1) GoodDrama & AnimePlus

These sister sites offer Japanese language learners one of the easiest ways to view complete Japanese drama and anime series online completely free. Unlike most video sites, GoodDrama and AnimePlus does a fairly good job of organizing videos into seasons and sequential episodes, and includes useful metadata like show descriptions, user ratings, and cast listings so you can learn more about your favorite show’s actors.

GoodDrama.net AnimePlus.tv

2) CrunchyRoll

Crunchyroll is the best “freemium” source for Japanese drama and anime series available today. In addition to an extremely wide range of sub-titled Japanese programs, they they take things to the next level by offering dedicated apps on all the major platforms (Apple TV, XBOX, PlayStation 3, iOS, Android, etc). I end up doing most of my Japanese study on the go, so this has proven to be a major benefit. While you can watch ad-supported shows in standard definition for free on the CrunchyRoll website, you will need to start a free 14-day, and later sign up for a monthly membership ($6.95 USD), if you wish to access CrunchyRoll’s premium features:

• Ad-free streaming
• HD1080P video
• Access on any of CrunchyRoll’s apps

3) Hulu

After CrunchyRoll, Hulu is my favorite place to find high-quality, un-dubbed Japanese anime (most of the anime on Netflix is dubbed into English unfortunately). Like with CrunchyRoll, you can access some content for free on the Hulu website, but you will need to upgrade to a paid Hulu Plus account if you want access to full seasons of anime or the ability to watch programs via one of the myriad Hulu apps. A bit of useless trivia for you: the name “Hulu” is based on two Chinese words with the same basic pronunciation but different tones, húlú (葫蘆, “bottle gourd”) and hùlù (互錄, “interactive recording”).

4) Nico Nico Douga

“Niko Niko Douga” (ニコニコ動画) literally means “smile videos”, an apt name for this YouTube-esque video sharing site that is sure to put a grin on your face when you see the mountains of free content available. One of my favorite benefits is access to American movies dubbed into Japanese! I can’t stand Japanese movies dubbed into English (what’s the point!?), but going the other direction provides valuable listening input in within familiar, easy to understand contexts. One key differentiator of Niko Niko is the inclusion of user comment overlays on top of videos. You may find this annoying, but try to think of it as just another mode of useful Japanese input. Note that you will need to set up a free account before you can gain access to the site’s videos.

5) FluentU

FluentU might not have many Japanese videos available as of writing (they started with Mandarin and Spanish are now expanding to other languages), but their beautiful design, slick interface, and general learning philosophy exactly match what I would include in a language product if I were to design one from scratch. Unlike most of the video sites and apps listed here, they include interactive bilingual subtitles (not just English), allowing you to quickly look up, save, and review any new words you encounter in a video. Best of all, they are hard at work on a kick-ass iPhone app that will allow you to take the unparalleled FluentU experience on the go.

6) Viki

Viki users can access Japanese programs for free (ad-supported, standard definition) or buy a premium “Viki Pass” for access to watch high definition programs ad-free, as well as gaining access to exclusive subcriber-only TV shows and movies. One of the site’s best features is the ability to watch videos with English or Japanese subtitles depending on what learning stage you are at.

7) Kumby

Kumby is yet another place to stream anime online for free. The upside is that they list just about every anime series you could possible think of. The downside is that the site is riddled with pop-ups and it can be hard to know which buttons are real play buttons, and which are just click bait for pop-ups. Here’s the trick: The red play buttons are usually pop-up bate, while the green play buttons are the genuine article. Unfortunately, you sometimes have to click the red-colored play button first, close the 2 or 3 popups they throw at you, and then go back and click the now green-colored play button. It’s a pain, but hey, free anime dude!

8) Japan Foundation Lessons

The Japan Foundation offers a host of free skit-based videos for both beginning and more advanced learners. Each video includes a manga version of the skit’s plot and a useful study transcript that can be viewed in one of four different modes:

• Japanese with kanji.
• Japanese in all kana.
• Japanese in roumaji.
• Translations in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, or Korean.

9) NHK’s High School Courses

NHKs koukou kouza (高校講座・こうこうこうざ, lit. “high school courses”) has a seemingly endless supply of free, educational video content. Although the videos are intended for Japanese high school students, the content is actually quite useful for non-native adults as well, especially if you will be teaching English in a Japanese high school. Note that the site uses Windows Media Player, so Mac users will need to download Flip4Mac.

10) Golden Frog’s VyprVPN

Golden Frog’s VyprVPN has been my go-to VPN for many years, especially since it’s one of the few that works in Mainland China. But until recently, I couldn’t recommend them for Japanese learners since they lacked a Japan-based server. As of August 15, 2013, however, they now have a server in Tokyo, meaning you can now use VyprVPN to stream content from Japan that you otherwise must be in country to watch. As an added plus, the VyprVPN desktop and mobile apps allow you to quickly change server locations in a matter of seconds. The only downside is the price: $14.99 a month for VyprVPN (which allows you to use the PPTP protocol with 128-bit encryption) or $19.99 a month for VyprVPN Pro (which allows you to use the PPTP, OpenVPN SSL, and L2TP/IPsec protocols with either 128-bit or 256-bit encryption).

Of course, there are many more sources for watching Japanese video online out there. What are your favorites not listed here?

I’ve already written many tens of thousands of words about how to learn Japanese using modern online tools, so it’s time to let someone else share their point of view on the subject. In this guest post, Saravanaa Vijay from Lang-8 (which happens to be one of my favorite online language learning tools!) discusses the advantages and disadvantages of learning languages online, and why Lang-8 should part of any language learner’s online arsenal.

Take it away Saravanaa.

—

With the abundance of online tools available to assist you in learning a language, I’d like to share my experiences in learning Japanese online. To start off with, I’ll go ahead and say that after a period of roughly a year of learning Japanese, along with traveling through Japan, I am now not quit fluent but at least conversational in Japanese.  That is to say I have enough Japanese to get around. I may still draw a few perplexed looks occasionally, but I can make myself understood.

I have pretty much self-taught myself Japanese. I haven’t really signed up for any formal taught courses, with the one exception being a Japanese course back at University (which I dropped out of after 3 lessons, so I’m not counting that!) I have instead learnt Japanese mainly through the use of various online tools; this piece consists of my thoughts on the tools and websites that I have come across and the ones that have worked for me.

First of all, I am a big believer in context. You instinctively know what sounds right in your native language and if you can get close to that in the language you’re learning, you’re pretty much there. But to get to that point, context is key. This is particularly the case when it comes to vocabulary: there is barely any point in sitting down and learning a list of words; you need to learn words in context. If a word has several meanings, you need to learn it multiple times, once for each way the word can be used – that it is to say, with the word in an example sentence and its translated form so you can see how the word is used. At first, most of these sentences will mean nothing to you, but as you progress, you will turn from only understanding one word in a sentence to understanding every word in the sentence.

Flashcards and other similar software seem to be quite popular for this and I’ve found websites such as Memrise can be great for learning vocabulary; not only do you get words in context with example sentences, but you also get tips on how to memorise words. In learning French, I found Memrise great, but when it came to Japanese, I found Memrise lacking in places.

First of all, I made the decision early on that I wanted to learn Japanese words along with their Kanji at the same time. The logic being that I could learn all the Japanese words I wanted to with the romanized spelling but it would be useless when it came to actually using it in practice: no Japanese newspapers print in rōmaji and nowhere in Japan except maybe for Station signs and Place names will you find anything written in rōmaji.

But back to Memrise, the way that you were introduced to the Kanji versions of Japanese words for me, was incomplete. It was fine for French as I was still using an alphabet and writing system I already knew, but with Japanese, I would go through a section and find that I had not actually remembered any of the Kanji that had been put in front of me. It was at this point I went looking for something else and found iKnow.jp, a website is similar to Memrise but geared towards Japanese and Mandarin (and at the time a little over a year ago, it was definitely more polished than Memrise).

Unlike Memrise where you can pick and choose the courses you follow, iKnow was slightly more rigid – there was one overall list of words to learn and this was split into smaller modules. For someone starting from scratch like myself, I suggest just going through the course in order. But there was also a placement test for those who already had some ability in Japanese. This was quite different to the multitude of different courses available on Memrise; whilst it was good to get that choice, working out which course to pick quickly turned into an excuse to while away time browsing the courses and getting myself confused with the choices on offer rather than actually getting on with learning any words.

So for me, iKnow.jp had me covered for vocabulary, and to a surprising extent grammar as well. As I mentioned above, context for me is key and iKnow excelled at this: you would get at least one new sentence for every word you learnt. This may not sound like a lot, but after 1,000 words this really adds up. And hearing these sentences repeated every time you learn these words, things really start to sink in after a while. Japanese particles are a good example of this. Although I had flicked through an About.com article on particles and used a few Google searches to clear up any issues I had, nearly all my understanding of Japanese particles such as no (の), na (な), ga (が), wa (は), and ni (に), and most importantly, how to use them, all came from seeing how they were used in these example sentences and all the other Japanese media I was exposed to. iKnow ended up being the only tool I paid for – I know there are a lot of free flashcard apps out there, but I ended up paying for the course based on the structure, especially the order and way words were introduced, and the availability audio clips for every sentence. After trying the trial version I was convinced it would be worth it and a year on – I would still say it was definitely worth it.

For Japanese speaking and listening practice, there was no one tool I found that could really help me much, but with the abundance of Japanese media available online, it isn’t too hard to get started with this. Developing my listening skills was based most on a steady accumulation of Japanese media seeping into my head over the course of a year. I watched probably an absurd number Japanese TV shows, films, and YouTube videos, all with subtitles on – and it paid off.  I would recognise words I learnt by rote using iKnow, and other words I picked up through the subtitles. 

Speaking Japanese was (and is) quite hard. I don’t think I will ever lose the London twang no matter what language I speak, but in the end, practice makes perfect, and when you are trying learn a language, or in fact trying to do anything, practice is everything. I found mylanguageexchange.com to be a good site for meeting others trying to learn a language, but unfortunately, you either had be approached by a premium member or get premium membership yourself to even begin talking to others. Due to this drawback, I probably ended making more friends through Lang-8.com to practice with by displaying my Skype name on my profile even though Lang-8 is primarily useful for reading and writing.

At this stage, I probably should post a disclaimer. I now work for Lang-8, so I may be a bit biased! But I found this site long before I started working there, and I do really believe it’s a very useful site. I only wish I had found them during my University or School days, as it would have made my homework assignments a lot easier. In essence, Lang-8.com is a site to improve your writing and reading abilities with and it does it quite simply, instead of relying on algorithms or automated translators Lang-8 connects native speakers with each other, making it a social network geared towards language education.

Lang-8 works through a system of reciprocal corrections. For example, Jim could be learning Japanese, so he posts an entry in Japanese that is corrected by Misaki, who in turn is learning French, so she then posts an entry in French that is corrected by Anne, and so on. Users are encouraged to correct others journal entries through a points based system, which awards points on the number of corrections provided and the helpfulness of the corrections. More points means that your own posts will be displayed more prominently for others to correct.

One drawback of Lang-8, however, is that the corrections will only be as good as the person making them. But for someone learning a language, in almost all cases a native speaker will be more than able to help you out. The system of points and thanks points also help to maintain quality. And of course, you can always pose questions, such as which word sounds more natural in a particular in context in your posts to clear up any issues you come across.

But Lang-8 is more than just a language correction website; it is a social language platform that allows you to add friends, join any of hundreds of interest groups, meet native speakers, and chat with others looking to learn a language. This social aspect in particular is one of the main reasons I really liked Lang-8. The lack of social interaction is where most tools normally fall down in my opinion, especially considering that all of us are learning a language to discover and communicate with other people and cultures.

It was this basic idea of connecting native speakers that Lang-8 that drove founder Yang Yang when he first started the website in Tokyo in 2007.  As a bilingual Chinese and Japanese speaker, he took the idea of connecting native speakers learning a different language and his own experiences in languages and programming to start and grow Lang-8 into a global community with over 750,000 users in 190 countries.

However, it has to be said that Lang-8’s focus on journal and diary entries means that it is suitable only for writing and reading practice. Such practice by itself will obviously not get you fluent in a language, but at least the free online tool will help you practice writing without having to pay for corrections.

In the end, no one tool will teach you a language by itself, at least not cheaply. Instead, you can mix and match tools and websites to get yourself fluent. After you have figured out what works best for you, it is surprising how much you can learn in a relatively short period of time. Provided, that is, you put in the hours and have the motivation to keeping going.

To finish up, I’ll share a piece of advice that helped get me started in Japanese:

Stop procrastinating!

Sign up right now for one of the above tools and see if it works for you. If none of them fit the bill, figure out what’s lacking and search for something that will fill the gap. There is a huge choice of online language learning tools out there today; at least one of them should come close to what you need. But remember tools are an aid in learning a language; you still need to put in the work, practice the language, and meet actual people!

Social Media: A New Way of Socializing

Social media serves as a medium for socializing and exchanging information, both of which are a critical aspect of learning a language. Social media tools like Skype and Google Hangouts can be used to acquaint yourself with fellow language learners or native speakers, and you can even join existing language learning groups on Skype or Google+ (use Google Hangout for voice and video conversations).

Verbling, a language-learning website, shows an example of how Google Hangouts can be utilized for language learning. Verbling offers several languages (such as French, Spanish, English), using Google Hangouts as their virtual classrooms. There are up to 10 users from different countries in a class, allowing members to learn a language together and share information about languages. Apart from that, Verbling also has a feature that allows users to practice with random native speakers via video chat.

Change the Language Settings

The option to change the display language has great power for language learning. Often found at the top corner or bottom panel of a webpage, many users often miss it. YouTube has more than 55 available languages while Facebook has more than 65. The availability of foreign languages in social media has made the competition even higher than before. Thus, it is common to see websites providing several language services. You may immerse yourself by using different languages for different social media tools, such as Esperanto for Facebook, Spanish for YouTube, and Mandarin for Skype. You will expand your vocabulary as you use them.

Without realizing it, the “language settings” feature can provide exposure to numerous words in foreign languages for which you may already grasp the meaning before checking the dictionary. The position of the words gives you an idea about the meaning, for instance “Timeline”, “About”, “Photos”, “Friends” and “More” in your Facebook profile page will always be in the same position, even though they are translated into foreign languages.

Download Social Media Language Apps

You will find an abundance of language apps when you search in the app store, such as iTunes store or Chrome store. Numerous apps offer only lessons and others offer dictionaries. Language learning has become easier than before, thus, developers will not miss this opportunity to gain market share and profit. One example of this is the language app Lingapp, a Mandarin-learning app start-up company in Taiwan that has recently hit the news, after the co-founders ran around Taiwan promoting their language app.

Most of the language apps work by providing a set of courses for different levels of learners both online and offline. You may leverage your language learning by discussing these courses with fellow language learners in your society or practicing the phrases that you have learned on the street with locals (if you live in the country of the foreign language).

Conclusion

Social media has served as a new way to communicate in recent years, becoming an integral part of the modern lifestyle. Since it occupies so much of our time, especially for the younger generation, why not utilize it to facilitate your language learning journey?

Skritter.com has been on my radar for quite some time, but the need to sit at a computer and draw characters with my mouse is not what I consider an ideal learning experience. The developers were quite aware of this limitation, and have been burning the candle at both ends to create not one, but two iOS versions of Skritter. With the release of their Mandarin app on June 12, 2012 and their Japanese app on September 2, 2012, Skritter’s innovative approach to learning (and actually remembering!) Chinese characters has finally been given the modern, mobile, touch-based format it deserves.

Who Created Skritter?

Skritter was first created by George Saines, Nick Winter, and Scott Erickson, with Jacob Gill and Chris Clark joining the party later on. According to the Skritter website:

“George Saines, Nick Winter, and Scott Erickson roomed together at Oberlin College, and upon graduation in 2008, they decided that high-paying jobs suck, rice-and-beans startups rock, and there’s no reason why Chinese and Japanese should be harder than French. While Nick was waking at 3AM from a fever dream in Beijing and saw an insomniac friend scratching out surgical strokes to perform ninja combat surgery in a Nintendo DS game, he had an idea for a new, stroke-based handwriting system for learning Chinese and Japanese. Skritter happened. They realized that this was a bit silly, because who wants to write with a mouse or buy a Wacom tablet just to use Skritter? Well, thousands of dedicated users, it turns out, but still that’s always been a barrier for many people. You want to write directly on the screen, when you’re out and about! So they’ve spent the last year and a half making Skritter Chinese and Skritter Japanese for iOS, pulling in everything they’ve learned about learning these languages and making it better than ever.”

After putting both the Mandarin and Japanese apps through the paces, here is a rundown of what I liked best and what I feel can be improved going forward.

The Good

Unlike many language apps that look like rough drafts of an incomplete idea, the good folks behind Skritter have obviously spent a lot of time thinking their product through.

Free, Well-Designed iOS Apps

While Skritter is a premium service, they were kind enough (and business savvy enough) to offer the apps free of charge. The apps come in two flavors (Mandarin Chinese and Japanese), both of which are attractive, intuitive, and feature rich.

Excellent Spaced Repetition System

Any language app or system worth its mustard should incorporate “spaced repetition” (intelligently scheduled repetitions that help maximize retention by re-showing you information right before you are about to forget it), and Skritter delivers the goods. Unlike competing spaced repetition apps which rely solely on self-reported difficulty scores, Skritter requires you to physically write target Chinese characters on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad to demonstrate that you actually know them. This is especially important when learning kanji/hanzi since it is far too easy to self-report that you “know” a character when you have simply reached a level of passive recognition but not true mastery.

You can learn more about the specifics of Skritter’s spaced repetition system here and here, but in a nutshell, a given character will be shown again sooner if you struggle to write it correctly, and put off for a longer period if you produce it without any challenge.

“The problem with most spaced repetition systems is that they have no idea whether you remembered an answer unless you tell them. Many of them ask you to grade yourself on a 0-5 scale after each prompt, so that they can adjust your interval accordingly. Not only is that distracting, but it doesn’t have active recall built in. Active recall is the key to long-term memory: you have to come up with the answer yourself, rather than just see the answer on the flip-side of the card. Existing programs are spaced repetition for flashcards, not characters. That’s why we made Skritter.”

Ability to Test Writings, Readings, Tones, and Definitions in Isolation

There are heaps of Chinese character flashcard apps these days, but most are simply digitized versions of paper flashcards that only drill passive knowledge (sorry, simply switching from atoms to bits doesn’t automatically solve the problem). Moreover, two-sided flashcards only allow you to isolate two variables, usually with one side showing the character and the other side listing both the meanings and readings. Often times, you may find that you know the meaning of a character but not the readings, the reading but not the writing, or the writing but not the meaning or readings. With traditional flashcards, there is no good way to indicate which of these variables you struggled with. Not so with Skritter, which tests these three components separately, prompting you to write, pronounce, or define a character/word depending on which particular card you’re confronted with.

Non-Intrusive Handwriting Guidance

Skritter’s elegant handwriting recognition system not only checks whether your stroke order is correct, but also if you are writing a particular stroke in the proper direction and with the required “hooks” seen in some characters. If you are completely lost, simply tap in the center of the screen to be shown the next stroke in blue.

“With Skritter, you write, not trace. Skritter gives you immediate stroke-level feedback.”

Automatic Syncing & Ability to Study Offline

Whether you are learning on board your flight to Japan, trying to avoid data overages, or rocking an iPod touch and don’t want to have to stay glued to a WiFi hotspot, the ability to study offline is a must for any good language learning app.

Everything you do within the app is synced back to the Skritter server, meaning you can start studying on the website while at your desk and finish on your iPhone during lunch. Though I prefer studying via the app, I can foresee situations (such as when at work) where twirling away on your phone looks like slacking while discreet study on your computer can be taken for hard work on those TPS reports.

“No internet? No problem. Learn offline, automatically sync when connection returns.”

Vocab Lists From Popular Text Books

While it’s good to have the option to create some custom lists, having to create all your own study lists is a “pain in the app”, wasting valuable energy and time that would be better spent learning the characters themselves. With Skritter, you can simply download one of the many pre-made textbook decks, including my recommended character books for Japanese and Mandarin: Remembering the Kanji (original and 6th edition) and Remembering the Hanzi.

Ability to Customize Cards and Lists On the Go

You would think this level of customization would be found in most apps, yet I am often surprised how many apps require you to use the desktop version to create or edit flashcards. Skritter allows you to not only create custom lists within the app, but also edit the content of flashcards, change/add hints, and suggest corrections if you come across mistakes.

Full-Featured One Week Trial

Good copy and pretty screen shots can make any app seem like the greatest thing since sliced bread, but you won’t know if something is truly a good fit for you until you actually get under the hood and try it for yourself. Smart companies like Skritter allow you to try ALL their features during the trial, instead of showing only a “lite” version of the product. The idea, of course, is that you get hooked on the product and sign up as a paying customer once the trial ends. Given how well Skritter works, I have a feeling that many users will do just that.

Users can currently choose between four different payment plans (offered as in-app purchases):

• $9.99 per month (cancel anytime)

• Prepay $39.99 for a 6-month membership (=$6.67 per month)

• Prepay $69.99 for a 12-month membership (=$5.83 per month)

• Prepay $119.99 for a 24-month membership (=$4.99 per month)

And even if you decide to not pay for a membership, the good news is that you can continue reviewing previously studied characters for free (adding new words requires an active subscription).

“Web subscriptions work in the app and vice versa, but we can’t use conveniently auto-renewable subscriptions in the App Store, so we’re offering in-app launch sale prices on longer subscriptions up to two years. These are just in the app, not on the site, but if you want to grab the sale price outside the app, just email us. These sale prices won’t last forever.”

The Bad

Truth be told, there aren’t very many things to criticize about Skritter. Here are the only weaknesses my team of highly trained nitpicking squirrels could find:

Cost Prohibitive for Some Learners

At $9.99 a month, Skritter may be out of reach for some cash-strapped learners. This of course is true for any paid service, but it would great if there was a cheaper (or perhaps free) version with less bells and whistles. Then again, from a business point of view, I agree that it’s best to keep things simple (having too many price points has actually been shown to reduce not increase conversions).

If you are a truly starving student, consider asking your school to sign up for an institutional subscription.

Overly Picky Stroke Recognition

While Skritter’s stroke recognition system is generally quite impressive, there were times when it failed to pick up strokes despite being written in more or less the correct direction and location. Fortunately, the system shows you exactly how/where it wants you to write a particular stroke with its blue stroke hints, but this can cause a somewhat frustrating delay when you are already intimately acquainted with a character but simply fail to use proper penmanship (or should it be called “fingermanship”?).

My Verdict

I dig Skritter. I like that it was created by a small team of dedicated language enthusiasts, not a faceless corporation who cares more about pleasing shareholders than users. And while it’s certainly not the cheapest Chinese character study option, I feel it’s well worth the investment given the myriad benefits I listed above.

As Charlie Sheen would surely describe it:

“Other Japanese learning apps are cute kittens. Skritter is a fierce tiger.”

What do you think of Skritter? Give the app a try and share your thoughts in the comments.

Want 30% Off a Skritter Account?

My Master Japanese guide includes discount codes for many of my favorite Japanese language learning sites and products, including:

Spanish is one of my next target languages and I was quite excited when Amanda Moritz of Brainscape asked me to do a review of their new Spanish language learning app for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

There’s no better excuse to study a language and play on my iPod touch than doing a product review!

What I Liked

Truth be told, I am not a huge fan of flashcards. I much prefer to just listen, read, and speak. But Brainscape does an excellent job with what can otherwise become a rather boring aspect of language study. Here are some of the app’s best features:

In App Training

The first time you use the app, it will help guide you through how to use it. For example, here is what pops up when you rate your first card:

You rated this card a 2. The higher your confidence, the less often you will see this card. Also, tips will occasionally pop up showing you how to get more out of the app.

Audio Files for Each Flash Card

One of the biggest problems with most flashcard systems (both paper and digital) is that they only focus on one skill: reading. With Brainscape, however, you can actually hear each word or phrase every time your review a card. This not only helps improve your listening and speaking skills, but also improves retention (brain research shows that the more senses you employ during study, the better your memory becomes).

From Words to Sentences

The app’s “Spanish Sentence Builder” does a good job of slowly building up your vocabulary from individual words into phrases that include a combination of previously studied words.

Excellent spaced repetition

As noted in The Science of Brainscape:

Repeating an easy concept too soon risks wasting your time, while repeating a difficult concept too late risks your having to learn it all over again. By employing user-controlled spaced repetition intervals, you can ensure that less familiar language is repeated more often, while better knows words won’t be repeated as often.

Usage Explanations on the card

Many flashcard systems only show you the key word and its meaning or pronunciation. Brainscape Spanish! cards also provide usage notes so you actually know how to use the new word or phrase.

Ability to delete cards as you go

You’d think that this would be an obvious feature, but I’m surprised how many flashcard apps don’t allow you to delete cards as you go, if at all. Brainscape also makes it easy for you to suggest an edit if you find any mistakes or missing information.

Specific topic decks

In addition to all the basic words you will need in daily life, the Brainscape Spanish! app also includes specific decks on a variety of topics, including business, food, medicine, transportation, technology, and geography.

Ability to sync the app with your brain-scape.com account

Apps are a great way to review languages on the go, but if I am at home or the office, I prefer the increased screen real estate allotted by a computer.

What Could Be Better

The following additions would be nice, but both represent rather costly endeavors, so I can understand if they doesn’t happen anytime soon, if ever…

Pictures

As noted in Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School, “vision trumps all other senses”. Adding stock photography to the flashcards would not only improve retention but also make study more inherently more enjoyable. This would also require less translation, allowing the student to spend more of their study time within instead translating to and from the target language and English.

Sample Sentences on All Cards

Although I like Brainscape’s sentence builder approach (gradually progressing from individual words to more complex phrases), it would be nice to have example sentences even in the very beginning so you can start getting used to a wider range of Spanish vocabulary and structures. While you might not understand much beyond the target phrase or construction, I find that having this extra input speeds acquisition and improves enjoyment.

Like any language learning tool, the key is balance: if used in combination with other sources of language input and output (listening to podcasts, watching Spanish television programs, reading blogs, speaking with friends or a tutor, etc.), Brainscape’s Spanish! iPhone app is an excellent addition to your your language learning arsenal.

Brainscape Spanish! Press Release

iPhone app teaches you Spanish using “smart flashcards” and brain science

Brainscape’s researchers from Columbia, Yale, and MIT have developed a novel language-acquisition approach they call Intelligent Cumulative Exposure (ICE).

NEW YORK: When we think of using flashcards to study Spanish, we usually think of putting simple one-word questions and answers like “apple” and “manna” on 3×5 index cards. Not Brainscape. This small team of educational technologists out of Columbia University has leveraged the power of the iPhone to combine grammar, sentence construction, and audio pronunciation into an incremental and comprehensive language-learning experience.

Brainscape Spanish works in three simple, repetitive steps:

Brainscape asks you to translate a particular sentence (e.g. “I have two siblings”) into Spanish where the single underlined word is the only concept that has not yet been introduced in previous flashcards.

Brainscape reveals the correct translation (Tengo dos hermanos) on the back of the flashcard, and explains or annotates the new concept in smaller text. (e.g. Although the word hermano usually means “brother” when singular, the plural hermanos could mean either “two brothers” or “a brother and a sister”.)

Brainscape asks you, on a scale of 1-5, “How well did you know this?” which determines how soon that flashcard will be repeated. Cards rated a 1 would repeat often until you report a higher level of confidence, while 5’s are very rarely repeated.

The process continues to repeat one card at-a-time (with AUDIO accompaniment), at gradually increasingly levels of complexity, with previous cards being repeated on an as-needed basis, according to Brainscape’s machine learning algorithm. Interspersed with these sentence-building exercises are simple vocabulary enrichment and verb conjugation-practice flashcards which also employ a confidence-based repetition technique.

Brainscape’s founder Andrew Cohen has written an entire white paper about why the new method (which he calls Intelligent Cumulative Exposure) works so effectively. “The Input Hypothesis, the value of Active Recall, and the importance of Metacognition have been known for decades,” says Cohen, “but much of the advancements toward applying these principles have confined to laboratories. Brainscape is the first company to make these language learning advancements so absurdly convenient.”

Brainscape Spanish is currently a $40 iPhone/iPod Touch app but is available to try free on Brainscape’s website where you can also find other flashcard-based courses and even create your own smart flashcard decks. As of this writing, Brainscape has over 120,000 members, and it plans to create a web/mobile learning community that eventually encompasses the world’s entire body of knowledge as well as just languages.

All in all, the site is very similar, in a good way, to LiveMocha (read my review of LiveMocha here). Both use a “freemium” model, offering both free and premium services, which is great for new users who want to get their language learning feet wet before committing to a monthly credit card charge. Both are social networks, relying upon and benefiting from crowd sourcing to correct user writing samples, provide conversation practice, etc. There are, however, many subtle differences between the two sites; some good, some bad…

The Good

1) Excellent User Interface.

I love Busuu’s Language Garden visual shown on your personalized landing page (you’ll see it once you have registered). It’s attractive, intuitive and a pleasant departure from other sites that just show a boring table or list.

Busuu also uses high-quality stock photography that does a good job of creating a clear visual context. Rosetta Stone and LiveMocha also use a similar approach, but I find that they often use unclear pictures, leaving the learner a little confused about what concept, idea, or vocabulary item they are trying to impart. From what I have seen, this doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem on Busuu.

One of my favorite little features is the blinking icon effect showing which section of the lesson is next (the system will keep track of which sections you have already completed and then show you what to do next.)

2) Conversational beginner materials.

From the very first lesson, you will be hearing and reading natural (albeit simple) phrases like “How’s it going?”, “Where are you from?”, and “I’m sorry, I didn’t know she was your sister!” Okay, I made up the last one…

This is in contrast to LiveMocha, which starts off with a number of simple, declarative sentences to demonstrate certain simple adjectives, pronouns, etc. (e.g. He is tall. She is short. The man is fat. The girl is thin.) The idea of course is to get you used to how the language works and introduce basic vocabulary within a sentence. The problem is that most beginning language learners want to learn some useful phrases as well so they can actually say something once they arrive in the foreign country. You are fat probably won’t get you very far at a bar…

3) Great iPhone / iPod touch app.

The Busuu apps are extremely well designed, and as far as I can tell, include nearly all the content available on the website. As is often the case, I actually prefer using the app version over the website equivalent as it is more tactile and their are fewer visual distractions (less screen real-estate forces the designers to only include what is absolutely necessary.) And best of all, the apps are free!

The Bad

1) Annoying AdSense advertisements.

I completely understand the need to monetize the website, but random, third-party banners are not the answer. I, like many people in my generation, instinctively tune such ads out and will NEVER click them no matter how many times they flash in my face. I think Busuu would be better off placing more ads for their premium offerings as LiveMocha does.

2) Annoying comprehension questions.

Some comprehension questions ask information about specific people mentioned in the dialogue. I would much prefer exercises that reinforced the vocabulary and grammatical structures, not specific biographical information about characters. Better yet, they could present a number of dialogues using different characters and content information, but based around the same phrases and structures. Called “narrow listening”, this approach would help improve intake and retention, while also reducing the monotony involved in listening to the same piece of audio again and again.

3) A few too many bad apples…

On multiple occasions, users who agreed to “correct” my writing samples would simply copy what I wrote and paste it in the comments with no changes or comments whatsoever. I assume they did this in an effort to quickly earn “Busuu Berries”, points that can be exchanged for otherwise pay-only services on the site. Busuu needs to figure out a better way to patrol feedback. My suggestion is that they only assign points after the author of the writing sample has thumbed up the feedback.

My Verdict

If you are looking for a good free language learning solution online and are not learning a less common language (at the time of writing, Busuu only offers materials for a handful of major languages), then I definitely suggest checking out Busuu. Now if they only offered the Busuu language itself… It would be great to become the 9th speaker!

The site has been well received by most, and comes strongly recommended by many language bloggers, school teachers, and individual learners.

Steven J. Sacco, a Language Professor at San Diego State University, has this to say about LiveMocha:

“LiveMocha is the best online language program I have seen and used vastly superior to Rosetta Stone in terms of cost and the variety of language functions it offers.”

So how does this blogger feel about LiveMocha? Here’s a quick look at the good and bad as I see it.

The Good

The best aspects of social networks

With so many registered users, LiveMocha provides a massive pool of potential tutors and language partners. The best part of this quid pro quo, reciprocity-based system are the corrections provided by native speakers. It’s win-win: they get some “Mocha Points” (exhangeable for otherwise pay-only features on the site) and you get free corrections. Not a bad deal. And you can of course correct the writing and speaking samples of people learning your native tongue. There will be frequent pop-ups asking you to do just that.

Numerous languages to choose from

LiveMocha currently offers courses in 35 languages making the site quite the polyglot wonderland. The following languages are offered, though not all of them are equally fleshed out: Arabic, Brazilian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish (Castellano), Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu. Phew, that’s a lot of “languaging”!

Lots of free content

It is always a good idea to test drive new materials before opening your wallet or purse. LiveMocha offers 3 units for free, with 5 or so lesson per unit, each including a variety of activities. Which leads to the next good point…

A wide range of listening, speaking, reading and writing activities

In each lesson, you will receive multiple exposures to target vocabulary and structures, with a good mix of listening and reading input. I especially like the drag & drop writing activity as it tests your understanding of basic structures and word order without requiring overt output before learners are ready for free writing exercises.

Language Specific Pop-up Keyboards

Although most browsers allow you to insert special characters, using LiveMocha’s pop-up keyboards (which are specific to whatever language you are studying at the time) saves you a lot of time over looking for the right accent mark, upsidedown exclamation point, or funky squiggle within the sea of shapes in browser symbol directories.

Correction by native speakers who are not necessarily trained teachers

Many people would consider this a disadvantage, but in my experience, untrained teachers are often better at identifying what doesn’t sound right and providing simple examples of more natural language. Teachers tend to miss the forest for the trees, and provide prescriptive advice on what one should say, not what real native speakers actually do say. Moreover, most teachers try to “teach” you the language, and as I reiterate time and time again, languages cannot be taught.

Informal language is presented first

Opinions differ on this issue, but I personally recommend (and much prefer) learning informal language before focusing on more formal equivalents. Why? Because in nearly all cultures, we rarely use formal language. When you start out in a language, it is inefficient to spend your precious time learning infrequent, specialized vocabulary and phrases. “Pardon me, but could I trouble you for dab of Gray Poupon?” can come later. Also, informal language tends to be shorter and therefore easier to learn, and often does a better job of demonstrating the basic structures of the language, where as formal structures are often archaic, semantically opaque constructions. Besides, travelers and new foreign residents will almost always be forgiven for being a tad bit too informal.

The Bad

The good news is that all of the following problems can be overcome or side-stepped based on how you use LiveMocha. And in my opinion, the pros of the site still far outweigh these cons.

Requires speaking and writing output too soon

When to begin producing output is a highly contested issue, and as of late, there have been some heated arguments on the topic between well-known language bloggers (many of you probably know to whom I refer). In my own experience as a language learner and teacher, I stand firmly in the “later but not too late” camp when it comes to output. Speaking and writing too soon is the single greatest cause of “fossilization” (see The Linguistionary for more on fossilized errors) and often leads learners to develop a fear of speaking the foreign language.

Too much overt focus on grammar

Grammar study is an equally controversial topic among language teachers, linguists, and polyglots (see this debate between LingQ’s Steve Kaufmann and Vincent of Street-Smart Language Learning for more on the topic). In my experience, a little grammar review from time to time can be useful, but should only take up a small percentage of your time with the language. Lots of input (and eventually, lots of output) is the key to true fluency, not memorizing complex information about the language that you have virtually no chance of utilizing in real time.

Reliance on (and a prevalence of) translation

Most language learners rely on, and expect their language products to provide, translations of everything they hear or read. While translation does make the learner feel more comfortable (and a little bit here and there can be helpful), knowing the equivalent of each word or phrase in your native language is certainly not necessary to learn a language. Remember: you learned your native language without translating to or from any language. The key is to create such highly contextualized situations that you don’t need to translate. LiveMocha does a fairly good job of this with their use of annotated pictures, but they could do more to contextualize lessons (especially those for absolute beginners) by adding sound effects and video clips.

Some bad apples

With such a large community, you are bound to run into a few bad apples who abuse the system. The most common problem I encountered were users who just copied what I had written without adding any suggestions or corrections in an effort, I assume, to quickly earn Mocha Points. But as LiveMocha’s VP of Marketing and Product, Clint Schmidt, mentions during our interview, the community will quickly vote down such users and they will be removed from the system if appropriate.

So there you have it. Overall, I thinkLiveMocha is an excellent language learning site and recommend it as a supplementary material to your other learning tools.

Learn More

To learn more about LiveMocha or set up a free account, got to their website:

LingQ focuses on listening and reading tasks, following the same input-based method Steve has used to learn foreign languages. But output is certainly not ignored. Using one’s LingQ points (which can be either purchased outright or earned by tutoring others or sharing content you’ve created), users can speak with tutors and get their writing corrected by native speakers. The tutors I have talked with were excellent.

Users can choose between 4 different levels:

The Good

After using LingQ for quite some time now, here’s what I’ve come to like best:

Automatically Saved Words

After spending years highlighting new words and phrases in magazines and then manually typing them into Excel sheets or online databases, this feature makes LingQ a huge time saver. Some other sites allow you to also save and review new words this way, but they don’t allow you to import your own content the way LingQ does.

Yellow Highlights

When you save words and phrases using the LingQ button, these items appear highlighted in yellow in all future texts you study. To quickly remind yourself of the meaning or pronunciation, you simply hover over the LingQ or click (depending on how you configure the settings).

Flexible Hints

When you want to LingQ a word or phrase, you can choose between popular hints, add your own, or copy and paste from the integrated multilingual dictionaries. I find that the act of creating (or at least editing) the hint or definition helps increase retention and deepen my understanding of new words and phrases.

Spaced Repetition Emails

After creating some LingQs on a given day, they will automatically be emailed to you following a spaced repetition schedule (that is, gradually longer and longer intervals between each email). You can then quickly scan through the words and hints to both refresh your memory and decide which items to review further.

Good Variety of Content

There are heaps of lessons covering a wide range of abilities and interests, and you can always import your own as I discuss next. You can browse lessons from the library by topic or level, or you can click on individual lessons to see how many new words it presents (all words not yet LingQed or marked as “known” will show up in blue).

Custom Lessons

Perhaps my favorite feature of LingQ is the ability to import and LingQ your own content. For example, I recently imported an e-mail I received in Chinese and then had a Taiwanese friend record the audio. Voila; instant content that is interesting, relevant, and perfectly tailored to my learning needs. And of course, words I had previously LingQed in other lessons automatically showed up in yellow.

The Bad

Even the best language learning system always has room for improvement. Here are few weaknesses that I hope to see fixed in the future:

Wonky Word Boundaries in Japanese and Chinese

While this issue has been significantly improved since earlier versions of LingQ, I still come across a number of Japanese and Chinese words that are improperly parsed. This tends to be more of a problem in imported texts.

Browser Glitches

When LingQing new items or hovering over existing LingQs, I sometimes run into problems getting the window to pop up. When this happens, I simply refreshed the browser and the problem went away. Not a big deal but a little annoying when you are immersed in a dialogue or story.

A Few Unreliable Tutors

Most tutors on LingQ are members themselves, and enjoy tutoring as much as they enjoy learning languages. However, I had one experience where a tutor failed to show up for a scheduled session and didn’t reply to follow up emails or messages on their wall. Fortunately, I was able to get a refund for the points I spent for the no-show tutor.

My Verdict

LingQ faces competition from quite a few online language tools with far larger marketing and development budgets, but it’s focus on effective methods, authentic content, and community help LingQ continue to survive and thrive despite comparatively fewer bells and whistles. There is no perfect system out there (nor will there ever be), but LingQ offers driven, independent language learners one of the best resources I have found to date for learning multiple languages in a natural, input-based way. Those more accustomed to formal, highly structured language programs, however, probably won’t like LingQ very much. Of course, such folks wouldn’t agree with most of what I have to say anyway…

Update

LingQ 2.0 has just been released. Myriad useful improvements to make creating and reviewing LingQs that much easier. This Apple-esque video covers what’s new:

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