Lingualogue Blog

A new iphone app has hit the market over the past 6 months or so which could well be the start of a paradigm shift in language translation. It is also possibly the coolest language gadget I have ever seen in my entire life. It is called Word Lens, a rather unassuming name, and one that does not really do justice to the Star Trekishness of the whole thing.

So what does this amazing new gizmo do? Well in a nutshell, it allows you to point your iphone camera at a word in a foreign language, and the software will translate it on the fly.  But wait, not only does it translate it, it also swaps the original word out and replaces it with the translated word within the picture in real time. Basically the image on your iphone looks the same as it does in real life except that now you can read what it says.

It is very hard to explain and so to give you the full sense of awe at what this thing does, I will let you see it for yourself.

How cool is that? Okay it is still not perfect and sometimes has difficulties reading certain things in real time, but it feels like the beginning of something really good. I have to say, that when they start releasing more languages, this will become the travellers essential. Imagine being able to translate everything you see as you see it.

I don’t actually own an iphone, but it is things like Word Lens that make me think that the iphone will more than likely be the next phone I buy

Everyone has heard of Amazon. Everyone knows it as one of the biggest online stores in the World. Even I have bought a Kindle for myself for Christmas. Not everyone, however, has heard of Audible. Audible is in fact a subsidiary of Amazon, and anyone who has ever bought an audio book from the online giant has seen the name. Audible is the company set up by Amazon devoted entirely to audio books and other audio products.

Audio books are a growing trend. As people get busier and busier in their daily lives, they seem to get less time to do the relaxing things in life–like read a book. Listening to someone else read books for you is becoming popular, but this is not the only thing Audible offers…oh no.

For language learners, there are many products you can get to help you learn the language of your choice. Some of those products are audio courses, and being audio courses, many of them can be found on Audible. Now this might not be groundbreaking news, or even all that interesting, but many people feel much more comfortable buying a product from the trustworthy enormity of Amazon than a small individual company. When you can buy several language courses together from this same stalwart of commerce, then it’s time to take note.

Amazon is a well known site and simply by doing a search on their homepage you will uncover the masses of language resources that they offer. You will find the usual big boys – Pimsleur, Fluenz, Michel Thomas, Linguaphone,  but also a lot of smaller audio courses that otherwise you might not have heard of. They are also usually very nicely priced

So Why Use Audible?

Audible is simply a subsidiary of Amazon and most of what they sell will be found on the Amazon store. But Audible is more than that: If you are a serious language learner and like to use audio products a lot then you can become an Audible member. Being an Audible members opens up bonuses and discounts for you that the Amazon store cannot. Audible membership involves either a monthly or annual subscription fee for which you will get your choice of audio books or audio courses. There are two main plans to choose from as an Audible member:

Gold Plan

The Gold plan costs $7.49 for the first 3 months followed by $14.95 per month for the remainder of your subscription. This monthly membership provides you with one credit per month which you can use to trade in for audio books. It seems that a vast majority of the audio books available at Audible cost 1 credit. You also receive 30% off any other audiobook that you buy not using one of your credits. This is estimated to give you up to 75% off the standard retail price of a CD.
They also throw in a daily subscription to the audio New York Times or Wall Street Journal newspapers.

Platinum Plan

The platinum plan is similar to the gold except you pay $22.95 per month for two monthly credits

Try Audible Now and Get A Free Audiobook Download with a 14 Day Trial. Choose from over 85,000 Titles.

The Audible library boasts an impressive 85,000 plus titles including books in many different languages. Not only can you buy your audio language course form Audible, you can also get some foreign language audio literature to help your ears gain familiarity with the language.

Audible products can be easily downloaded and then loaded onto your ipod, iphone, blackberry, or whatever device you use for mp3 playing. They are a huge reputable company (owned by Amazon) and offer an exceptional way to learn a language through your mp3 player.

If you are serious about learning a language or know someone else who is, get a subscription to Audible. Annual payments are accepted if you know someone who would appreciate it is a gift and it’s a small price to pay to have so much information at your fingertips. Of course you can cancel at any time as well.

Seriously, check out Audible and see what they have that could help you.

Audible.com – for the US

audible.co.uk – for the UK

Finally! The biggest, most comprehensive and very possibly the best language learning course on the market is finally available for Mac Users. Yes, Auralog has, at long last, understood that Mac Users are language learners too and released their TellMeMore software package for users of Windows’ less popular but more sophisticated brother. Not exclusively, I hasten to add, but beggars never get to be the keepers of choice.

First of all, I never really understood why the TellMeMore course was not available for the Mac. It was actually one of my major bones of contention with the company when I did my initial review. I can only surmise that Auralog does not have any one on staff that could code the software to be Mac compatible. You would think that would be an easy fix though wouldn’t you?

Anyway, my days of griping over such trivial (for Windows users at least) oversights are over…at least in part. It seems that Auralog still could not find anyone competent enough to convert the Software into a Mac compatible package, and what they have done instead is put their award winning TellMeMore software online for everyone to use.

They call it Webpass, and to all intents and purposes, it is TellMeMore online. Although at the moment the Webpass language courses are available for only a few languages – Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, and English – I would expect this number to grow over time.

So how does it work?
Well it gives you the choice of learning a single language, with unlimited web access, for either 3 months or 12 months. The three month membership will cost you $199, while the 12 month will put you back a not inconsiderable $499. I guess the time frames have been calculated to make the costs comparable to the regular TellMeMore language suites, which I have always considered to be a lot of money, but  remarkable value considering what you get. Of course you could not expect the company to give lifetime membership to customers, as these would certainly be sold on from person to person once the content had been mastered. I think 1 year is probably fair for most serious language learners.

So what do you get for your money?
Well the courses are designed for a wide range of experience levels whether you are a beginner, intermediate, advanced, or expert. Your current skill at the language is initially gauged via a placement test at the very beginning; this will help find your perfect start point for the course.
You can also tailor the language course to your professional needs if you have any, and make the language that you learn immediately useful for your career. The software includes tools to tailor to many different professions,  including marketing, HR, finance, and more. This is a nice touch and I guess makes good use of being online. It certainly seems nice that it is so customizable, and of course the customization can be changed at any time.

The Webpass of course boasts similarly impressive language materials as the TellMeMore software packages, including over 1000 hours of language learning, 500 interactive dialogues, 70 news videos, 60 film clip activities, cultural content, and audio, and more. The audio of course can also be downloaded and loaded onto any mp3 player of your choice. This is a lot of material  and will keep any language learner busy for a very long time. Probably too much for the minimum 3 month subscription, but it would certainly be a good start.

The main beauty of TellmeMore and now Webpass is that unlike the vast majority of language courses, it covers reading, writing, listening, speaking, vocabulary, and grammar. Everything you could possibly need to learn a language to complete fluency.

Webpass then would seem an extremely positive move from Auralog, and I do have to wonder that with the versatility and customization of the online service, if Auralog will be planning to get rid of the software programs altogether and take it all online. I for one would not mind.

Online Language Learning by TELL ME MORE. Spanish, French, English, German, Italian, and Dutch. 12 month unlimited access.

Online Language Learning by TELL ME MORE. Spanish, French, English, German, Italian, and Dutch. 3 months unlimited access.

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

Introducing the new Rosetta Stone Totale, the  latest package to be released by the language learning Leviathan. The Totale is aimed at serious language learners and is considered by the company to be a complete, revolutionary language learning system. But is it really?

The Totale comprises the regular Rosetta Stone  software package that many language learners will already be familiar with, but also includes live sessions– where you can talk online to a native speaking tutor or other students– and access to Rosetta World, an online community where you can play games and make friends with native speakers.

I haven’t managed to get my hands on a copy of Rosetta Stone Totale yet as it costs a tidy $999, but you can get an excellent review from the reliable Wall Street Journal to get a better idea of how it works.

As soon as I get hold of a copy I will do a proper review, but I have to say I am a little sceptical from the start. Rosetta Stone is an excellent language learning package, and the added online interactivity does seem at first glance to take it ahead of the competition. However, I am still not yet convinced: $999 is an immense amount of money, and although Rosetta Stone makes a persuasive argument that this is by far cheaper than hiring a personal tutor, it is certainly not the cheapest method out there. I also don’t think it is particularly ground breaking.

There is a free online resource called LiveMocha which has been around for some time, and does virtually everything that Rosetta Stone Totale is claiming to do, but for the immensely more attractive price of zero cents. Even the software exercises are similar. I have a feeling it is the likes of LiveMocha that has prompted Rosetta Stone to release this new Totale offering in the hope that their recognisable brand name will sell a package that is already available (if not globally known) for free on the internet, and catapult them to the front of the pack.

With Live Mocha, you join a community to help you learn a language–native speakers help you by correcting assignments, or just chatting with you to help you practice what you have learned. You in turn help them to learn your language. You meet new people, learn new languages, and maybe even make new friends–all for free. This has got to be better than forking out $999.

As I said before I cannot comment on Rosetta Stone Totale properly yet as I haven’t used it, but if you are thinking of buying it, I would urge you to try LiveMocha first and see if you can do what you want to do there, and save your cash for something else.

You can read a brief review of LiveMocha on the Lingualogue Free language courses page.

Learning a language for many people is more of a chore than  a pleasure  and most will dive into it with enormous initial enthusiasm, only to give it up shortly after ‘where is the post office’ and ‘my souvlaki has too much salt’.

Enter the Nintendo DS and Ubisoft’s My Coach range: My Spanish Coach, My French Coach, My Japanese Coach, and My Chinese Coach.

Now these certainly aren’t the first games to be made to help people learn languages, they are not even the only ones available on the Nintendo DS, but they are without a doubt some of the most effective language learning games on the market.

Finally someone has made an engaging, enjoyable, and most importantly, an effective game to make learning a language fun and easy. And these games are not just for kids; they will appeal to anyone who enjoys computer games. Let’s face it, if you have a DS already, you like games, and I am pretty sure you will like these.

Each game comprises about 1000 interactive lessons and mini games which can be played through from the start for newbies, or begun at the appropriate level for more experienced linguists. This is achieved by an initial quiz to gauge your level with quizzes popping up throughout the game. Overall the game does an excellent job of teaching vocabulary, grammar, and even pronunciation with its voice recognition software, and does it well enough to make a quality, stand up, language learning suite feel like playing a game.

I don’t understand why it has taken so long for game designers or language product designers to marry the two formats together so well. We all know the importance of learning foreign languages, and we all know how much we like playing games. To me it seems an obvious combination; my Coach combines them seamlessly. I hope we see many more language games on the market in the future, available for all platforms, and as consistently good as these are. This is an ideal way to learn a language

Hats off to you Ubisoft.

Welcome to the very first post of the new Lingualogue language learning blog.

Up until this point, Lingualogue has been very simply a website for helping native English speakers to learn that elusive second language. We have done reviews, posted links, and added material to aid people’s learning as much as we can. We have always striven to post as much new content as possible, but sadly we have not always been successful in this aim and have not been as frequent with new material as we might have liked.

Enter the Blog!

Blogs are an interesting medium for transferring information. They allow the writer to express thoughts, ideas, and opinions and then publish them immediately, at the touch of a button, to the waiting world. Blogs allow more abstract content than more regular webpages and basically allow content to be posted at a faster rate.

The idea behind the Lingualogue Blog is to run in tandem with the Lingualogue website but provide content on a more regular and frequent basis, but also often of a more personal nature. We will post opinions about language learning, difficulties with other languages, and the joys and pitfalls of living abroad. As well as a lot of other stuff I haven’t even thought of yet. The blogs will be personal viewpoints of the writer, whether they be from Lingualogue or a member of the public and will give anyone wanting to learn that second language a blunt insight into what they can expect.

I wish you luck with your language learning and hope Lingualogue Blog will be of help to you.

Neil Breakwell