What do you think of different language systems available on the Web?

I wonder if any of my readers have tried Live Mocha, Mango and the ChinesePod, ItalianPod series, or other competitive products. I wold be interested in hearing about the strengths and weaknesses of these different websites, some of which have won awards.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of LingQ?

Comments

[Dr. Pepper]

I've used JapanesePod101, ChinesePod and a sub-products few products from both companies.

I've only used the free podcasts, I did not subscribe. I think that the podcasts are very good. The audio quality is great and the fact that they have bite sized dialogues with both a sociocultural and a lexical aspect to them fits with my way of learning languages (and I've studied 10 thus far).

In the end, I decided to take a break from language podcasts in general because podcast-only lessons don't help out in the long run. I need repetition, I need to have the scripts in front of me, and I need to have writing practice (especially for languages with different scripts like japanese and chinese). I think that if I had done more than just listen I would have learned more.

Even with podcast only exposure for a year, I am able to pick up some meaning in japanese and mandarin-chinese movies that I watch. Nothing spectacular, but it's something.

[Philipp]

I paid $150 for the offline version of the Mandarin Mango on the go and it was a big mistake. I had problems downloading the program and I had to wait weeks to get a response from them. Although the dialogues were read by human, the audio program itself was obviously generated by a computer and many parts sound very strange. I recently changed my computer and emailed them to ask if I could download the program again and about 2 months later they told me that I would have to buy the program again because my download key had expired. I did manage to learn some Chinese but it was very basic and I expected more for the money I paid. Although I like using drill-based products, I will never use any of their products again.

Live Mocha was also drill based. Their lessons were clearly divided into 4 categories (from beginner to intermediate) which were divided into sub-categories such as clothes, weather, etc. Afterward, the whole system was a game where you had 4 pictures every round and you had to match a word or an expression to the correct picture. I quickly became bored and didn't learned much.

My favorite one was Pimsleur. I used it with great success to learn the basics of Mandarin and Cantonese. I liked how simple the system was: listen and repeat to the CDs 30min a day for 1-3 months. It teaches about 500 words and teaches them very well. I have been stuck at the "Pimsleur level" for a while and I am currently using LingQ to get my level much higher but it is quite difficult since I can read very little Chinese.

I believe LingQ is the only method that is good to get past the intermediate level but I haven't tried it to get from complete beginner to intermediate and I think this is what most people are aiming for when looking for foreign language material or resources. It is a pity that universities refuse to acknowledge your tool!

[Evan]

I have used an entire slew of things when it comes to Mandarin. The first few I will ignore for the most part here. These include Rosetta Stone, Youtube videos, random tapes, and books from Barnes & Noble. Horrible. So boring and not fun at all. I returned them in the few cases I was allowed. Luckily, I did not purchase Rosetta Stone.

Next, I was referred to Chinesepod. I liked it since:
1.) The website was easy and simple.
2.) Community of motivated learners that were like me as well as native Chinese speakers commenting on the boards.
3.) Authentic content with pinyin
4.) Professional podcasts that are fun and interesting.
5.) Additional podcasts that emphasize the culture.

I've been using it for 2 years and have made some progress. However, I've also been reading your blog and using LingQ in addition for almost 1 year now. I think your philosophy is right-on regarding authentic input and motivation.

I have 2 comments regarding Chinesepod and LingQ.
1.) Chinesepod has an easier to use website.
2.) Chinesepod content is not as good as LingQ content.

Let me expound on #2. Wolf and HuaHua have done some great content for LingQ. It is longer than the similar Chinesepod lessons for more similar topics. I would rather hear a 10 minute clip about a rainy day (or food) than 10x 1 minute clips regarding all separate (more irrelevant) topics. I think these longer clips have more meaning than the shorter ones. That is what I would put as LingQ's #1 strength. LONG, AUTHENTIC CONTENT WITH TEXT. I would like to know if anyone else agrees with this point.

I think boths sites are good and have recommended both to my colleagues.

[Evan]

Steve,

I forgot to add the #2 advantage of LingQ... Your blog. You keep me motivated and give me confidence every week.

[Daniel Reiter]

I agree with evan, your blog and videos definately keep me motivated to learn.

[Ana]

I like the eslpod audios and listen to them constantly. They are at a intermediate level, so I find them quite easy and don't feel motivated to buy the transcripts. I like the English Cafe series particularly, when they talk about some varied aspects of American culture, while explaining the meaning of the less usual words and expressions. For me, in terms of language it is more a reinforcement material than a learning one. Anyway, I do learn a lot about US culture. But I guess it is a great source for intermediates.

[Ana]

Ah, I tried Live Mocha and mango. They are boring, boring, boring...

[Tony]

I feel the same way as Evan's experience. It is much easier to handle a long piece of consistent information than several broken pieces.

[Michael]

I am a English learner.
I know a lot of English sites. I feel that your LingQ is one of the best sites. But your site is a little bit dull, even though it has a lot of various learning materials.
I've recently found one very very useful site named English.pod which seems to be run by the same group running chinesePod which I have never been to. It just started a few month ago. It is very easy, very lively, very interesting, and very motivating. And there are a lot of discussions about a lot of topics among participants. I visit the site several times everyday and I often leave my comments about the topics. And everyday I repeatedly listen to their audio files
A man and a women lead the lesson. Even from their conversation about topics, we can learn a great deal of things about English speaking.

I believe that your LingQ will likely attract more people if it gets more lively and interesting.

I am still getting a lot of things from your site. And I especially have a strong feeling that your method is absolutely right and your LingQ has the best quality materials I've ever seen.

Many thanks to you for the great efforts in LingQ.

[Iuri]

I tried Live Mocha too and I agree with you guys about how boring it is. But I like the points system and the collaboration of Live Mocha. You get awards like being one of the best students of one language during the week. They also give participation awards to anyone who studied during the week. In LingQ you can only see your progress bar getting full and a rank that in some cases is unreachable in a short period of time.

[Edwin]

I think LingQ is the best on-line tool for reading comprehension and vocabulary building. There is no doubt about it. Other LingQ members can also testify, and I don't need to repeat it here.

As for writing practice, I find Lang-8 the best. I don't expect such valuable return from a free service. They also manage to implement user requests very quickly. Only recently I found out that there are only 2 guys running the website.

The Praxis group (ChinesePod, SpanishPod, etc) podcasts are professionally produced with outstanding sound quality. The lessons are less appealing to me, but they have done an excellent job in promoting the cultures. Very entertaining.

I am not a heavy LiveMocha user, but I can see the potential of their recording tool, which allows members to comment on each other's speaking skill.

I also find Yabla.com useful. It is a paid service, and you can access a lot of video clips with authentic contents and transcripts.

Edufire is also another great site. It has all the potential to become the best online tutoring service on the web.

[Steve Kaufmann]

There is a lot of choice out there. Only a small percentage of language learners are using these tools, but that will change. The internet will become the classroom.

I think that LingQ has to continue to improve. Our functionality will improve, but ultimately it will be the quality of our community that will matter the most. We are working on all of these issues.

[Fredrik_w]

Philipp, going from Pimsleur to Lingqs Mandarin intermediate lessons is a very big step. Same as for you, I liked Pimsleur very much and it gave a good introduction to Mandarin. After that, I continued with Foreign Service Institute http://fsi-language-courses.com/Chinese.aspx .Try it out, it looks very old and outdated but it is a gold mine of dialogs, explainations,drills etc.

Evan, I agree with you that Wolf and Huahua have made a good work producing interesting dialogs. The dialogs are long and contains a lot of stuff and I need to work 10-15 hours for each dialog to digest everything. Although these dialogs are called "Intermediate", I believe they will take me even further.

Steve, your blog is very interesting to follow. Keeps me motivated.

[Vic Webster]

I have been using The Rosseta Stone v3 for learning Italian and French. I haven't got too far yet, but so far I am happy. I think it's effective and I really feel like I am learning. My partner (French) is using it to learn Italian and so far she is enjoying herself and making progress, although the grammer is a bit difficult for both of us (see below).

I noticed Phillipp posted some negative comments about the software. I wonder what version he was using and if he really gave it a good go? Sometimes it can be difficult. I find that as I progress I have to repeat the lessons more and more, but I'm still learning.

On the negative side, I really wish they would include some theory. Their "dynamic immersion" method is a good one, but I think they take the idea too far. It doesn't need to be "100%" untranslated, intuative language learning. It's easy to get confused with the grammer because it teaches absolutely none of it; it's all intuative.

The solution of course, is to do a bit of independent study. In fact, they advise you to study the language independently, and only to use the software as one part of your study. Which I guess is another "negative": it's not a complete, all-in-one solution.

[Victor]

Hi Steve,

My personal experiece with other systems is not very much. Several years ago I badly needed listening material. My problem was: I had only dial-up connection. I tried many podcasts but always got back to ESLPod.com. I believe those guys are related to Stephen Krashen. They never say a word about grammar but methodically and even pedanticly explain meanins of words, phrases, idioms,slang expression, cultural issues. My comprehension of spoken English advanced substantially after three years of listening to them. As about shortcomings of their system, their materials fit only to low intermediate students only. Now I often fall asleep listening to them.

About LinQ I cannot say anything because I didn't try it yet, but I promise I will soon.

In my opinion, for sucsessful language learning you only need interesting and comprehensible material. At least learnins English with emerging of the Internet and MP3 players became pretty easy and fun process. I don't think a good language learning system should be elaborate or complex. But it should attract students in order to be a sucsess.

Victor

[Edward]

I like ESLPod.com, specially the English Cafe, but it's too slow to listen it. I like to listen the podcast with vocabulary explanation(English-English) in the end.

[Vincent Pace]

I was just working on a review of Livemocha, and your post prompted me to finish it up. In sum, Livemocha is absolutely excellent for putting you in touch with native speakers and having them correct your written and spoken submissions, but its teaching method leaves a lot to be desired, and they still have some kinks to work out of the system. My full review is here.

[Knight Brewster]

Out of that list, Livemocha is the only one that I have tried. The lessons can get a little boring after a while. But the main benefit of Livemocha is that it is easy to find and chat with native speakers of your target language. Speaking with someone in your target language seems to be a quicker way of learning to communicate in that language. Plus, it's a lot more fun than going through flashcards online.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Knight,

How do you know that speaking to someone on line is a quick way to learn a language? How do you know that it is quicker than spending a lot of time listening and reading with a small amount of time reviewing words and phrases? How much speaking do you do every day?

It may be fun, but in my experience it is not as effective as listening, reading and reviewing words, something that can be done easily and at any time. And that still leaves time to speak to someone on line.

[Lily]

I use AskBenny to learn Mandarin. It's the BEST! They offer online and offline lessons. First I started learning through their website when I was still living in Europe but now that I'm living in Shanghai, I started taking lessons with their teachers! They make an individual program for you and you only learn the things YOU want to learn! Check out their website: www.askbenny.cn!

[Harold]

I have been a LiveMocha member for going on two months now. While I agree having "peer reviews" can be positive, I don't think it's positive when reviewers leave corrections that are wrong. On a number of occasions, I have gone to review exercises from friends of mine and found that someone else has given them wrong information. Unfortunately, some of the mistakes have come from native speakers as well as non-native.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Harold,

That is why we have a little more structure in the correcting and tutoring fucntions at LingQ.