I started this thread 6 months ago as I knew that there were lots of people who wanted to learn lots of different languages, myself included. As far as I can remember I felt that there were lots of people wanting this, that and the other but nobody seemed to have a plan.
I thought that I had a plan and made this post but nothing came of it at the time. Right now, I’m in a situation where in the next two months I will be able to play a more active part in helping with the MS project. Exactly how remains to be seen.
My eagerness to help the language community that has helped me so much in these last 6 years or so got the better of me and I mentioned somethings prematurely. As of right now I have nothing concrete but I’ll be coming back to this in a few months.
There are a few things that have caught my attention of the last couple of years. This might be a great success or it might lead to nothing but I think it’s worth bringing it up.
- There have been a few ways to generate mini stories in different languages.
There have been talks about members forming a pool where each participant pays one part of the bill for paying for translations and recording. I have followed post regarding this matter but while the basic idea is good, I think there are reasons why it has not worked.
I bet it would be really hard to keep track of many different variables, who wants to learn what language, what if someone drops out of the pool, will that demotivate other participants and the list goes on.
- There are lots of members asking family members and friends/etc. for help.
I believe there is at least one lingq member who deserves a mentioned for his/her commitment to ask around from friends and family, that is WinterShaker. There might be more people but WinterShaker is one member whose name has popped up in many “How to get language X on Lingq” types of posts.
- There are lots of members that want to learn all kinds of languages.
While the language learning community is small compared to the “home cock” and “Sunday league sports” communities, we are a colourful bunch. I would have never thought Finnish was so popular, sure it might not be the top priority for students but still.
There are many different languages that I might learn want to learn if there is a easier way to go about it as far and wide as from Lithuanian to Swahili and Greek to Hawaiian or who knows even High Valerian but I guess that might be a bit hard to get into lingq, hehehehehe.
Conclusion: Create a thread that serves as a market forum
In a way if we were to create a thread where people can offer their help and show interest for specific languages, we’d only be centralizing an already existing practice. I think one problem with having people asking for different languages in individual threads is the fact that it catches only a fraction of people’s attention.
If there is one thread where people can offer their help or show interest in a particular language it gets more attention. Take Catalan for example, I have followed threads relating to getting Catalan on to lingq ever since a person asked if there anyone who could help with it, that caught a lot of attention.
Of course Catalan being a romance language and since it has been in the spotlight for almost a decade it has gained a lot more recognition. There are of course many languages that do not.
There was one member who I believe worked on half of the required stories and then a lot of people offered their help to finish the project. This communal spirit is one of the reasons that tipped the scales for me in terms of translating the mini stories. So, if enough people show interest it might convince people to help out.
