Lingualogue Blog

For those who have been following my site and this blog for a while, you will no doubt have noticed that I have often shown favourable opinion towards  LiveMocha as a free language learning resource. The language community behemoth is now the largest but still the fastest growing online language learning community in the world. This offers access to over 6 million other members who are more than willing to help you learn the language of your choice.

The content that Livemocha offers for free is absolutely astounding: Up to 50 hours of lessons and coursework that give you almost all that the mighty Rosetta Stone offers with the added benefit of social mentoring, tutoring,  and constructive feedback of work completed. I posted a review of LiveMocha a while ago in the free language course section of Lingualogue and have mentioned it a few times on this blog in the past. When anyone asks me what they should do to learn a language, I always stress that the first thing they should do before anything else is join LiveMocha.

Then of course Rosetta Stone hit back. They recognised the threat that LiveMocha posed and released the Rosetta Stone Totale series (which I also discussed earlier on this blog). Although at a rather heavy initial price tag, the Rosetta Stone Totale language courses took the age old skills of Rosetta Stone and married them to the new ‘LiveMocha-esque’ social language learning community. Now you could interact with real people online while using the well-known power of the Rosetta Stone system. That said, I have to admit that for pure value for money, LiveMocha still had it (well you can’t get any cheaper than absolutely nothing can you?), but you have to hand it to Rosetta Stone for bringing in some seriously impressive artillery.

But now, thankfully, LiveMocha have broken the deadlock, and in my humble opinion pulled away from the traditional powerhouse of Rosetta Stone yet again. They have introduced the new Active Courses, a premium but extremely comprehensive language learning course that beats the Rosetta Stone package on both content and price. At the moment the Active Courses are only available for Spanish, French, Italian, German, and English but they demonstrate perfectly how traditional language courses, online experts, and social community should be combined to make a single, fluid product.

LiveMocha claim that if you complete one of the Active Courses in its entirety, then you should be at a conversationally fluent level. I don’t doubt it either. The LiveMocha Active Courses come stocked with the mandatory videos of real life conversation, explanations and examples of grammar, along with reading, writing and speaking exercises. Where it really shines however is the personalised instruction from LiveMocha experts, and of course what LiveMocha does best – the community. Using and practising  everything that you learn as you go along with native speakers is invaluable. Whether it be a verbal conversation, written messaging, or feedback on coursework, the interaction with, and immersion into the community is as close as you can get to studying a language abroad without ever leaving your living room.
The new Livemocha Active Courses come in at $19.95 per month or $149.95 per year which is considerably cheaper than Rosetta Stone; in fact it is cheaper than almost all of the top language learning courses and contains substantially more value.

LiveMocha still offers the free course and this is certainly sufficient if you are completely new to a language and are looking for a good solid foundation. If you are serious about learning a language then you really MUST join LiveMocha. There is no way round it—no excuses. It’s free, fun and effective, and infinitely more likely to keep your interest than most courses, if only because of the people you can meet—why learn a language on your own when you could be using your new language to make new friends around the globe.

If after building a solid groundwork of a language for free, you want  to take it to the next level, then LiveMocha Active Courses are the places to go. These will be the most comprehensive courses available for a while I would imagine and I don’t see Rosetta Stone (or anyone else for that matter) emerging with anything to trouble them for some time.
Go to Livemocha.com

I apologise for this post, but I feel I have to put it in somewhere and I guess today is just as good a day as any. If the rest of you will indulge me, this post is for the surprisingly numerous people who find fault with my spelling. Some people seem to feel that I am consistently making certain spelling errors, and that this is somehow unacceptable for someone that writes about language. Although I am sure that my spelling and grammar are not perfect, and of course even the most proficient writer makes the odd typo, I would like to point out that the words that I am most commonly brought to task about are in fact perfectly fine (usually).

The difference is that I am from England, and although it is true that our languages are the same, British English and American English do have different spellings for many words. In England now, more and more people are adopting the American spelling of words, and let me just say that I have no problem with that—language is a fluid thing and should be changing all the time. I, however, still follow the old school English spellings of most words, and because of this I find myself in the situation I am now.

Before everyone writes in and berates me for being so sensitive, I should say that I do not lie in bed at night worrying that some ignorant Joe thinks I can’t spell. I did, however, think that it may be an interesting lesson on the evolution of a language and how a few hundred years of separation has changed the written word. I also think that every native English speaker should be aware of it.

So here we go, a few of the most common words that are different in British and American English, and the most popular ones for people to point out as wrong.

The o vs ou favourite
Most people actually know this one already so I thought I would start with it

American                  British

Color                          Colour
favorite                      favourite
honor                         honour

The Z vs S words. A difference that is becoming less used in the UK as well now

American                 British

analyze                     analyse
organize                    organise
realize                        realise
criticize                    criticise

I think you get the idea

ER vs RE another one that confuses many in the UK as both are now often used

American                British

theater                     theatre
meter                       metre
center                      centre

One very close to my heart – LOG vs LOGUE

American               British

catalog                    catalogue
dialog                      dialogue

This one of course made for a big decision when I first started this site. I was unsure whether to go with the American friendly Lingualog, or my British version Lingualogue. I did, as you know, plump for the latter, but I also bough the name of Lingualog. If you type in Lingualog.com you still go to my site.

The ultra confusing L or LL

This one can be very confusing. The rules are slightly different for English and American spelling

American                 British

traveling                  travelling
modeling                 modelling

In AmE – When the stress is on the first syllable then a single letter is used. In BrE, we tend to use a double l when in the middle of the word and between two vowels whichever syllable is stressed.

American                British

fulfill                          fulfil
skillful                       skilful

As with most words, the syllable that is being stressed gets a double letter. Alas in British English the Ls tend to confuse matters again and when we add a suffix to a word ending in L we only use the single L in both positions.

ENSE vs ENCE

defense                     defence
license                      licence

CK vs QUE

check                        cheque   -  as in the banking kind

Verb past tenses

learned                     learnt
dreamed                  dreamt

Some random ones

draft                          draught
tire                             tyre   – as in the car rubber
encyclopedia        encyclopaedia
jewelry                    jewellery

I think that is probably enough for now. There are of course many, many differences between the two versions of English, mainly thanks to the differences between the two dictionaries published by Samuel Johnson and Noah Webster.

I hope this goes some way to people cutting me a little more slack, although I should probably expect more comments about this than anything else. It isn’t always easy writing with the British spelling these days as many spellcheckers use American English and sometimes (annoyingly) try to change the words automatically.

Just for the record I am not saying either side is right and the other wrong. All I am saying is that these are differences in the common usage of the two languages across the pond and therefore both should be accepted and tolerated.