Livemocha describes itself as the first online language-learning community where languages can be learned naturally, i.e. socially. The network is structured around language and learning interests. It includes step-by-step courses which lead you through a series of learning goals. The really worthwhile aspect of this site however is being able to network with a global community of learners in order to practice your language skills.
I recently signed up for this community to test it out. I listed my language interests as Chinese, Japanese, and Portugese. I then enrolled in a beginner’s Chinese course. The lessons themselves are fairly simple. Practice sessions, like those in most university language labs, allow you to listen and record conversations from a script. You can also build a network of other community members whose native and spoken languages intersect with those you are trying to learn. Ideally, you match yourself with those seeking to practice your native or spoken languages.
It occurs to me that this is both an unusually educationally oriented social network and also a vital example of how networked our global cultures have the potential of becoming. Language is arguably the most fundamental building block of any culture. Perhaps it is the first step to a global culture with shared knowledge. To exchange business vocabulary and know-how, much less the subtler aspects of literature and politics in a short-hand of global languages would bring us further towards that global culture–I’m not talking about esperanto, but an organically risen language from its practice and application across cultural and geographical divides. What issues arise then? Global knowledge management and a more integrated taxonomy for global search? Perhaps Livemocha only offers a few more travel opportunities, only a better way of explaining our way into a Chinese board room–but its possibilities involve us all–as a mob of Pandoras.
Livemocha describes itself as the first online language-learning community where languages can be learned naturally, i.e. socially. The network is structured around language and learning interests. It includes step-by-step courses which lead you through a series of learning goals. The really worthwhile aspect of this site however is being able to network with a global [...]
Comments
@ 11:11
Very interesting. This is a wonderful new way to learn a language and meet someone from that language group who might become a good contact if one were to visit that country.
I wonder if the world really does not already have its global language. That global language is American English-especially since it seems to be the language elected by the global economic and social elite. Why? Well like French in the 18th century, it is uniquely suited to express the pre-eminent, surpassing ideas, ideals and concepts of our particular epoch. Moreover, like any predominent language of a certain period (Spanish in the 17th century, French in the 18th, British English in the 19th) it is tied to that epoch’s great power-perfectly appropriate since that power became great by creating the dominent concepts and structural elements of the period.
Roig
@ 21:00
Two points:
1) Elena says she enrolled in a beginners’ Chinese course. If this article is anything to go by, she probably didn’t get too far with it:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2007/02/06/ftchinese06.xml
In other words, some languages are much harder to learn than others - something those with little experience with foreign languages fail to take into account. It usually takes many, many years of study to be able to hold your own with native speakers in another language. That’s why an easy and regular common interlanguage was created.
2) Roig writes that the world already has a global language. All well and good for native English-speakers, but what about the other 95% of the world’s population which has to spend enormous amounts of time and energy struggling to learn it? How about some discussion of the seven points of the Prague Manifesto?:
http://lingvo.org/xx/2/3
@ 12:18
like your remark about a language organically risen from its practice and application across cultural and geographical divides.
This is precisely what Esperanto is. So it would be more correct to say - I’m talking of a language like Esperanto, organically risen etc…
Among lots of events that are organized by Esperantists, there is an Esperanto Universal Congress, organized in a different country every year.
Those who are interested in the local language can attend a language course given in Esperanto by local teachers.
A week before and after the Congress (lasting one week) there are excursions organized across the country. So it is advised to take a month vacation.
This is a good way to learn something about a foreign culture, but only a few people can afford that.
To have an idea what is going on in the world, see http://www.eventoj.hu/2007.htm or use Google with “eventoj” .
@ 08:33
In fact, Esperanto is more “an organically risen language from its practice and application across cultural and geographical divides” than you might think
@ 19:42
While I am using LiveMocha as a means of learning basic vocabulary, I am well aware of its shortcomings and the shortcomings of traditional language instruction. I learned Spanish at twelve-thirteen years old through living in Spain, after which I found all language courses unutterably dull and completely ineffective for speaking.
In terms of Esperanto, I see that we have some reader enthusiasts, so I will address Brian’s request in my next post.
e.
@ 11:44
With regard to Brian’s comment, I would say that the elites of non-English speaking countries are learning English at a remarkable rate. Ultimately it is the elites who dictate the general tone of the society as a whole. The rest of society will follow their lead.
roig
@ 13:04
Roig makes this very complex issue all seem so very simple. Are the élites of whom you speak for example learning English entirely of their own freewill, or are they subject to subtle or not-so-subtle market pressures? (e.g. Will they still be able to graduate from school/university without English? Will they still have equal work opportunties if they know no English? Are they not in fact willing victims of a not-openly-stated linguistic neocolonialism, and then become tools of it themselves?) ESL/EFL is a worldwide industry which brings in enormous amounts of cash to all English-speaking countries. Is Roig in favor of maintaining and increasing this economic windfall, and/or trying to defend his privileged position as an English-speaker, while shifting the language-learning burden to the other 95% of the world? Not a very cost-effective alternative!
And where might this all be leading? The world hegemony of any one ethnic language is not only harmful and destructive of smaller languages and cultures [Google: 'endangered languages'], but a disaster for the world’s linguistic heritage.
We have a rational, democratic, fair and cost-effective alternative.