Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Brazilian women, Livemocha and a suicidal fish! A random post for fun.

 I’m not sure how many people who read this have learned a foreign language but it is challenging. I’m learning Portuguese; specifically Brazilian Portuguese.  After 40 plus years of only speaking English I have found that my brain does not want to be exposed to anything different. I'm using a couple of programs to learn. I want to talk about one of them, Livemocha. 

Livemocha is web based language learning program. The website is: http://www.livemocha.com Actually, this is a pretty good system since you are subjected to reviews buy native speakers of the language you are learning. You submit both written and spoken exercises that are forwarded to a native speaker. The native speaker has the option to review or not review. They can review and respond with audio, written or both. You as a student are also given the opportunity to review the work of those (in my case) learning English. Now there is also a rating system for each exercise. It goes from 1 to 5 stars. 1 being  the worst and 5 being perfect.

  The review process I spoke of in the above paragraph can be brutal when you are on the receiving end of the feedback. Most Brazilian men that provide reviews should not waste their time. There reviews will consist 1 star and feedback of “not very good, practice more” or  “your accent is strong and you don’t pronounce certain words correctly.” I wouldn't mind the reviews if they were productive but they are not. My response to some of these men are:

“No shit, I have an accent!?!?!”  “You seriously took the time to tell me I have an accent but can’t tell me specifically what words I need to work on?”  “I’m learning okay, so next time please provide me with actual feedback that is helpful or don’t review my submissions!”

On the other hand, Brazilian women are very nurturing. Brazilian Women will take time to actually help you. It is funny how nurturing they are. First they’re very encouraging with a “Muito Bom!”  Translated: “Very Good!”  Even if you know you did not do that good of a job they will  at least recognize the effort. Next they will list the words you wrote or spoke incorrectly. This is extremely helpful and if it were not enough they will record a review for your submission. This way you can hear how to correct your mistakes. At the end of the review process they will finish with “bom trabalho, continuar a aprender!” Translated: “good work, keep learning.”  And they will sign the review with “beijos” which means kisses and is pretty standard close with no real meaning! Sometimes the women will even volunteer to help more through video chats on skype.  Overall, Brazilian women are very helpful! I have even used help from some of these women on skype. They have the patients of Job! 

I said as part of using the site you are given exercise to review which brings me to this: The ratio of English speaking people to all others must be 1 to 100 because I am bombarded with friend and review request. I had to cap my friend list at 100, otherwise I would never be able to learn Protuguese. All I would have time to do is review others submissions. I have earned a top teacher spot on livemocha because of all the reviews I do. I have also been granted “translator” status which means I have access to providing additional translations and review. All this is great but it means that everyone learning English from every other country is on you like “ugly on a monkey” when it comes to exercise review requests.  You feel like a grilled cheese sandwich thrown among seagulls!

I recieve somewhere around 25 submission review requests per day and that is a lot. A few from men but mostly from the women. I think they must communicate with each other, it is like they all know I’m going to give a fair and detailed review! After all, if I want honest and helpful feedback and I should provide the same.

Okay so this brings us to the fish. I said I am now a “translator” and can submit additional translations as a helpful tool for those learning English. I didn’t realize that I could provide translations for any language until I was reviewing one of my Portuguese lessons and the following two sildes came up:


The caption with this slide was: “Um peixe precisa de água para viver.”  Translated it means the fish needs water to live. Easy enough and harmless until I see the next slide:


The caption for this slide was: "Este peixe precisa de água, mas não quer nenhuma." Translated it means the fish needs water,  but has none.  Of course, me being a bit demented needed to add in the additional translations: “Não quer viver mais só; é suicido.”  Translated: Don’t want to live alone anymore, it is suicide! 

The additional translation has not been removed from the website! 

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