Rain in Karlstad Sweden, rail travel in Europe and the high cost of books

I am in Karlstad for the annual Swedish lumber marketing conference. It is raining and it is cold. I have completed my two weeks of wandering around Germany (with side trips to Prague, Paris, Brussels and Antwerp). My two weeks of travel on the magic carpet of a Eurail pass was wonderful. Once the ticket was paid for, the train travel was "free" for as much as I wanted to use it. I think I spent over 30 hours on trains. Most of the time I was very comfortable, reading, and listening, mostly in German, and watching the scenery go by. I will describe all of this in more detail in a report on my travels later. Let me just say that the German cities were a delight, and I really recommend Berlin, where I stayed on the Friedrichstrasse near Check Point Charlie. I walked for many hours in Berlin and would like to go back, with my wife, stay for a week and take in all of what the city has to offer.

Getting back to Karlstad, my lumber meetings begin after lunch. So went to a book store. I bought another book and audio book by my favourite Swedish writer, Hermann Lindquist, who writes about history. I bought his book and CD on Madame Pompadour. I looked at the section on books for language learning. There was a series on learning English. I cannot remember the name but the store only had books 5 and 6 in the series. Each one cost $100 Canadian, although only $80 for students. There was a book for learning Swedish as a second language by the same company and in the same price range. Who would buy these books? If you bought all 6 of the English books, you would spend $480 to $600, and where would you be? I imagine some people will even buy the books and hardly even use them.

At LingQ you pay $10 a month, and you get a chance to see if you like the system first. And for $40 a month or so you get a personal tutor who talks to you and corrects your writing. Once we get our much much delayed new version out, and we are very close, ( I have seen it and it looks great), we really have to make more people aware of who we are and what we have. That is my resolution for the new year, to promote, promote and promote.

Comments

[Nicola Robinsonova]

You were in Prague?

Sorry to miss you! We're based in the Czech Republic. If you come back, we'd be happy to show you round.

[Hans-Peter]

Ich freue mich, dass Sie Deutschland so positiv erlebt haben. Wie sagt man doch in Deutsch: "Berlin ist eine Reise wert!". Vielleicht kommen Sie noch einmal mit Ihrer Ehefrau? Herzliche Grüße Hans-Peter

[Evan]

Steve - Karlstad, eh? I will be moving from the US to Sandvika/Oslo. I will be working in Glava, Sweden for 6 months. Glava is halfway between Karlstad and Oslo. I'm very excited to begin this journey.

I'll be reading to see if you come back to Sweden and I'm really excited to see the next version of LingQ!

[Rob]

Hi Steve,

Your last paragraph caught my attention. I'm getting to a point in my Japanese studies where I would like to start writing and have it reviewed by a native Japanese person. I looked on Lingq, but it doesn't really explain who the "tutor" is or how that process works. If I understand it correctly, my tutor would be another Lingq user who is Japanese. Would it always be the same person? Do I ever find out who this person is?

Also, I have English teaching experience and a love of languages, would I be able to tutor someone learning English in return for points to use for my Japanese submissions?

Thanks,
Rob

[Steve Kaufmann]

Rob,

You can choose your own tutor. You find out who the person is since you will be talking to him or her via Skype. the tutor will be correcting your writing. In a few days all of this will be clearer as we launch our new version with courses.

Yes you can also tutor on the system and earn points to use for your Japanese tutor services. I hope you enjoy LingQ.

[Bas]

Hi steve,

I missed the antwerpen meeting due to an postponed take-home exam i had to take during that weekend.

Anyhow, I've found a new function of lingq. When doing a job interview i can show at least that i can read and listen to oriental languages by proceeding the tape...and then catching up halfway by reading and listening to the tape simultaniously.

it worked for me!

thanks a lot,

bas

[Henrique]

Hey, I´m from Brazil, i´m about to go on a exchange student program in August, and i want some american or european people email, to train my english !
Can anybody arrange that for me ???
Thanks a Lot