Lang 8

Lang 8 is a virtual journal for sharing. You write an entry in the language you are learning. Someone corrects it. You learn from it. First select the language you are learning and then you can write a journal entry.

This is my journal entry in Spanish.

Once you have written a journal entry you submit it. Other users will see it and can help you correct your grammar. You can also write private entries but people won't be able to see them to correct them.

You can also give back to your community by correcting their journal entries. Help other people learn your native language. 

You can show your correction by crossing out words that don't belong or adding missing words in bold. However you like to do it.

My German journal entry. I made a few mistakes. People corrected them. It helps me!

In the above picture is my journal entry that I wrote in German. People have corrected it. That's next to the check marks. Seeing the corrections shows me the mistakes that I didn't even know I was making. I'm glad I found this site.

If you love learning languages and you love journaling you will love Lang-8, which is a combination of both. Now remember, Lang-8 doesn't actually have lessons. It is just a journal where you write what you already know and submit it to native speakers. Then they correct it.

Have fun.

Languages: Afrikaans, Ainu, Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijanian, Basque, Bengali, Bihari, Bosnian, Breton, Bulgarian, Burmese, Cantonese, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Faroese, Farsi, Finnish, French, Gaelic, Georgian, German, Greek, Haitian, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Khmer, Kirghiz, Korean, Kurdish, Laotian, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Lojban, Macedonian, Malaysian, Maltese, Mandarin, Marathi, Mongolian, Myanmar, Navajo, Norwegian, Ossetic, Panjabi, Pashto, Polish, Pashto, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romani, Romanian, Russian, Sanskrit, Serbian, Sinhalese, Slavic,  Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan, Tongan  Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Turkmen, Udmurt, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uyghur, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yiddish, Zulu

Learn A Language

You can Learn A Language! There are eight to choose from.

Sign up and choose which course you are going to learn. For this example, I chose Italian.

An overview of what you will learn from the course.

Once I signed up I was introduced to Einstein. Or at least a 3D guy who looks an awful lot like Einstein. He gave me a tour of Learn A Language.

Einstein teaches you how to use the site.

Yep, that's right. Einstein gives you the grand tour of Learn A Language. There is a lot to do on this site as you can see in the picture above.

First you learn the your new words or phrases in the Learning Lounge.

3D Animals!

They show you the word in English and then in your target language. They even show you a picture of each of the words you learn. Olive loves this site because she loves learning the animals with their 3D moving pictures. It's her favourite!

After you learn the words you are going to have to prove you know them!

The first game is multiple choice to make it easy for you and help you learn the words a little better before you test them. It is called Memory Machine.

Once you have used the memory machine you should know most of the words well enough to  play a game that requires you to type in the words. This next game is called Soccer Game.

The idea is that you are playing soccer but the concept is the same as Hangman. It just has a prettier picture. You hit letters that you think are in the word. If they are in the word they appear in the "Letters Correct" area. If they are not correct, then you don't block the soccer ball and your team loses.

So, there you go. Choose a course, practice the words, play the games, and Learn A Language with Learn A Language.

Have fun.

Oh, but don't cut out of class early. Einstein hates that and won't give you any points for the lesson you quit!

Languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish

LiveMocha: Destiny's Review

LiveMocha is a great way to learn a language, particularly for a visual learner. Generally, you would start at the most basic level. LiveMocha shows you pictures for each word. After glancing at each of the word, hearing them, and repeating them you might still feel like you don't know what they are. 

That's where the review comes in. Once you go through the review you will realize you have remembered a lot of it. If you're feeling confident you can even try writing or speaking in the language and then sharing it with the community for a review. Native speakers will then review the language and give you advice.

You can also help native speakers of other languages learn English in a sort of pay-it-forward type system. Some aspects of LiveMocha cost money but there is a lot you can do for free.

LiveMocha currently offers: Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech  Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Mandarin Chinese, Norwegian (Bokmal), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu