하늘의 별 따기

Okay, so I've been meaning to post about Livemocha, a free language learning site/community that I learned about in the learn_korean community here on livejournal.

I recently made a couple of comments in the learn_korean comm about the site and I may have said a hell of a lot more than I intended to (I get carried away sometimes ^^;;) Anyway, since I've already promised earlier this week to give my thoughts on livemocha here and I already shared a lot of my thoughts there, I figure it's copy and past time!

My comments were long enough that I had to split them into two posts (yes, I'm that big of an ass). So, here we go:

I've been using the UH KLEAR Korean books and the KoreanClass101.com podcast (for which I shelled out the $$ for a Premium Subscription, if that matters) to try to teach myself Korean (for fun), and I'd say that Livemocha has some areas where it's better and some where it's worse than the others.

I should probably have started off by pointing out that Korean is the first language that I'm learning using Livemocha, and I am very impressed with the site. I am learning more at a much faster pace than I was just memorizing vocabulary lists and trying to get creative with examples. I think it's because of the repetition and drilling variance involved.

That said, my Korean is just at the beginner level, and when I first started learning, I was intimidated by the formal politeness level. Heck, I still am. It just adds a mouthful of difficulty to even the most simple of sentences, and took longer for me to get the hang of than standard politeness level. It's scary.

The reason that I like (and actually learn from) the lessons in this community (and the later lessons of the KoreanClass101.com podcast + PDFs) is probably because of the use of the standard politeness level. I don't presume to know everything about all of the other languages on the planet, but the problem of Formal vs Standard vs Intimate speech being such a HUGE part of the language seems to be unique to Korean. I know there are probably some people who'd disagree, but I'd prefer to have the lessons on Livemocha teach in the standard politeness level. It's just more approachable, easier to learn, and a little more useful for everyday usage.

I did take a peek at the beginner Japanese course on the site, and the lessons there have a feature where there is a button below the "Translate" button that allows the student to display the Romaji, which is useful if you can't read the kanji. In my ideal Korean lesson, the main sentence would be in standard politeness, with three buttons in the lower right hand corner: one to display the translation, one to display the sentence in the formal politeness level, and a third to display the sentence in the intimate politeness level.

I agree with ouremergency17 that the site needs submissions for those learning Korean. Or at least a way for us to create them. I'm sure you could think up some great material.

I have some thoughts about the way that the site works (bugs and whatnot), but I'll post those later in a second comment, as it'll probably push me over livejournal's comment length limit.

Second comment. This time me whining about about bugs and features of the site.

::continued from above::

I think my biggest gripe with the Livemocha site may or may not be related to an issue with my own internet connection. See, sometimes when I'm going through the lessons the images or sounds won't load, and I have to try clicking back and forward through the items to try to prompt them to load. When this happens a lot, it becomes irritating, and causes me to get at least one answer incorrect on every review test. I guess the sound and the images are technically two separate issues, so I'll explain them separately.

In regards to the sound not loading, I think this would be fixed by simply providing a written version of the dialogue for *every* question. This is actually an accessibility issue, because the requirement that one must *listen* to a sound bit to be able to progress through all of the lessons, automatically excludes deaf students from being able to participate fully without being penalized for their handicap. I'm sympathetic on this issue because I have hearing problems and have to use closed captioning on my television and go to open captioned movie showings to compensate.

The images not loading is annoying because in order to select the answer during a review the image needs to have completed loading. So, when my browser has finished loading the page and I'm looking at a question which has four possible choices, and the image for the solution has not loaded, I can use the process of elimination to guess that the image that didn't load is the solution, but, because of a problem with the way the app is coded, I can't actually *select* the box that has not loaded. I can click the application's forward and backward buttons to try to get my browser to load the images, but sometimes this doesn't work. Sometimes none of the images load, and I'm screwed. Sometimes I have to select an incorrect answer just to move on.

My favorite feature on Livemocha is the flashcards. I love, love, love the flashcards! I love that we can submit our own. I love that we can share them with others. I love that we can be quizzed on their content. I do wish, however, that this feature were a little more powerful. At the moment, what I've been doing with the flashcards, is finding a set that I like and then importing it manually to a program that I have installed on my computer, ProVoc, which is just more useful for learning from flash cards. The funny thing is that the way that it works reminds me of the way that Livemocha handles the lessons: repetition. ProVoc also allows the user to customize the type of review that they want to use and allows them to further define display and testing options beyond this. Plus, it identifies and repeats problem words. The result, for me, is that I learn the new vocabulary quickly and easily. I realize that the server demands of running an application exactly like this on the site for all users would be ridiculous, but maybe some of these features could be offered as a Premium Upgrade. The source code for ProVoc is freelyavailable under the BSD license, so I'm sure they could study and learn how it works and adapt the tech to their own needs.

My final request for the Livemocha site, is the ability for tutors/teachers to edit their own submission reviews. Me not being able to fix my own typos only confuses people who are learning the language. Seriously.

I hope I didn't come off as harsh with these comments. I love Livemocha. I'm a new user, yes. But I'm also a permanent addict to the site. I can say that confidently, because I love it that much. I really do look forward to watching the site grow.