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Learn a New Language, Have Fun and Make a HappyPlanet
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Who says learning a new language can’t be exciting, fun and even useful? Probably if it were conducted in a classroom style or a self-phased study using audio-visual medias, learning a new language could indeed be boring. 
Thanks to the tremendous popularity of social networking sites, language learning tutorials found a new home at MyHappyPlanet. Created by a Harvard Business School student, MyHappyPlanet puts social networking into good use - connecting multi-language loving individuals, educating, creating new friendships and networks, and probably in the long making a Happy Planet for everyone.
Now, that sounded like a sales pitch, isn’t it? I’m not in no way connected with MyHappyPlanet, but I just find the social networking site really useful for me and I bet for everyone as well.
MyHappyPlanet features online grammar and vocabulary correction of sent messages within the network. It also has various user-generated language tutorials and videos of featuring different cultures and languages worldwide.
If you get lucky, you might even meet somebody who will be willing to be your host in case you’re traveling internationally.
In case you are joining MyHappyPlanet and want to learn my country’s national language, Filipino look for me there. I could help you learn conversational Filipino if you like.
Sara Says:
April 18th, 2008 at 12:27 pmIt does sound like a sales pitch. There are many langugage exchange websites that are older and better (in my opinion) than my happy planet: xlingo.com, sharedtalk.com, lingozone.com, http://www.polyglot-learn-language.com just to name a few. So it would make sense to compare and explain what specifically do you like in myhappyplanet that makes it different.
mazo Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 3:56 pmi want to join you
glauco m. Says:
July 12th, 2008 at 3:48 pmoi …gostaria de aprender inglês…como eu faço?
aguardo resposta e desde já agradeço.
glauco M.
Kimberley Ong Says:
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:07 amHi Arnold! This is Kimberley Ong, Community Manager at MyHappyPlanet. Thanks for featuring MyHappyPlanet!
I agree with what you said about potentially even meeting up with some MyHappyPlanet friends when you travel. I myself am a French language learner at MyHappyPlanet and have made a few French language buddies, one of whom I will most likely meet when he visits Singapore on a business trip this December.
To Sara: This is exactly what I think sets MyHappyPlanet apart from other language learning sites. Sure, there have been a few sites that have existed way before we started, and they’re all great, but the key thing MyHappyPlanet offers is the community. The people in this community are just great–people who are genuinely passionate about language and culture, people who genuinely want to help one another out. All the videos and lessons we have on the site are actually contributions of members. We’re not offering a professional learning method but rather this whole fun and practical learning experience. The best part is that you actually meet new friends WHILE learning :)
On a side note, this is to let you know that we have just launched a new version of MyHappyPlanet. If you have logged in to the site in the past 2 weeks, you’d notice that we have made quite a few changes. Search functionality is so much better now, meaning you can search for language partners based on a variety of parameters like age group, sex, and geographical location :) User interface is so much better and it’s now so much easier to correct your friends’ messages than before. I hope you get the chance to have a look at the new site and let us know how you feel about the changes! :)