When I see a set of words, that is, input and output, I usually associate them with Input-Output Tables, although here at LingQ I associate them with reading/listening and writing/speaking. Input-Output Tables translates as 投入産出表 or 産業連関表 in Japanese. It is “the inter-industrial good and service transactions as recorded under the matrix column.” In Economics you have a lot of reliable information of the level of economic activities. I imagine that in the language learning theory, it is difficult to calculate the activities of learners. We might be dreaming using a foreign language. (I don’t know if I am dreaming now.)
Interesting point Yutaka! I think that a lot of tools from other disciplines could be used in language learning theory. Whether language researchers have already thought of them is a question I reseach online whenever my hayfever gets too bad to play out.
I got very excited when I first saw the LingQ progress statistics because I thought you could do a lot of statistical analysis on them. Statistics is not my strong subject, however, so I would need someone to explain the maths to me.
Newspeak?
I INPUTED cooked rice and miso soup at breakfast, and went to work. At a meeting that was held in the morning, I OUTPUTED what I think with my vocal ORGANS, after I INPUTED the contents of the documents that were distributed to us.