Hey Phil,
Hope things are going well. After a major "labor of love" by both Haneen and myeslf, we've launched Language Corpus!
For years I've wanted to build this to provide a massive amount of comprehensible input for language learners so that they would have a solid stepping stone between introductory language programs and classes on the one hand and content created for native speakers on the other. I like what we've come up with!
For now we just have five languages represented, and French has less than an hour of audio content. But I'm really hoping that through getting the word out and crowdsourcing, we can increase these five languages as well as add many new ones. In our "language" database table we have the entire Ethnologue loaded -- 7,859 languages in all! But 140 of those are various sign languages and for now we're sticking to audio only, so I guess we won't have full coverage. :)
While it's not for beginners, I think Language Corpus will benefit many kinds of users -- classroom students who have had a couple years of the language already and who really want to excel in it, independent learners who just love a particular language, ex-pats living in the country where the language is spoken who want to accelerate their learning, people wanting to be able to communicate with family members who speak another language, and on and on. And I'm particularly excited that Haneen is using it for German and Liz is going to get her Portuguese back and then start doing TPR with our younger kids.
Of course, while "launch" is a milestone, there's still a long way to go to get to my full vision of everything that LC can be -- with thousands of recordings in each of hundreds of languages, and with many users using it to experience comprehensible input through real language spoken by many different people of all walks of life and accents, and with everything being fully searchable, and our current Recommendatoin Engine being much better through all the results people will have. At that point our content will also be a treasure trove of cultural knowledge embedded in the many recordings.
But for now, for today, it's nice to pause a moment, reflect, and smile, before getting back to it.
If I remember right, you haven't studied any languages in decades, but even so, know that you're always invited to record for us in English on our "Share Your Language" page. If you do you'll be translated into eight languages for now and many more in the future!
And if you know anyone actively learning a language, please point them our way.
Thanks,
Reid
July 6, 2019