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A Host of Links for Learning Languages Free via the Web, with Software and Study Abroad

Wed, 10/22/2008 - 18:23 — small world servers

It's been a while since I've updated with the latest from Free Language. So here goes, in no particular order...

Achte Ausgabe des Freistaates Sprache Letter ist Veröffentlicht

Tue, 04/01/2008 - 22:37 — small world servers

Whenever I publish a new edition of the Free Language Letter I re-publish it here for many reasons, mainly to bring attention to the Free Language website, but also to offer subscribers here a quick summary of the content I am researching and producing at Free Language. So here goes...

Welcome to the Eighth Edition of The Free Language Letter.

25 new free resources for 12 languages have been added to the site. There are not as many updates as usual because I have been working behind the scenes on the new overview pages for each language.

Quick View of What's Inside

New! Afrikaans, Arabic, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese Overview Pages
Now Available: 34 Languages :)
New resources for Catalan, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish
New Social Language Learning Resources
New News Feeds in Catalan, French, German, Italian, Polish and Spanish
Featured Resource: Lingro Public Domain Dictionary and Online Translation Tool (and so much more)
Language Factoid

New! Afrikaans, Arabic, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese Overview Pages

As I did for the Spanish language before the last newsletter, I have now completed four more language overview sections. Now you will find new homes on Free Language for Afrikaans, Arabic, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese.

These overview pages are basically a single spot where all the resources for a given language are brought together for users to quickly view and navigate. I like to think they are quite packed with excellent resources for learning the respective languages. :) Some are more filled than others, and the overview pages do include an overview of the language, a list of resources for learning the language, podcasts, news resources, a tag cloud, InternetTV stations, recommended software, an aggregator link and feed and other such useful info.

Now Available: 34 Languages :)

With some of the major changes I have been working on, I have also slipped in a large number of new languages. Since the last newsletter, this includes Bengali, Catalan, Czech, Dutch, Filipino, Greek, Hausa, Hebrew, Hungarian, Latin, Polish, Swahili, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.

Before you get too excited, know that I cheated a bit on most of these and they list mainly resources for learning languages socially, and do not yet list specific resources for those languages. Catalan, Polish and Swedish are the exceptions with one specific resource for each plus the social resources. Specific resources for the rest will come as soon as I can manage!

OK, onto the latest resources added for specific languages and other such goodness.

Catalan

CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Catalan and 6 Other Languages

English

Blabbinit.com Blabbinit Learn English with Podcasts, Comics, Karaoke, Blogs, Videos and Chat
EnglishLingQ.com English LingQ Podcast with Free iTunes iPod MP3 Audio using Linguist Method by Steve Kaufmann
ECPod.com ECPod Upload and Share English and Chinese Video Podcasts with a Community and Find Language Exchange Friends
Babbel.com Virtual FlashCard Language Share Site w/English, French, German, Italian, Spanish Tools and Video Game-Like Interface

French

FrenchLingQ.com French LingQ Podcast with Free iTunes iPod MP3 Audio using Linguist Method by Steve Kaufmann
CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in French and 6 Other Languages
FSI-Language-Courses.com US Foreign Service Institute French Free Audio Lessons Downloads
Babbel.com Virtual FlashCard Language Share Site w/English, French, German, Italian, Spanish Tools and Video Game-Like Interface

German

GermanLingQ.com German LingQ Podcast with Free iTunes iPod MP3 Audio using Linguist Method by Steve Kaufmann
CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European News Magazine in German and 6 Other Languages
FSI-Language-Courses.com US Foreign Service Institute German Free Audio Lessons Downloads
Babbel.com Virtual FlashCard Language Share Site w/English, French, German, Italian, Spanish Tools and Video Game-Like Interface

Italian

CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Italian and 6 Other Languages
Babbel.com Virtual FlashCard Language Share Site w/English, French, German, Italian, Spanish Tools and Video Game-Like Interface

Japanese

JapaneseLingQ.com Japanese LingQ Podcast with Free iTunes MP3 Audio using Linguist Method by Steve Kaufmann

Mandarin Chinese

EnterZon.com Zon MSU Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) for Learning Mandarin Chinese Interactively
ECPod.com ECPod Upload and Share English and Chinese Video Podcasts with a Community and Find Language Exchange Friends

Polish

CaféBabel.com Café Babel European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Polish and 6 Other Languages

Portuguese

PortugueseLingQ.com Portuguese LingQ Podcast with iTunes MP3 Audio using Linguist Method by Steve Kaufmann
FSI-Language-Courses.com US Foreign Service Institute Portuguese Free Audio Lessons Downloads

Russian

RussianLingQ.com Russian LingQ Podcast with Free iTunes iPod MP3 Audio using Linguist Method by Steve Kaufmann

Spanish

SpanishLingQ.com Spanish LingQ Podcast with Free iTunes MP3 Audio using Linguist Method by Steve Kaufmann
CaféBabel.com Café Babel European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Spanish and 6 Other Languages
FSI-Language-Courses.com US Foreign Service Institute Spanish Free Audio Lessons Downloads
Babbel.com Virtual FlashCard Language Share Site w/English, French, German, Italian, Spanish Tools and Video Game-Like Interface

Swedish

SwedishLingQ.com Swedish LingQ Podcast with Free iTunes iPod MP3 Audio using Linguist Method by Steve Kaufmann

Social Language Learning

Below are the latest additions to the social language learning section.

Babbel.com Virtual FlashCard Language Share Site w/English, French, German, Italian, Spanish Tools and Video Game-Like Interface
Palabea.net Palabea the Speaking World Social Language Exchange Network with Videolectures, Podcasts, Images, Docs
Worldia.net Worldia International Community for Making Friends to Learn and Teach Foreign Languages via Skype

News Feeds

Below are the most recently added news feeds that Free Language syndicates.

CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Catalan and 6 Other Languages
CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in French and 6 Other Languages
CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European News Magazine in German and 6 Other Languages
CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Italian and 6 Other Languages
CaféBabel.com Café Babel European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Polish and 6 Other Languages
CaféBabel.com Café Babel European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Spanish and 6 Other Languages

Featured Resource

Lingro is a truly useful site with a decidedly free and open approach to multi-lingual dictionaries and online web translation. It provides users with quick and powerful online translation dictionaries and study tools, vocabulary lists and games. The site is "committed to building the Web's largest collection of open dictionaries."

I was struck by the straight-forward, no nonsense approach to open content. The site content is empowered and protected by the Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 License. In short, this means the multilingual dictionaries can be copied, adapted and distributed with proper attribution. Equally, content editors must allow their additions to continue to be worked with under the same license. Thus, in an open and free way, lingro appeals to the users for help in creating "relevant translations and definitions" for the these language translation dictionaries.

Since I published the original article, several new changes have been in the works at the Lingro headquarters. Here's a list on their blog of some of the major improvements. There is also a great sections for webmasters that explains how to integrate Lingro into your website. Also added is a new feature for showing each user's personalized reading/vocabulary profile.

They are really cranking it out over there and I send lots of good vibes to this crew that is working to improve Public Domain tools for language learning. :)

Continue reading about Lingro.

Language Factoid

Mandarin Chinese is a category of related Chinese dialects spoken across most of northern and south-western China. When taken as a separate language, as is often done in academic literature, the Mandarin dialects have more speakers than any other language.

Factoid thanks to Wikipedia.

看你下一次!

Chapman
Free Language
http://freelanguage.org

Newsletter for Learning Foreign Languages Publishes Seventh Edition

Fri, 02/22/2008 - 17:49 — small world servers

Welcome to the Seventh Edition of The Free Language Letter. Lots has happened since the Sixth Edition.

45 new free resources for 19 languages have been added to the site. See below for language-learning videos, multilingual podcasting, free software downloads, tools, browser extensions, OpenCourseWare, online communities and more.

New! Social Language-Learning Resource Section

Social language learning has become incredibly popular on the web as it has transcended language barriers in previously impossible ways.

For example, right now someone in Russia could be waiting to teach you Russian in exchange for your English skills. Or maybe your native language is Spanish and you want to learn Mandarin Chinese - there's someone out there for that as well! In fact, chances are there are hundreds or even thousands of potential language partners with whom you can achieve your collective language learning goals in a symbiotic fashion...

Visit the Social Foreign Language Learning Resource Section.

Below you will find the most recent additions to the social learning section.

LiveMocha.com Live Mocha Social Language Learning Course and Networking Website
MyHappyPlanet.com My Happy Planet Private Social Language-Learning Community
italki.com Free Skype VoIP and IM Language Partner Community
Dickinson College's Language-Exchanges.org Mixxer Free Skype Language Exchange Community
Lingopass.com Free Global Language Exchange Community
VoxSwap.com VoxSwap Online Instant Message and Voice Social Foreign Language Exchange with Forums and Groups

Spanish Leads the Way

As a new phase of information architecture unfolds at Free Language, Spanish is the first language to have an overview homepage. This is where you'll find a taste of the different Spanish language learning resources on the site in a nutshell.

Visit the Spanish homepage on Free Language.

The other 15 languages currently available on the site will follow shortly.

New Free Resources

Afrikaans

DigitalDialects.com Afrikaans Language-Learning Games and Activities

Arabic

Arabic Language Course for Arabic Learners Familiar with Arabic Script
DigitalDialects.com Arabic Language-Learning Games and Activities
FSI-Language-Courses.com US Foreign Service Institute Arabic Free Audio Lessons Downloads
SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese