Comments on: language learning online

language learning online

nickyskye — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:21:06 -0800

Mango is a new beta service offering free online language lessons. 11 languages available (each with 100 lessons). For English speakers there are lessons in French, German, Italian, Greek, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese and Pig Latin. For Polish and Spanish speakers, lessons in English.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:27:44 -0800

What about Python? All I know so far is "Ssssss! Ssssssss!"

By: jet_silver

jet_silver — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:27:52 -0800

How do they monetize this? Do they get you to memorize trademarks in the new language? J'ai conduit mon Citroën à McDonald's pour une Coke.

By: rokusan

rokusan — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:31:29 -0800

Muy mango! They don't call them "manguages". This restraint impresses me.

By: amro

amro — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:31:29 -0800

Pig Latin? Does Pig Latin really require lessons to learn?

By: Floydd

Floydd — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:33:32 -0800

It must, every time I speak it to my pigs they look all confused.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:36:24 -0800

Mango beta is an online enterprise-level language learning system freely available to everyone. Learn at your own pace with a suite of features that make language learning more engaging and fun. Enterprise Level, huh. Anyway, I always thought it would be a good idea to pair language learners up from various countries so they could practice with each other. With the internet and video conferencing, what could be easier?

By: nzero

nzero — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:40:12 -0800

How does this compare to livemocha? It sounds like essentially the same thing...

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:44:53 -0800

I sort of skipped to the end on a couple languages I know - and it didn't take you that far at all. I still recommend the FSI Language courses to everyone. They're also free. And they're intensive and advanced, and provided in the form of reading materials and MP3s.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:51:49 -0800

Mango beta is an online enterprise-level language learning system freely available to everyone. Mango is like a drug. You must have more and more and more of the Mango until there is no Mango left. Not even for Mango!Such is Mango.

By: oddman

oddman — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 11:06:40 -0800

Ambrosia, dude, you just made me lose the game. Such is Mango, indeed.

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 11:12:39 -0800

Send Password (Option 3) For user's that signed up for Mango after October 16th, 2007 Like one of them English user's?

By: bashos_frog

bashos_frog — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 11:31:25 -0800

My company provides Rosetta Stone courses online as a perk, and I have to say I think they go a lot farther than this offering. Still, it's nice to supplement the main program, or to have a free alternative in case my MeFi habits get me fired.

By: quin

quin — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 11:31:27 -0800

But will it teach me the language of love? It's international, doncha know.

By: SassHat

SassHat — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 11:42:40 -0800

I would love to learn Spanish from Mango.

By: Greg Nog

Greg Nog — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 11:58:14 -0800

My company provides Rosetta Stone courses online as a perk, and I have to say I think they go a lot farther than this offering. So you're saying the language course that costs hundreds of dollars is better than the one available for free? Huh. That's weird.

By: vronsky

vronsky — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 12:02:00 -0800

yeah ambrosia dude.. quit being so funny all the time, it gets annoying. A friend of mine married a girl from Venezuela last year and she is really struggling with her English. I'll forward this to him and see if it helps.

By: vronsky

vronsky — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 12:03:35 -0800

Is the Rosetta Stone course considered good? I've seen the ads, but wondered if it was worth the price.

By: facetious

facetious — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 12:47:13 -0800

I went to the link provided by vacapinta for the FSI Language Courses, and I got: "web server is ok" as the webpage. Am I operating the Internet incorrectly?

By: maryh

maryh — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 12:56:23 -0800

Same here, facetious. No go on Safari, Firefox or Opera. Do the FSI Language Courses hate Macs, perchance?

By: MiltonRandKalman

MiltonRandKalman — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 12:57:51 -0800

Is the Rosetta Stone course considered good? I've seen the ads, but wondered if it was worth the price. "We developed Dynamic Immersion™, a method that combines advanced interactive technology with native speakers and a rich visual environment... I've scene richer visual environments done in hypercard. Rosetta Stone consists of native speakers describing something that matches a scene in 1 of 4 really bad stock photo images. You click the one you think that matches. I recall playing same game when I was 3. "Which one is the doggy? No...doggie don't have wheels...which one...yeah!"

By: MiltonRandKalman

MiltonRandKalman — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:02:34 -0800

Do the FSI Language Courses hate Macs, perchance? I was able to jump to some of the language sections using links from Google The resource cannot be found. Description: HTTP 404.

By: maryh

maryh — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:03:23 -0800

And thanks nickyskye, I've been looking for a free Spanish program to work with until I find something more complete. This seems pretty good although I noticed the Spanish course is lacking a lot of the extra information on pronoun use and idiom that the French course includes. Hopefully they'll be adding more as they fine tune the site. Nice find!

By: ugf

ugf — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:42:48 -0800

facetious, I get the same message, and after looking them up on Google, the links I find 404 or give similar messages. I just lost 40 minutes to Mango though playing around with the Japanese lessons. I think I'd have to review each lesson a lot to get the vocabulary down, but it's fun to do, definitely.

By: ugf

ugf — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:45:08 -0800

The Mango group should hire a copywriter or proofreader for their profiles too - I definitely see superfluous apostrophes in those as well. Still, it's a beta, and meant to shake those things out of the code / copy.

By: phaedon

phaedon — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 15:07:40 -0800

Can you know the mighty ocean? Can you lasso a star from the sky? Can you say to a rainbow... 'Hey, stop being a rainbow for a second'? No! Such is Mango!

By: zardoz

zardoz — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 15:57:46 -0800

Not bad at all. I'm studying for my 3 キュ　in Japanese next month, and I need all the help I can get. Too bad they haven't implemented kanji, though.

By: Zinger

Zinger — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 16:24:42 -0800

What about Python? All I know so far is "Ssssss! Ssssssss!" No, no, silly ... Ssssss! Ssssssss! is parseltongue. In Python that would be >>> Ssssss! Ssssssss!

By: gubo

gubo — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 18:27:57 -0800

The FSI site has gone down in the past -- try again in a day or two.

By: afu

afu — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 21:48:25 -0800

My friend works at a Chinese learning website that is pretty good. They have free mp3 downloads. Chinesepod

By: the cydonian

the cydonian — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 08:46:51 -0800

Just wanted to recommend BBC's excellent Ma France for anyone looking at brushing up their French grammar.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 09:36:30 -0800

Do they sneak advertising into your lessons?

"Good afternoon, madam. I would like to purchase a cold, refreshing Coca-Cola." "One dollar, please." "Only one dollar? That is an excellent price for a cold, refreshing Coca-Cola."

By: fructose

fructose — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:00:50 -0800

Rosetta Stone is supposed to be very good if you finish the entire course. I found it pretty tedious when I used it to learn Portuguese, but I didn't finish because my subscription ended and I didn't want to pay again. Granted, I was accustomed to learning a language like I did with Spanish in school and college, so mindlessly clicking one of the four (yes, bad stock) pictures was pretty boring. I did learn, but probably not anymore than I did just by reading Portuguese materials (I speak Spanish so I can read Portuguese, just not speak it). Like vacapinta, I also skipped forward to the end of the Spanish lessons (lesson 103!) and it doesn't really go that far at all.

By: Reggie Digest

Reggie Digest — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 22:07:07 -0800

Found this a long time ago, bookmarked it, forgot about it. Thanks for the refresh, nickyskye!

By: Reggie Digest

Reggie Digest — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 22:12:03 -0800

J'ai conduit mon Citroën à McDonald's pour une Coke. Maybe it's the Canadian in me, but I think il n'y a pas de 's en Français.

By: gubo

gubo — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:26:51 -0800

The FSI site mentioned above is back up.