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Comment by steveridout | Hacker News Reader

Thanks! Yeah, getting a little drunk may help, although there's definitely an optimal point after which it has the opposite effect!

Actually I'm living in Madrid now so kind of immersed, the problem is that my girlfriend and I tend to always speak English with each other and I don't need to use Spanish to work either. It's what led me to create my current project: http://readlang.com

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That's a nice site. Having seen what you can do with live webcams, e.g. livejasmin (NSFW), I was thinking a similar model could work for language learning. The teachers could be paid. They wouldn't be contracted and they'd be minimally screened, but they'd accumulate popularity. Maybe this could be combined with the readlang model so that you could learn by reading a text together with a teacher. I think it's evident that learning from an actual person, especially one you can hear and practice with, is the most productive way of acquiring a language.

I haven't tried it but I hear that http://www.italki.com/ is pretty good for online Skype lessons where the teachers are paid and have reputations as you describe. Completely agree that interaction with a real person is very important.

I consider it a sign of a good idea when someone else has beaten you to it. Some of the XXX cam sites draw people in by allowing non-paying users to watch and chat, and once you get involved, you pay only for what you use. The home screen shows captures of current action, so it always looks like there's a lot going on. I think there's a formula in there for getting a self-sustaining system going.

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