English, baby! is a social network and online curriculum for learning conversational English and slang based in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...

. The service is used by more than 1.6 million members, making it one of the largest, most well-established and highest rated online communities of English learners and teachers. English, baby! is most popular in China, where roughly a quarter of its users are based. Other countries in which the service is popular include

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, India,

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

, the United States, and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. The company offers a free membership as well as a paid, premium membership and frequently uses celebrities in its English lesson videos.

Lessons

English, baby! is home to several thousand English lessons. Many of the lessons feature celebrities teaching a term or phrase and discussing how they learned English if it is not their first language. Celebrities who have taught English lessons on English, baby! include

NBA All-Stars The National Basketball Association (NBA) NBA All-Star Game, All-Star Game is an annual exhibition basketball game. It is the main event of the NBA All-Star Weekend. Originally, the All-Star Game featured a conference-based format, featuring a ...

such as Steve Nash and

Dwight Howard Dwight David Howard II (born December 8, 1985) is an American professional basketball player for the Taoyuan Leopards of the T1 League. He is an NBA champion, eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA Team honoree, five-time All-Defensive Team ...

Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece b ...

gold medalist figure skaters

Shen Xue Shen Xue (; born 13 November 1978) is a Chinese retired pair skater. With her husband Zhao Hongbo, Shen is the 2010 Olympic champion, the 2002 & 2006 Olympic bronze medalist, a three-time World champion (2002, 2003 and 2007), a three-time Fou ...

and

Zhao Hongbo Zhao Hongbo (; born 22 September 1973) is a Chinese retired pair skater. With his wife Shen Xue, Zhao is the 2010 Olympic champion, the 2002 & 2006 Olympic bronze medalist, a three-time World champion (2002, 2003 & 2007), a three-time Four Co ...

, and musicians Sheryl Crow and Girl Talk. The website also produces an English lesson soap opera series and reality TV style videos. Other lessons are based on

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

s instead of videos and based on improvised conversations between native English speaking actors. Most lessons include grammar instruction, quizzes, and vocabulary words. Much of the lesson content is only available to premium "Super Members" who pay $5 per month. These members also have access to a live teacher to answer questions for them. In addition to students,

ESL English as a second or foreign language is the use of English by speakers with different native languages. Language education for people learning English may be known as English as a second language (ESL), English as a foreign language (EFL ...

teachers can create lessons on English, baby! or use content from the site in their classrooms.

History

English, baby! was founded in 2000 when John Hayden returned from working for Hitachi and teaching English in Japan. He found that many students lacked a means of learning conversational English and started English, baby! to create an online experience similar to traveling in the English-speaking world or studying abroad. Hayden remains the company's CEO. In 2005, Versation Inc., a parent company for English, baby! was created. Versation also produces alumni management and recruitment software for colleges and universities. Following the popularity of sites like MySpace and

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

, English, baby! introduced social networking features in 2006, enabling members to create profiles on the site. In 2009, English, baby! registered its one millionth member. English, baby! has content-sharing partnerships with companies such

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...

in China, and

HOOP Magazine ''HOOP'' is an official NBA publication, produced by Professional Sports Publications. The magazine features in-depth interviews with players, and also highlights the players' lives off the court. Other popular sections include celebrity interv ...

in Japan.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://englishbaby.com
Versation.com
Social networking language-learning websites Organizations based in Portland, Oregon 2000 establishments in Oregon American educational websites