A Review of LiveMocha.Com : The Internet's Largest Language Learning Website

This review originally appeared as a guest post on the Everyday Language Learner's Blog. Thanks to language coach Aaron G. Myers for his encouragement! You can go to the original review on Aaron's blog for additional user feedback on LiveMocha.com. Do you have experience with LiveMocha.com? I'd love to know how it has worked for you!

I’m an American expatriate bursting with enthusiasm to get out and experience our globe! When my two children graduated from high school, I saw that as my opportunity to see and hear the world from alternative points-of-view by moving overseas. I sold everything and moved to Prague, Czech Republic. Now I’m living in Istanbul, Turkey. I enjoy it so much I’ve decided to put down some expat roots and learn the local language.

As Aaron G. Myers is also an Istanbul, Turkey resident, it wasn’t long before I ran across his Everyday Language Learner’s blog. Aaron coaches people from all over the world on self-directed language learning. I started his free ten-week journey of emailed inspiration, resources, and advice on how to do just that. In Week Two, he recommended a resource for language-learning that was new to me: LiveMocha. Since LiveMocha billed itself as THE largest language-learning website on the internet, and it was free to boot, I immediately started an account.

The best thing about the site is its intuitive design. There is no mystery to how to work the site, everything is clearly labeled and easy to figure out. When I logged in, I could immediately switch the site to English and choose between working on my language courses, exploring the culture of my new language, or practicing Turkish with native Turkish speakers. Livemocha offers over 38 possible languages, with 12 million registered users, from 196 countries. The website itself is just five years old!

The genius of the design is using social networking to help people learn languages. Native speakers of one language grade the work of people trying to learn their language. That favor is reciprocated when the ‘teachers’ become students in the language of their choice! Native speakers will not only grade each other’s work, they will offer tips to understand the grammar, and practice speaking live.

LiveMocha courses are divided into three sets of five lessons. I like this. It reminded me of marathon courses. Marathon runners don’t like one long, linear course instead preferring short distances with lots of turns that add up over time. It helps the runner visualize not the entire path, but just the next step. I chose as my first course, Turkish 101, on March 7, 2011 and finished the entire 51-set of Turkish lessons in four courses on January 24, 2012. I was always excited to see what the next lesson would be and to finish a set. Those steps, repeated over and over, made it all seem so doable.

Each individual lesson began with up to 40 Turkish words or phrases. The large number of new phrases and words surprised me, because I had been taught in my TEFL teacher’s certification course, that a language lesson should never be more than eight words, as eight is the maximum a student can remember from each lesson. Maybe online lessons are different, I don’t know. I remembered them.

First I would learn the words devoted to a theme, say “clothing,” and then immediately get quizzed on them via a review session, a listening session, and a reading session. Frequent quizzing has been shown to aid short-term retention. I liked getting all of those answers right! Each lesson required me to do a writing and speaking sample. I would always put that off because they were harder to do. Finally, to complete the lesson, I would take the quiz on that individual lesson. It was fun to take the quiz multiple times and track my improvements in time. How quickly could I finish it?

I can think of four very easy improvements to the site. I was asked by users to be friends in language-learning, but finding someone to grade your samples and be possible language-learning partners seemed so random. Sure, other users would rate us on our teaching ability (I had quite a bit of ego in my 100% useful rating) but toward the end I happened upon a teacher whose answers were truly more complete and educational than others. Sure enough, his profile showed he had been recognized as a Top 10 Teacher in Turkish. Why doesn’t the site show us exactly which teachers are rated highest so we can pick them? I found my favorite teacher when I was on my last five lessons. Finding him earlier would have increased my trust of the site.

Another feature I would add to the site is to not make students guess at the pronunciation of a passage. While I would learn terms or words in a lesson, for the speaking practice attached to each lesson (usually a whole paragraph), I would often have to go outside the site to figure out how I should pronounce the words. It would be so easy to have other users actually create a sample hand-crafted audio for us to mimic. Instead, I inputted my sentences into Google Translate to figure out how to say them.

Users could criticize a phrase in a useful tip left for those learning. This was not always helpful. The lesson would try and teach a phrase and the sidebar featured someone saying, “we don’t say that!” When someone has a specific criticism of the lesson, I think site administrators should use that criticism to change the ‘slide’ and then delete the teacher’s tip. It would be one more way to create a friction-free site.

One area that I did not explore well because I didn’t see the benefit of it was flash cards. Why would I use a flash card set, when there existed a beautiful lesson with visual and audios that I could access again and again? Why would I even try someone’s top-rated flashcard set? Since we all had the exact same opportunity to create flashcards based on the lesson, I couldn’t see how someone’s flash cards could be more interesting than the lesson itself. That was not self-evident.

Lastly, I would ask LiveMocha to put verb work closer to the front of the courses. Even after 51 lessons, I could occasionally pull off a small conversation. However, I would characterize what I knew as words and phrases that were the building blocks of future conversations. I believe if verb work was closer to the front, people would be able to make sentences faster.

I remember the weekend I started to understand the signage around me. I remember the weekend I had my first 10-minute conservation with someone at the bus stop. It’s exciting to become more comfortable in a second culture and examine new ways of thinking about my world in a second language. Thank you, Aaron, for the recommendation. Thank you, Live Mocha, for getting me started in Turkish. I was sad to finish my last lesson and I wished for more and more lessons.

What better recommendation is there than that?

You may also like the post: Time Out for Turkish

Heath Lowry's "Ongoing Affair" with Turkey

This is a fun, charming memoir of a Peace Corp volunteer's time early in the Peace Corp program serving in a rural village in Western Anatolia. Mr. Lowry paints a loving portrait of Bereketli's characters and culture. This book describes what must be the beginning of his "ongoing affair" with Turkey as he now holds the Kemal Ataturk Professor Chair of Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies at Princeton University.

One thing that he speaks of frequently in this book, which is also frequently mentioned in today's literature about the Peace Corps, is how Americans are sent abroad with little or no direction of what it is they are supposed to accomplish. It is to Mr. Lowry's credit that he was able to help bring about positive change working with the locals while still knowing his place. He represented his own country very well as a Peace Corps worker.

Understanding Iran: The Power of One Graphic Novel called 'Persepolis'

Persepolis, Volume One
by Marjane Satrapi

Americans have been miscommunicating with Iranians for 60 years. Rather than continue to be a part of the problem, I "sought first to understand" rather than "asking to be understood" by reading this book. It is a profound, moving, and shocking graphic novel. I was continually in awe of the author's insight at such a young age; Marjane Satrapi wrote her book in her early thirties. I was also impressed by how many different ideas were presented in what is esentially a comic book that could be read in a couple of hours.

"Persepolis" helped me to understand how powerful people misuse the fear created by outside events to consolidate power for their own ends. This book starts with a reminder of how America and Great Britain interferred with Iran, causing the events that eventually led to the removal of the Shah from power (America overthrew a democratically-elected government in Iran in the 1950s).

The power of the book lies in how personally the story is told and its effect on a sophisticated, young, globally-oriented child who is age 6 to 14 in the story. While my country's wrong-doing is presented matter-of-factly, Ms. Satrapi saves her biggest impact for the self-imposed stupidity of constant war and constant death created by the Iranian regime during its war with Iraq. Her genius and wondrous courage is helping us, the readers, feel the stunned horror of one's country badly run through a series of vignettes from her childhood.

Author Marjane Satrapi

I would like to read Persepolis 2, to find out what happens to the author. Ms. Satrapi is an incredibly valuable woman to a country that most probably isn't ready to appreciate that fact. She seems like a creative visionary who will be read by all Iranians 50 years from now because she told the truth. While the status quo continues, I assume her work will probably be denounced by the powers that be.

Extrapolating the lessons learned from finishing this book back to my own country, I see how the events of 9/11 have also enabled American leaders, particularly the executive branch, to consolidate power in a way that doesn't bode well for the citizenry: the Patriot Act, indefinite detention of citizens, the end of "probable cause" requirements for internal spying, and new Presidential authority to take the lives of citizens without judicial oversight. Each externally-inflicted harm creates, causes, and enables worse internally-inflicted harm.

Interested in reading another book about governmental abuse of power?

You might like this post:

The Restoration of Order: The Normalization of Czechoslovakia

or if you're interested in books about the general region, I recommend this post:

The Ottoman Empire from the other side as told in "The Bridge on the Drina"

Time Out for Turkish

Maiden's Tower on the Bosphorus

I haven't blogged here for awhile.  It is not because I don't have a million things to say; I do. I have had to choose - between spending time learning Turkish - or blogging. Turkish won. It's not like I have a staff who can help me keep my blog going while I study: gidiyorum, gidiyorsun, gidiyor. The authenticity of my blog is that it is merely me, myself, and I.

I've had so much fun learning Turkish, I've put "learning another language" on my bucket list. Before becoming an "Empty Nest Expat" I was a typical American who could only speak English. I took 7th grade French, but I didn't learn much and never had any opportunity to use it.  These days in America, a child could at least practice his Spanish with a native speaker on a daily basis. Like many in America, I found it hard to justify the time investment of learning another language with only the typical two weeks of vacation each year, usually spent within the continental United States. Take a look at this infographic before embarking on a language journey.

Part of being an "Empty Nest Expat" though is to meet people on their turf and attempt to communicate with them in their language and hear, see and feel their point-of-view. My time in the Czech Republic rid me of the intimidation factor many Americans feel toward learning a foreign language because I met plenty of people who had learned not one, but two, and sometimes three or more foreign languages.  If they could do it, why not me?  This was such a perfect example of the importance of role models in our learning environment. Even though I came from a highly educated environment (my hometown is among the top three American cities for number of Ph.D.'s per capita), I don't often meet Americans who have learned a lot of languages, so it is easy to say and think,"I'll never learn." Nonsense.

America's political climate also encourages America to stay ignorant of the languages and world outside of America.  When I was younger, if a politician made fun of another politician for knowing a foreign language, it wouldn't have occured to me to wonder "why does that politician want to keep Americans afraid of and ignorant of the greater world? Is he afraid we'd all discover that our country is getting outperformed on several metrics?" This downscale English-only attitude may appeal to some aspects of the American public but only furthers to make the nation less competitive globally. Plus, when our citizens don't know other languages, we really do have to rely on our own political leaders for interpretation of events.  It's healthy to have points of interaction with other countries at many levels, including citizen-to-citizen, and not just in our native language.
The first week I was in Turkey, I went to YouTube to look up "10 words of survival Turkish." The two words for "thank you" take six syllables to say. YouTube was censored at the time in Turkey so I found this instead: the 100 most useful words in Turkish. I learned them. My goal was to learn three words a day. Next came this resource, the free part of the website called "Funky Turkish." I've also been using a book called "Turkish in Three Months." I've lived here a year-and-a-half and I'm about halfway through.

The person who has really propelled me forward on my language learning journey is Aaron G. Myers, writer of the Everyday Language Learner blog.  Aaron is a former English language teacher who now is a self-employed language-learning coach. I signed up to take his free 10-week course on self-directed language learning.  I also won an hour of coaching from him through his Facebook page.  These two wonderful educational tools have helped me realize and maintain my own enthusiasm for learning Turkish.

It doesn't hurt that Aaron also lives in Istanbul, and has taken the exact same journey I'm on - learning Turkish! He's created, for example, his own handcrafted audio site for people learning Turkish language to listen to again and again.  It's called the Turkish Listening Library. It would be fun to contribute my own Turkish audio someday.

Aaron Myer's blog and advice are suitable for any language.  He has taught me about fun online language-learning resources that I did not know about. So far, I haven't spent a dime on the Turkish I have learned. I also have invested only the amount of time I would not regret spending on it while living here.

I started with a resource Aaron suggested as part of his 10-week journey: LiveMocha.com. It's the largest language-learning website on the Internet. I first logged on on March 7th, 2011 and finished my final and 51st lesson on January 24, 2012.

Now I am beginning with a second online resource he recommended called LingQ.com which will help me graduate from phrases to conversations. I am still a beginner but I can make myself understood with people who don't know English, even with my rudimentary grammer.

The first year of language learning is the hardest. I watched with interest as Yearlyglot tried to learn Turkish in one year from Italy.  I lived here in Turkey and I wasn't near that fast! At the end of the year, he admitted, "ok, so maybe that wasn't doable." But in watching people learn, I learned too. I also learned not to think of language as something binary: not knowing or flown-blown fluency.  One of my Czech students told me he had a fine vacation in North American on 150 words of English. Getting to that level with online resources is fun and easy.

Did you know, when the creators of Esperanto were looking around the world for a suitable grammar for their newly-created language they chose Turkish grammar as the most logical?  I found that, in itself, motivating!

Empty Nest? Not All Parents Are Sad About It

You've heard and read about helicopter parents, right? The kind of Mom or Dad who micromanages their children's lives so little Jr. never makes a mistake and experiences failure.  The rest of us don't get much press.  Today's New York Times has a great article about parents who feel "job well done - so what's the next chapter of my life?"  Click here to read the article.

A Birthday Hike in the Belgrad Forest

 The entrance to the

Belgrad Forest

Back in Istanbul, after a week in France, I was excited to see that a Turkish friend was organizing a hike in the Belgrad Forest.  It was scheduled to be on my birthday.  As nature can often seem far, far away in Istanbul, I loved the idea of spending my birthday meeting new people by going on a hike.

Aren't you grateful for friends that take the time to organize things? They always deserve a little extra appreciation, don't they? Yasemin, my Turkish friend who put this together, hadn't hiked here before, but she did all the work of finding out what bus to take, where it leaves from, how often it leaves, etc. When someone has done all of that work, it makes it so easy for the rest of us to go out and discover new places and opportunities, doesn't it? If you're one of those people who are always connecting others by organizing events, thank you!

To give you an idea of what a commitment it is to get to an event in Istanbul, I took a bus to Taksim Square (50 minutes), and then got on the 42T bus to go to the Belgrad Forest (another 50 minutes).  That second bus has a route all along the Bosporus, so it often seems like I'm getting a sightseeing tour at a municipal bus price! The scenery was fantastic, and since another hiker from France and I guessed we were each going to the same hike and started talking, so was the company.  The 50 minutes flew by. We got to the end of the line of the 42T and there was the forest!  After paying a 2.25 TL entrance fee ($1.27) we were in.

 It's not every forest

that has a cafe

with checkered tablecloths

 Or horses and bicycles to rent

Paths were wide enough

for all kinds of traffic:

foot, hoof, or wheeled

 Yasemin, our organizer,

is the tall woman in green

in the middle.

Fun folks I met:

Jackie, a fashion designer from Ireland

and Ibrahim, an importer/exporter from Turkey

Beautiful, isn't it?

We were surprised the park was so deserted.

It was the middle of Ramadan though.

Anyone fasting couldn't even

take so much as a drop of water.

Not good conditions for locals to go hiking.

Another view of the beautiful lake

in the middle of the park.

The forest paths were so beautifully maintained

it was as if we were the first people to use them.

It turns out we were.

We came across a maintenance crew laying down

rubber backing (like under carpet)

and then covering it with this natural material.

If you are a runner,

this would be a very healthy place to run.

The path was springy and easy on the joints. 

 The majority of our group
headed back to Istanbul.
I finished our hike around the lake
with Misty and Kristin,
two fun American women
I was meeting
for the first time.

A last calming view of natural beauty.

What a terrific resource this forest

is for the urban dwellers of Istanbul!

The view as the municipal bus starts back to Istanbul.

 This is an Ottoman-era grove of trees. 

In France and in Turkey, I kept coming across these

magnificent tree groves planted under

authoritarianism forms of government.

I kept wondering if democracies

could create such gorgeous groves

for future generations.

  Are there any where you live?

Planting groves like this

requires a long-term view,

doesn't it?

 In my country,

people often don't seem to want to invest tax money

for those living alongside them,

let alone those who aren't even born yet.

On the bus back,

Kirstin and Misty talked up Mehmet's,

their favorite kebabci in the

Istanbul neighborhood of Ortaköy

with such gastronomic fervor

I had to try it for myself, no?

We ate fabulous Turkish comfort food

(mine was chicken shish kebab).

They introduced me to "ezme,"

which they described as a Turkish version of salsa.

On the hike,

these two hip, happening, can-do women

mentioned that they were organizing

a trip to Bulgaria...

Last Meal in the Lubéron

After a week of getting to enjoy my best friend from college, Robin, and her husband Jim, it was time to go home to Istanbul.  I have never been around someone recovering from chronic illness. Jim amazed me with his ability to withstand the everyday discomforts of his recovery with good humor.

I kept asking myself, "would I be able to be as pleasant to be around, as he is, if I was in his shoes?" Because Jim's lack of balance, post brain-surgery, makes it hard for him to leave the house or even walk from room to room, Robin puts lots of thought and effort into how to bring the world to him. I hope I helped in some small way.

I asked her, "how would you take care of him physically if you didn't have access to your resources?" She said, with emphasis, "I have no idea." We were silent for a moment in complete acknowledgement of how hard it must be for those struggling with brain-tumor recovery in their family but no ability to hire someone to come in and help.

Life can be pretty easy when nothing is going wrong.  When everything is going ok, it's easy not to think about what would be needed when catastrophe strikes.  Robin is my second friend from the same Women's College we went to who has had a husband with a brain tumor.  Luckily, my other friend's husband was French, and he received outstanding care that his wife, an American, raved about. But what about those Americans at home coping with something so completely over-the-top health-wise as a brain tumor? What about those Americans with inadequate health insurance coverage or no coverage? How do they do it?

I can't help but think Europeans have the answer and show an incredible REAL sense of community with their willingness to extend significant resources toward each other when their health needs help. Everything I have learned as an expat has made me believe in the European version of health care rather than the American version.  The Europeans have it figured out. It's not just an anecdote, the data about who lives the longest backs them up.  

  Lunch al fresco

amidst life-long friends,

with amazing comfort food,

and wonderful French wine.

I will NOT THINK ABOUT

the fact that the chicken's feet

are still there.

Yikes, there they are.

I'D RATHER THINK ABOUT

all the lemons that were used

to stuff him inside.

There are the lemons: peeking out.

Thank you, my dear, dear friends

for a wonderful week

in your beloved Provence.

Until we meet again,

most probably,

 in Singapore.

Bisous!

You might also like:

The Start of a Week in Provence

Provence Inspires Me to Make My First Tart

Rendevous at La Maison Rouge

My First Provencal Market at Loumarin

Provencal Breakfasts to Savor

What is a cepe exactly?

The Best view in Cadenet, France is Now Free to All

Taking in the Provencal Charm of Cadenet, France

 Scenes from Farmer's Markets in the Lubéron