Livemocha

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OrangeNut New member
Registered: 2008-12-21 Posts: 9

This place has a few courses on Japanese. Although It's not really my cup of tea, I thought it was worth a share.

http://www.livemocha.com/

Discuss, praise, criticize, etc.

wccrawford Member
From: FL US Registered: 2008-03-28 Posts: 1551

I tried it for a while.  It's basically just Rosetta stone with accelerated courses and a community.

At first, I thought it was good, but once it got beyond things I already knew, I realized I wasn't learning anything from it...  I was just gaming it and getting points.  I also found that I dreaded going back to it each day.

furrykef Member
From: Oklahoma City Registered: 2008-06-24 Posts: 191

It's a great site for meeting people. The lessons are pretty much garbage, though. They were clearly designed with English in mind, then each sentence was mindlessly translated into Japanese (or Spanish, or whatever language you're learning). This causes endless problems, including situations where it is impossible to answer correctly without guessing simply because the question doesn't contain enough information. Here's one example... one lesson might ask you to click on the picture representing "a girl and a flower", and another question might ask you to click on the picture representing "a girl and some flowers". Sounds OK, right? Well, both of these got translated into Japanese as "女の子と花", so now you don't know which one to click anymore!

So, yeah, it's much better to take lessons that are actually geared towards students of Japanese. Still, the community aspect of the site is worth checking out.

- Kef

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joe_bevis Member
From: London England Registered: 2009-01-10 Posts: 70 Website

its ok if you want to get an impression of what rooseta stone is like

furrykef Member
From: Oklahoma City Registered: 2008-06-24 Posts: 191

I hope not, because not only would that mean that Rosetta Stone is very overpriced, it would also mean its quality is abysmal.

alyks Member
From: Arizona Registered: 2008-05-31 Posts: 914 Website

furrykef wrote:

I hope not, because not only would that mean that Rosetta Stone is very overpriced, it would also mean its quality is abysmal.

Sorry to have to break the news to you.

wccrawford Member
From: FL US Registered: 2008-03-28 Posts: 1551

alyks wrote:

furrykef wrote:

I hope not, because not only would that mean that Rosetta Stone is very overpriced, it would also mean its quality is abysmal.

Sorry to have to break the news to you.

Er, yeah.  What alyks said.  I hope you didn't buy it?

Raichu Member
From: Australia Registered: 2005-10-27 Posts: 249 Website

So what's Rosetta stone?

I've tried livemocha. I kind of like it. The speakers are slow and clear, so I find it good for shadowing practice especially intonation.

wccrawford Member
From: FL US Registered: 2008-03-28 Posts: 1551

Raichu wrote:

So what's Rosetta stone?

I've tried livemocha. I kind of like it. The speakers are slow and clear, so I find it good for shadowing practice especially intonation.

Imagine LiveMocha, but it costs several hundred more dollars and goes slower on the content.

Seriously...  It's really just about the same thing.

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