From his time in the Peace Corps to working as an international aid worker, Scott Webb, Program Officer with the Food Security unit of the IRD (International Relief & Development), has learned and used many languages in his work. Here, Scott tells us where, how, and why he learned his languages and shares some good advice for anyone speaking French in former French colonies.

By Scott Webb

“Du pain, s’il vouz plait,” I said.

“Du quoi?” the waitress replied.

“Du pain,” I repeated.  She raised her chin and stared at me, shrugging her shoulders slightly before looking around for something else to do.

“Quoi?” she said again.  This went on for another three rounds before I pointed to some bread that another customer was eating…  read more

Our community members frequently reach out to us with suggestions and requests for tips that will help them have a better experience with Livemocha. Last month we got a great request from a Livemocha user asking us for tips on how to best use the Chat feature. I asked Nate Sooter, our Senior Account Manager, who is in charge of working with Livemocha users from across our customer base to help ensure that their experiences are successful and satisfying. Here’s what he had to say:

Have a set of questions in mind before going to a conversation.  Know the basics — “Where are you from? What do you do for work? Do you have any family members? What do you…  read more

LiveEnglish with Livemocha teacher and host Miranda chimes in on our Diary of a Language Teacher series.
If you are one of the over ten-thousand people who follow the LiveEnglish with Livemocha English language learning sessions on Facebook, you’ll recognize this gal: Miranda is your host and teacher every weekday at 18:00 GMT. When she heard about Livemocha’s Diary of a Language Learner / Language Teacher series, she was excited to share with her students and the Livemocha community what her experience is as a teacher. Here she introduces herself and tells her story of going from student to teacher.

Here’s Miranda in her own words.

Before I was a language teacher, I was a language learner.  I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. …  read more

Not only is Siôn Owen a regular contributor to our Diary of a Language Learner series and the brains behind Smash English, he has also agreed to contribute some of his road-tested tips and tricks for language learning. Here, Siôn actively promotes singing out loud and talking to yourself as sound ways of practicing your target language (things I never do… yeah right!)

by Siôn Owen

Nothing beats sitting down for a lengthy chat with a native speaker of your target language. Unfortunately, such opportunities aren’t always easy to come by, or our busy schedules don’t allow for as much socializing as we’d like. And while options to chat exist online, we’re not always near a computer or in the mood to sit in…  read more

Your library card is your Gold Key to language learning
We are pleased and proud to announce that the Seattle Public Library system has renewed their Livemocha license for another two years, which gives over 600,000 library cardholding Seattleites free access to the world’s largest language learning community.
Did you know that over 5 million people in the continental United States have unlimited access to Livemocha through their public libraries?
To date, Livemocha is offered in 30 public library systems in the U.S. including:

Multnomah County Library, Oregon
El Paso Public Library, Texas
Boston Public Library, Massachusetts
Shelby County Public Library System, Alabama
Arlington Public Library, Virginia
Tulare County Library, California
St. Charles Public Library, Illinois

Here’s an article from the Multnomah County library about their new Livemocha offering.
Why…  read more

One of my duties as Editor of this blog is to find and share resources with our language-learning community; from time to time I find a gem. Last month I spoke with Deanna Lyles and her husband and business partner Ìñigo Gil who started Bilingual Readers, a Madrid-based publishing company specializing in Spanish/English books for bilingual children and adults.

Why did you start Bilingual Readers?
Íñigo and I started Bilingual Readers three years ago to combine our love of books with our love of languages. As a bicultural (American/Spanish) couple living in Spain, we wanted to create books, which reflected both our languages and backgrounds. Since then we’ve published a series of high quality, bilingual (Spanish/English) books for children…  read more

by Kelly Doscher

After my graduation from the French Studies department at The University of Washington, I decided to treat myself to some cooking classes with a local cooking school. When I registered for the classes I had no idea that the company conducted culinary tours in France. Soon enough, I found myself tutoring one of the owners in preparation for her upcoming tour of Provence. It was great fun teaching my newly learned language to someone who was going to actively use it for her business.

One problem, though – I found myself deeply jealous of her upcoming trip. I realized then that I had found my calling: translating for culinary tours in France.

Two weeks before my student was to…  read more

A century and a half after its establishment, the Italian university Politecnico di Milano, is switching to English in an attempt to maintain a competitive edge as an internationally competitive university. Find the full story here.

The university has announced that from 2014 most of its degree courses – including all its graduate courses – will be taught and assessed entirely in English rather than Italian.

The waters of globalization are rising around higher education – and the university believes that if it remains Italian-speaking it risks isolation and will be unable to compete as an international institution.

“We strongly believe our classes should be international classes – and the only way to have international classes is to use the English language,”…  read more