Lingro.com - open source language learning

lingro.com is a cool new language-learning website I've been using this week.

lingro is different from other language-learning sites I've seen. First of all, it's free. Working with an open-source philosophy, lingro has created dictionaries for learners of English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Polish.

The dictionaries are open-source - if you don't find a word, you can add it. Or if you're using a derivative of a root word, you can link to the root word (not sure if what I link to affects what other people see, or if it's just my dictionary).

But lingro isn't just a collection of open-source dictionaries. The lingro team have cleverly linked together a series of tools. First you can look up a word in the dictionary. You'll get a definition(s), perhaps a phrase, and in some cases audio.

You can then add this word to your wordlist. From your wordlist you can then review words, or go to the games section to learn them. At the moment, the only game is a basic flashcard game, but the team are working on putting more together.

Apart from the dictionaries, you can also use their web viewer. The web viewer doesn't translate an entire page from one language to the next - it enables you to click individual words for a translation. I know I've used something like this in Firefox before - it's a great little tool for someone who's trying to improve their understanding, but is lacking key words. You can add the words you look up to your wordlist - giving you a list of vocab you need to work on.

Lastly, lingro has a file viewer, which enables you to open a file (.txt, .doc, or .pdf) in your web browser. You can then click each individual word in that doc for a translation, and add words to your word list for further learning.

For a test, I tried opening my 60 page word doc of 'Le Petit Prince' with images. Lingro's file viewer was able to cope with this long, image-heavy doc and quickly opened the file ready for use. Pretty cool.

Essentially, a lot of what lingro offers is not new. Language dictionaries aren't. Word lists aren't. Page viewers and integrated translators aren't. Flashcards certainly aren't. But what lingro does is it joins the dots...everything is integrated. It streamlines the process. It's pretty simple to use. And it's free.

The lingro.com team is made up of Artur Janc, Paul Kastner and Holmes Wilson who are all lingotechnophiles (I just made that word up!). They seem to be a pretty cool bunch, who are all for making it easy for people to learn and be creative using opensource technologies.

But guys...here's a question from someone who's trying to create online language learning resources, who loves opensource, who loves web 2.0, who believes learning shoudl be free and open to everyone...how are you funding your work??? I'd love to be creating free language learning materials for Irish, but can't get a model that enables me to create quality materials and interesting learning engines while not starving...and certainly no model that interests the funders!