How langolab is supposed to work

The way it's supposed to work is that you watch a video or read a text. The video or text may have been posted by another user or a teacher. If there's a word in the text or video caption that you don't understand, just click on it to look it up in the dictionary:


By clicking on the "Add to flash cards" link, you can also add words to your set of flash cards, which you can save, share, or test yourself on.

Note: I've put more information about the "Show options" link at the bottom, for those of you who are curious.

Now suppose there is a phrase or sentence you don't understand. If you see the "Notes" link at the right of the text or video caption, you can click on it and mouse over the notes to see which parts of the text or video caption they correspond to:



Click on one of the notes to read it:


The notes contain useful information about phrases and sentences in langolab. But, suppose there are no notes. Then you must ask a question and throw yourself at the question-answering mercy of the langolab community. Do this by selecting the text for which you want to ask the question. As soon as you select the text, a dialog box appears. Click "Ask question" in the dialog to ask your question:



Teachers or native speakers can answer questions by clicking on the "Questions" tab for Text or Videos:

Or by clicking the "MORE" link at the Langolab nav bar:


Once the question is answered, the answer becomes a note for the text that anybody can read! The question-asking system clearly needs further refinement, so please speak up if you have suggestions!

A few other notes

Suppose you click on a word that is not in the langolab dictionaries, or you just want to add a new definition because you think the existing ones aren't good enough. You can add a custom definition:



Furthermore, suppose that you want to make a note without asking a question. You can do this too. Just select the text you want to make the note on and click "Add Note":



Now just type in your note and, voila, you've created a new note that will help anyone who reads the text or video caption in the future!

Of course we would always love to hear about any feedback, comments, criticisms, or visions. We are also looking for entrepreneurial collaborators who might want to work on langolab with us. Right now we especially need a usability/UI engineering/graphic design/branding guru. If this describes you, PLEASE contact me!