Web 2.0 Makes a Global Village

by francinehardaway on April 3, 2008

Here’s a wonderful use for Web 2.0. My friend’s daughter is working for a Shanghai-based company called ITalki, which helps people learn languages. You can learn English, Chinese, Portugese, French, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Italian, and German.

You can either join a learning group, or find a partner. It’s almost like Match.com for Chinese people wanting to learn English, and so on. The site is also linked to Cucumis.org, a community of translators who get points for contributing translations. “Cucumis” is Latin for watermelon, a spherical fruit that like the earth, is full of spirit and vitality :-)Newlogow

If you want to practice speaking with your language partner, you can set yourself up to use Skype or MSN. There are also language resources, such as podcasts, websites, dictionaries, and books.

If I were home schooling a child, this would be a cool resource to have at my disposal.

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  • mjbphx

    Great site for anyone older than 13 to learn any of the listed languages!

  • http://smallbusiness.officelive.com/v2v/ Tanya Middleton

    I love italki ! Thanks so much for telling me about it, I had been looking for something like this for a while now, I cant thank you enough! In the vein of passing along helpful information I have a great event to share with you.I actually work with Microsoft, and right now I’m really excited to spread the word about the “Vision to Venture” tour they’re having between April and May, which will consist of five live events. Featured speaker, John Jantsch is a marketing and digital technology coach, award-winning social media publisher, and author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide.as well as many other speakers offering industry tips. Our first event was momentous and we hope to continue on with our success. You can see more and register at http://smallbusiness.officelive.com/v2v/ so let me know what you think! And if you have any questions, I’d be more than happy to answer them 

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