Monday, January 27, 2014

Mango Updates

 
Many of you may have already discovered the Library’s database for learning a foreign language—Mango—but there have been several improvements in the past few months.  Six languages now come with Mango’s Premiere courses. 


From the course homepage, select either Conversation or Premiere where available.
What are these courses?  Feature films, broken down scene by scene, each line of dialogue pulled out and studied.  So far, the Premiere service is available for: Chinese (Mandarin), French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish (Latin America), and Inglés Para Hablantes (English for Spanish, Latin America speakers).

Watch a scene with subtitles in English and the foreign language
 
…then study each line of dialogue individually.

But what if you’ve never tried Mango and don’t know where to start?  Now you can take a placement test to see where you should begin.  Each of the over 60 languages offered by Mango have between roughly 65 and 100 lessons, but if you’ve already studied a language before, you might not want to start from scratch.  Now when you select a language and the course page launches, you can click on Take a placement test in the top right of the window.


In addition to these new features, the website has received a facelift.  The lessons still look the same, but the sign in page, the Dashboard where your course history is stored, the course list, and other stops, including Support, are a little more colorful. 

Also, this Thursday, January 30 at 6:00 pm, I’ll be offering a demonstration of how Mango works at the North Branch library.  There are still some seats left, so register at http://www.starklibrary.org/program-search by searching for Mango or call North Branch (330)456-4356 to attend.  Be sure to have your library card handy when registering. 
 
Shelia