The Burmese Challenge

Luke with his Goldenland Polyglot Blog is currently using L-Lingo for his Burmese Challenge.

He uses a two week holiday from University to learn as much Burmese as possible with our L-Lingo application. We are very excited about this since Luke has lots of experience in language learning and we hope that he can give us some good insights on how to improve our application further.

You definitely have to check out his Blog where he runs an online diary about his progress in Burmese.

Invitation to Bloggers

Since we learn so much from Bloggers like Luke on how we can further shape our application, we would like to invite all Bloggers out there to get in touch with us. We can provide you free ressources and are happy to answer all the questions about L-Lingo you might have.

Karen prepared a great video tutorial that explains in detail how L-Lingo works and how you can get the best out of it.

Please let us know how you like it and if you would like to have more video tutorials in future.

You can also read our PDF manual for additional details.

Hi there,

just a short information to all of you out there:

1) We have an English User Manual available and I highly recommend it for everyone who likes to get most out of L-Lingo.

2) Anyone who has an Android 2.2 phone (like the Nexus One) with Flash 10.1 can now try our new (beta) mobile version.

Enjoy!

Hi there,

we have spend the last few days to port L-Lingo to an Android 2.1 smartphone. Adobe is currently releasing Flash 10.1 for Android phones and this makes it possible to let L-Lingo run on smartphones.

Due to the smaller screensize, we have changed the user interface in L-Lingo mobile to make it very user friendly for smart phones. In particular we made the buttons bigger for touch operation and also changed the Explorer screen as on mobile devices there is nothing like a ‘mouse over’.

Although I am using a pre-release version of Flash for Android it is running pretty smooth so far and is quite responsive. We have tested it on an HTC Desire phone and would like to invite other Android users to test the beta version.

If you are interested, please contact us under support@l-lingo.com and please mention your Android Phone model (incl. which version of Android you are running) and don’t forget to mention the language you like to test.

Here are some screenshots from the beta version:

We are so thrilled to announce the newest addition to our offered languages in L-Lingo. Over the past couple of months, you may have taken advantage of our free online lessons featuring 8 languages. We are so pleased to offer you the release of Lingo Burmese! With this online application, you can now learn Burmese words and phrases quickly. Just like all the other languages that we offer, L-Lingo Burmese is jam-packed with 40 free online lessons that you can access plus a guided training, and fun quizzes that you can take to significantly gauge your newly acquired skills on how to read Burmese, write Burmese, and speak Burmese! Learning a second language has just gotten better, and not to mention fun.

Previously, we have exclusively offered Burmese as a desktop version. With this new release, you can easily access tons of lessons right on your browser, conveniently wherever you are located and just as long as you have a computer and access to the internet. Whether you are studying Burmese to prepare for a trip to Myanmar, or plainly to socialize with Burmese-speaking friends, you can now surprise everyone with Burmese words and Burmese sentences! Just imagine how priceless it would be to see the look on your friends’ faces when they hear you speak Burmese. Nei kaun la? (How are you?) Oh yes you can just imagine their jaws dropping.

With our easy to use interface, you won’t have to grapple around with your mouse clicks just to start learning. Needless to say, our online application is very user-friendly and shall get you started to learn Burmese in no time. Whether it’s learning how to say hello, how to order in a Burmese restaurant, telling the time, or how to ask basic questions, we got you covered. You will learn Burmese and be able to build a solid rock foundation of the most essential Burmese words and Burmese sentences necessary for practical day-to-day conversation.

What better way to kick-start your week than learning how to read Burmese, write Burmese, and speak Burmese with the new L-Lingo Burmese online application. Don’t forget to keep us updated of your awesome new skills by talking to us on Facebook. Happy learning!

I just want to let you know that I have updated the transcription for our Hindi program. The Devangari transcription  is IAST compliant. If you like to read more about IAST have a look here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Alphabet_of_Sanskrit_Transliteration

So now you can see the Hindi transcriptions in L-Lingo itself.
You can switch to transcription mode with the small buttons on the top right within the quizzes.

I hope all of you Hindi learners out there like it!

You might have noticed that L-Lingo always has the same size when you use it -no matter how high your screen resolution is. Although we had this optimised for the most common screen sizes, it did not work well with people having either very large or very small screens.

With this new version, the application now dynamically adjusts itself to the screen size that your display has. So if you are running on a small screen, the pictures and text are resized to a smaller size whereas on large screens, you are now able to see them bigger.

Just have a look at this before and after comparison:

As this change resultet in re-writing a few modules of code, please let me know if you find any bug or anything behaving strangely so that I can correct it.

We have also added one small button in the slideshow which lets you show / hide the translations of the displayed word or sentence. This aids people who like to learn more immersion style because they can fully concentrate on the foreign words and sentences.

Today, we got a nice email from Dennis who is one of our customers.

Dennis raises some good points on how you can learn with L-Lingo and L-Ceps effectively and he gave me permission to publish his email here:

“I have been using L-Ceps & L-Lingo Chinese Mandarin for about one month, and it has been a successful experience for me. I am on lessons 6 and 7 as I type this note. My retention of the vocabulary has been 100%. I am getting a clear understanding of the grammar as well. And, my Chinese friends have already been impressed with the quality of my tones.

My process is as follows:
1) I study each lesson for about 30 minutes each on the PC through the Guided Training option.
2) I use the MP3 files to work on my pronunciation and tones. I listen to the MP3 while I am driving to and from work, so I get about 50 minutes of practice speaking each day. I typically run through the lessons over and over.
3) I will work on two lessons at one time, finishing up on one while starting up on the other.
4) I have printed the textbook — I study it in the evening for 20 minutes or so per day to learn the Chinese characters.
5) While I am finishing up on a lesson, I come back to the PC and take all the quizzes.

I have been able to use a lot of captured time (such as when I drive to work) to do some of the learning, so the time I have to set aside for this effort is minimized (we all have busy schedules, do we not)?

I see that L-Lingo has some updates. Will these be incorporated into L-Ceps at some point?

An earlier e-mail from you had mentioned some grammar tools that you were working on. What would be the status on those? I have noticed many ‘connecting’ characters in the Mandarin text — will the tools discuss those characters, at least in part? I am making intuitive guesses on what those characters do; perhaps a small note would contribute to my understanding.

Thank you for a well made product. I am still surprised how inexpensive it is compared to some of the competitive products I have reviewed.”

I really do like the way Dennis has integrated the ‘offline’ features like textbook and mp3 files together with the online and PC versions of our software. By the way, you can also print-out flashcards to use on the road (but please don’t use them when behind the wheel .

Now. Dennis raised some important questions:

Feature set of L-Lingo and L-Ceps

Normally we use L-Lingo to implement new features first because in the online version it is more easy to deploy new features (no setup required etc) and being an online application it is easier to get feedback from our learners on how to fine tune these features. From time to time we then update our Desktop Version L-Ceps and incorporate these features there.

By the way, if you buy our L-Ceps Personaltrainer Professional Desktop Software and would like to use L-Lingo online version parallel, just drop us a line and we will give you a free 6 month access to L-Lingo.

Grammar Notes

We are working very hard on the grammar notes, because we know many of you would like to see this. We need a little more time because we want to ensure the notes are really good and we have to align them with our lessons. But stay tuned, grammar notes are on its way!

Let us know how YOU use L-Lingo!

It is really great to get such detailed feedback from our customers and it helps us tremendously to really design L-Lingo in a way that benefits you in learning an Asian language. So we would like to invite all of you to share your learning experiences and how you use L-Lingo here on our Blog or on our Facebook Fan Page.

Hi There. I just put another update online with the following new things:

Design

You will immediately notice that the application became more colorful. We have adapted it to the color scheme of our website and do hope that you like it!

Here is a small picture with the old and new color scheme:

Loading Indicators

Especially for people on slow internet connections, we have added loading indicators for the pictures within the Quizzes so that you can see the progress of loading.

When you launch L-Lingo, you will also see more details when loading the fonts and content. Unfortunately for some Asian languages the fonts are quite large so it takes some time to load but when you start L-Lingo the 2nd time it should be quicker as the font should be in the browser cache.

Review of wrong Words

After you have completed the Quiz, you can now play a slideshow with the words and sentences that you did not know correctly. For this just click on the new button called “Review Wrong Answers”.

We hope you like the new features. Please feel free to let us know your thoughts either here on our Blog or visit us on our Facebook Fan Page!

We are pleased to announce a new release of L-Lingo. This new version of L-Lingo is designed to make language learning easier and fun for all of you Asian language lovers out there. Over the past two months, we have been busy putting up a better code base for the program making it ready for new exciting features.

The new version is bundled with the following new exciting features:

Flows: Dynamic flows have been added to the guided quizzes so you can effectively learn while having a great time testing out your amazing new skills in the language you are studying.

Quiz Statistics: Learn the mistakes you encountered while taking the quiz and discover your success ratio in your chosen Asian language.

Log-in details: Never open your order confirmation email or look for anywhere else on your computer for that username and password ever again.

More Dynamic Flows in Quizzes!

With the added dynamic flows in the guided quiz, you will be able to learn more effectively with different types of quizzes

The guided quiz guides you through different screens. As can be seen from the image above, the learner is taken to a screen with 4 pictures with a sentence underneath that is spoken by a native speaker. Some screens don’t contain pictures, but only contain single words. The translation is written beneath the words and the learner has to pick out the correct answer from the choice of English words. The image below is a sample of this type of guided quiz.

A similar type of guided quiz is also available for the learner, with sentences written instead of single words. Each screen also has assorted number of pictures, some with 3, 4, or 6 pictures to pick out, with Asian translations beneath and spoken by a native.

Quiz Statistics: Discover Your Wrong Answers and Your Success Ratio

In order to assess how much you have learned, we have also added a list of mistakes at the end of the guided quiz. Just as any learning should be interactive and constructive, we aim to provide you the best evaluation tools to inform you of areas that you would need to perk up on. At the end of your guided quiz, a pop-up box will show you the number of correct answers you obtained as well as the number of wrong answers and your success ratio. The list of mistakes is also outlined in a table for your reference. Clicking on an error on the list will copy the text in your clipboard for future use. In a positive note, we believe this will assist you in mastering your lessons easily and effectively.

Don’t Stress Over Looking for Your Log in Details Ever Again

Apart from the added features to our free version as well as paid version, we have added a new feature that will benefit our L-Lingo Premium users. Premium users can now remember their log-in details, thus avoiding the hassle of looking for your username and password to start your lessons.

You Rock! We’d Love to Get to Know You!

Yes, you are the star of the show and by that, we mean you as the language learner, is in the centre of this wonderful journey towards mastering Asian languages of your choice. We would like to get to know you more through our blog, and Facebook fan page.

Through our web application, you can also now get in touch with us on Facebook as well as subscribe to our newsletter. Don’t forget to tell your friends, colleagues, neighbours, or anyone you think who will benefit from our program, to do check us out. We encourage you to take advantage of these ways to connect with us so we can interact with you on a personal level and see to it that you have anything you need. Our friendly team is ever willing to guide you every step of the way to ensure you are on the path to success.

We would love to hear all of your feedbacks on the new features we have added. If you find something that is not working, please feel free to drop us a line and we’ll look into it as soon as we can.

Take Your Language Learning to the Next Level

As much as we would like to afford you with large quantities of lessons and other language learning resources for free, we need subscribers to our premium version in order to incessantly provide you with a high quality product for your learning needs. If you like the free version of L-Lingo, we strongly suggest going for L-Lingo Premium. Our premium version gives you access to hundreds of lessons with downloadable flashcards, textbooks, and mp3 files—all these amazing features for a very low price. This will definitely take your language learning to the next level.

With L-Lingo, you can learn a language that you like, the way you want it, and whenever you want it! Say hello to a fun and exciting language learning experience with L-Lingo. From the L-Lingo team, we welcome you to our community. Happy learning!