The Facebook poll system is a more or less hands free way to deal with this. As Steve mentioned in another thread, beta languages are not currently a priority for us, as they affect very few people. We would prefer to spend the majority of our time on the more significant issues that affect a larger portion of the LingQ community.
All the popular languages will eventually get added, it’s just a matter of waiting a bit longer for some than for others. People who say they will provide content may or may not follow through, as has been the case in the past as well. We simply cannot guarantee that languages with lots of willing content providers will actually result in such.
How successful the Facebook poll has been at attracting new members is difficult to judge, but we do know that our traffic from Facebook has increased significantly since this poll was added.
Whichever language we add we will have members who wanted a different language complaining about the poll being unfair. We have had this experience in the past as well and I’m sure we’ll have it next month also. The only thing that may change in terms of our poll is that we may get tired of the debate and simply stop adding new languages completely.
If there is a language that you would like to see added to LingQ very badly then figure out how to drive like-minded people to the Facebook voting page.
I’m pretty disappointed that it appears noone wanted Norwegian except for me. If there ends up being no content, then that’s too bad I suppose, but for what it’s worth here’s one paying member that actually wanted it. As far as the idea of “fun voters”, I just can’t see that many people that don’t use LingQ caring enough to actuay sway the vote. I know I for one don’t go traipsing around the Internet voting on random polls. A more likely explanation is that there are a lot of users who simply do not have a presence on the forums that were voting. I myself have been using LingQ for a while and just recently started posting to the forums.
“How many people became (paying) members thanks to that Facebook poll on beta languages?”
I’m one, indirectly, if only at the Basic level.
FWIW, I signed up for a free membership awhile back but hadn’t visited the site for months. I don’t even belong to Facebook, and it was a LingQ email that brought me back here, the one saying Latin had been added as a beta language. I came over to take a look at what was added for Latin, and then checked out the site more throroughly.
So, really this is a plug for the emails. I ignore most of them, but the Latin one drew me back, even though I’m not planning to add any content or listen/read very often. Ancient Greek, Icelandic, or several other languages would have enticed me back here out of curiosity, although I am not planning to study any of them soon.
Over 200 people voted for Norwegian, for whatever reason. Norwegian won! People can now use the Norwegian slot for imported content. Hopefully someone out there can be persuaded to create or find some content.
Now if you want Esperanto or Catalan next, please persuade your friends to vote. I want Turkish and eventually Farsi and even Modern Greek. I will also look at Catalan when we get it.
But I can wait because I am busy with the languages that we have. I suspect that is the case with over 99% of our existing members.
I’m a newbie and did not vote on any new languages, but I also happen to be a Norwegian so if there is anything I can do to help out please let me know how
melissa, thanks for your kind offer. It would be great if you could either find some Norwegian content that can be shared in our library, or record some yourself and share. We need audio and text, similar to what we have in our libraries for other languages.
Welcome! The best content in my opinion in the Swedish library is the natural conversations between people. There is more than enough beginner content for Norwegian out there if you look, but almost nothing in the way of transcribed, natural conversations that one is actually likely to hear in Norway. If you could record some actual conversations, I’m sure a lot of people would greatly appreciate that. I would certainly be willing to pay or make some contribution in the way of points when I get around to this awesome language, since it is undoubtedly a lot of work. LingQ is already the best place around for learning Swedish, despite the current stagnation in content, because what is there is excellent.
I read through this thread now, haha yes mikebond youre right, I have never posted in the forum before. Just decided to check it out now. I have now figured out how to import lessons with audio files (finally! it took some time), so those who wanted to learn norwegian have some more content now
I will try to make as many lessons I can today because I have some freetime at the moment. Also, if there is anything else you would like in terms of content topics etc (or comments on previous ones/recommendations for improvement) please tell me because this is the first time I have ever made audiofiles and lessons… (also my voice is a bit weird because I have a cold at the moment).
As for the distinction between bokmål and nynorsk I think it is ok that way, even though all the content I will make myself is written in bokmål. Bokmål and nynorsk are not considered spoken languages, just written ones. So actually my accent is “østlandsk” from the east of norway, but I write bokmål. Maybe some of the songs I will post are written in nynorsk I will use this option, but then the accent might seem different from the text (a bit confusing at times).
Madeleine, it’s good that you shared some lessons in Norwegian. However, we are not allowed to share copyrighted texts, which includes most contemporary music. In order to share copyrighted content, we must get a permission from the provider.
Oh, I see… Should I email the producers? Those songs are not very well-known other than in norway and even here they are not that popular anymore except amongst the older generations. I had to write the lyrics for the Odd Børretzen song myself while listening to it since it seems to not exist on the web… so it would be annoying if we were not allowed to post it by the producers haha. Maybe the songs are too old to be copyrighted, I’ll find out of that first at least.
Yes, it would be a good idea to contact the producers. Copyright on lyrics expires 70 years after the death of the songwriter, so any song composed after World War II is still copyrighted.
I think that everyone who wants a new language added to LingQ ought to write a few sentences on the forum in that language, explaining what they want it for.
@madeleinemahin
Even if the songwriter(s) (text and music) is/are dead since more than 70 years, arrangement, adaptation, edition, etc. could be copyrighted. In any case, it’s a good idea to ask the producer, unless you are performing yourself
Ok, I just sent an email to the copyright company in norway and asked, because I can’t find out who is the producer or the owner of those songs, and if it is the artists themselves I do not know their e-mail addresses… haha. But for now I won’t put out any more songs.
As i am a speaker of Danish, learning Bokmål, doesn’t really appeal to me, because the the written languages are so very much alike, it would be as learning to spell the words that i know completely anew, as if i’m being thrown back to 3rd grade all over again.
while Nynorsk is something more different, and more of a challenge with its more complex grammar and added gender.
That’s one side of why i appeal more to learn Nynorsk than bokmål, but that’s just the case with me. And i would like to say that i fully understand completely agree with LingQ pushing more effort into Bokmål instead of nynorsk, on LingQ’s-Norwegian-language.
Now, i’ll tell you my absolutely biggest reason for me to wanna learn Nynorsk. Norwegian folk music and lore is a fascination of mine and one of my big interests; ballads, ancient hymns, and old fairytales, all these i have found to be nearly all in the form of written language Nynorsk, and songs sung in dialects considered to be using nynorsk.
Should I email the producers? Those songs are not very well-known other than in norway and even here they are not that popular anymore except amongst the older generations. I had to write the lyrics for the Odd Børretzen song myself while listening to it since it seems to not exist on the web… so it would be annoying if we were not allowed to post it by the producers 
haha. Maybe the songs are too old to be copyrighted, I’ll find out of that first at least.