I'm so thrilled you're excited about LiveMocha! Have you had a chance to play around yet? I've started studying Japanese, so LiveMocha isn't perfect for learning from scratch, but it ends up being an excellent supplement.

For latin-based languages, it's worked out really well. For Japanese, I'm starting to use it as a supplement. I am learning Japanese using Rosetta Stone, an iphone app (not kidding – it's a great ine!), and a few mnemonic books to help me remember all of the symbols, and LiveMocha will be just another set in my toolbox for learning.

I haven't run into people being “too” nice on LM. Maybe it's just that Spanish-speaking people are better at beong assholes? lol j/k – they've been supportive but not fibbing about my skills.

I'd like to say that I don't agree that there website is affective.

My first complaint about the site is the cyrillic alphabet. My first Russian lesson started out not by teaching me cyrillic, but by throwing words and characters at me that I had to figure out which letter made what sound. This wouldn't have been so bad, but there are subtle differences between the same character in different words. Without knowing why a letter sounds like it does in a certain situation, you're left guessing why the speaker is saying it that way.

There were also different endings to words. In the adjective, it seemed the adjective would change based on a masculine or feminine noun. As soon as I figured that out I thought I was in the clear. Then different adjectives for the same noun would have a different ending. It would have been nice to have an introduction to adjectives before learning them.

I very much liked the idea of being corrected by a native speaker initially. When I first started getting responses and corrections it seemed like I was really starting to get a grip of the language. Then i went to go correct a Russian native speaking English. Most of the English native tutors were telling people they were doing great when their spelling would be off, or giving one correction to a paragraph riddled with errors. I'm not saying that I'm an English genius by any means, but these were simple mistakes. It got me wondering if the Russian natives were just being as lenient with me as the English natives were with them. Also, English is a confusing language for everyone, even English speakers. For example, how many of you noticed that I used 'there' instead of 'their', and 'affective' instead of 'effective' in my first sentence? Like I've said, I'm not an English genius, and I'm sure I've made many more mistakes than I even realize. For this reason, I don't believe being able to speak a language qualifies you to tutor someone else to learn.

A few ways I think this website would work better.
1. If live mocha didn't treat every language equally.
2. If there were a grammar section if needed), before each unit.
3. As a member, try to find and add friends that are the most critical of submissions.
4. As a member, review another person's submission carefully, and be very critical.
5. Until they put in a grammar section, buy a grammar book first to learn key components of the language.
6. Have pictures of naked ladies in the learning section. (just kidding)

I like it because the material is not overwheleming, you can learn at your own pace, and it is entertaining at the same time too. This keeps me coming back everyday. I took German for four years in high school, I passed the class, but I did not learn anything. I shortly took the course and did better on Live mocha than I did in that classroom for four years.

Yes, Live mocha does need to do make of list of words that you need help with, but I like the fact that you can see how you are doing with a progress score. This helps me very much! I absoultely agree with you, as the community grows, so will Live mocha too. I can not wait to see what they have instore for the future. I this is the language learning website for me!