It is really good to see more and more companies offering services that can be embedded in one’s own webpage. YouTube is probably the most known example, but the concept is applicable to many other types of services. WordChamp’s new Reader API is a great example of this. Between their Web reader, their Firefox plugin and now the Reader API, translation is easy to get for learners, web surfers or content provider.

I believe the future of language learning methods is with the web. The standalone language packages (like Rosetta Stone) take too long to develop, are limited in the amount of material they can package and do not leverage community effort (which WordChamp does with user translations).

The biggest challenge with the web based services is to convince people to pay for them. As with many web 2.0 companies (e.g., MySpace, YouTube), WordChamp is currently free, but obviously this cannot continue forever. I hope they figure out the profitable and sustainable model soon, as I would hate for their service to disappear.

A problem specific to WordChamp is that they are trying to cover most of the languages of the world. However they only have language-specific grammar rules (e.g. conjugation tables) for some languages. This means that grammar specifics of other languages are not picked up and some words do not show the translation even though one exists for the same word in a different tense, conjugation or declension.

(This article is available with WordChamp’s embedded reader on its own page)

I really like WordChamp to help me with learning foreign languages. It was good for me when I was learning French. It is good to me now that I am learning Spanish. And the last couple of months it was getting better nearly on a weekly basis.

That did not used to be the case. I looked at them just over a year ago and they had some interesting ideas, but the best features (like Web Reader) were for paying customers only. They received a reasonably good review from Calico Journal (Computer Assisted Language Instruction COnsortium), but the interface was a bit busy with trying to be all things to everybody. You also had to be online and on their website to use it.

How things changed. Everything is now free. Interface has been simplified, so most of the time only the language you learn and the language you know show up. They have added downloadable version of the audio from the flash card lists. They have even released a Firefox plugin, so you can use their translation while browsing the web, rather than always starting from their own website. Finally, to notify people of all these exciting new features, they setup an RSS feed.

And here is the clincher, they have contacted me directly to talk about the latest and greatest feature they just released: developer/reader API. I was planning to test the API already (I saw it in RSS feed notification), but being contacted about it made me feel like an important A-list’er. They knew my email because I submitted site feeback, error reports and suggestions to WordChamp before, but usually all these reports are one way.

The thing is - I have submitted feedback to other companies plenty of times before, but rarely got even a confirmation back. With WordChamp, I received a personal email from the company’s founder with thoughtful commentary on features and bugs I talked about. In fact, I think at least one of my suggestions has since been implemented. This is what I call listening to the users.

As it was, I was going to test the reader API anyway, but now I will make sure it gets done soon. I will need to dig a bit into the internals of my blogging software, but it is doable.

Now, all this does not mean that I think WordChamp is the best thing from the sliced bread. I still think there is a lot of room for improvement. I would really (really, really) like the flashcard quiz interface to use Leitner spaced repetition system. I think there is a lot more that can be done with podcasts. I believe adding stories (audio+text) with a bit of computational linguistics magic would take the service to new heghts. But - even without all that - I still like WordChamp more than hundreds of other sites I have reviewed and I recommend it to language students (and teachers) any chance I get.

I am really looking forward to new features WordChamp will bring in and I will certainly keep them notified if I will notice a problem or think of a feature they could add. And if you haven’t tried it yet, do!

Сегодня - Международный день родного языка. Мой родной язык - Русский! Я горд моим родным языком даже если я не использую его каждый день.

Today - 21st of February - is the International Mother Language Day. My mother language is Russian! I am proud of my mother language, even if I do not get to use it every day.

Apart from Russian, I know reasonably good English and have dabbled in French, Esperanto and - now - Spanish. I feel that starting from Russian, many other European/Germanic languages are easier, because Russian has a very complex grammar system with its conjugation and cases, tenses and moods. This helps with relating features of other languages to the examples in the one(s) I already know. This, of course, does not help at all with pronunciation, which for me is now atrocious in whichever language I speak.

Studying Spanish, I do find omitted pronouns in Spanish, but even that has its equivalence in Russian. Unfortunately, there is no equivalence for conflating conjugation for he/she and you (él/ella y usted). Using accents to differentiate words is a bit confusing too (él y el, qué y que). I am sure as I progress in Spanish, these things will become the second (3rd? 5th?) nature, but for now they do grate a bit.

I find Esperanto the easiest language of all, which is not very surprising, since it was specifically designed to be really easy. If I had to design a language from scratch, I don’t think I would be able to come up with anything significantly simpler than Esperanto, while still addressing the real use.

These days, learning a foreign language is considered a useful thing. The advantages are many: from travelling to foreign countries to getting a preferential treatment in the ethnic restaurants of your own to keeping the dementia away.

This was not always a case though, at least for China. Until 1844, it was illegal for a foreigner to learn Chinese. That changed for America, when Caleb Cushing had negotiated the Treaty of Wanghia, which made it possible for Americans - and Americans only - to learn Chenese. Later, the privilege was extended to Britain and other countries.

This whole story comes up, because China has a new project of translating Chinese classics into modern Chinese, English and - potentially - other languages. This Library of Chinese Classics spans 5000 years of Chinese culture and includes all the famous works.

It should be useful for language learning as well as for general reading pleasure, as it will come with original and English text on the facing pages.

It would also be very interesting to find out what other languages are planned and in what order. Russian used to be a language that many official documents got translated to early on. Would Russian be even on a list now? Would Esperanto, still one of the transmission languages of the China Radio International?

When I speak to other people about Esperanto, they often ask whether there are any practical uses to knowing the language beyond the language itself.

I used to talk about Pasporta Servo, ability to listen to other countries’ radio and global community. Now I just go straight for the big guns.

I ask them whether they ever tried learning another language. Usually the answer is yes and usually the language was never learned well. Then I tell them about the studies showing that learning Esperanto as a first foreign language gave enough ‘language learning’ meta-knowledge that it allowed to learn the next language faster and more thoroughly. This usually gets their attention!

I don’t think I have convinced anyone to learn Esperanto yet, but my arguments are getting better every time. Maybe I should make a badge Learn two languages for the price of one. Ask me how. That might get some attention.

More information about these benefits is also available at Springboard to Languages website.