HONG KONG - The best way to learn Mandarin is still to go to China and surround
oneself with native speakers, but today's technologies offer cheaper and easier
alternatives that give one the opportunity to learn in the comfort of one's
home.
Shanghai-based Praxis Language is one such service. It offers Mandarin lesson
podcasts for people around the world to download and listen to when it best
suits their lifestyle. "I guess we're a new category - not part of the
traditional solutions. What we're working towards is a form of mobile
learning," said Ken Carroll, a co-founder of Praxis.
Carroll, with 20 years of experience as a language teacher, comes from a more
traditional background. Since 1996, he has
been running an English-language training center in Shanghai which offers
old-fashioned classroom teaching for Chinese people wishing to improve their
English.
"We noticed students would spend more time going to and from the school than in
the actual lesson," said Carroll, "When Apple's iPod [player] got popular, we
though it might be a good idea to use podcasts for teaching languages. The
first we tried was in Mandarin, called the ChinesePod. It is still the most
popular of our services."
Since it started in 2005, Praxis now offers other language courses, including
FrenchPod, ItalianPod and EnglishPod. There are plans for other languages such
as ArabicPod. Praxis has found that podcasting is a cheap and effective way to
distribute high-quality education around the world.
Just as the rise of Japan's economy created many Japanese learners around the
globe, the recent increase in China's global influence has led to more people
wanting to learn its language. "Mandarin is just emerging, and it has at least
20 years of growth ahead of it," said Carroll.
Today, Praxis averages 250,000 visitors every month to its ChinesePod and other
language services. Half of the visitors are from the US, with the rest spread
over Asia, Britain, Australia and Europe. The attraction of Praxis' courses is
flexibility, as users can learn at their own pace, picking lessons and topics
which interest them instead of following the rigid structure of a traditional
language institution.
Marc van der Chijs, a Dutchman living in Shanghai, was expelled a few
years ago from a university Mandarin class after he had to suspend his
studies twice because of business trips. He now learns his Mandarin via
podcasts.
"There are people who can excel in the traditional learning environment. But
for an adult businessman, it is difficult to find the time to go to class, open
a textbook and learn," said Carroll.
The Praxis program has more than 1,000 free lessons and downloads, covering
beginner to advanced levels of conversational Mandarin. It teaches basic
dialogue, such as how to greet people and go shopping, but also covers more
sophisticated subjects like Chinese history and culture and more fun ones like
the latest urban slang.
The company runs on a "freemium" business model. While beginner lessons are
free, it charges up to US$125 a month for an executive course, which includes a
live instructor calling one every day to talk for 10 minutes.
But even for people who like the traditional way of learning, with a teacher
helping at each stage, today's technology offers an alternative.
Idapted, another Beijing-based start-up, offers formal one-to-one classes,
during which one can talk to a native Mandarin teacher in China over the
Internet. The price is just US$8 per hour, much less if compared with the US$30
charged per hour for similar classes in New York or London.
"Compared with hiring a private tutor, our service is much more flexible and
inexpensive," said Adrian Li, co-founder of Idaped, "More importantly, while
the quality of private tutors can vary considerably, our standards are
guaranteed."
Li has a degree in economics from Cambridge University and holds an MBA from
Stanford. While he was studying in Stanford, he met his co-founder Jonathan
Palley, who had developed a virtual flashcards - pictorial learning aids -
program for languages. The shareware has been downloaded over 250,000 times.
The two received funding in 2006 from Toivo Annus, one of the founders of
Skype, which is now part of eBay. It later also attracted the backing of Xu
Xiao Ping, the co-founder for the largest private education school in China,
New Oriental School, which is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York.
In some ways, the new technology is an improvement. After each lesson the
student is given a playback of his or her performance in "class", with mistakes
highlighted and instructor's remarks. As the whole session is recorded, the
student can go through it again and again to learn, said Li.
Mandarin is a tonal language, and the slightest mistake in pitch can radically
change the meaning of a word. However, one advantage is that the grammar is not
as complicated as many European languages, for example there are no verb
tenses, relative clauses or singular or plural.
But to really excel at any language, one needs to get out of the classroom and
interact with real people in all walks of life, and this is where italki.com
steps in.
Founded in 2006, italki's founders thought of combining social networking with
language learning. The website is similar to popular social networking site
Facebook, but instead of just meeting new friends, users network with each
other to learn languages.
"It is like a language exchange," said William Bean, a partner at venture
capital firm Softbank China and India Holdings. He has invested an undisclosed
sum in italki. "If you are looking for a language partner for studying
Mandarin, you will have a lot of choices," he added.
The website had over 400,000 members registered at the end of 2008. Of the
traffic, 17% comes from China, 7% is from the US and the rest is scattered
around the world. Spanish and French are also popular, accounting for 14% and
9% of the traffic. There are members from over 200 countries on the website
speaking over 100 languages.
However, not everyone believes social networking with a language partner online
is a good alternative to formal study.
"It [italki] lacks structure. Also, the quality of your language partner or
their availability is difficult to guarantee," said Carroll of Praxis Language.
"You cannot learn a language without language exchange. But you cannot learn a
language with language exchange alone," said Bean.
Italki's new service is also turning into a marketplace for language teachers
to sell their services online.
"Much like eBay, teachers can offer their services and students bid for them,"
said Bean, "And there is a rating system for teachers based on the feedback of
their past students." He added that italki takes part of the transaction fees,
which it hopes will eventually become its major revenue source.
Sherman So is a Hong Kong-based correspondent.
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