Tere!

One day in 2020 there was a conversation before the general meeting in the office:

Me: Mine…
CTO: Mine?
Me: Toasse! Toasse? Tubasse?
CEO: I don’t think we say “tubasse” (but she could understand what I meant)
Me: How do you say (“to the room” in Estonian)?
CTO: Tuppa

I dashed to the developers room and said:

Mine tuppa!!!

One developer: We heard. lol

It’s a very good circumstance to learn a language, isn’t it?

As you might have guessed, it’s Estonian. I couldn’t register a public language course in January because too many people accessed, which led a server error. Then I (re)started learning Estonian online by myself and I tried to use what I learnt in the office as a practical lesson.

This time the article is about the online Estonian language learning. I completed the Estonian language learning platform called Keeleklikk, so I summarise here how it was. (If you read this article you will figure out but just in case you won’t misunderstand – it does not mean that I acquire the Estonian language in two months.)

What is Keeleklikk?

Keeleklikk is an online Estonian language learning platform. It’s easy to register by using facebook, Google or simply email address. As of the 24th of February 2020, Keeleklikk has two versions: the older version and the newer one. It totally depends on you which one you want to use. Here are my viewpoints on both versions for those who have slightly difficulties to choose:

The older Keeleklikk

• Advantage
• No system error (as far as I experienced).
• Disadvantages
• Tacky design.
• Since it uses Flash, Google Chrome users (probably) get automatically blocked so whenever they log in, they need to “permit” the Flash.

The newer version

• Advantage
  • Stylish and minimalistic trendy design.
  • Since it doesn’t use Flash it’s easier and smoother to start lessons
  • It keeps you logging in.
• Disadvantages
  • There are frequent system errors.
  • Even after the final exam, it doesn’t completely show the result, which means it doesn’t produce the result in PDF (but I’ve been asking so if there are any progress on it I will add it).
  • The animation videos sometimes (deliberately?) doesn’t have subtitles.

However, personally I preferred the newer version so when the animation video didn’t have subtitles, I just had one more tab on the browser and read the English translation of the script in the following lesson, listening to the dialogs. To sum up, it is possible to make up for the disadvantage in the newer version!

If you want to continue to learn Estonian on Keeleklikk, according to your progress you may decide which version is more suitable for you.

Keeleklikk itself has advantages!

I’m not sure how people learn foreign languages in your countries but in Japan they tend to buy some text books when they want to learn English, for instance. If it’s going to be their skill, I think it’s good to “invest” money on themselves. However, there is nothing better than something free with fine quality.

Keeleklikk is an online Estonian language learning platform as mentioned, everything there is free of charge. There are around 16 chapters and each chapter consists of three to five lessons.

One lesson usually includes: animation videos with English subtitles, the transcripts of the videos (which provides the English subtitles as additional options), quizzes, grammar tutorials (which usually lasts one to four minutes), grammar quizzes, speaking practices with the computer by translating English sentences and email writing to the teacher about the lesson topic.

When it came to the grammar tutorials, I just had notes on thephysical memo pad and summarised and organised what I learnt on Evernote where I created a “notebook” for Keeleklikk after each lesson.

I personally think that any language learning platforms (especially available in Japan) should “mimic” one of the styles of Keeleklikk, which is the speaking practice with the laptop and email writing. It is difficult to practice these skills but it’s more difficult to improve those skills by using textbooks. Also, usually a lot of similar online language learning platforms like Keeleklikk are liable not to reply or correct learners’ texts by email even though they say “Let’s write an email!”. 

However, Keeleklikk does.

In addition the teacher usually replies with corrections within 20 – 30 minutes.

I don’t have much vocabulary so it was really exhausting and I didn’t write for the last three chapters but I did when I had energy to do. It’s always important to continue.

Keeleklikk aims A1 to A2 (for beginners)

In Japan we don’t have clear levels for language learning unlike Europe. Normally the range is beginner-intermediate-expert. However Europe has CEFR (even though it seems some schools have similar systems of level cetegorisation).

As repeated Keeleklikk is an online Estonian language learning platform for beginners, that is, until the A2 level. (There seems to be another platform for Estonian language learning from B1 but let’s just keep it in mind and talk about it sometime in the future.)

After finishing all the lessons you may take an exam there. (Oh, it doesn’t mean that you must complete every lesson one by one. You may skip some if you wish and may take the exam right after the registration but you need learning first of all, don’t you?)

I actually took the exam twice but still haven’t got the certificate.

Keeleklikk provides you with the certificate after the exam!

Maybe because I took the exam in the newer version but not sure. Anyway I couldn’t download my result in PDF even after the exam and clicked everywhere but it always just went to the first blank page of the exam.

(Sigh.)

Moreover, the newer version of Keeleklikk had a contact form but the “I’m not a robot” button was broken so I couldn’t send the message. I went to the older version and found the email address in a tiny font below the webpage and finally emailed.

As of the 24th of February 2020 I still haven’t got any reply but probably because I sent the email on Saturday. If there’s any progress I will renew the article. 

Since we don’t have good Estonian language learning books or equivalents in Japan(ese), learning it in English is the (only) way and yet I personally believe that it may be easier to learn it from Japanese. Anyway, you can access Keeleklikk no matter where you are as long as you have the internet. If you are enough fluent at English, why don’t you try to learn Estonian?

★Addition on 29th March 2020

Since I sent an email to Keeleklikk, we had communicated approximately once a week and three times in total. On the 29th of March I finally could get the diploma on Keeleklikk.

I took the exam around five times in total.

Yeah I didn’t expect that I would take the same exam five times due to the errors… Now you can get the diploma on the new version of Keeleklikk and I also reported them some errors so you may not see any errors while learning the language.

Aitäh! 🙂