L-Lingo Audio-to-Go
We are hard at work developing mp3 files with the audio content of each lesson. Now you will be able to study wherever you are, not just in front of the computer. On the go, you can listen and repeat the online lessons, great training for pronunciation.
We should have the downloadable mp3 files online in the next few days. In the meantime, you can listen to a sample of Thai/English (UK) here:
If you have any comments, please drop us a line.
L-Lingo Premium
A few days ago, we soft launched L-Lingo Premium, a subscription that includes thousands of pictures, native audio clips, and printable flashcards and textbooks for 105 lessons. With all these benefits, you will definitely build a solid foundation of words and phrases in your language of study.
L-Lingo Premium can help you to learn Arabic, Chinese Mandarin, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Thai, Tagalog (Filipino) and/or Vietnamese.
An online subscription, L-Lingo Premium offers an additional 65 lessons (on top of the 40 free lessons) for only USD 9.99 (EUR 7.99) per Month.
For more information on L-Lingo Premium and to subscribe, please visit our website.
L-Lingo Premium Arabic, L-Lingo Premium Chinese Mandarin, L-Lingo Premium Hindi, L-Lingo Premium Japanese, L-Lingo Premium Korean, L-Lingo Premium Malay, L-Lingo Premium Thai, L-Lingo Premium Tagalog, L-Lingo Premium Vietnamese.
New Website Design
You may have noticed that we have redesigned our website. We wanted to have a lighter colored theme that would better match the look of our software.
Since we have so many visitors from Germany, we now have a German Version of our website. If you have any comments on the new design or if you find anything that does not function properly (broken link, etc), please let us know.
In the coming weeks, we will adding information to our website. Look out for a post explaining the method of L-Lingo in greater detail along with some user tips for using the application.
Audio clips with slower speech
If you think that the speech in the audio clips is too fast, you can now listen to them at a slower speed. In order to do so, click on the button in the main menu on the top right side:
In this menu, you will be able to listen to the audio for all quizzes and training modes at approximately 70% of the original speed. While we believe that the language learner should get used to the standard rate of speech as quickly as possible, it may be helpful to temporarily slow down the speed when practicing pronunciation or completing an unfamiliar lesson for the first time. Please let us know what you think about this latest feature!
Printable Textbook and Flashcards and other new Features
I have just put a new version of L-Lingo online. This version has many new features that I’d like to introduce to you including printable documents, a new configuration for the picture quiz, a full screen mode, an additional lesson selector, and a reference to our desktop version.
Printable Documents
You can now display the text and flashcards of each lesson and print them out. For this function, we have added a new menu called ‘Documents to print-out’ just below the quiz selection buttons. If you move your mouse over this label you can then select to display the textbook or flashcards. Later, we will also add some explanations concerning grammar, which are currently under preparation. These documents are great to continue your learning away from your computer. Once again, I would like to thank Eric who is the developer of FlexPaper for this great method of displaying documents.
Configuration of Picture Quiz
We have also added additional configuration options in the Picture Quiz. You can now display the text with audio (like before), or you have the option of showing just the text or just the audio. In this manner, you can specifically train your listening or reading skills. Just click on the following button in the Picture Quiz.
Full screen mode 
On the top right corner of the main screen, we’ve added the button pictured above. This button allows you to switch between Full Screen and Normal Screen mode anytime.
Additional Lesson Selector
Below the two arrows for lesson selection, we have now added a small list of all available lessons, allowing you to jump directly to a specific lesson. This menu might be quicker than pressing the arrow buttons repeatedly, and it also provides a better overview of the content of the lessons.
Reference to our Desktop Version L-Ceps Personaltrainer
Since we hope to keep L-Lingo free, we need to support the development costs via our commercial product L-Ceps Personaltrainer. Therefore, we have added some more references to our Desktop Software (available for Windows, Mac and Linux), which offers much more content than L-Lingo. If you are happy with L-Lingo and would like to continue learning with our approach, please have a look at L-Ceps. There is a free trial available on our website.
Well, there you have it, all the new features in this new release. We hope you’ll enjoy this new version, and we will look forward to your continued valuable feedback, which allows us to keep building an application that you like as much as we do.
Under development: PDF documents in L-Lingo
I am very busy redesigning the main menu to allow the display of documents. For each lesson, you will soon be able to see and print the following documents:
- PDF Textbook
- PDF Flashcards
- PDF Grammar Notes
Many of you requested the grammar notes in particular, so I wanted to let you know that and we are in full swing preparing these grammar notes.
In order to display the PDF files, I came across a great piece of software called FlexPaper that I am just now integrating into L-Lingo. I am very thankful to Eric, who is the developer who is letting me use this great feature in L-Lingo.
If you haven’t yet experienced FlexPaper, please have a look at Eric’s Blog Devaldi which has a demonstration. The speed and fluidity of FlexPaper is just amazing!
Also, have a look below at a preview screen shot showing this exciting new function in L-Lingo. As we do not yet have the PDF notes complete, this screen shot comes from our development version; the FlexPaper feature has not yet gone live on L-Lingo.
A summary of your Feedback
L-Lingo is now only 6 weeks old and we have already received a lot of feedback from you. Some of you have contacted us directly and others have posted in forums. Thank you very much!
User Interface
The majority of people are very happy with our user interface and the appearance of the application. Users seem to be able to navigate and use the app very quickly. The only complaint we got was about the annoying wow sounds (fixed a long time ago).One user also asked for more help on the main menu, so we may add a help button soon.
Content
Most of the people were quite happy with the pictures and the audio. They also liked the structure of the script (repetition and combination of words/sentences). Overall, the content was considered quite useful. Our images were mostly shot in South East Asia, and obviously, people in Japan or Korea look slightly different. In the future, we might localize the images more, but as most people are quite happy with the images, this is not currently a priority.
Performance
We had a short server downtime at the beginning of November, but since then, it seems the app is running fast and smooth. We haven’t had any complaints here.
In the past few weeks, the application has seemed to be quite stable. We had a few bugs that we resolved, and lately, I have not gotten anymore feedback about things not working properly. (By the way, a big thank you to all of you who reported bugs).
It seems that people in general are pretty happy with L-Lingo. However there was one thing that many people requested:
Grammar Notes
Many people have asked us to provide explanations for the grammar of the languages. Especially because our application is suitable for beginners, we need to add notes on the logic and system of each language.
I want to reassure you all that we are already working on this. We plan to align the grammar notes to the lessons, so that the learner can first read about the important grammar elements taught in the lesson, and then be able to apply this knowledge. As this takes a great deal of work, we will need some weeks before we can make the grammar notes live…I will keep you posted.
As it is the holiday season now, I will be spending some time with my family, so there won’t be any major updates coming soon. But, I will keep you informed in this blog.
Please continue to send along any thoughts you have on L-Lingo, and, if you like our application, please spread the word on Facebook, Twitter, or on your blog. Thank You!
We have now nine Asian languages online!
Since the application seems to run quite smoothly now, I thought it might be the right time to put some more languages online. We have now nine Asian languages available at www.l-lingo.com.
For some of the languages (e.g. Mandarin, Japanese, Korean), please note that you need to load large fonts, and therefore, it will take some time when loading. Please be patient.
I really appreciate all the feedback that I have received. It would be great if you could let me know how you like the program. Please also spread the news about this application to your friends and colleagues. Thank You!
Localisation – New Version online
Since a few days ago, I have a new version online.
So, what’s new?
You now have the whole user interface in the following languages of choice: English, German, French, or Spanish. You can select your language setting when launching L-Lingo. By the way, I used Google translation for the French and Spanish user interface, so if you find errors, please let me know so that I can correct them.
The application also now remembers your last lesson and some of the selections you made about your native language and phonetics use. So next time you launch the application, you should find yourself within the lesson that you last used.
As always, if there is anything not working, please let me know. Any other feedback is also highly appreciated.
Will it remain free???
Many people have approached me to ask whether L-Lingo will remain free after it has completed the beta test.
Yes, Yes, Yes!
I am also planning to keep the content roughly the same (i.e. number of lessons, features, etc.). But obviously, as this is work in progress, it will probably change in appearance over time.
We might also add a Premium (i.e. paid) wersion in future with more lessons and features which would be similar to our PC/Mac/Linux Desktop Software L-Ceps Personaltrainer. If you like L-Lingo and would like to have more lessons and features, than please have a look at www.l-ceps.com. We have a free trial for download there as well.