Mango Languages

Do you speak tech?

“Just google it.”
“He texted me yesterday.”
“He liked my Facebook status.”
“Did you read my tweet?”

Our language is infused with technological influence. Consider this sentence:

“He liked my status.”

Ten years ago this would have been a weird sentence, implying that a man appreciated the speaker’s marital status perhaps? But today, we understand this to mean that a man clicked the “like” button underneath the speaker’s post on Facebook.

Speaking of Facebook, at this year’s f8 conference, Mark Zuckerberg discussed updates that will affect the language of Facebook:

“When we started, the vocabulary was really limited. You could only express a small number of things, like who you were friends with. Then last year, when we introduced the Open Graph, we added nouns, so you could like anything that you wanted. This year, we’re adding verbs. We’re going to make it so you can connect to anything in any way you want. It is all part of building this language for how people connect.”

Check out this fascinating article that examines the effect this change will have on the way we speak. You can also watch Zuckerberg’s entire keynote speech here.

What do you think of Facebook’s impact on language? Do you have examples of technology’s influence on vernacular?

TopTenReviews Review

With a basic and fundamentalist approach, Mango Languages is an easy way to learn French online. Mango Languages is a well developed system, calling on the necessities of language learning to aid you in your quest to become a fluent French speaker. You will learn grammar, vocabulary, and basic conversational phrases through their basic flashcard system, leading through 100 total lessons to raise you to the French speaking level you desire. Read more…

Intuitive Language Construction – Part I Vocabulary

When learning a foreign language it is important to understand the Linguistic Science behind the book, tapes, or in our case, the online language learning software. Mango Languages is very excited to share our foreign language learning methodology.

Intuitive Language Construction was developed after looking at current products on the market and listening to users and what they wanted.  The one thing we heard over and over is they wanted a program that was fun, easy, and completely integrated.

We listened.

Mango Languages includes the following components:

1. Vocabulary
2. Pronunciation
3. Grammar
4. Culture
5. Comprehension
6. Retention

In this post, lets first look at vocabulary.  These are the words themselves that make up the language.

Most language learning systems focus a lot, if not solely on vocabulary…and there’s no doubt that it’s important. However, Mango focuses on the words and phrases that will be usable in common, real life situations for the language and culture you’re studying.

Mango helps you understand context and makes the most of your valuable time. Vocabulary words are given to you in the form a conversation, rather than just a list.   Some systems provide long lists of terms all at once, making it difficult to follow and learn how all the components work together. Others provide individual “flashcards,” but not a complete conversation, making the vocabulary much less useful since there is no context for the words.  Ultimately, spending hours going through stacks of cards just isn’t fun, but after using Mango you can actually hold a conversation and communicate, which really is the point of learning a foreign language, right?

What do you think is the most important part of a language learning product?

Guest Post: Brazilian Portugese–Lesson 2

Guest Blogger Marina Khonina has taken on the task of using Mango Languages to learn Brazilian Portugese. She is providing monthly updates through our blog as she progresses through the course. Here is part two:

Several weeks into my Brazilian Portuguese learning adventure, I am more thrilled about this experiment than ever. I was able to stick to my (very laid-back) plan of one lesson per week, although the temptation is often strong to abandon my other activities and concentrate solely on my Portuguese. This urge goes hand-in-hand with my habitual impatience, which is regularly challenged by Mango Languages’ insistence on slow, deliberate practice.

Practice Makes Perfect

This week I will keep with my current trend of analyzing the Mango language learning approach from different second language learning (SLA) perspectives, theories, and hypotheses.  In this blog I will adopt the skill acquisition theory of SLA, specifically McLaughlin’s (1987, 1990) information-processing model and Anderson’s (1983, 1985) Active Control of Thought (ACT) model and see how and whether Mango Languages takes in to account this theory of SLA.

The skill acquisition theory of SLA views language learning as similar to learning other skills (i.e., math, driving a car, etc.). This means that it requires practice. It is through practice that the information being learned moves from short-term memory (STM), where it begins, to long-term memory (LTM), where it is said to be stored once learned. Second language (L2) input is initially stored in STM. According to McLaughlin’s information-processing model, the initial input is retrieved from STM for production by what he refers to as “controlled processing.” This simply means that learner must make a controlled effort to retrieve the information, i.e., vocabulary, grammar, sounds, etc., from their STM in order to produce the desired response. According to this model, repeated activation of this ‘knowledge’ in the STM moves it to LTM where it becomes available for rapid retrieval with minimally controlled effort by the language learner. McLaughlin calls this shift from controlled to automatic processing, automatization.

The process of automatization is also important in Anderson’s ACT model. According to Anderson, it is through automitization that declarative knowledge, i.e., knowledge that something is the case, shifts to become procedural knowledge, i.e., knowledge of how to do something. To understand the difference between declarative and procedural knowledge, imagine you are learning to drive a car. For example, you will be told that if the engine is revving too much that you need to change to a higher gear. You will also be told how to change gears. This knowledge of the indicators that it is time to shift to a higher gear and knowing theoretically how you should do this is an example of declarative knowledge. However, when it is time to actually perform this task the student driver will most certainly not perform well, at least not their first time. That is, simply knowing what to do does not necessarily mean that you will know how to do it successfully. In order for a skill to be automatic, or proceduralized, you must go through the declarative stage before acquiring the procedural knowledge needed to perform the task successfully. However, for any of you that remember driver’s ed or have teenagers currently taking driver’s ed. (God help us! I’m one of this bunch!), you know that while learning you have to practice, practice, practice. That’s the idea behind McLaughlin and Anderson’s models. Practice is the key! Therefore, declarative knowledge of the L2 is necessary but not sufficient for successful language acquisition.

Mango Languages recognizes this and applies the skill acquisition theory to our language learning software. The Mango system is programmed to request output from the student on newly presented vocabulary and phrases, as well as perform automatically generated quizzes throughout the course at certain spaced intervals in order to implement the concept of automatization through repeated activation of material. The student is also able to repeat any slide, lesson, chapter and, even entire course, any number of times.

So, what do you think? Are you willing to hand your car over to a 16 year old who has only read the operator’s manual? Or, do you agree with McLaughlin and Anderson that practice makes perfect? Or at least almost perfect?!

Guest Post: Brazilian Portuguese – Lesson One

I am very excited to share this post by Guest Blogger, Marina Khonina. (previous post) She is using our online language learning program and will be providing monthly updates on her progress to learn Portuguese.  She approached us with this assignment – to learn the language and blog about it.  We thought…what a great way for us to share how Mango works and see if there are areas where we can improve.

Today I am starting my experiment in learning Brazilian Portuguese with Mango Languages.  I will track my progress with regular blog posts, in which I will reflect on my experience, as a fairly seasoned language learner, with the lessons designed by Mango.

Before I delve into lesson-specific details, however, some background information is in order.  I find Brazilian Portuguese an exceptionally beautiful language, but I have been hesitant about learning it because I could not possibly imagine how I would get my tongue around all these strange, mesmerizing sounds.  I have been exposed to a fair amount of spoken Brazilian Portuguese (my long-time flatmate is from Brazil), yet pronunciation remains for me the most difficult aspect of this language.  I hope that Mango Languages will help me surmount this challenge, which is exacerbated by the fact that I am extremely shy about speaking in a new tongue.

I dabbled with Portuguese about a year ago, listening briefly to a couple of Brazilian podcasts and asking my flatmate to teach me a few basic words.  At that time, however, I had too many things on my plate to start a new language.  Now I have a great opportunity to devote some serious (albeit, limited) time to the study of this language.

Portuguese is not my first Romance language: I studied French in school, achieving upper-intermediate proficiency, but since then my French has gotten rusty.  I also have a basic command of Esperanto, which should be helpful in my study of Portuguese.  In fact, after I started learning Esperanto, I noticed some improvement in my understanding of written Portuguese.

Now on to the actual lesson. Today I completed Lesson 1, and it was absolutely delightful to discover that Mango did not expect me to learn to say “This is a cat” or some other such nonsense before learning how to greet another person properly.  Another thing that I immediately liked about my Mango Languages lesson was how each sentence or conversational unit (e.g. “Hello. How are you?”) is presented with an appropriate English equivalent and a word-by-word translation.  This enabled me to see from the very first lesson how the language is structured and to pay attention to any peculiarities of grammar or word usage.

For example, I discovered that in Portuguese, you say “How goes the Mrs.?” when politely asking a woman about how she is doing.  Furthermore, a literal translation of this sentence shows that Portuguese speakers use the verb “to go” where an English speaker would use “to be.”  Even more importantly, the individual is addressed in the third person (the Mrs./Mr.), rather than in the second person (you).  These two facts, gleaned from a word-by-word translation of a single sentence, can give me, the learner, plenty of insights into the culture and the language:  i.e. politeness is expressed by emphasizing the distance between the speakers through the use of the third person/noun instead of second person/pronoun; a person’s daily life is seen in terms of movement (going) rather than existence (being).  Of course, it’s easy to go too far with this analysis, and my insights may not necessarily be correct, but they certainly motivate me to explore more of the language and to embrace the culture along with the linguistic aspects.  Failure to do the latter often proves to be a major hindrance to language mastery; as was the case with my study of Turkish, until recently.

What I did not necessarily like was the anglicized pronunciation given for each word in addition to the audio.  I would advise you to regard this as a personal pet peeve, however.  As a language geek, I prefer the International Phonetic Alphabet (of course!), but it would be too much to expect a first-time or casual language-learner to learn IPA conventions before starting a language course.  In fact, this requirement is likely to discourage the learner! At any rate, the phonetic help in Mango Languages only appears on mouse-over, so learners like me, who prefer not to use it, can easily ignore this otherwise useful function.

While I initially found the lesson long-ish and repetitive, it was reasonably—and surprisingly—challenging.  When it comes to learning languages, I tend to prefer speed and novelty over repetition. Yet, with Mango Languages I discovered that if I let my attention wander even a little, I begin to flounder.  This means that Mango lessons are comprehensive enough, so there’s no danger of skimming and forgetting soon thereafter.  Most importantly, the built-in repetition algorithm (and my experience leads me to assume there is one) is close enough to the natural memory curve to ensure sufficient retention.

To conclude, I am happy with my first Mango Languages lesson in Brazilian Portuguese.  I like the feeling of learner autonomy, contrasted to the force-feeding of information that characterizes some other programs.  The recordings are clear enough for a first-time learner without being unnaturally stilted.  The pace feels a tad slow for my taste, but I am beginning to see the value of not rushing through the lesson too much.

As for my study plan, I will try to cover one lesson per week.  This is a relatively slow pace, which leaves large gaps between each lesson, but, given my current schedule, this is the only realistic plan.  Looking ahead, I wonder whether the communicative emphasis of Mango Languages will help me, a self-admitted introvert and fearer of native speakers, to overcome the communication barrier.  If I manage to utter something (anything!) in Portuguese to my flatmate, that would be a major breakthrough already.

Question to ponder: How soon should a language learner attempt to speak the new language?  Some learners believe that speaking a language as soon as you possibly can makes all the difference (Benny Lewis, a.k.a. the Irish polyglot, is an ardent supporter of this view).  Others, like Steve Kauffmann, argue that a certain “silent period” is necessary before a learner can converse in a new language.  What do you think?  What has your experience been with trying to speak a new foreign language?

Let me repeat myself…

In my most recent blogs I have been looking at different hypotheses pertaining to second language learning (SLL), specifically Krashen’s Input Hypothesis ( i + 1: Is this algebra class?), and Swain’s Output Hypothesis (If you don’t use it…You will lose it).   This week I would like to turn our attention to a hypothesis that involves both the input and output of the second language, the Interaction hypothesis.  Don’t worry there’s no algebra involved!

In the Interaction Hypothesis, Michael Long proposes that while both input and output are necessary for second language acquisition, in order to gain a greater understanding of how this works, one should focus more attention on the interactions language learners engage in (Long, 1981, 1983a, 1983b.).  Long posits that these interactions are not merely a source of second language input, but are rather exchanges that allow the parties to negotiate the meaning of the input.  This negotiation results in changes to the complexity of the input.

According to Long, these changes to the input play an important role in second language acquisition.  For a second language learner, interaction allows for the fine-tuning of the second language input in order to make it more accessible to the learner.  In studies when communication or comprehension difficulties arise in interaction between native and non-native speaker pairs, more often than not these pairs attempt to resolve their difficulties by using conversational tactics such as requesting repetition (i.e., “Could you repeat that, please?”), confirmation checks (i.e., “Did you say…”), comprehension checks (i.e., “Does x mean x?”), and/or clarification requests (i.e., “What do you mean by x?”) (Long, 1980, 1981, 1983a.).  In this way we can see that interaction ensures that the learner is receiving i + 1, rather than i + 3 or even i + 0. (See: Krashen’s Input Hypothesis and Comprehensible Input: [i +1].) Therefore, the modifications to the conversational structure ensure that the input will be comprehensible while still containing new material in the form of new vocabulary or grammatical elements, which provides the potential for new learning.

Mango Languages provides students the convenience of learning from home at their own pace while still incorporating “interaction.”  Our method starts by introducing the student to a conversation that is above their current level of comprehension, but then proceeds to modify the conversation by breaking it down in to its components.  Conversational interaction tactics are also part of the Mango system.  Requests for repetition can be made by the student by simply clicking on the back arrow to replay previous slides.  They can also click replay on the slide they are currently on or click on the individual words or entire phrases to repeat the audio.  The student also has the option to repeat entire lessons and chapters.

Our system also repeats material through the use of automatically generated quizzes and critical thinking slides.  Confirmation checks can be done with the use of our voice comparison feature.  This allows the student to compare their output to that of a native speaker, and in doing so, confirm their comprehension of not only the grammar and vocabulary but also the pronunciation.  At the completion of a chapter the student hears the initial conversation again.  This also allows them to check and confirm their acquisition and hence comprehension of the material that they did not comprehend at the onset of the chapter.

Mango’s use of literal meanings when needed as well as grammar notes, anticipates the clarification requests of students.  So, although learners can use the Mango Languages software on their own without actually having a “conversation,” we recognize the importance of interaction and conversation repair tactics.  We have incorporated these elements into our system while still allowing the student to have all of the benefits of learning on their own from the comfort of their own home and on their own time.

I can easily remember a time or two when I have used these conversational repair tactics in order to understand what someone was trying to tell me and even to make myself understood.

How about you?  Do you know someone who constantly asks you to repeat yourself?  Or do you have to frequently ask your friend for clarification because he/she never seems to provide enough details to clue you in as to what they are talking about?

10 Tips to Learning Hebrew

1. A great way to expend vocabulary is to watch American movies dubbed in Hebrew that you watched before. Knowing the plot makes it easier to concentrate on the Hebrew words and catch some repeating words and / or phrases. You might also want to watch Israeli movies with English subtitles. You will be surprised as how many words you can learn.
2. Listening to Israeli music while jogging or riding the train is another fun and great way to expend vocabulary and catch some slang.
3. Practice, practice, practice. Find a partner and take a Hebrew course together. Practice Hebrew with your partner.
4. Find a neighbor, a facebook and or a SKYPE friend that speaks Hebrew or knows Hebrew better than you and practice.
5. Take a flight and visit Israel. Expose yourself to the language and the people.
6. Write Hebrew words on sticky – notes and stick them around the house.
7. Learn 10 new Hebrew words each day Monday – Friday, review on Saturday and relax on Sunday.
8. Reach your target step by step. Do not set big and extravagant goals. It will be easier and will keep up your motivation.
9. Surround yourself with Hebrew; listen to radio broadcasts, watch Israeli youtube clips, listen to Israeli music, surf the net and look for sites in Hebrew. Just make Hebrew part of your daily life.
10. Record yourself speaking Hebrew. Repeat the recording as many times as possible.

Do you have any tips that we have missed?

Language and Thought

A controversial topic in linguistics is the concept of linguistic relativity (also known as linguistic determinism, linguistic relativism, and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis).

This hypothesis essentially claims that language influences or determines thought. That is, the way a language is structured, its vocabulary, its sounds, and all the other things that make up a language affect how a speaker actually thinks and perceives the world. The opposing argument is that thought determines language; that a person’s cognition and perception affect the characteristics of his or her language.

An example often used in the discussion of linguistic relativity is the Pirahã people, an Amazonian tribe located in Brazil. The Pirahã language has no words for numbers, for example, and the people proved unresponsive to attempts to teach them to count. There is a controversy over whether the Pirahã are incapable of actually learning numbers and counting, or whether they simply don’t need to (as their trade is mostly done through bartering). So the question is, are they unable to count because they have no number words? Or do they have no number words because they don’t need to count?

The linguistic relativity debate spans a great range of topics, but generally it asks what the relationship between language and thought is. Are you able to think without words? If you spoke a different language, would you think in a different way?