Chinese (Beta) = Mandarin?

Open Forum
1

Hi, I was wondering if Chinese (beta) is solely designed for learning mandarin… I would like to learn Cantonese and/or Arabic, does anyone know websites similar to this but teach abovementioned languages?

Thanks in advance,
Moony

2

I have never tried importing Arabic. On the other hand you can import Chinese text with Cantonese audio and it will work the same as for Mandarin. Bear in the mind that some functions do not work as well for Asian languages, an issue that we will be dealing with in a few months.

3

Hi Steve, I am proficiency in both Mandarin and Cantonese. If there is anything that I can do to improve the Chinese teaching in LingQ, please let me know.

Vicky

4

vicky,

We definitely want to improve our teaching resources in Mandarin, and eventually Cantonese. Here are the things that you can do for us.

  1. Help us do the translation of our interface into traditional Chinese characters. We have a lot of it done already for simplified characters. This was done by a number of our Chinese members. It should not be that much work since the translation is done it is just the traditional characters that need to be input into the system.
    If you agree to do this or even a part of it, that would really help.
    we can maybe get others to also help out.
    Please let me know and Mark will email you the details.

  2. Please let us know if you would like to be a tutor in Mandarin and/or Cantonese.

  3. We will be needing more content in both Cantonese and Mandarin, and we want to move to a situation where people load their own content without us having to do it. Let us know how much time you have. Obviously if the same people tutor and create content for us, this will be good for the learners.

Bear in mind that we are still very much at the beginning and we need to have tutors, even though people are not signing up very much for discussions. We will be working to improve that.

So, please let me know how much time you have and what you are interested in doing. That goes for other people as well.

Thank you.

5

Hi Steve,

I am very happy that I can do something to improve the Chinese interface. I would say that I can spend 5-6 hours a week to do this in June, and I will let you know my schedule in July if there is any change. I am fluent in speaking Mandarin and Cantonese. I feel more comfortable with typing simplified Chinese characters because I grew up in mainland China. However, I would like to try my best to translate the interface into traditional Chinese characters.

I would like to be a tutor too, but usually I can only do this at night of New York time.

I do not really understand what the third thing means in your message above.

Thank you.

6

I believe you can use some free online/offline tools to convert simplified Chinese to traditional. To be on the safe side, have someone to verify the results. This should not take long.

7

Hi Steve!

The Chinese Beta is great! I’m looking forward to more content.

My Mandarin studies have been on the back burner for some time…and before I get back to Mandarin (in terms of spoken fluency)…I’ve been trying to learn Traditional Written Chinese with Cantonese pronunciation. I would love to see the integration of a Cantonese dictionary with LingQ.

As for language source material…I’m not sure what constitutes free usage…for example the U.S. Foreign Service Institute, offers free Cantonese lessons available on line…but unfortunately…many are not adapted to LingQ’s language learning system. Could those resources be edited and used in such a way that they don’t violate any free usage copyright?

I’m also wondering if there might be a way to increase incentive for people to volunteer, and therefore increase available tutors and learning resources.

I was looking at http://www.polyglot-learn-language.com/ , and while they have a good idea…I don’t think the “language learning” aspect of the site has been well implemented. It seems to pretty much be a social networking site, not a place for language learning.

If native speakers earned credits for tutoring, providing feedback on writing, or production of learning materials, it might go along toward promoting community cohesiveness and promoting language exchange. It also makes it possible for those on limited budgets to afford to participate, and would expand the language base.

On the downside, such a plan might negatively effect revenue, but with enough participation, future implementation of some sort of Ad revenue (or subscription service that disables the ads) might offset those negatives.

8

Shon,

We want our members to become tutors. We are working on ways to make it easier for members to tutor and correct each other. Just wait and see. LingQ will only get better.

9

Thanks for your Reply Steve,

I am looking forward to helping in any way that I can.