A has been pointed out on a previous thread, LingQ relies on members for a lot of its content. What do we need?
First of all, it would be nice to hear from members as to what they are looking for.
At LingQ we created a few items for beginners which we have translated into a number of languages. If there are creative souls out there who can create content for beginners, like “Who is She?” etc. hopefully other members can translate this into a number of languages and we will have our bilingual beginner texts.
Ordinary discussions are usually easier than literature since the vocabulary used is more limited.
Then there may be some creative story tellers or political commentators out there who can write some interesting material and record it in their language.
Finally, if you can obtain permission from podcasters or bloggers to use their material, that is also great. We have some excellent third party content and hope to have more.
I will repeat that compensation will be based on usage, and we do not make a distinction between original content and third party content. Where people collaborate on content the points have to be shared. This would be the case if one person creates it and another transcribes, or translates etc. Or two people in a conversation. These are details we can work out.
Maybe one day we can publish the accumulated works of the LingQ community!
I’m looking for debates/arguments/drama. It seems a lot of the ways people express their emotions is demonstrated through these settings. Especially what I like to call “gossip” It uses a lot of emotional language which formal or friendly conversations lack (i believe) although formal/friendly conversations do express descriptive and analytical usage quite well.
Another type of content which I find painless to follow is comedy. I remember reading through a script from Project Gutenberg, it was an 18th century comedy/play in french and i was on the seat of my pants up to the point of exhaustion, even looking up the words in a frantic attempt to “get” the punch lines. it didn’t feel like study either.
So yes, I’m looking for more drama/debate type content - and more comedy.
I’m looking for natural and friendly conversations. Yes, I’m a big fan of EnglishLingQ podcast shows. Since I joined LingQ last year, I listen to some of your shows everyday. And I enjoy it very much. I hope it works.
The natural conversations with Steve, Mark & Jill are great. I miss Jill !
I often picked some of the previous shows and listened to them. Even if I listened to them before, It’s fun. Please try to find someone you can chat and put them in the podcast or library.
I also enjoy to listen to the Steve’s interviews. The interviews with local people would be good contents.
I sometimes listen to the American or Canadian radio shows. They often broadcast the listener’s call in shows. It’s interesting to listen to, but I sometimes understand what they say. I could find some contents in the LingQ library, but I need more this type contents.
Finally I’m interesting in listening to the mistery or thrilling drama or reading.
I found the podcast of the classic radio show SUSPENSE, but it’s hard for me to understand without transcript. If there are those type of thrilling drama or reading in the library, it would be nice.
My eleven-year old son has expressed an interest in learning German on LingQ. I asked him what sort of recordings he would want to listen to. Ideally it would be eleven-year olds telling their favourite jokes. I think also kids describing aspects of their everyday lives would interest him, as would simple stories like Winnie the Pooh read nice and slowly by an adult.
my seven-year old is learning French, but I really think that’s a bit too young for LingQ because her computing skills aren’t up to it. She would probably want fairies and fairy tales.
She did listen to a piece on how to count to 20 in French, she liked that a lot. it was very exciting to her to realise she could work out much of what the man was saying!
So, anyone with children, or who works with children, or who just likes children’s stories, how about creating some kiddy content?
I will put my mind to doing the same in English, when I have cleaned up my sound quality a bit.
I may be talking off the top of my head here, but I believe from my various readongs that kids, by the fact that they aren’t embarrassed at all and the fact that they only need to learn the language up to the point of their age group, can very well acquire the target language in a few short months of exposure / immersion. it must, however, be maintained afterwards with repeated and consistent exposure to the language, otherwise they lose it very easily.
I should clarify I’m referring to young kids such as your seven year old. it wouldn’t matter that they can’t use linq as they’d pick it up anyway rather quickly (i think).
Helen - I think it is important too to know the interests or hobbies from a child because these are very different.
In the library are some short stories in my collection “Kurzgeschichten Teil1 and Teil2”
Perhaps “Anne von Green Gable” could be interesting too but perhaps more for girls
It is a little difficult to bring existed items and only give them an audio file. At moste they have a copyright and those from more then 20 years dead writers are often not more up to date.
But I think in the mentioned short stories you can find the one or the other.
Hi Irene, the new law is 70 years after the writer dead!
So it is nearly impossible to get actual content.
Helen, I know a radio play for children at this age that is produced by students of an university. My daughter like these radio plays. I will write to them and ask if I can import it to LingQ but I don’t know if they will allow it.
Hi Helen, I got the allowance to transcribe these audio plays. I’ve time in two or three weeks to transcribe the first part. Please be patient. I think these audio plays are realy great and also enjoyable for addults.
Once upon a time I happened to become interested in Portuguese. Then I started to search Internet for a good matters in Portuguese. Shortly I came across the PortugueseLingQ, then I learned about LingQ site, that’s why I’m here. You know, the pleasure is mine, I just have said that to Steve in our conversation. Once more, thanks to Steve as well as to all that people who contribute to LingQ.
To return to our discussion about content.
I have some amount of Portuguese texts by now. Some of them are from Internet (and I don’t know for sure about each item is it copyright encumbered or not). Some of them are from usual offline pupil’s books. But there’s no audio files for them.
Next, I found some amount of audio files (sure they are copyright-ed, so I won’t post any links :-), for example “Quadrante con Paulo Autran”. But there’s no texts for them.
I wonder could we at LingQ use short texts from cronistas Brazilieros, or this is illegal? Rubem Braga, Paulo Mendes Campos, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Erico Verissimo, Dinah Silveira de Queiroz, Machado de Assis?
I suppose that the safest thing is to check if with the author (if he/she is still alive - I’m not familiar with the people you mention) and/or the publisher if it’s OK to share the content online.
Just thought I’d chime in once more… I’ve been listening to “Le vélo en ville” in the French LingQ section. It’s hilarious. Steve riding in Paris on a bicycle with one leg in plaster and battling the traffic! I seem to gravitate to enjoyable materials and it’s been a while since I’ve listened to a transcript more than half a dozen times and that one will probably reach 10 times by next week.
On another note, also to do with content:
I was thinking of something, in general, with the content section. Perhaps one could have something called “core transcripts” or something similar which comprise of a set of texts such as “Who is she” and various other transcripts that are translated in to all (or most) of the other languages.
I think that would greatly facilitate moving from beginner to intermediate in a language as the learner would be already very familiar with the storyline of those scripts it would make it that much easier to follow the script if it’s been translated in to another language. Just something to think about…
Roy,
We would like to add to our core multilingual texts. We have three right now. There is just so much we can do ourselves. We are hoping that with enough members and enough incentive for members to do create this kind of content, that the problem will take care of itself.
In other words we are hoping that members will do this for us, write the these core content items and then help us by translating and recording them. Australian accents are welcome!
Hi Helen, now I’ve transcribed the first episode of “Detektei Suni & Partner”. It’s a audio play for children and teenagers and joung addults I hope your son enjoy it.
Unfortunately it is a little bit longer but I don’t have the allowance to import smaller peaces. If set an external Link.
I’ve started with the transcribing of the next episode.
It uses a lot of emotional language which formal or friendly conversations lack (i believe) although formal/friendly conversations do express descriptive and analytical usage quite well.
I hope your son enjoy it.