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