If I understand it correctly, LingQ has new requirements for adding a language. Here is some info:
This is an excellent idea, and I hope it will make vast improvements to the library of new languages. It would be nice to have an incentive like this to improve the libraries of supported languages too, but I can’t really think of anything. Anyway, I have some questions and concerns, as others probably do.
First, I was away from facebook for almost exactly 1 week due to very poor internet and firewalls. In that time Ukrainian went from some very low number to 1900 on the language poll. Can I assume the new requirements will apply to Ukrainian too?
Second - I’m happy to say that Thai can meet these requirements! We have received permission from content creators to put more than the required amount of material in LingQ’s library. The Thai team is also willing to help with LingQ beginner lessons. There is a fair chance that LingQ will be getting Thai media coverage, and a certainty that it will get coverage by Thai language learning bloggers and forums. Personally, I will be in Thailand shortly, and will spread the news amongst my many Thai friends that LingQ is a great tool for learning English.
In order to make Thai work, LingQ will need to create a parser. There are several working examples out there, and I’m sure we can get some advice from one or more programmers to help you with this.
Question - how do we proceed exactly? Where do we put the material, etc?
At the bottom of the information page is the following statement
“Once the content requirements are fulfilled for a language, we will translate and record our
LingQ beginner courses and add the language as a supported language.”
Does this mean you will definitely support Thai, including parsing, if we meet the requirements?
As Alex wrote in the “Catalan thread”, they will give us more details later on.
Well done for Thai, I hope you will have it added soon, even if I am not going to study it in the foreseeable future. I will start thinking what I can do to have Catalan added…
Thanks Mike, many learners have worked hard to get votes and materials together. Well done on Catalan too - you are a very dedicated group. I might want to study Catalan some day myself.
Of the 11 supported languages, there are only 3 asian languages. I think Thai will be a superb addition. Personally, I plan on studying Vietnamese and Cantonese in the future. Maybe I can get some support for these down the road…
Any comment on the Ukrainian push on Facebook? I wonder if they are willing to create the required material.
I was really surprised to read about this “Ukrainian push”, too. I did nothing for it, except writing a post here some weeks ago dealing with my doubt on choosing Russian or Ukrainian for 2014. There I mentioned that I am keen on learning Ukrainian and even more Belarusian, but I will start with Russian due to some practical considerations. So, I was really amazed when I read this. I hope some of those voters will create some content for LingQ.
The more contributors, the faster a language can be added!
I will probably keep contacting Catalans, but with a different message now.
Michele, I’m afraid this Ukrainian explosion was triggered by me.
I’ve posted some messages in Belarusian in some local russian/belarusian resources on Sunday’s morning. I’ve asked to support Belarusian in the voting poll.
As a native belarusian speaker I could create some lessons in Belarusian, I have some friends who are the Belarusian poets and writers. It allows me to hope on providing some content.
But what was a surprise in some hours later when Ukrainian was growing and growing and growing…
I think you’ll enjoy Russian. And there are lots of available exchange partners too, on shared talk for example. There is a gap in library materials imo - not enough upper intermediate. But there is a ton of good lower intermediate and (I think) advanced.
Is there a way to see total number of hours of audio for a given language? I would be curious to see if what I feel in my studies is reflected in statistics.
As about Russian, it’s impossible for me to be familiar with all the Russian content. It’s too much for me! It would be greate to have the statistics to know the level of texts to create.
PS. I’ve listened through all the Polish and Esperanto content, all A1+A2 Italian and all A1 Swedish lessons. I’d like to have more. I’d suggest to add more A2 Italian and A1 Swedish lessons.
@Wulfgar
Thanks for your encouragement. Maybe you can ask Russian speakers to make more upper intermediate lessons?
@Ress
Wow! What a great result, congratulations! If you manage to have Ukrainian and/or Belarusian added, I will start studying them already next year, even if I will try to keep my main focus on Russian until I feel comfortable enough to move to the two other “sisters”.
If you can give me a better description of the kind of A2 lessons you would like to find in the Italian library, I can try to make you happy.
Yes, hopefully. In the other thread, Mark wrote that they will be stricter with the sound quality of lessons in the new languages. I hope your Thai lessons are good enough for them.
@Wulfgar - Great to see your enthusiasm about Thai. We haven’t yet officially announced the new model, but when we do we’ll be happy to answer any of your specific questions regarding the addition of new languages.
The new requirements make more sense to me than the facebook votes. I’d really love to see Hungarian on LingQ but interesting content of good quality is essential. Well, and if there’s anyone else who’d like to have Hungarian added and/or if there are any Hungarians who are willing to provide content, please get in touch.
@Wulfgar - The major changes should be put in place when our next update is pushed. I don’t have a timeline for you, but in the meantime you are welcome to begin collecting content in preparation for this. When everything is ready we’ll be sure to let you all know!
Meeting the requirements of “providing a solid base" for a 'new language’ would take an enormous amount of work. This work has to be completed before the ‘new language’ is added to the system. How will the contributing member/provider be compensated?
I guess like in the other languages: You will only earn points when your lessons were taken. That would be difficult because members has to ask for the hidden URL for this language. You have to put a lot of effort in at the beginning, and you’ll earn almost nothing. At the moment you earn about 1 point per taken lesson. So if you create a lesson and 20 members use it you’ll earn about 20 points (= 20 cents), if 100 members take it you’ll earn about 100 points (= $ 1).
In the other thread about new languages I posted a calculation how much you have to put in before a language becomes a supported language: http://www.lingq.com/forum/1/20681/?page=4
And you have no gurantee how many users will take the lessons, and how many points you’ll get.
Even if I earn a lot of points every month it is not much according to the effort I’ve put in. I’ve many lessons that were taken only 20 or 30 times Especially on the advanced level because members at that level prefer to import their own stuff.
Especially on the advanced level because members at that level prefer to import their own stuff.