is www.livemocha.com free, and is it good?

Question

i want to learn japanese, because when i was young my parents were deployed in japan, i could speak it very well, but we moved back to america, so i forgot. but i heard of livemocha, i read the terms of use and i saw this
5. Fees.
You acknowledge that Livemocha.com reserves the right to charge for the Livemocha Services and to change its fees from time to time in its discretion.

At no time will you be charged without your prior knowledge and explicit consent.

soo? its not free? help me out.

Answer 1

for now, it's free for the most basic materials, but if they have this terms of use, maybe nothing is guarantee for free over there. there are a lot of free resource out there to learn japanese anyway, for grammar you can check out http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar and for something more innovative you can check out http://www.sayjack.com/ and of course both of them are free...

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

i have an account, it's free. some courses are not, some are. just make sure you pick the one that is free. it will tell you if it is or not. haha, why are you stressing out about it? its just a casual little site that helps you with your language skills. ive had my account for around 2 years, and yes its for japanese just like you. ive gone thru quite a few lessons and have never been charged. they cant charge you if you pick the free lessons which there are a ton of . its pretty helpful, when i was learnin gjapanese casually during the last 2ish years, all i did was play on livemocha and use jisho.org, listen to japanese songs/anime and invest in some self teaching books at my local barnes and nobles. todays january 7th, and on the 18th ill finally be in a japanese class at palomar!! so excited!! been waiting a year n a half for this shizz!!







regarding what ORLA said;



idk why she/he had so much trouble with livemocha. for me, correcting other people's work was optional and i always skipped it, it was boring. i got to work straight away. yes, there are flashcards, and a test and a section where you write a paragraph or to with your new vocabulary. and no, you do not have to know the kana/kanji beforehand, you can change the text into romaji aka english lettering..theres a button right next to the japanese text that allows you to do this..



and i never paid for anything. ever. in two years. and of course its not perfect and has its limitations. thats why you invest in self teach books and go take japanese classes at a community college like im doing!!(jan 18). you have to admit that for a free online course, livemocha isnt half bad at all its pretty damn great.

Answer 4

Think you can have a few lessons free. You only need to pay if you want to carry on after the basic level. I was with Livemocha in 2009 learning Spanish.

Answer 5

Computers

Answer 6

((Update)) It was not optional for me. I did not have a choice! But you don't have to do all corrections though.



I had an account with livemocha.com and was surprised I could not start learning straight away. That was my first surprise. I had to correct people homework who wanted to learn my native language. And when I started at least learning, it was flash cards, not the course. You just learn some vocabulary or phrases such as "He is old", "She is small." "The bag is on the table." You cannot download anything. And you need to know how to read and write already. Hopefully they will use the transliteration. But I doubt it. It was not my experience. Also when I was correcting people's homework, I spotted some faults of vocabulary. In addition, they started to add this page after I had completed a unit, or an exam about sharing with my friends on Facebook. Then I had to pay if I wanted to get the real course, or to make some advertising to Facebook to bring at least 3 friends to livemocha.com

So after a while I gave up and went to other websites who don't claim to be "free" but are free.

If you want a similar initiation try the Byki Express download flash cards. That is very good for a start and to give you an idea. Beside it is entirely free! http://www.byki.com just type in your email address, but nothing else, and untick all boxes to get your download.



For real free download courses:

1) http://www.archive.org/download/Fsi-JapaneseFast-StudentText/Fsi-JapaneseFast-StudentText.pdf

2) http://web.archive.org/web/20030812083805/languagelab.bh.indiana.edu/online.html (PDF course)

3) http://grammar.nihongoresources.com/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=an_introduction_to_japanese_-_syntax_grammar_language.pdf

4) http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED053623.pdf

5) http://ankisrs.net/ (Check the video tutorial to know how it works), and once installed click on Download to browse the list of shared decks. Type in Japanese. And download the free flash card or deck). After you need to click on File, Download shared deck to browse the list.



For free lessons online or flash cards vocabulary:

1) http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/english/learn/list/index.html (100 free lessons pdfs, and each audio lesson can be downloaded individually for free but not as a group).

2) http://www.internetpolyglot.com/lessons-en-ja

3) http://japanese.about.com/od/writing/u/Writing.htm#s1

4) http://www.easyjapanese.org/write_hiragana.html

Answer 7

There is some free content on livemocha.com as well as the paid stuff.

Answer 8

If you need to have to find out Spanish and you want to discover it from the ideal then you must choose a program

Answer 9

Livemocha Japanese