A New Learning Tool (Plus: How I Work Best)

LiveMocha might just be the ticket to push me over the top in finally sticking with a new language. It was featured in the New York Times yesterday and also kindly emailed to me by Grace. I have completed lesson 1 in Espanol and am very pleased with the combination of audio and text. The site itself is aesthetically pleasing and you feel like you are playing a game, especially with the Magnet ("make a sentence") section.

The site also allows you to submit samples of writing and even speaking in the language you are learning, and leverages the power of the masses to give you feedback - every time you submit something, you are given the option of reviewing another person's submission in YOUR native language. Brilliant!

Side note for the record: I took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test (or one version of it, the one that popped up first on Google). It typed me as an ENTJ. To translate: Extroverted, not Introverted; iNtution, not Sensing; Thinking, not Feeling; and Judging, not Perceiving. I note this here only because I tend to forget quickly and then have to take the test again, and probably register a different result every time. Now I can test this hypothesis.

Tomorrow: the news from Old Nassau.