As someone who has spent a lot of time learning a language other than Esperanto (Esperanto is my next language and I can't wait! - but I was told I should become fluent in my current language of interest before starting another) I'm incredibly impressed by the combination of social network and language learning content that Lernu provides.

I'm keen to set up a website which manages to achieve both of these - and to know what I have in mind, Lernu provides the shining example, but as a full time school teacher I'm not able to commit the time to learning Javascript, CSS, PHP etc etc as well as writing the content to produce something Lernu-like.

Can anyone recommend an off-the-shelf (or at least semi off-the-shelf, I'm a bit of a geek and don't mind getting my hands dirty; my limitation is time) social network environment which can be expanded into a basic Lernu-like system? Or Lernu developers, are you willing to sell/lease aspects of your technology for the benefit of minority language education?

ginger1

p.s. I've looked at Ning which I think would provide the social side, but I'm not sure it can
easily be expanded to provide the learning functionality.

Hi

I'm one of lernu's core team of administrators. The current system is closely linked with our database and it isn't possible to make it available for use on another site. Our programmers are currently working on a new version of the site, to use more modern technologies, which will be launching this winter.

The site is highly language-specific - for one thing, you need a new course for each language you plan on teaching, and we don't believe that simply translating a course from one language to another (like LiveMocha) is an effective method. However, it may be possible in the future to offer something like our system to languages that have a team put together for developing a course etc. It would still require some programming skill, but less.

If you have a specific proposal to make, write to teamo@lernu.net, which is our main administrative e-mail address. I'm the only native English speaker in the group but the others do understand English. You may wish to check out slovake.eu, which is a lernu-like site designed for Slovak (our programmer also programmed that site, so in some respects, it is like a more up to date version of lernu)

For what it's worth, I don't agree with the viewpoint that you have to reach fluency in one language before starting another, but obviously you can arrange your learning priorities as you see fit! Esperanto is quite effective as a "first second" language - learning it well will make it easier for you to learn further languages. But perhaps you are already quite proficient in your other language, though still not fluent.