Learn other languages while translating the web

One of the minds behind recaptcha recently gave a talk at TEDxCMU about an interesting new project. Duolingo hopes to address the problem of translating the large body of web content into other languages. They also hope to make learning foreign languages accessible to people who can't afford Rosetta Stone by offering anyone the opportunity to learn for free. The idea is to have the people who want to learn another language actually translate web content. Beginners are given simple sentences while more advanced members get more advanced sentences. Translations are also ranked by the community to try and determine the correct translation. It also gives you information on words you have trouble with. It's closed beta so I haven't tried it so I'm not 100% on how it works.

I like the idea and I think it has a real chance of at least getting some web content translated and when it is in public beta I think I'll try learning another language again (did not do well in Spanish class.) I don't think it will be a magic bullet for translating web content but at the very least I see it taking burden away from those who can translate difficult content.

http://www.ted.com/talks/luis_von_ahn_massive_scale_online_collaboration.html
http://duolingo.com/

Well that's quite an interesting scheme. It makes me all warm and fuzzy knowing that there are people in the world smart enough to make stuff like that happen. When I COMe back I want to be smart.

I would love to try this for a language with non-Western grammar and script, like Arabic or Japanese. But I'd need to learn the elements thereof. cn