Recently in Chinese Learning Category

I wrote earlier about Mango, a free, online learning tool to study Chinese (or many other languages). Now, courtesy of Websware.com, we find another web 2.0 app that aims to do the same thing, but with a social network bent. It's called LiveMocha.

Like other language learning tools, LiveMocha has online lessons you can take at your own pace. Compared to Mango, I found it easier to get in to (my test case is beginning Spanish). Lessons flew by and my vocabulary and comprehension grew quickly. But what really sets LiveMocha apart from other systems is its social system: After you take a lesson, you can practice your knowledge by either writing or recording your answer to a question aimed at learners of your level.

Other LiveMocha users who know the language you're learning are the ones who critique your response. If you're learning Spanish, then a native Spanish speaker will give you feedback. Likewise, you'll be asked to give feedback for people learning the language you speak. You can also connect in real-time with other users (either already speaking your language, or learning it) and talk with them using guidelines for conversation that pop up when you connect. Eventually you might set up a network of friends to learn with.

I played around with it briefly, and found it actually took a bit longer to go through all the sign-ups and get into the lessons. But it looks a little more advanced and polished than Mango, and also provides photographs for translations, which can be helpful.

If you're interested in brushing up on your Chinese, it's worth checking out.

An excellent blog on Web 2.0 apps, Webware.com, has mentioned a new program aimed at learning languages online called Mango. The website uses a slides system complete with audio and examples to teach languages. So far, the site offers Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Italian, Russian, and of course, Mandarin Chinese.

I checked out the site earlier today. It requires a sign-up which only takes about 30 seconds. Then you select the language you want to learn, and it launches into Lesson 1.

I have looked briefly at the Mandarin Chinese and Japanese lessons (I used to study Japanese back in high school, and I am trying to brush up) and they seem pretty basic. There are over 100 lessons in Mandarin Chinese already, with the lessons getting tougher the further along you get.

The first slide of each lesson shows a dialogue (using characters) between two people. Then all further slides in the lesson breaks down each sentence and word. It can be very repetitive: it will show you the phrase, repeat it, break it down, repeat it, then ask you to repeat it. Probably pretty good for memorizing these things.

The one drawback in Chinese and Japanese was the lack of information regarding the characters. If you hold the mouse over a phrase, a pop-up will appear showing the word spelled in Pinyin or Romaji, respectively. Other than that, there is no character instruction, so you might need to learn that on your own.

You can check out the site here. It's worth a try.