Although I meant to find something to eat just now, something else gave me food for thought:
It turns out that both peter and I bought the same secondhand book in French last week: Guillaume Musso, Et Après.
(I am happy to say that the book was cheaper in London than in Melbourne).
We joked that we could talk about it in French once we actually get round to reading it. We might well do it.
The point of this post: could there be a corner on the Writing Blog for book discussions? I am sure I am not the only avoid reader who would be prepared to post there.
Good point, but I certainly would feel ‘safer’ in the imagined privacy of an allocated tab where I can make mistakes (and have them corrected via a tutor) without feeling too stupid.
It just occurred to me after the chat with Peter. I suppose one could write and then speak about it, or vice versa.
Let’s say I want to talk or write about the one Camus book I’m fairly familiar with ‘Létranger’. There would then be a corresponding thread and people can comment (and have the posts corrected and the corrected version reposted, if required).
If there were any interest, we could arrange a Skype conversation with a tutor to accompany us in the discussion.
Somebody else might want to talk about the sex life of earthworms or whatever. There are so many wonderful books to be discovered.
The one sticking point as far as tutor time is concerned is the points it would cost if we were to go the LingQ route, which is something I prefer to do.
We could, however, simply practise writing about favourite authors or books in a dedicated space.
I think the idea of a book blog is an excellent one, and it could cross-fertilise with tutor-run book club discussions.
I have started up regular book club discussions on a Tuesday at 2pm UK time. This time suits people in the Far East best, I’m a bit stretched in European evening time slots. Another tutor might be able to offer something then?
P.S. We could use the Twibe for it, I suppose, at least for the time being. But as there are only 16 members, it might not be a very lively discussion.
What if we had a “Post to Blogs” page on LingQ where you could write up your post and then have it corrected and then sent to your blog of choice. There could be an option to have it go to LingQCentral in your target language, your own Posterous blog or any other blog which supports posting by email (many do). It could look something like this http://screencast.com/t/ucozltPCl. We could also add your posts to your profile on LingQ. Just some preliminary ideas…
We would probably want to reserve LingQCentral blogs for posts about language learning, personal language learning experiences, testimonials etc… but for the book club, the Posterous groups feature might work well. We can create a LingQ Book Club group. Then any members who want can send posts to that group blog and all other members will be emailed when they do. Let me know if you would like a LingQ Book Club group created and I can quickly set that up for you. Then, you can experiment with it.
I think the idea of a Book Blog is great. We can start simple: just write which books we are reading, how we like them. I would have entries for English, German, French, Spanish, Swedish, Italian and Russian.
Once an entry has been corrected, I’d be happy for it to be posted to my posterous blog.
How can we make sure that our posts go to the respective language tutors if we want them corrected, ie Korean to a Korean tutor, French to French etc?
A simple idea would be to have a small menu saying what language you have written it in and then the tutor list change accordingly. A slightly more complex idea would be to use the algorithm google uses to recognise a language. You save your text, then LingQ would be able to recognise automatically which tutors it will be best to send your writing to. The former idea is far simpler and probably easier to implement though. I don’t know many people who are unsure what language they have written in.
@sannet - the only problem with posting to your own posterous blog is that others may not see it there. Therefore a group may work better although of course they can follow you using our existing blog tracking system. As for free members they will be able to post without correction using the Post without correction button. Language of post and tutor list will be determined by which language you are in just like on the writing page
I’d be happy to help French learners with their writings in a book blog or whatever you name it. I’m also willing to host reading groups in a weekly conversation for example.
Thank you, Serge. Your experience as a member of a reading group sounded good. I’d be interested in joining one in French, but cannot do it on a regular basis. The other problem is the cost of getting hold of suitable books. I do have a huge selection of French books, but others may have different authors.
I think I’ll start small: This week I’ll write about a book I’m reading at the moment. Once you’ve corrected the text, I’ll have something to put on our LingQ Book Blog to come…
I am very interested in joining a weekly conversational reading group. If Serge you decide to host a conversational reading group, it would be great if you posted a list of books. Although my French library continues to grow, like SanneT, I may not have the books others have and vice-versa. A two week advance notice would suffice for me because it takes that long for books to arrive from France (and/or England).
Serge, should the conversational reading group not take off, would you also consider hosting a weekly 1/2 hr. or one-hour-1-on-1? I am starved for conversations that focus on contemporary book readings and contemporary authors.