Originally posted on July 13, 2012

By Miranda González

As a teacher for LiveEnglish with Livemocha on Facebook, I usually like to start my class with a warm-up question like “What do you like to do in the summer?” or “If you had a million dollars, what would you buy?”

These warm-up questions serve two purposes:
1) Students get a chance to practice their writing and
2) They get to share their interests with people from all over the world.
These LiveEnglish students come from distinct nations and speak many different languages, but they make a lot of the same mistakes when writing in English.  How can this be?  English is tricky, and some parts are trickier than others, so to help you out, I’ve compiled…  read more

Guest post by Luke Rudge

If you’ve ever learned a language, or are in the process of doing so, then chances are that you’ve been subject to learning the perils of a little thing known as grammatical gender. Native speakers of a gendered language make it look easy, but for non-native learners, especially if English is your Mother Tongue, then the challenge begins! You are dropped into the middle of a sea without any apparent rules, until you reach a land where everything and anything seems to come with a set of XX or XY chromosomes.

Stay strong! It is possible to conquer the apparent mountain of mass confusion that is grammatical gender, and this post aims to give you a little more…  read more

Let’s have some more fun with English idioms
This time we will be talking about idioms that follow this construction:
“A __ in your __.”
In English, as in most languages, there are some pretty strange idiomatic and colloquial phrases that can make a language learner’s head spin*. Here’s a short list of some common – and some not-so-common – examples.
___________________________

A hitch in your get-along
This is a colloquial phrase used when a person is hobbled or slowed in some way by an obstacle or other impediment.
“This broken foot has sure put a hitch in my get-along.”
 
A frog in your throat
If you have a frog in your throat, you can’t speak or you are losing your voice because you have a problem with…  read more

Our world-class development team is making great strides on a daily basis creating the best language-learning tool the market has ever seen. As we continue to build out our new platform and prepare for its release, we will be sharing updates about the user experience that we know will be of interest to our current and future community members.

And so, without further ado…

 
Community Comments Feature
By far, our top request from users has been to allow helpers to leave comments along with a rating. Now, after completing a writing or speaking exercise, learners can request expert reviews, community ratings, and community comments.
 
As a community member helping others, you will now be able to leave text comments on submissions if requested by…  read more

Help others learn your language!
Livemocha is looking for enthusiastic contributors to complete 20-lesson “Starter Packs” in their native language. These contributors will be working on a web-based template to create Level 1 Activity Sets covering topics assigned by Livemocha such as the alphabet, numbers, greetings, dates, etc.

To learn more about this opportunity, join us for a free webinar this weekend.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PDT / 17:00 GMT
Register now by clicking the link below:

https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/522545286*

Compensation
Livemocha will pay a per-project fee of $750 USD to individuals who complete a 20-lesson Starter Pack in their language by May 22, 2013. This Webinar will provide detailed information and training for interested contributors.

 
Eligible Languages Include
Bulgarian     Catalan      Croatian
Czech     Esperanto     Estonian
Farsi  …  read more

A student’s mother tongue is an essential link for learning English effectively
 

Guest post by Anthony Vaughan

Did you know that students have a mother tongue?  It seems like a funny question, yet all too often, students learning English are discouraged from using their native language in the classroom.  Is it possible that sweeping it to the periphery of a monolingual class may be wasting a valuable educational tool?

 
Local teachers’ insight
Teachers in a non-English speaking country are in an enviable training position.  Sharing a common tongue with their students, they have a greater insight into the linguistic ‘behind the scenes’ of their students’ minds.  Despite this insight, they may be told that the only way to teach English is by maintaining a…  read more

Let’s try a little exercise, shall we? Read the following story and see if you can find the idioms that are mixed in. Before you continue reading this post, answer these questions:

How many idioms are there? 

What do they mean? 

Is there an equivalent in your language?

 
I don’t know how the weather has been where you live, but here in Seattle we’ve been chomping at the bit for spring to finally arrive. It’s been raining cats and dogs here the last couple of weeks, and quite frankly, most of us are chilled to the bone, fed up with winter-like weather, and wish that the doom and gloom of the cold would shutter up until December or so.

Now that the sun is…  read more

We always try to share helpful tips and tricks that we hope will help you achieve your language learning goals more efficiently, and hopefully ease the pains of the journey. Here, Alexandre Duval, shares some tried and true (and really helpful) tips that can apply to any language you choose to pursue.

Guest post by Alexandre Duval

Learning a foreign language can be pretty hard. It sometimes involves learning a new alphabet, it inevitably calls for the memorization of tons of new words as well as the assimilation of new grammatical structures. Learning English is not an exception to the rule: in order to be successful, one has to take it seriously. Nevertheless, there are some ways that can facilitate the learning process, especially…  read more

When I was growing up, my parents made a concerted effort to expose me to music, culture, and travel. It’s because of their influence that I have such a passion for all of those things today.

Back in October I did a really fun Saturday Morning Music post that shared a style of music called Taiko which I heard as a child while in my mother’s tow. Today, my father has put together a selection of music for our listening pleasure that I am thrilled to share with you.

Here’s a quick note from my dad:
In 1967 I saw Brazilian guitarist Bola Sete in a small theater in Los Gatos, California.  It was a solo performance and i was immediately hooked with the Bossa Nova…  read more

Last week I posted this question on our Facebook and Twitter pages and received a deluge of comments from our community; people who know a thing or two about language learning.

 
How would you finish this statement?
“One of the most important lessons I have learned in my language studies is…”
 
What was the overall consensus?
Patience
Persistence
Don’t translate, understand
Talk to Native Speakers
 
Here are a couple of stand-out comments from our community:
Erik Sergeevich  No two languages are the same. There are similarities, but never the same. Same goes with cultures, nations, and their people.

Helge Moulding …that language often reflects how we think about everyday matters, and that it can be quite different from culture to culture. What may seem like common sense can turn out to…  read more