Welcome to L-Lingo!

This is the first post on the L-Lingo blog and thus just let me first say a warm welcome to all our visitors. I have spend the last weeks developing an online platform for learning Asian languages. We hereby use the content of our L-Ceps Desktop language learning software.

We like to bring our language learning experience to a broader audience and also put it on a more accessible web based platform. And the best thing is that you can use it for free. We are constantly enhancing this platform and currently it does not yet cover the many functions and content of the L-Ceps language course. If you like this online platform and are interested in the Desktop Version, you can download a free trial on the L-Ceps website.

We are only at the beginning of development of this online language platform and really would like to get in touch with all of you. Therefore please get in touch with us and tell us what you like, what you don’t like and anything else you like to tell us.

We are looking forward to hear from you. Please use the comments in this Blog or email info@l-lingo.com to communicate with us.

The L-Lingo Team

New Website Design

You might have noticed that we have put a new website design online. We wanted to have a lighter colored theme that would match better with the look of our software.

Since we have many visitors from Germany, we have also now a German Version of our website online. If you have any comments on the new design or if you find anything not working properly (broken link etc.) then please let me know.

In the coming weeks, we will put more information on our website, e.g. explaining the method of L-Lingo in greater detail and also put some user tips for the application online.

Audio clips with slower speech

If you think that the speech in the audio clips is too fast, you can now listen to them in slower speech. For this please click on the button in the main menu on the top right side:

Then you will hear the audio in all quizes and the training mode at approx. 70% of the original speed. While we belief that the language learner should get used to the standard speed of talking as soon as possible, it might be helpful to slow down the speed temporarily when e.g. practicing pronunciation or doing an unfamiliar lesson the first time. Please let me know what you think about this latest feature

Printable Textbook and Flashcards and other new Features

I have just put a new version of  L-Lingo online. This version has many new features which I will explain in the following:

Printable Documents

The main new thing in this release is that you can now display the text and flashcards of each lesson and print it out. For this we have added a new menu called ‘Documents to print-out’ just below the quiz selection buttons. If you move your mouse over this label you can then select to display the textbook or flashcards. Later we will also add some explanations concerning grammar which are currently under preparation. You can use these documents to also learn away from the computer. Once again I would like to thank Eric who is the developer of FlexPaper for this great way to display the documents.

Configuration of Picture Quiz

We have also added more configuration options in the Picture Quiz. You can now display the text with audio -like before- or either show the text only or audio only. This way you can specifically train your listening and reading skills. Just click on the following button in the Picture Quiz.

Full screen mode

On the top right corner pf the main screen you will now find the above button.  This button allows you to switch between Full screen and Normal screen mode anytime.

Additional Lesson Selector

Below the two arrows for selection of lessons, we have now added a small list with all available lessons which allows you to jump directly to a specific lesson. This might be quicker than pressing many times the arrow buttons and you also get a better overview about the content of the lessons.

Reference to our Desktop Version L-Ceps Personaltrainer

Since we like to keep L-Lingo free, we need to support the development costs via our commercial product L-Ceps Personaltrainer. Therefore, we have added some more references to this Desktop Software (available for Windows, Mac and Linux) which offers much more content than L-Lingo. If you are happy with L-Lingo and would like to continue learning with our approach, please have a look at L-Ceps.  There is also a free trial available on our website.

That’s so far all new features of this new release. We hope you like the new version and please continue giving us valuable Feedback so that we can continue building an application that you like as much as we do.

Under development: PDF documents in L-Lingo

I just want to give you a quick update on what I am currently working on.

I am very busy on redesigning the main menu to also allow the display of documents. For each lesson you will be able to see and print the following documents:

• PDF Textbook
• PDF Flashcards
• PDF Grammar Notes

Especially the last one was something that many of you requested and we are already in full swing to prepare these grammar notes.

In order to display the PDF files, I came across a great piece of software called FlexPaper that I am just integrating into L-Lingo. I am very thankful to Eric who is the developer to let me use this great feature in L-Lingo.

If anybody of you would like to experience FlexPaper already, please have a look at Eric’s Blog Devaldi with a demonstration. The speed and smoothness of FlexPaper is just amazing!

Please also find below a preview screen shot on this new function in L-Lingo. As we do not yet have the pdf notes complete, this screen shot is from our development version and the FlexPaper feature is not yet life in L-Lingo.

A summary of your Feedback

L-Lingo is now only 6 weeks old and we have already received a lot of feedback from you. Some of you have contacted us directly and others have posted in forums. Thank you very much!

User Interface

The majority of people are very happy with our user interface, looks of the application and navigation and it seems that people can use the app very quickly. The only complaint we got was the annoying wow sounds (fixed a long time ago) and one user also asked for more help on the main menu. So we might add a help button there too.

Content

Most of the people were quite happy with the pictures and the audio and also liked the structure of the script (repetition and combination of words/sentences).  Overall the content was considered quite useful. Our images are mostly shot in South East Asia and obviously people in Japan or Korea look slightly different. So we might localise the images more in future but as most people are quite happy with the images this is not on top of the list.

Performance

We had a small server downtime beginning of November but since then it seems the App is running quite fast and smooth. So we did not have any complaints here.

Since the last few weeks the application also seems to work quite stable. We had a few bugs that we resolved and lately I did not get anymore feedback of something not working properly. By the way, a big thank you to all of you who reported bugs.

So it seems that people in general are pretty happy with L-Lingo. However there was one thing that many people requested:

Grammar Notes

Many people have asked us for providing explanations for the grammar of the languages. Especially as our application is also suitable for beginners, we need to add notes on how the logic and system of the language works.

I totally agree with this feedback and we are already working on this. We plan to align the grammar notes to the lessons so that the learner can first read about important grammar elements taught in the specific lesson and then being able to apply this knowledge. As this is quite some work we will need some weeks before we can put the grammar notes live. But I will keep you updated.

As it is Holiday Time now and I will also spend some time with my family, there won’t be major updates coming very soon but I will keep you informed in this blog.

Please let me know any thoughts you have on L-Lingo and if you like our application please spread the word (e.g. on facebook, twitter or in your blogs). Thank You!

We have now nine Asian languages online!

Since the application seems to run quite stable now, I thought it is the right time to put some more languages online. We have now nine Asian languages available at www.l-lingo.com.

Please note that some of the languages, need to load large fonts (e.g. Mandarin, Japanese, Korean) and therefore it will take some time when loading. So, please be patient.

I really appreciate all the feedback that I have received and it would be great if you can let me know how you like the program. Please also spread the news about this application to your friends and colleagues. Thank You!

Localisation – New Version online

Since a few days, I have a new version online.

So, what’s new?

• You have now the whole user interface in either English, German, French or Spanish. You can select the language setting when you launch L-Lingo. By the way, I used Google translation for French and Spanish user interface and if you find some errors, please let me know so that I can correct it.

• The application also now remembers your last lesson and also some selections you made on your native language and phonetics use. So next time you launch the application you should find yourself in the lesson that you last used.

As always, if there is anything not working please let me know. Also all other feedback is highly appreciated.

Will it remain free???

A lot of people have approached me whether L-Lingo will remain free after it has completed the beta test.

Yes, Yes, Yes!

I am also planning to keep the content roughly the same as currently (i.e. number of lessons, features etc.). But obviously as this is work in progress, it will probably change it looks over time.

We might also add a Premium (i.e. paid) Version in future with more lessons and features which would be similar to our PC/Mac/Linux Desktop Software L-Ceps Personaltrainer. If you like L-Lingo and would like to have more lessons and features than please have a look at www.l-ceps.com. We have a free trial for download available there as well.

New Version Online. Now with Phonetics switch in each Quiz

I just put another update live with the following:

- corrected a mistake in the phonetics (were displayed wrongly)
- now you can switch between standard script and phonetic script within each Quizz
- the slideshow now shows both standard script and phonetic script
- improved design of the explorer mode

I see from my web stats that quite some people using the app and it would be great to get more ideas from your side how to improve it further!

By the way, when you load the language files you have to wait a few moments after the progress bar shows 95% (because it is not properly updated). Will fix that sometime soon.

Joker Button and Visual Effects – New Version Online –

I have just put another update online.
www.l-lingo.com/en/learn-thai/

The following is new:

Lesson 1
Lesson 1 is new and contains some simple greeting phrases. Later on I am planning to separate the content into two areas:
(1) Common phrases (like lesson 1) and
(2) Lessons focusing on vocabulary buildling and specific grammar issues (like the lessons 2,3 etc)

What do you think about that?

Joker
In the Picture Quiz and the Translation Quiz I have integrated a Joker (in the top right menu bar). If you are unsure about the correct answer you can use the Joker and it will reduce the number of possible answers and thereby making it more easy.

Joker Function with Blur Effect

Visual Effects
I have polished the visual effects a lot and you will now see many fade effects within the quizes. Please let me know if you like this or if there is anything annoying.

Well. I hope everything works fine and if you notice any bug please let me know. Other feedback is of course also very welcome!

PS: Currently only the Thai Version is updated. Chinese Mandarin will follow.