Livemocha

Livemocha is an online language learning community claiming more than 8.5 million members from 195 countries. Livemocha offers free basic language courses in 38 languages and more advanced courses -- called "Active Courses" -- in five languages including English, French, Spanish, German and Italian. The Active Courses cost $29.00/month or $149.00 for a one-year package, with the exception of Active English, which costs $39/month or $399.00 for a year. The company claims that those who complete the "Active" courses will achieve conversational fluency. Livemocha offers grammar instructions, reading comprehension exercises, interactive role playing and both live and asynchronous interaction with other native speakers within the Livemocha community. When learners submit coursework for peer review, native speakers in that language can provide feedback on how that learner is progressing. Users can aid others in learning the languages that they are proficient in while learning other languages themselves.

Languages

Lessons are provided for thirty languages; American English, Spanish, Persian, French, Hindi, German, Italian, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin, Icelandic, Korean, Arabic, Turkish, Polish, Ukrainian, European Portuguese, Greek, Dutch, Estonian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Finnish, Hungarian, Croatian, Czech, Slovak, Urdu, Catalan, Swedish, Hebrew and Esperanto, which is the most recent addition. Other tools such as translators are provided for a variety of other languages. It is possible to vote for new languages to be introduced.

Several national newspapers (including The New York Times) have included articles about Livemocha's language tools since its early development stages.

According to John Cook's Venture Blog, Livemocha was easily Seattle's biggest moving start-up company in Autumn 2007. In 2008, then-CEO Shirish Nadkarni said Livemocha had over 200,000 users from over 200 countries as of February of that year. On June 8, 2010, Michael Schutzler was announced as the new CEO.

Basic Courses

Livemocha offers basic language lessons that are free and contain about 30–50 hours of coursework.

Active Courses

Active Courses are premium lessons offered for at a cost of $29/month or $149 for a one-year subscription. Active courses are offered in English, Spanish, French, Italian and German.