Find Motivation to Learn a Foreign Language: Write to Your Future Fluent/Bilingual Self!

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Most of us need this precious resource that we call "motivation" on a daily basis. I'm sure you sometimes feel like you will never be able to learn another language. That's not true! You can do anything you put your mind to, especially learning a foreign language. But maybe you don't believe in yourself (yet). That's fine. Get a piece of paper and write a letter to your future bilingual self. Write all the things you want to be able to say in the foreign language. Write the number of foreign friends you will have when you're fluent in Chinese/Japanese/Spanish/French. Write how good it feels to finally be able to communicate using another writing system/other sounds/other words. Congratulate yourself on your progress. I know this might sound silly but your brain will slowly get used to the idea of becoming fluent in another language if you give it positive thoughts to feed on. Being positive + studying a foreign language everyday= Guaranteed fluency!
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Who Ruined Livemocha? The Death of a Great Language-Learning Tool

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A few years ago, I was a big fan of LiveMocha. At the time, it was one of the best free websites to learn foreign languages. Now that it's been bought by Rosetta Stone, it's horrible. I still think Rosetta Stone is a decent piece of software, but I don't understand why RS had to ruin a good thing. Tonight, I registered on LiveMocha again, hoping to learn some basic vocabulary. How disappointed I was! Now the website is completely different. I want the old LiveMocha back. While no program, web site, book, CD or DVD aimed at the language-learning crowd will ever be perfect, LiveMocha was a great alternative to paid products (which sometimes disappoint). The lessons were complete and weren't so much based on translation as on one of the greatest abilities we all have--inferring the meaning of new words. By slowly introducing new words and some grammar, LiveMocha was essentially spoon-feeding the user. I also really miss the recording feature. Users would record a text in the foreign language, then native speakers would correct their pronunciation. To be honest, I think Rosetta Stone is similar to LiveMocha in many ways. The main problem is that it's a very expensive piece of software. LiveMocha was such an inviting website that I really wanted to study multiple languages on it--just to get more points and meet new people. The social features of LiveMocha have all but disappeared, and the website won't stay free for much longer. It's been a long time since I've used RS for American English but I'll do some digging and see if I can find the CD somewhere. I probably won't be able to test RS in other languages unless I find out that they have it at my school.