The basic idea: I’m learning Latin American Spanish & my native language is American English. So they find someone learning American English that speaks Latin American Spanish natively. We get paired up & play 2 games: one in Spanish with me getting the benefit of a native speaker, then one in English with my partner getting the benefit. VERY cool idea.
They have a similar idea in Duo as well except both partners are learning the same language — and don’t ever speak their native tongue. Mikey & I play in there all the time. It’s GREAT practice!
And of course there’s the solo area of Rosetta World, where you can read stories or play solo games. They’re great practice! I try to do one or two every day, whenever I have a minute or two.
Anyway, back to Simbio. Rosetta needs some work on the execution — they could use someone from the online MMORPG gaming world to teach them how to create a REAL queue! You shouldn’t have to sit in Simbio to wait (imho). You should be able to check boxes saying what you want to play, etc… then go read stories or play solo. When someone wants to play (in EITHER Duo or Simbio), you get a pop-up and some NOISE (!!) so that you are aware that Rosetta World is asking if you’re still wanting to play. It should have a count-down for 5-10 seconds. If you don’t respond you go to the end of the queue (or get kicked out). Yeah, I don’t have all the specifics, but I think the current system could be improved. It stinks when the only available partner is in Panama & keeps losing his Internet connection!
The 2 times I got connected successfully were awesome. I had no idea how slowly I speak Spanish! And I got SOOO flustered! I definitely need to practice more so that it becomes old hat!
In fact my plan was to do that today, but it didn’t work out. I started Hindi & spent too much time on it. 🙂 So I just did a couple of solo games & read the unit 4 short stories. My brain is fried, time for sleep!!
Tomorrow Studio & Simbio!!!!! My goal for 2011 — fluent in Spanish & conversant in Hindi!
Love that you are doing this, and enjoying it. But I have to tell you, I watched you have a conversation with a guy in Spanish about a problem with his car (in the church auditorium one Wednesday night long ago), and so its funny to me to hear you say that you aren’t fluent! Not doubting you, just … you’re way more fluent in Spanish than most people I know 🙂