Short Reviews of Websites Related to Languages I

Antimoon: Good place to get a quick answer (without giving out all your personal info and getting spam e-mail in return) for the following languages:

English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and German.


You will have to wait a bit longer, but you will probably get an answer for quesitions in the following languages as well:

Italian, Greek, Catalan, Polish, Chinese and Russian.

This is not a good forum to get help in Japanese most of the time.

There is also a forum called "Ask Antimoon" where registration is required.

What's wonderful and awesome at Antimoon: Some people are very helpful and knowledgeable. Because there is no registration, someone who is totally disagreeable in one area can be just what you need if you ask a question about a topic where he is an expert-just like life, actually
;)

Downside to Antimoon: Not all that family-friendly for people who are homeschooling their kids in foreign languages. Plenty of vulgar, sexual
comments, racist comments, etc. Some liberal bias noted, but basically a polite poster can get an answer (as well as get shouted down or be misunderstood).

I recommend Antimoon, but warn my friends about the vulgar language.

I think you give Antimoon a little too much credit. It was much more useful a few months ago, but it really got worse with the addition of certain new people recently, and perhaps not as much mod involvement. But what are other similar language forums you recommend?

Well, there is LingQ and its many forums. LingQ (not to be confused with Lingt (for Chinese) has forums for about 11 languages-Dutch, Spanish, German, English (more than one), Swedish, French, Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Italian, and Japanese. Dutch is not offered as a language there, but there is a Dutch forum...

The German, Russian and Japanese forums seem to be helpful places. The English forum-well, Antimoon's forum is better for serious English learners. Antimoon and LingQ have differing views on language learning.


You have to join LingQ to view the forums and if you do, I advise you to list "nobody" as your privacy preference unless you are into social networking.


LingQ is a lot more than a host of forums. There are plenty of free resources in 10 languages (including resources for advanced learners).
You can also upgrade your membership. It took me months to figure out the site, but that's because I'm a dummy.

try this site instead

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/index.html

That's an interesting forum, but

They require birthdate registration, other info that isn't necessary imo.
Rather PC, and PC sometimes means not an open exchange of ideas
Some aspects available only to registered members.
What do you really get for the yearly fee?
Other than that, yes, it's excellent.

<<try this site instead

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/index.html>>



That forum is the shittiest by far. It is so incredibly spineless and hypermoderated. ANY non PC view is instantly crushed. They ban people every few minutes.
For example, look at that thread "does IQ affect language learning ability?" 95% of them are asserting that there is no relation whatsoever, and they continue to spit out examples of how they know dumb people who are good at language learning and so on. C'mon, that's pathetic, that IQ affects ability to learn languages is obvious, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a PC pansy and not very bright at all. Maybe that's why none of them actually manage to learn any of the 15 languages they're sutdying...

Does IQ affect language learning ability?

That's a great question. The half-brother of the smartest guy I know is also the best polyglot I have ever met. I don't think that he hangs out on language forums-he uses his languages.

How-to-learn-any-language is fucking shit. It's not so much a serious language learning site as a Harry Potter fanclub.