jaystarkey
Member
Registered: 2006-11-04
Posts: 90
I used to think Mixi was just the coolest place. I run a community there with nearly 7000 users, most of the native Japanese speakers. The purpose of the community is to 1) introduce English speakers to Japanese speakers and 2) be a place where people can post language questions of all types, get help with corrections, etc. While the Mixi community is cool because I can ask any question in Japanese and get almost instant responses, the problem is that people from the states can no longer join Mixi, so it doesn't benefit anyone but me.
Enter Lang-8. You may have heard of it before. It is a start-up Mixi clone created by developers in Japan. It is almost exactly like Mixi, but it has built in language correction functions - you post some stuff in your non-native language and native speakers can easily make corrections. Pretty cool. And unlike Mixi, you can switch the interface to English instead of all Kanji. Not bad for learners. You can also find friends to exchange on Skype.
I've made a community on Lang-8 for people studying English and Japanese. It has a fair nuimber of Japanese folks who have joined, and now those people are starting to reply to posts there. It definitely is different than RTK in purpose, but would probably be a nice adjunct. Please join lang-8 and the j<->e exchange community:
http://lang-8.com/group/103
Here's a forum for asking natives questions:
http://lang-8.com/discuss/548
Here's a review of Lang-8:
http://www.tofugu.com/2008/05/14/the-be … e-writing/
Last edited by jaystarkey (2008 November 30, 8:57 pm)
jaystarkey
Member
Registered: 2006-11-04
Posts: 90
Just wanted to resurrect this post for those of you who haven't heard about Lang-8. It now has over 20,000 users, and the two largest groups are English speakers and Japanese speakers, although others (Chinese speaking, Spanish speaking, Korean speaking) are growing. It is very hand for practicing short sentences if you are trying to cement new vocab words or grammar structures (although you can get as long winded as you can manage).
The most active Japanese <-> English group is http://lang-8.com/group/103 and now there are almost 1000 users, roughly half or more are native speakers, but you can always get grammar help or whatever there (no matter how complex the question).
Plus, if you want to find a Skype friend to practice conversation, it is a great resource. Lang-8 isn't good for teaching you kanji, but it is excellent for letting you practice the kanji you've learned!
