Mesaĝoj: 12
Lingvo: English
D46J0L72 (Montri la profilon) 2007-majo-29 21:33:58
I am looking to learn Chinese, the cantonese "dialect," but have not been able to find a site of such quality of lernu.net.
Do any of you happen to know of any sites for Cantonese that offers a quality near that of lernu.net?
Thanks. =D
Francisly (Montri la profilon) 2007-majo-30 12:32:48
D46J0L72:Hi. I'm very impressed with this site for learning the language of Esperanto. The quality and effectiveness is very impressive.perhaps you can raise your problems here if you have any
I am looking to learn Chinese, the cantonese "dialect," but have not been able to find a site of such quality of lernu.net.
Do any of you happen to know of any sites for Cantonese that offers a quality near that of lernu.net?
Thanks. =D
im from hk and i speak pure cantonese(hopefully lol)
erinja (Montri la profilon) 2007-majo-30 14:20:38
It is hard to find good free language-learning websites. I don't know much about paid websites, since I have never subscribed to one. I have not found a free learning website for any language - not just Cantonese - that was as extensive as lernu.net, at least not for any of the languages I have ever studied.
I am not really sure why, come to think of it. I would think that many countries would be interested in encouraging people to learn their language, and a well-designed free website would be a great way to do it. The cost of a website like lernu.net is small in comparison to a nation's budget. lernu.net relies very heavily on volunteers, but I think that even if all of the work was paid, the money required would still be tiny in comparison to a national budget.
According to the original work plan, lernu.net is nearly complete. I don't know if very much more will be added, at least not according to current plans. There is talk of where to go next with the project. Some suggestions have been made regarding "exporting" the model - creating versions of lernu for teaching other languages, using similar courses and formats, though still less extensive than our Esperanto version. I don't know if it will ever come to fruition; it is still in the very early stages of discussion. Chinese has not been discussed, however (Mandarin or Cantonese).
richardhall (Montri la profilon) 2007-majo-30 14:57:54
erinja:I have not found a free learning website for any language - not just Cantonese - that was as extensive as lernu.net, at least not for any of the languages I have ever studied.BBC Wales have some good resources for learning Welsh. I believe there's at least one American now studying Welsh at Cardiff University who began his journey into Welsh that way.
erinja (Montri la profilon) 2007-majo-30 16:33:39
richardhall:That's true, they do have some good stuff. But I got the impression that much of their content teaches vocabulary and phrases rather than grammar. They do have different courses involving grammar rather than phrases/vocab but they tend to be mostly audio courses. I wish they had something in a more "traditional" format - a grammar lesson and then exercises. Something like Ana Pana, but for Welsh. I do like their dictionary and mutation checker.
BBC Wales have some good resources for learning Welsh. I believe there's at least one American now studying Welsh at Cardiff University who began his journey into Welsh that way.
mnlg (Montri la profilon) 2007-majo-30 16:35:17
erinja:It is hard to find good free language-learning websites. [...] I am not really sure why, come to think of it.As long as you can get a substantial business advantage by learning a language, it's extremely unlikely to find high quality services to learn it free of charge.
Free learning material is more common for "minor" languages, as an attempt to increase the "user base" and achieve some sort of critical mass of speakers or recognition.
Of course when you have fewer speakers, you also have fewer teachers, less material, fewer techniques or methods, etc. It is therefore more difficult in general to offer a rich resource for learning the language.
Esperanto tips the balance by being relatively simpler to learn; also, almost all Esperanto speakers learn it as a second language, and I suspect that this can help them acquire a slight advantage in case they are interested enough to become teachers themselves, as opposed to a language whose speakers are mostly native, and therefore not necessarily aware of its workings.
Infera Zebro (Montri la profilon) 2007-majo-30 17:21:03
That said, I've seen sites for those two languages that really do offer a good variety of services for the cost, considering the price of something like a college course here in the States. They offer free podcasts but charge for PDF transcripts and "learning centers," which can be pretty comprehensive (I'm big into free-trials). However, in some cases the podcasts are too long and full of useless filler. Sometimes I just want to roll my eyes and say "I get it, you think you're funny. So am I, now let's move on." In any case the transcripts are vital for languages with kanji if you want to have any hope of writing what you're hearing at all. Not everyone is willing to shell out ~$15 a month for that kind of thing, though.
I do think the culture surrounding Esperanto really helps it out in that regard, as well. People are more eager to volunteer their time and effort for whatever reasons they might have. Or so it appears to me. These other language-learning sites I see, especially the flashier ones, I get the impression that that's how those people make their living.
awake (Montri la profilon) 2007-majo-30 20:09:21
Here's an excellent one:
It's not a lernu-like site, but it's a great resource
http://fsi-language-courses.com
These have Complete (for many languages...others are still being scanned and uploaded) copies of the FSI (Foreign Service Institute) language courses. These were courses developed by the U.S. department of state to train diplomatic personnel. They're dry, and boring, but if you can stick with them most of them are very good. Both the complete mandarin and cantonese courses are available there.
These are the same courses sold by Barrons (Barron's ads some cultural notes an music and such so they can copyright their product as a "derived work" - but the course content is the same).
Kwekubo (Montri la profilon) 2007-majo-30 23:49:04
erinja (Montri la profilon) 2007-majo-31 03:11:10
A small addendum - even if your local library has a limited selection, many libraries are willing to transfer materials between them, so if the materials of interest are available at another branch, sometimes you can get them to deliver it to your local branch for easy pick-up.