Social Networks for Learning Chinese, Useful or Just Hype?

[chairman_tap]

I'm starting to see more and more websites coming out branding themselves as social networks with the focus on language exchange (ie the social way to learn a language). I was curious to see if you guys found them useful or not for learning Chinese.

Here are a couple that I've come across (some our social networks some are just language learning):

http://www.mangolanguages.com/

http://www.livemocha.com/

http://www.italki.com/

http://myhappyplanet.com/

I've messed around with some, and while kind of fun at first...do get a little boring after a while, so I wanted to see if anyone else has had a lot of success with it. Do you think you can actually learn on these websites?

[LaoZhang]

I've chatted with a few chaps from italki. i think it's pretty hit or miss since there's no guarantee who you'll meet online. I have used the Skype Skypecasts. You can set up your own. If you want to chat in Chinese, then write the description for your chat in Chinese or specifically state that the chat is for anyone who wants to practice their Chinese and native speakers are (especially) welcome to join. You can also set your "room" to open up at a predetermined time so you have enough time for people to "find you" without having to wait in the room by yourself. Here's a directory of Skypecasts. You can speak as well as type through their IM client (which is build into the application).

A side note:

Warning!!! If you buy Skype gift certificates, be sure to apply them to your account immediately. I had bought some and didn't send them out and someone "redeemed them" without me knowing. And per Skype forums, this happens somewhat frequently.

[roddy]

Put it this way - this site has been running for nigh on half a decade (we're five years old in May) and I can't think of a language networking site which has been consistently recommended, maybe not even recommended full stop. Dictionaries, sure - xiaoma springs to mind. Chinesepod, mandarintools.com, and others, often get mentioned for one reason or another. People on other sites have said very complimentary things about this one,even. But I can't think of any sites for learning Chinese + social networking that have made any impact. I'm not sure there's a need - finding Chinese people to chat to is easy enough if you want to, via MSN, Skype, etc, directly. There are plenty of online tutoring sites now - again though, I don't think I've seen any consistently recommended.

The next iteration of Vbulletin, the software this site runs on, includes a lot more social networking stuff - blogs, groups, etc. At the moment I doubt we'll even turn it on, though we're open to suggestions, angry demands, foot-stomping, etc.

[chairman_tap]

Thanks for the LaoZhang, I'll definitely check out the Skypecasts that you talked about. It makes sense that you have to be really specific what you are looking for on those kinds of websites to guarantee that you get some value out of them.

As for Chinese forums...i think it does just a good job as the other social networking websites in terms of helping people learn language or learn more about Chinese culture. Sometimes, it's not just all about the bells and whistles that makes a website good...bottomline is still, do I get value out of the website I'm using...

Thanks for the feedback...curious to hear other thoughts...

[tooironic]

sharedtalk.com is pretty awesome

i think it works best if you use MSN/Yahoo/whatever in conjunction with the site

i've got over 40 Chinese MSN friends, and i must say they've help me increase my fluency massively since i started using it

[dynaemu]

If you really wanna make friends and learn chinese, try using QQ, it's the best in my opinion...

I meet 10s of people a day with it

[tooironic]

If you really wanna make friends and learn chinese, try using QQ, it's the best in my opinion...

I meet 10s of people a day with it

Yeah but I'm wary to try QQ, I've heard it's bundled with adware/spyware.

[werdnerd]

The problem with most social networking sites for learning language is that many people come to make friends, not necessarily to learn. We have created a site (not to selfishly promote ) edited then. Admin

In general though (and I assume that you are not in China), a better way is to try to find a teacher online and communicate with him/her through Skype. If you are a serious student, this will make much more efficient use of your time. I live in Shanghai and teachers can be found for about RMB30 (~US$4) per hour who have computers and can give lessons online. I'm sure other areas of the country would be cheaper. Establish a regular schedule with your teacher and you will quickly see your progress. Each Chinese city seems to have it's own on-line classifieds site where it is easy to find teachers. For instance in Shanghai:

http://www.cityweekend.com.cn

http://www.thatsshanghai.com

[tooironic]

I'm not paying someone to teach me Chinese. I am already doing my postgrad in translation studies. I'm not going to pay someone just to converse with them - I can do that for free by adding Chinese native speakers from the sites we've just been talking about. Sure it may not be 'directed', but that's half the fun - meeting new people and having really interesting conversations with them. I can say the majority of Chinese people I've met on the internet aren't really motivated to push me to speak in English all the time - we just talk in Chinese most of the time. I learn heaps of Chinese, as for the English, they don't use me to their full potential, but that's their fault My point is, don't disregard the value of language exchange and meeting Chinese friends on the internet so hastily - it's a free tutoring resource, essentially, and there is never an end to amount of Chinese people you can meet, given how many there are!

Now as for your site - why was it removed by admin? ?

[roddy]

Because whenever a new member signs up and adds links to his own site in every single post, it looks like spam, even if it's not intended to be, and the posts are likely to get removed or edited. There's a homepage link on the user's profile if you are interested.

Queries on moderation are, btw, best delivered by private message, the report a post button (the lightbulb one) or the contact form.

[self-taught-mba]

Plug for Wordbuddy.

Going to jump in and add an independent plug for Wordbuddy. I added it to our links section on our website as well (only after checking it out). It is still in beta but it looks promising and I think projects like these should be supported. I first looked at it in January.

The social networking aspect of it is incredibly weak at this point (because there are not enough members!) but I like that it has radical and component breakdowns of characters.

The other thing that looks promising is what could possibly turn into an "urban dictionary" type of learning from its members that can add slang.

So I definitely think that it belongs in this thread as a potential resource.

(Although all disagree with his idea about finding a good teacher for 30 kuai.)

[Gymnosopher]

Since this seems to be a pretty old post now does any have any more thoughts about WordBuddy (as linked above)? [i'm not talking about the site as a social network but as it's already been mentioned didn't think I should make a new post, mods feel free to move this!]

I've actually just come to the site through a google ad on Yellowbridge which is a first, usually the adverts are about me paying to get onto facebook in China or to learn 2289 characters in 90 days....

Anyway, considering I was on Yellowbridge to look at things like character etymology and detail this site seemed like a pretty useful concept, and for what it's worth it works much quicker than Yellowbridge does for me (in China?). It seems to be good with taking characters and breaking them into constituent parts and finding words they're in etc along with definitions all at once, though as you'd see in the front page walkthrough there could in theory be mnemonics and sentences which in reality seem to only be on a handful of entries that the small community have made.

So yes, any thoughts?

[Meng Lelan]

Does anyone have thoughts on Facebook as a media for Chinese learning? This was brought up at a conference I went to last week by a presenter who put her class on Facebook and had them communicate in Chinese (well some English too) on Facebook about course content and homework. Does it enhance Chinese learning?

[Gymnosopher]

Forcing communication in Chinese sounds like it would have some benefit - but how much so if just discussing with others from your class with similar vocabularies and non-native grammar etc? This is where those above seemed to be driving at discussing with natives or, as suggested elsewhere on the forum, participating in forums/message boards that are in native Chinese.

Of course facebook could have these sorts of groups (if ignoring the Chinese that won't participate due to not being bothered enough to get around the firewall) however as also mentioned elsewhere, if it were so obvious that you were not a native speaker (you have 1 fb account, go out of your way to not appear like a laowai and your friends/family won't find you!) you'll just attract English.

#2c

[Meng Lelan]

Those are interesting points. I don't use Facebook at all whatsoever but after listening to the presentation I didn't feel very convinced that Facebook would be so helpful for enhancing Chinese because of the firewall situation, but that was the only problem I was able to think of on my own.

Something else too I am wondering if Skritter can be considered a social media now they have blogs, forums, word lists, in addition to practicing writing? sorry if this seems like an idiotic question.

[roddy]

Facebook I'm dubious about as you're not necessarily going to have Chinese-speaking friends on there to interact in Chinese with (and if you do you're probably better off phoning them). Sure, you can stick all your students on there and say 'talk to each other in Chinese', but you could do that with pen and paper. Something more open and browsable, such as microblogs, are I think potentially very valuable, and that's already come up - it's easy to search for stuff you're interested in and the communication is in bite-sized units.

Skritter at core is writing and vocab practice - last I looked at it I wouldn't say it's social media, although they use social media tools to communicate with users.

[Gymnosopher]

Re Skritter or xxx as social media...

I think social media is something hard to define... In general, the models that have been most successful like facebook and predecessors like myspace, hi5, facepic and faceparty (going way back to when I first got sucked in) have just been increasingly broad formats that focus purely on profiles and connecting individuals - then there's some backwards engineering at work where the developers look to capitalise off of the large community and we get the ridiculous world of farmville. So imho these don't really work so well in reverse, though web developers seem set on forcing more niche community models into social media, in the belief that it will keep people hanging around and draw more people in.

A community attached to something is great, people already interested in the latest mmorpg or news story or whatever can have some sort of rapport - but more than having a picture and short (relevant) profile if you're interested why are we suddenly having the options to add/search for friends, share/do things directly rather than communally and having the profile as the focus rather than what we came for in the first place?

I don't know, maybe I got a little disenfranchised when I joined a 'career development' social network a few years ago (not talking linkedin, but wygu.com) and those that try to pop up ever since. Why can't these sites be happy to create a great idea/service/product and continue growing in a unique way?

But yes, still interested if anyone has thoughts on WordBuddy!

[tim89]

I think it's a great alternative to get in touch with people that actually do speak chinese, if you are not willing or able to actually travel there. And even if you do, I know many people who find it hard to actually start talking a language they do not feel to comfortable with and thus try to stick with english (even if they study/learn the other language of course)..