Brun Ugle wrote:One thing I've seen mentioned several times is that both this and the old forum are mostly comprised of Europeans and North-Americans. It would be nice with more diversity, but then, we have to make it more accessible to those who don't speak English well. Having menus in other languages is a great start, but it would be nice if natives and advanced speakers of other languages posted more content in those languages. It might make the forum more interesting to more people. Maybe we could also then recommend the site to language exchange partners and gradually attract a more international membership.
I also agree that a lot of interesting discussion goes on in logs. I would love to read them all, but then I wouldn't have time to learn anything. What I think we should do is, when we see someone has an interesting idea or method in their log, let them know that they should share it. There are probably plenty of people just puttering along learning languages and quietly posting about it in their logs who don't even realize how great their techniques are. When you see something like that, just give the person a nudge and tell them to post a thread on the technique where everyone will see it. That way we could perhaps generate more open and lively discussion like in the old days.
I'd also like to see static content, maybe language guides and clear descriptions of techniques. The wiki is OK, but the descriptions are usually very brief and superficial. But going to HTLAL to find out something will have you stuck in an endless web of threads, as I discovered when I tried to find out more about how to use Assimil.
New here. I came here because I'm learning a couple of languages and have more I'd like to learn, and I'm interested in learning how to do that learning more effectively. My method at present is rather more like how I "learned" German or French in school - it takes forever and fluency will be hard won. Then I found a course on Udemy where a guy talked about shadowing, double learning, and other techniques, and that was my first hint at a better way, that better way being something I'm still figuring out.
And that's why the paragraph about the logs is particularly interesting to me. I had not thought of looking into the language logs as a means of finding out what kinds of techniques I could use to improve my learning. It's obvious in a way, and yet... It would be nice if the gold nuggets were easier to find.
I found HTLAL first, and didn't realize that these two forums were somewhat related. HTLAL I found rather... ancient, but it had some good information. Difficult to find and a pain to wade through. Here, I'm still figuring out where to find what I want.
As for paragraph 1 - yes, yes, yes! I'm from Canada but live in Asia, married to a polyglot Asian. It's really easy to notice the lack of diverse backgrounds when you're in one. My husband isn't interested in a language learning forum, probably because he's already figured out how to do the polyglot thing in a way that works for him.