Steve: Hi, Jill.
Jill: Hi, Steve.
Steve: Now we are going to speak slowly because if we speak slowly it's easier for people to understand. I think it is useful to mix up slow speech with fast speech. I don't think learners, even lower intermediate learners, should only listen to the language spoken slowly. They should have both slow and fast. Now we are going to talk about The Linguist system and we are going to try to speak slowly. It will be difficult.
Jill: Right.
Steve: My first question to you Jill is do you have a lot of patience? Are you a patient person?
Jill: I guess I'm sort of somewhere in the middle. I'm patient sometimes for certain things but not always. Steve: So, you are patient as long as things are going your way and when things don't go your way you become impatient. That's not being patient. Jill: No, no. I guess there are certain things that are just not that big of a deal so I can wait. Things that are maybe more important or that I'm really excited about then maybe I'm impatient. Steve: For example, are you capable of sitting down and doing something that requires a lot of patience like needlework for example?
Jill: No. Actually, I remember in grade 8 sewing class just going crazy trying to thread a needle and making a friend of mine do it for me every time because I would just lose it.
Steve: I think that you are not a patient person. When I was at school – again, grade 8 or whatever – if I had to build…like I once had to build…we had a project about the oil industry. Maybe I was 10 or 11. So, I had to build an oil derrick which is one of those towers out of matches. I tell you, I was going crazy whereas there are people who are so patient. I couldn't do that and you? Jill: Well, I guess it also depends on what you like to do. If it was something that took a long time but you enjoyed what you were doing, you know, then it probably wouldn't be a big deal. So it's not necessarily about patience but you have to enjoy what you're doing. Steve: But I still think it is a bit of an indicator of patience. For example, we had a friend of the family when I was growing up and he would make model sailing ships that consisted of the most miniature, tiny, little parts. These were absolute replicas and he would put them in a bottle so that they had to be built in such a way that they could be folded down and then they had little wires so that when he put the completed sailing ship into the bottle he pulled the wires and the sailing ship was standing up. Now that requires a lot of patience and I think a person who is patient with his hands…maybe I'm wrong. Maybe that doesn't mean that they're patient with people. How are you with children?
Jill: Yeah, that's the thing. I love kids and I think I'm quite patient with kids. So, yeah, I just…some people are impatient in every way in their lives. I don't think I'm like that. I think there are certain things that I have patience for; other things that I don't. Steve: Okay, now we'll come to the long and how would I say, I wouldn't call it frustrating… Jill: Painstaking? Steve: Yeah, painstaking maybe…the long road to getting The Linguist, which is now LingQ, up the way we would like to see it. I am impatient by nature; I admit it. Although, I'm like you, I'm very patient with kids. I wasn't so patient with my own but with other people's kids and with grandchildren I'm very patient. But I am so keen, so excited about all of the potential in LingQ and I have, in fact, promised people that next month we'll do this and next month we'll do that and it just seems that month after month we aren't able to do it. I am getting…I mean I'm impatient to begin with. I'm becoming more impatient but I think…and here's the expression “there's light at the end of the tunnel”, I hope. You're experience…have you found that your experience in bringing on new LingQ has that tried your patience? Jill: A little bit for sure. Again, also telling people for months it's coming next month or maybe it's coming two weeks from now and it gets delayed and delayed and delayed. So, I did basically get to the point where I just wouldn't tell people a month or a day I would just say we are hoping by such and such time that this will be available but I make no promises. Steve: Now, we have, in fact, we have transferred our existing or the previous Linguist members over to the new LingQ system and we ran into some problems -- again, patience. In the world of programming there's lots of opportunities to make mistakes and nobody is perfect and neither you nor I know how to program. Jill: Right.
Steve: And if we did we would probably make even more mistakes. So there is no blame here but we did have a few problems and caused some of our…we tried the patience. There's an expression “we tried the patience” of our Linguist members. Fortunately, most of them were patient and tolerant and supportive.
Jill: Yes, very.
Steve: Very supportive which we very much appreciate. What were some of the problems that we encountered and how were you able to explain to these members what was happening? What were you able to do?
Jill: I guess initially with the transferring of data people didn't get all of their words. Some people didn't get all of their words or phrases that they had saved on The Linguist. Some people it took a long time to get their listening hours, their proper listening hours and their writing submissions. This didn't happen for everybody but for some people it did. For certain people I think it was actually probably about two weeks after our initial launch before they had all their correct data so some of those people were rightfully impatient and a little bit irritated to say the least. And, you know, I just had to tell them that we're very sorry and we're doing the best we can and we'll fix things as quickly as possible. And, of course, that was our main priority at that time was getting everybody's information into their LingQ account. It just took a lot longer than we hoped.
Steve: nd, of course, we never know as we introduce things that are genuinely new like the new payment system and so forth. The more problems that we created during the transfer the more we make people – and here's another term -- “gun shy”. We make them a little nervous. We make them a little apprehensive. If everything goes smoothly then the new features that come along they are perhaps a little more confident. And so we recognize all of this and that all adds to our sense of concern but… Jill: …our own apprehensions. Steve: Our own apprehensions, exactly. But, I think what's the most important in all of this and what keeps us going is that we are so confident that we will create something that is very beneficial to our learners and very enjoyable for our learners so that we just have to ask them to be patient and gradually get used to this. We obviously try to minimize the disruptions and hopefully in the end we will be proven right and I think we will be, I think we will be. What have been some of the questions about the new payment system?
Jill: Some people are confused about the whole issue of points -- on The Linguist in particular former Linguist members -- because on The Linguist we didn't have such a thing. We had … you paid your monthly membership fee and you were given X number of speaking events and words of writing. So on LingQ, basically, we actually don't have membership levels yet but are hoping to next week and it will work in a very similar way. You will choose your level, you will pay each month on the same day and then you will be given a certain number of points. Those points will then go … you will use those points towards speaking and writing and other tutored services. So, it's 500 points for a speaking event and 3.33 points per word of writing. So, it's a little bit different in that sense and I think some people had a hard time getting used to that. And then also you couldn't carryover any of your unused words of writing or speaking events in The Linguist to your next period if you did not use them all Steve: …in the old system. Jill: Right, in Linguist. But on LingQ you accumulate these points and you keep accumulating them and if you don't use them they stay in your account and if you want to go away for a month or for six months or whatever you will come back and they'll still be there. You can downgrade to a free membership if you're going to go away and you don't want to continue being charged every month and the points that you have accumulated will stay in your account. So you are not going to lose them but you don't have to continue paying if you're not going to be using it. Steve: I think that these problems surrounding the payment system will go away as soon as people start using it because the actual cost is extremely low considering that you have a tutor, you have writing correction, you have all of this functionality, all of this content and when you add in the flexibility and the access to different languages it's really very, very reasonable. But there is no point in you or me saying that. People have to experience it. And so next month we'll be up and running and hopefully a lot of these problems will be behind us. Jill: Right.
Steve: Okay, thank you Jill.
Jill: Thank you.
