassment than a more traditional face-to-face language session.
I also spent a lot of time just making sure stuff looked good and worked well on both smartphones and computers.
Triangular Theory of Love
xefjord taught me about the triangular theory of love and how that could be tied into couples learning each other’s languages. The theory describes two components of love being intimacy (the closeness of the bond) and commitment (the energy spent to maintain that love).
Intimacy is clearly tied in, where knowing the other person’s language and culture can only tighten the bond.
Commitment is a big piece to leverage. That a partner can see how hard the other is working to learn their language (for one example, through statistics), and they can offer encouragement along the way. Instead of seeing a cartoon character splash up on your screen after an achievement, why not instead seeing a picture of your partner cheerleading you to “keep it up!” and awarding you some brownie points.