A Chinese college student spent one year and a half making a brand new language learning/exchanging website.

[hellogbk]

Hey, I'd like to invite you to try out a new language learning/exchange website which supports all languages and which took me one year and a half to make.

 

I made this website which took me one year and half to make, it supports all languages in the world, now it's under a testrun. There you can find language partners, do writing and speaking practice, and exchange language through chatting by text or video online without Skype. You may publish language exchange reservations to schedule a exchange for a future time.

I hope you like it.

 

www.govoluble.com 

 

Here is an example of how to do speaking practice and get your pronunciation corrected.

http://www.govoluble.com/entry/573

 

for further introduction, check 

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/2z5016/govoluble_global_language_exchange_community_now/

 

Thanks!

[Demonic_Duck]

Looks like an interesting site. Is there any kind of rep/credits system or something that penalises people if they don't hold up their end of the bargain (e.g. if I were to take part in a language exchange, speak 20 minutes of Chinese and then refuse to speak English or just straight up leave the conversation)?

 

For me, I think potentially the most interesting part is the "writing practice" - at the moment I use Lang-8 for this, but there are a few features/non-features of Lang-8 I find less than ideal. What does your site have in this respect that differentiates it from Lang-8?

[Shelley]

I had a quick look, it seems like a great site. You do seem to have put in the work to make it useful.

 

I like the writing practice too.

 

Its a shame you can't find a language exchange partner at short notice, my life and work are unpredictable and I would not be comfortable about scheduling time that I was then for some reason unable to keep. I realise that it is not easy, time zones, and other things make it difficult.

 

I would also be happy with shorter exchanges 10 minutes in each language would be fine for me at the moment.

 

I think I might sign up and see how it goes.

 

Thanks for sharing.

[hellogbk]

Hi Demonic_Duck, thanks for the reply. reputation system is currently not available and I'll be working on it, but you are able to leave a comment on your partner after the exchange, and when you are viewing someone's exchange reservations, comments on him/her will be listed on the page, by which you judge the member.

Compared to Lang-8, I'd say that being able to practice your speaking skill along with your writing is the key feature that tells Govoluble apart from Lang-8 or any other similar sites.

Also, since I'm Chinese, so that Govoluble is specially optimized for Chinese language. The word list feature is only available for those who are learning. Chinese native speakers will be asked to attach pinyin for their corrections which will be soon displayed in the 'Learning Mode' view of the correction area so that you can learn their corrections more easily, apart from the Pinyin, Govoluble will analyze the corrections made my Chinese native speakers, detecting vocabulary from which, then the vocabulary detected will be shown along with the Pinyin for you to study. In addition, there are two view modes for each correction for your preference.

[hellogbk]

hi Shelley, im quite sure that you'd find language exchange reservations that meet your need in the future on Govoluble cause Govoluble is growing. There will be a increasing number of people who'd like to schedule exchanges using Govoluble.

Thanks for your support!

[mackie1402]

I had a quick look on my break.

I always thought that a voice version of lang8 would be great and here we are. However now I've seen it in use I have a little concern.

Looking at the example post there were 3 comments all correcting how to say 1 word. This is because the person was studying a British book and was getting corrected by American and South African users.

How can we know if the corrections are correct for us, as accents vary around the world?

I really like the idea, but just think this could be a problem.

[Demonic_Duck]

Hi Demonic_Duck, thanks for the reply. reputation system is currently not available and I'll be working on it, but you are able to leave a comment on your partner after the exchange, and when you are viewing someone's exchange reservations, comments on him/her will be listed on the page, by which you judge the member.

 

That's cool. The reason I ask is because people have mentioned it before (e.g. in this thread) as being a common problem with language exchanges. That hasn't particularly been my experience, but it's a common enough complaint to be worth taking seriously.

 

Anyway, I was going to post a load more questions/comments, but I reckon I'll sign up and take a look around first.

 

Edit: OK, first comment - I posted an entry and it messed up my formatting. It seems the site will only allow line breaks after sentence-ending punctuation (。、！、？ etc.), and even then only one line break for each one. Could this be changed? Proper formatting (a full blank line between each paragraph) tends to make things more readable, and there are plenty of situations where you'll want to start a new line without using sentence-ending punctuation (e.g. if your post has sub-headings).

 

Overall I already like the look and feel of the interface of GoVoluble more than Lang-8, and I think it's got great potential once a few kinks are ironed out!  Any plans to monetise it in future?

 

Edit 2: Also very glad to see that you can both upvote and downvote corrections! Lang-8 annoyingly has a feature to say a correction is “good”, but no feature to say it's “bad” (and you get a surprisingly large number of bad, unnatural, obscurantist or just plain incorrect “corrections” even from native speakers). Will the upvote/downvote feature be integrated with the rep system when that comes in?

[hellogbk]

Hi, mackie1402

Unfortunately there is no other way than looking at correctors profile that you can tell whose voice correction suits you better.

 

Thanks for your suggestion, I'll be looking into it, it's kinda beyond my thoughts haha.

 

Thanks!

[hellogbk]

HI, Demonic_Duck.

Can you please offer me the link to your practice, I'd like to take a look so that I can adjust my code for better displaying of writing practices.

 

Also, I don't understand how upvote/downvote should be integrated with rep system, I'd like some more details please.

 

Thanks!

[Demonic_Duck]

PMed you the link.

 

I'm not sure exactly how your rep system will work, but integrating the upvotes/downvotes with it would simply mean making all the upvotes received positively affect the overall rep, and all the downvotes received negatively affect it. For example, on this forum, you can see a user's rep in their profile, and it's simply the sum of all the upvotes they've received minus all the downvotes. I guess rep on GoVoluble would also include other factors such as feedback from language exchanges (and maybe other stuff too?)

[hellogbk]

Hi, Demonic_Duck

Thanks, I took a look at your entry, and I think I'd like to know how you want your entry to be displayed? what's the initial format of your entry?

 

Thanks!

[Demonic_Duck]

Thanks, I took a look at your entry, and I think I'd like to know how you want your entry to be displayed? what's the initial format of your entry?

Sent another PM.

 

This thread should be receiving a lot more attention here, I think there are many posters who will be very interested in your site. I'm putting a link to it in my signature.

[hellogbk]

 

This thread should be receiving a lot more attention here, I think there are many posters who will be very interested in your site. I'm putting a link to it in my signature.

 

Thanks!! that's definitely helpful!

I just saw your message, Govoluble currently separate an entry into sentences when either of ？。！ is met, as a result, which may lead to a undesirable formatting.

I'll be working on it, it may take some time though, I've got my to-do list filled up haha.

 

Thanks for your suggestion and your help!

I really appreciate it!

May Govoluble be of some help to you.

[AlexBlackman]

Finally a well made language exchange site. I've just signed up and once my hearing-aid app is updated for Windows 10, I'll use it.

I just have one suggestion; have an option to list the city the user is in/from.  Many people like to learn a particular accent and it'll prevent mutual disappointment.

[Luxi]

What a fantastic site! It is very easy to use. Seconds after I signed on, I was speaking and making friends with a very lovely lady from Shenzhen. It's a great resource, I can see myself spending a lot of time there.