I'm building a new language learning website

Cianos

Hi folks,
I thought it'd be good to post up here about a new site I'm building, to get some thoughts, feedback and advice

The core concept is language exchange - users are instantly connected to a language partner by video/voice/text chat. Think chatroulette.com but for language exchange (and less nakedness )

For example, if I want to practice French, I'm connected with a French person who wants to practice English. If I get bored of chatting to them, I just hit Next and I meet another French person.

It'll be 100% free to use. The features will be quite simple to begin with but if there's a good reaction we'll continue to develop it!

You can see a rough mock up of how it would look here

Would you use a site like this? Would an instant 'chat' with a native speaker appeal, for language learning or even just for fun?

Would love to hear your thoughts

Aard

Sounds like a great idea! I'd use it, only I have no camera on my computer.

For me, the most tiresome aspect of any of these exchange sites is a low retention rate (for want of a better phrase). It means having to get to know a new person every time. Whereas if there was an incentive to stay (pure fun is a good one!) then there'd be a better chance of getting to know somebody, or at least having the conversation evolve beyond "J'ai deux frères et une soeur".

For me, considering the above, I'd love an application/site kind of like Skype, where it remembers your previous chats with a person. I realise that that's a lot of extra non-essential code though. In fact, I'm probably not the best person to comment on this. I'm probably put off by the hipster Spanish chick in the mock-up tbh! I could probably have a decent conversation with the guy on the right though. That's the crux of it: too often I find people who are like "i am 16 years girl from taiwan. will u teach english me?"

Anyway, probably not being too constructive there. Good luck with the site. Do you plan on monetising it down the line at all? A lot of similar sites have "premium" version for like a tenner a month.

Cianos

Thanks for the reply!

Aard wrote: »

Sounds like a great idea! I'd use it, only I have no camera on my computer.

You don't need a webcam - you can just use audio and text chat if you wish Some people aren't comfortable being on view, which is fine, so even if you do have a webcam you can just switch it off.

For me, the most tiresome aspect of any of these exchange sites is a low retention rate (for want of a better phrase). It means having to get to know a new person every time. Whereas if there was an incentive to stay (pure fun is a good one!) then there'd be a better chance of getting to know somebody, or at least having the conversation evolve beyond "J'ai deux frères et une soeur".

So with your experience with other sites, would you usually spend a while scouting out someone to talk to, and then it feels tedious starting the whole "hi, my name is X, I'm from Y" process before getting to more interesting topics?

I plan on implementing a buddy list feature where you can save people to a friends list that you enjoyed chatting to, so if you're online again at the same time you can pick up where you left off. I like the idea of saving the chat as a reminder of what you were talking about too, thanks.

In fact, I'm probably not the best person to comment on this. I'm probably put off by the hipster Spanish chick in the mock-up tbh! I could probably have a decent conversation with the guy on the right though. That's the crux of it: too often I find people who are like "i am 16 years girl from taiwan. will u teach english me?"

Regular users and yourself are actually the perfect people to comment on it I want to make it so that it's not a big deal to "Next" someone (ie hit the Next button to skip to the next person if you don't want to speak to the current person) if you're bored of your chat partner, or instantly if just don't like the look of them On other video chat sites people probably Next 10-20 people before actually stopping and chatting. TurboLingo probably won't be that much, but I don't want people feeling obliged to sit and talk with someone if they don't want to.

Turbolingo will be about finding a quick and snappy way to have a chat with someone who can help you learn

Anyway, probably not being too constructive there. Good luck with the site. Do you plan on monetising it down the line at all? A lot of similar sites have "premium" version for like a tenner a month.

It will always be 100% free for users to chat to each other. I'll eventually seek to monetise it by providing additional services that users could pay for if they want to, but again it'll always be free to jump on and find a chat partner.

Thanks again for the input, I'd be interested to hear about your experiences on other sites as you mentioned.

Aard

Cianos wrote: »

So with your experience with other sites, would you usually spend a while scouting out someone to talk to, and then it feels tedious starting the whole "hi, my name is X, I'm from Y" process before getting to more interesting topics?

Yeah, there's just so many people who want to learn English, who are -bluntly- terrible at the language and want a one-on-one lesson pretty much. For the languages I'd want to practice, I'd be looking for somebody with an intermediate level, otherwise it's hard to get the conversation going. Tbh, I've never used Chatroulette so I'm not sure how that works, and I've only ever used Skype once and it was an odd experience. For text-based stuff, yes there's a lot of filtering out of people. It's hard to find somebody who's actually interested in learning and helping out. I think there's a real vacuum of this kind of thing for the intermediate learner: they're too advanced for the crappy little pen-pal stuff that's out there, but not good enough to post in native-language forums for example.

Cianos wrote: »

I plan on implementing a buddy list feature where you can save people to a friends list that you enjoyed chatting to, so if you're online again at the same time you can pick up where you left off. I like the idea of saving the chat as a reminder of what you were talking about too, thanks.

Buddly list sounds good. I guess it would be something like on Facebook, where it shows which of your friends are also online? I'd probably use such a feature a lot -- once you've found somebody you click with, it'd be better to continue with them rather than start anew.

Cianos wrote: »

Regular users and yourself are actually the perfect people to comment on it I want to make it so that it's not a big deal to "Next" someone (ie hit the Next button to skip to the next person if you don't want to speak to the current person) if you're bored of your chat partner, or instantly if just don't like the look of them On other video chat sites people probably Next 10-20 people before actually stopping and chatting. TurboLingo probably won't be that much, but I don't want people feeling obliged to sit and talk with someone if they don't want to.

Turbolingo will be about finding a quick and snappy way to have a chat with someone who can help you learn

Like I said above, I'm not really familiar with those chat sites. I'd imagine getting the conversation going could be a block. I wonder if there could be a random topic given, to break the ice somewhat. Something silly and frivolous, but that get's past (as I said) the annoying "Introduce yourself" spiel. I don't know, it might be a bit childish... But something along those lines would be good. Ice-breaking is hard enough in one native language after all!!

wonton

I think the giving a topic to talk a about thing is brilliant, and even further if it said which person was to begin the chat as in "person a please tell person b where you grew up" or something.


but I really dont think native speakers are the way to go when chatting to people online, i think you sould be linked up to a person that has given a similar level in the language you are learning, and the trial and error should come in, lets be honest it is hard to stay interested in a chat when you are native and the person is only learning, but when both are learning, both are engaged and what to keep it going and interesting.

Cianos

Aard wrote: »

Yeah, there's just so many people who want to learn English, who are -bluntly- terrible at the language and want a one-on-one lesson pretty much. For the languages I'd want to practice, I'd be looking for somebody with an intermediate level, otherwise it's hard to get the conversation going. Tbh, I've never used Chatroulette so I'm not sure how that works, and I've only ever used Skype once and it was an odd experience. For text-based stuff, yes there's a lot of filtering out of people. It's hard to find somebody who's actually interested in learning and helping out. I think there's a real vacuum of this kind of thing for the intermediate learner: they're too advanced for the crappy little pen-pal stuff that's out there, but not good enough to post in native-language forums for example.

With enough users, this quickly rotating system should allow you to find people who you have a good dynamic with. Since you're presented with a new person with just one click, finding someone you click with shouldn't take long. Like in real life, the only way to find someone you get on with really well is to meet enough people

Buddy list sounds good. I guess it would be something like on Facebook, where it shows which of your friends are also online? I'd probably use such a feature a lot -- once you've found somebody you click with, it'd be better to continue with them rather than start anew.

Yep that's the idea - you come online and you can see if your buddies are online too. If they are, you can msg them for a chat. If they're busy, you can always jump in to the random chat.

Like I said above, I'm not really familiar with those chat sites. I'd imagine getting the conversation going could be a block. I wonder if there could be a random topic given, to break the ice somewhat. Something silly and frivolous, but that get's past (as I said) the annoying "Introduce yourself" spiel. I don't know, it might be a bit childish... But something along those lines would be good. Ice-breaking is hard enough in one native language after all!!

wonton wrote: »

I think the giving a topic to talk a about thing is brilliant, and even further if it said which person was to begin the chat as in "person a please tell person b where you grew up" or something.

Initially at least, it's going to be just up to the users to keep the conversation going, but I do think the topic suggestions is a good idea for the reasons you describe.

I posted about my idea in the entrepreneurial & business forum and someone referred me to a new site called verbling that you guys should also check out. It only launched a few weeks ago and is very similar to my idea (which I'm actually pretty :mad: about tbh!!) It's only offering Spanish & English for now. But they do the conversation suggestions, and also run a timer to keep the conversation times balanced for each language.

but I really dont think native speakers are the way to go when chatting to people online, i think you sould be linked up to a person that has given a similar level in the language you are learning, and the trial and error should come in, lets be honest it is hard to stay interested in a chat when you are native and the person is only learning, but when both are learning, both are engaged and what to keep it going and interesting.

Thanks for this. Another benefit is that if two people are learning the same language, 100% of the conversation will be in that language as opposed to ~50%. On the negative side, without a native speaker there's nobody to correct mistakes.

In any case, it will show whether the person is a native speaker of the language, or just learning, so people know to not take everything they say as gospel.

Thanks for the continued feedback, it's great to get!

If you're interested, you can catch Turbo Lingo on Facebook or Twitter which I'll be keeping updated with the sites progress

Aard

Good luck, Cianos! And do bump this thread every now and then to keep us informed of the latest goings on

JaneHudson

I do think it's a good idea, native speakers or otherwise. I had been looking for a chatroulette equivalent in other languages but I didn't find one.

wonton

JaneHudson wrote: »

I do think it's a good idea, native speakers or otherwise. I had been looking for a chatroulette equivalent in other languages but I didn't find one.

if you want to find things like that in other languages you should probably search in that langauge on the respective google, I was looking for swedish chat rooms and couldnt find any good ones, till I searched in swedish