Chinese learning video chat applications? / Doing some research.

[Tommy York]

Hey everyone,

 

I've been studying Chinese since I was a kid (yay San Francisco!) and finished up a double major in Chinese and Business at UC Berkeley about two years ago. My verbal fluency is starting to wane, and I'm looking into ways to maintain my fluency while I'm still living in the United States. I'm also currently enrolled in the Founder Institute (http://fi.co) and doing some research on Chinese-specific language learning video software. I want to know if you've had experiences with this kind of software, what you've used, and what you're experiences have been like.

 

So, I wanted to ask:

 

• Have you used video chat for Chinese language learning?
  • Which software? 
  • How beneficial do you think this was to your learning experience?
• What are you currently using for computer-based Chinese language learning?
• What would you want in a live-video-chat based language learning application?
• Did anyone use Verbling for Chinese in its prior incarnation (http://www.fluentin3months.com/verbling/)? (Verbling did chat roulette style video chat, but moved to a professional video tutoring model).

 

Most importantly: would you be willing to chat with me for ten to fifteen minutes via Google Video or Skype to talk about your experiences? I'd love to get some feedback from you and give you an idea of what I'm working on.

 

Any feedback is welcome!