Steve: Aside from content that we might create or people might create for us, I believe the new LingQ System also has an enhanced ability to import content.
Mark: Yes. In our current system we could import. Of course, in The Linguist we can still import. In LingQ the import system is just slicker. One request we had from our members very often was that they wanted to be able to save the sound in our system together with the text and in The Linguist you can only import the text. If they found an article with sound somewhere on the Web they wanted to keep all their language learning resources in one place, so we have enabled that. There will be then further functionality that comes with us having the sound on our system that members will be able to access. As well, it will look better. There is the ability for learners to include pictures and edit the text itself and just the look and feel of the import content and the site in general is just a little slicker.
Steve: I think, too, there are opportunities here for teachers to give their students an assignment to go and find a particular piece of content. Or maybe even that they have on a Website thats sort of an in-house, you know, an intranet site that might have some material that they have, you know, so many licenses for under some copyright arrangement, that they can then give this assignment to their learners: go get this, download the sound, download the text and go and work with it so that they can actually use The Linguist System to accumulate words and phrases using the content that may be assigned to a specific group or even that one individual chooses to bring in for their own purposes. So, there will be some content that is available to everybody, but there will also be content that individuals or small groups will be using.
Mark: I mean, well see how people use it. That is not something thats really in our control.
Steve: Right.
Mark: What the import content feature does allow is it allows individuals to make use of copyrighted materials that are out there or materials that are out there that, for whatever reason, we dont have on our site that people find and have access to and want to use on our system, so they can keep all their language learning-related activities in the same place, which is very valuable. Especially when you are talking about databases or words and phrases, you dont want to have lists here, lists there; you want to have everything in one place.
Steve: You know, I think thats another thing thats already quite powerful in the existing Linguist System and is improved in the new one and that is this idea of synergy; that you have one place that you can collect all of the things that you are doing or that you need to do in order to improve in the language, including the opportunity to talk to people. When you are talking to people you can see a list of the words that you have saved. These words come from items that youve been listening to; that youve been reading. You can go back and review them. You have statistics. You have a goal of words you want to learn. You see how you are doing. Theres just a tremendous sort of synergy from having all of these things in one place.
Mark: Even a small thing like many of our learners one thing in The Linguist we would send out reports saying, you know, you have listened so many hours in the last month. Your target was this, you know, try and do a little more or whatever the case may be. If, for whatever reason, they were told that they werent keeping up or meeting their targets, they would very often come back and say oh, but I did reading. I read CNNs Website or I watched a movie or I read Harry Potter, but I have no way of registering that on the site. So, thats one thing we have added is the ability for you to record all your language learning activities, even if they dont occur in our system just so you get a more accurate picture of your learning.
Steve: I think thats extremely important. I think with language learning, obviously, some people might learn better than others. The big thing is to keep active; to maintain that contact with the language and if you can keep a record of what youre doing, I think thats very motivating. So, you can see yeah, maybe right now I feel that Im not making progress, but I know that over the last three months Ive done this. Ive read this much. Ive added to my known word total. So, you see a record of what you have achieved, of your achievement, because your activity with the language is your achievement and so I think its very important to measure these things and that tends to keep people going.
Mark: No question and, of course, if you are doing things, you are getting better; you cannot help but get better. For sure, some people get better faster than others, but everybody will improve by doing the types of things that we ask people to do on The Linguist. Not that theres any great secret, I mean, a lot of listening, reading, reviewing, speaking, writing, all the things that everybody knows they have to do with the exception, of course, grammar instruction, which we dont necessarily believe in.
Steve: Well, thats right and maybe thats where we can end up because our emphasis is, enjoy it. If you enjoy it you will continue doing it and you will improve. Its not that were against grammar; in fact, I would suggest people might want to buy a small grammar book just to review. The idea that you can teach people the language via grammar is one that, basically, we dont agree with. We feel that through a lot of exposure you can develop a natural sense for the language. If you work on words and phrases youll develop a natural sense for the grammar; for correct usage, as we prefer to call it. If you write, if you speak, with the help of our tutors, youll get closer and closer to the native speaker usage pattern, but its not based on the sort of formal instruction of rules of grammar. Its not based on answering questions and being marked for, you know, this is grammatically incorrect or you didnt know whether this was the subjunctive or not the subjunctive. These are all things that you can learn more effectively, in an enjoyable way, the way we do it at The Linguist.
Mark: Absolutely. I think thats a good way to finish up.
Steve: Alright.
Mark: But, before we go, I do want to remind all of you who may not have understood everything that transpired in our conversation here, that you can do all these activities that weve been talking about on our Linguist System, soon on our LingQ System, so dont just listen to this podcast, visit our site at thelinguist.com and try out our learning tools. Download this particular discussion, read it online, save the words and phrases that you dont understand or want to learn, write us something using the words and phrases, speak to our tutors, get a feel for our community, come check us out.
Steve: And Ill say the URL, the website address again slowly, of course, its www.thelinguist.com. For those of you who are English speakers and are waiting for the other language versions, stick around and we will let you know. E-mail us and well make sure that you are made aware of when this new system, the new version, is available for people who are not already members of The Linguist. One thing I should say, the reason we use the word The Linguist is not because we are into linguistics, its because we firmly believe that many, many people in the world can be linguists in the sense that they speak more than one language fluently. Our goal is to help people become linguists in the sense, the definition thats in the Oxford Dictionary, is people who speak more than one language fluently and I think thats possible for everyone.
Mark: Absolutely. I just want to toss in that for those of you who are interested in LingQ, if you go to LingQ.com you will be able to submit your e-mail address there so that if we are looking for early beta testers or even when we do send out an announcement of the site launch, youll be on the list. So, please go there and youll see that you have the ability to send us your e-mail address.
