Pierre-Emmanuel: "It's a very friendly community: as others have said, people are eager to help you by answering your questions and correcting short texts." I completley agree with your statement! I get the same feeling using Italki. I don't have much interest in talking to random people, I prefer building up long-lasting Skype - contacts. Fasulye
My objection to Shared Talk is that you end up being a marketing statistic to support sales of that awful yellow box....
I used to teach Portuguese more often on iTalki, but after I started working full-time it became virtually impossible. It's still my favorite platform for getting corrections in Chinese, Georgian or Norwegian. I get corrections promptly there, while on lang-8 it takes days or weeks or doesn't even happen. As for French, I still prefer lang-8 where I get strict corrections on style and even corrections that change what I actually meant to say ^^ EDIT: I've taken classes for Chinese, French and Norwegian. I even have a Chinese tutor I recommend. I only decided I won't spend any real money there so far, because the language hobby already takes so much from my time and although it isn't a source of capitalization it shouldn't be a source of decapitalization either.
I'm considering starting to use Italki. My only hesitation is not with the community itself, but with the reliability of using Skype for language teaching. When using Skype with family within the U.S. there almost always are significant issues with audio dropouts and at times it's frustrating enough communicating in my native language. (I have a pretty good internet connection otherwise, so I don't believe that's the issue.) What has your experience been communicating with teachers on other continents?
Excellent connection - 5% Acceptable connection - 90% Unacceptable connection - 5% There are almost always some problems, but rarely are they show stoppers, at least for me. Turning off the video often fixes the problems too. I've done an hour a day for the past 6 months in Russian alone, and certainly over 1000 lifetime hours of Skype language learning.
I generally have a very good connection with my tutors in Europe and a decent connection with my tutors in the Philippines (actually, it's a good connection so long as Internet isn't down in the Philippines). Sure, there are slight problems sometimes, but nothing that keeps us from doing the lesson. I sometimes have a very poor connection with my students in China - enough that it can be frustrating for both parties.
You prompted me to check out Shared Talk, after not logging in for a couple years. Something I dislike: they deleted my account due to inactivity. Fine, I went to re-register with my old user name, only to be told that that user name already exists. I hate when sites do that, and it's quite common. I guess deleting inactive users is to be expected, but they should also clean up their database. Other than that complaint though, I liked using Shared Talk when I actually used it. I haven't used Lang-8 for about the same amount of time, but I know I can still log in and check both my writings and corrections. Everything is still there. R. ==
I've had good connections so far with teachers from varied countries, as well as with students. Thanks for reminding me about sharedtalk! My account is still active
Skype can be unreliable at times, but usually restarting Skype sorts it. Unless there is a problem with someone's internet connection, in which case you're out of luck, but I've not found this to be a problem too often. As rule things work just fine, By the way there is no compulsion to use Skype, you can use alternatives if you prefer, it's just that Skype is the most popular. The corrections thing seems to work well even though it operates on a goodwill basis. The key advantage of lang-8 over italki is that it allows you to compare how different people have corrected each sentence and people can add notes against each correction. The italki system is fairly crude in this respect, you only have a rich text editor with no specific tools for correction per say. And whilst most people use colours to highlight their corrections in the text, some people don't and it makes it hard to see what changes they've suggested. I've recently noticed a recent growing commercial emphasis on italki, which is not surprising given that it is a business. They have become a bit more pushy about taking lessons. For example on the homage you used to see your friends who were currently online, now you get your teachers displayed as the most prominent thing on the page, which is significantly less useful. On the message screen you have message that you can't delete about their referral program. There are also constant ads for their latest "challenge", which basically consists of spending more money. All of which is ok I suppose, as long as they don't continue too far in this direction and spoil the overall experience. Also I've been less than impressed with their support recently. Overall I recommend the site as very good, I just worry, perhaps unnecessarily, about the direction in which it is going. I like LingQ and use it, but the exchange is not that great, it's not that user friendly and it's expensive. Although all the services are available, e.g. corrections, recording of audio, tutoring, translation etc. I do use it for audio recordings since Rhinospike started to charge for downloads, but that's about it. However, the main function of the site i.e. the reading and listening tool is good value and I use it regularly.
Thanks for the insightful comparison of the different sites, neofight78. This is off topic, but I wish there were more people out there who try and review/compare a large number of similar language products. For example, I love the amazon reviews where somebody has tried a half dozen textbooks for one language and breaks down their advantages and disadvantages. Maybe we can try to get more of this kind of thing in our review sub-forum in the future.
Catch 22: how do you know the description of a grammar point in book Y is useful to a newbie if you've already learned it from book X?
You make a good point. But it's nice to have some sort of comparison. For example, in about a year I'll start studying Korean. Through one of these comparison-type reviews I found out that the hottest selling, highest rated text on Amazon isn't even close to comprehensive, and that another book, which many consider to be too boring, is. I wound up buying a third book as an easy introductory course, with plans of buying the boring book or a pure grammar if I survive. Anyway, I read dozens of reviews, but there were only 3 or 4 that really influenced me, and they all had comparisons.
Big Dog, you mentioned in another thread the Russian corrections you got here. I don't remember much from a year of Russian decades ago, but briefly looking over the corrections I noticed both similarities and differences. What accounts for the differences? Do the people doing the corrections (presumably all native speakers) disagree on some points of grammar, or are they merely differing in what is the most natural way of expressing some things? Obviously it is nice to get multiple corrections, but that presumes the learner knows enough to spot bad advice if it were given.
Sometimes a corrector will miss a grammar mistake, but it's mostly the latter. Certain correctors like to completely re-structure and change nuances of what I write, others take a minimalistic approach.
Anyone have an opinion on lessons vs general conversations? Should I let the tutor try make a personalised plan or should I be doing it myself?
My opinion is that you need to be in charge of your learning. You know what works for you best, and what kind of study or practice you are doing outside of the lesson. However, having said that, if you find a good experienced teacher you should treat them like a coach. So do take input on what are your weaknesses and common mistakes and suggestions for exercises to correct them etc. As for conversations vs lessons, it does depend on your level and what your learning needs are. Certainly past the very beginning stages it's better to go for conversation most of the time, and do your study from books etc. Occasionally, I find there is something that's not well explained in the textbooks, or maybe I want to cover a topic in more detail and I'll ask more a more structured lesson. Again, really it's up to you decide which is best for you at any point, and there's no reason why you can't mix and match.
I agree with neofight78. Generally, I use tutors for conversation only, but sometimes I find something I don't understand, like during my translation of a Russian sitcom, and I'll try to get the tutor to clarify. We tend to talk about grammar more than getting wrapped up in correcting it. I never thought I'd be interested in talking about grammar before, but this language has changed my attitude a little.
A lesson of russian on Italki, for those who haven't yet tried (there are several episodes on the channel):
It's not me, it's a video I've found by chance. But I find it interesting to show how a lesson on italki can happen. After watching that video, I said to myself that I'll probably take some lessons too, because my spoken russian is really terrible compare to my reading/listening skills. The problem is that I'm horribly shy and as soon as I open the mouth to say something I feel like a complete idiot Anyway that video has triggered something in me, and I think I'm going to try.