So I just read Steve’s current blog post about live mocha/ Rosetta stone. Has anyone thoroughly tested out live mocha as a means to learn a language?
I was curious about it so I decided to sign up for an account. I love trying out new study methods/ language products but after trying mocha for 15 minutes I just gave up. I cant imagine trying to use this method of study long term.
Truthfully I didn’t give mocha enough chance however after looking through the free Korean lessons and giving it a try for 15 minutes I was instantly reminded about My language courses when i was in grade school in terms of content. The interface is kinda buggy and weird. It sounds like a great idea although , for me nothing about live mocha is interesting or engaging for me to happily learn my target language.
I give it 1.5 stars out of 5 .
On the other hand, I’ve been using Smart.fm for flashcards even though i normally hate flashcards. I really like Smart.fm , its really neat. Somehow , to me , its making flashcarding fun.
4.5/5 stars for Smart.fm.
SOOOOO has anyone had any luck with LiveMocha? I wonder how many people actually get to a high enough level in their target language using LiveMocha as one of their primary methods of teaching. It must be doing something especially if there’s so many people using it…
I used LiveMocha for about a year in 2008-2009. In my opinion, their lessons are very frustrating. They teach you a small amount of vocabulary and grammar, and then ask you questions that weren’t covered in the lesson. I don’t see how anyone could start from “square one” and learn a language using LiveMocha exclusively.
What I did enjoy about LiveMocha was getting to know other users. I spent a lot of time reviewing of other people’s submissions and giving them feedback. In this way I became friends with a number of Spanish speaking students. But after a while I found that I was spending way too much time helping others with English and not enough time studying Spanish. So I stopped using LiveMocha.
Because I had a lot of points on LiveMocha, in July 2010 they asked me to review their “new” Spanish course for free and to give them feedback in return. I said okay and tried the first lesson. But there was really nothing new about it, so I haven’t continued. I think I’m done using LiveMocha as a study aid.
Alicia53: Thank you for sharing. I agree with your comments about LiveMocha. It is a very frustrating way to learn a language, and I am now looking for other online language learning resources. The best thing about LiveMocha is that I met some wonderful people who have helped and encouraged me in my study of French. I’ve spent a lot of time reviewing the lessons of others on LiveMocha, but in return, I have received many excellent comments from other members on that site.
I completed the French busuu.com lessons. It was somewhat less frustrating, but I don’t feel I retained a lot of what I learned. I started the busuu.com German course, but decided to explore some other language sites before completing any more lessons. The best thing about busuu.com is the friends I’ve met there. They also have been very encouraging.
I tried hello-hello.com, but no one ever responded to my friend requests on that site. I do like the conversational approach that hello-hello.com uses.
The friends I correspond with most are ones I’ve made through the Language Exchange Community (http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/). Our email exchanges are less formal than Livemocha and busuu.com, but I feel I am learning more about the cultures of countries where German and French are spoken. We exchange information about our communities, families, and interests. I feel it is important to be very careful in sharing with people one meets online. I am very cautious about sharing too much personal information online. There is a danger of “letting one’s guard down” when using the Language Exchange Community because it is less structured.
I enjoy learning about languages and cultures and have had some exposure to Spanish, German, French, and Norwegian over the past years. I also like to learn what I call the “polite” words of a language: please, thank you, excuse me.
I personally have a strong dislike of Live-mocha. It made me not want to learn Mandarin anymore.
“They teach you a small amount of vocabulary and grammar, and then ask you questions that weren’t covered in the lesson.”
This is why I stopped learning Mandarin. I had no idea what I was doing, so I made the mistake of using Google translate. I accidentally typed “women” instead of “woman” so in my first writing lesson I ended up saying: “All women are fat and ugly.”
Let’s just say it didn’t go to well with the Correctors. ^__^;
I guess the only bonus was a lot of “friends.” Apparently I was also a Top Mandarin student. XD
Seeing that people in LingQ (at least in this thread) don’t like LiveMocha, why is that it is so succesful? As far as I know, they have milion of users.
Obviously People know LiveMocha and have no idea that LingQ exist. I for myself stumbled accidently over LingQ when I searched podcasts for English learners.
And I mean if there are so many dissatisfied learners and negative ratings how could this resource work successful?
Perhaps these figures from Wikipedia don’t take into account how active are those users, there are a lot of communities with millions of members… who use the site a few times a year.
I would assume that live mocha would only work depending on the users motivation to learn with their method. I guess this goes for any learning method including Lingq. However, I find Lingq straight forward in terms of learning and if you put enough time and effort it’ll get you to where you want to be in your target language.
Live mocha seems to follow traditional ways of teaching with units and grammar and eventually you can’t move past a certain level due to their content. I suppose the plus side thing is that you end up meeting ALOT of people and wasting time online helping them out and possibly giving you a fake sense of language accomplishment just by login into your acount there? Not that helping out is a waste of time but to me it seems like it end up being more of social type place where you’re earning points and making you feel good instead of learning your target language. I guess there’s something really satisfying and addicting when your able to sign up to a language program that gives out points when you finish lessons, and when you go through a linear unit of lessons 1-30 and being able to cross them off your list AS if once your done all those lessons you’ll be fluent. People are always looking for the easy /fast way to learn languages , I just dont think live mocha offers anything ground breaking to make learning more efficient. To me it seems to only be doing the opposite. Maybe people are just interested in languages and looking for a place to hang out …
Why would someone sign up to live mocha and not lingq? From what i could tell live mocha seemed to have ALOT of free content you can fully access and use their system. They also have paid courses… Lingq on the other hand , The content is free. You can access everything but I guess the down side is If you want to use the system to its full potential you need to pay monthly and I guess theres alot of people that arent ready to do that. Nothing wrong with that =p. I’m a paying member at lingq and i’m more than happy to pay for the service. I just cant speak for others.
keroro, thanks for sharing your opinion That’s very interesting!
I agree that a lot of people are not ready to pay monthly, even if it’s worth it.
In short, I think Lingq is mostly for users that like to be independent, and with some knowledge about methodologies on learning languages. For example, in LingQ there are a lot of people learning their second, third, … foreign language. It seems to me that other webs are more oriented for first learning language users, which are more “traditional”. Anyway, it’s just a personal view.
I first started using LiveMocha, and then discovered LingQ, but I still use LiveMocha. What I like in LiveMocha is what everyone above said, the friends and acquaintances you meet! I also like the feedback you get from other users. I do also help other users but not to the extend that I would feel that I’m wasting my time, but rather to the extend that I’m offering as much as I’m getting. LingQ is a completely different method of language learning, so it’s no surprize to me if there are people who prefer one to the other. I also prefer LiveMocha to LingQ in some aspects, and LingQ to LiveMocha in some other aspects. For example, at the moment, LiveMocha covers a lot more languages than LingQ. Yet LingQ offers a lot more content than LiveMocha!
I would also say that LiveMocha and LingQ are not comparable, instead they fill each others shortages, that’s why I keep using both and am content with both as well!
That’s very interesting!