Learning a Language From an Expert, on the Web.

The message from the 14-year-old Tunisian skateboarder was curt. ''Totally wrong,'' he said of my French. My conjugation was off and I should study spelling. On a scale of one to five, he said, my French practice essay was worth a one. Then he disappeared into the anonymity of the Internet. If there is any truth to the old Russian proverb that enemies parrot yes while friends say no, then it is easy to form fast friendships on Livemocha.com, a Web site devoted to helping people learn languages by swapping messages over the Internet and then correcting each other's messages. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]