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
Cantonese
FSI-Language-Courses.com US Foreign Service Institute Cantonese Free Audio Lessons Downloads
English
English Language Learning and Teaching Article on Wikipedia
LanguageGuide.org English Language Guide with Images and Audio Recordings for Learners
lingro.com lingro Free and Open Multilingual Dictionary, Online Translation, Vocabulary Lists and Games
French
DigitalDialects.com French Language-Learning Games and Activities
BitesizedLanguages.com Bitesized Languages Improve Your French, Spanish or Portuguese Skills with Daily Emails
SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese
lingro.com lingro Free and Open Multilingual Dictionary, Online Translation, Vocabulary Lists and Games
German
OneMinuteLanguages.com One Minute Language Lessons for Polish, Irish, German and Russian
lingro.com lingro Free and Open Multilingual Dictionary, Online Translation, Vocabulary Lists and Games
Hindi
ISpeakHindi.com I Speak Hindi Website, Podcasts, Dictionary and Resources
Indonesian
LearningIndonesian.com Podcast is a Fun and Easy Way to Learn Indonesian Online
Irish
OneMinuteLanguages.com One Minute Language Lessons for Polish, Irish, German and Russian
Italian
lingro.com lingro Free and Open Multilingual Dictionary, Online Translation, Vocabulary Lists and Games
Japanese
JaplishPodcast.com Japlish Podcast of Funny Phrases in English and Japanese Languages
SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese
Korean
SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese
Mandarin Chinese
A Torrent File for 500 Free Mandarin Chinese Audio Podcast Lessons from ChinesePod.com
nciku.com nciku Free Online Mandarin Chinese Handwriting Recognition, Conversations, Radical Dictionary
A Pinyin.info Article on Most Difficult and Challenging Aspects of Learning Mandarin Chinese
Learn Mandarin Chinese Videos on YouTube AskBenny Channel
Learn Chinese on YouTube with Mandarin Videos from ActiveChinese
FSI-Language-Courses.com US Foreign Service Institute Mandarin Chinese Free Audio Lessons Downloads
SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese
BitesizedLanguages.com Bitesized Languages Improve Your French, Spanish or Portuguese Skills with Daily Emails
Polish
OneMinuteLanguages.com One Minute Language Lessons for Polish, Irish, German and Russian
lingro.com lingro Free and Open Multilingual Dictionary, Online Translation, Vocabulary Lists and Games
Portuguese
BitesizedLanguages.com Bitesized Languages Improve Your French, Spanish or Portuguese Skills with Daily Emails
Russian
DigitalDialects.com Russian Language-Learning Games and Activities
OneMinuteLanguages.com One Minute Language Lessons for Polish, Irish, German and Russian
Spanish
BitesizedLanguages.com Bitesized Languages Improve Your French, Spanish or Portuguese Skills with Daily Emails
Spanish-Podcast.com Voices en Español Conversational Spanish Podcast
Spanish-Podcast.com Voices en Español Bilingual Blog
SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese
Swedish
SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese
Vietnamese
SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese
Teach English
Our Teach English Section is growing with two new resources added recently.
English Language Learning and Teaching Article on Wikipedia
LanguageGuide.org English Language Guide with Images and Audio Recordings for Learners
Cool Free Tools and Multilingual Resources
We added some cool tools and multilingual resource links, including Firefox browser extensions for improving your productivity in foreign languages online!
Quick Translation Firefox Extension to Translate Single Words in 17+ Languages
Foreign Language Translation Extensions/Tools/Plugins/Add-Ons for the Firefox Web Browser
Langmaker.com Language Maker Website on Auxiliary and Constructed Languages
Word2Word.com Website
The Alternative Dictionary: Slang, Profanities, Insults and Vulgarisms from all the World
Instructional Foreign Language Videos
ExpertVillage.com Instructional Videos on Learning Foreign Languages
YouTube Video Language Lessons at LanguageTube.org
Multilingual Podcasting Resources
SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese
OneMinuteLanguages.com One Minute Language Lessons for Polish, Irish, German and Russian
Language News
United Nations Declares 2008 the International Year of Languages
To see the news in many different languages, check out our syndicated multilingual news section.
OpenCourseWare, Open University and Distance Language Learning
Download Free Open University Courses from MIT OpenCourseWare Foreign Languages and Literatures Department
About.com Distance Learning Free Online Language Courses
open.ac.uk OpenLearn LearningSpace Open University with Free Courses in Modern Languages
Free Language Education Software
BYKI.com Download Free Language Software for Learning 42 Languages!
Featured Resource
Mango Languages is fantastic! Truly one of the top language-learning resources available online. Indeed, it may well be the most user-friendly, feature-rich, well-organized and free resource for learning languages online.
Mango Languages offers an amazing amount of totally free lessons and courses for learning a growing number of languages. At the time this article is going to press, these include Brazilian Portuguese, English for Polish speakers, English for Spanish speakers, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Pig Latin!, Russian and Spanish.
Continue reading...
Current Research
I am researching and drafting articles regarding foreign language study in Second Life. This metaverse approach to teaching and learning has amazing potential. Subscribe to Free Language's RSS feed to be sure you get new articles as they're hot off the press.
Language Factoid
Russian (русский) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages.
Factoid thanks to Wikipedia.
Пока!
Chapman
Free Language
http://freelanguage.org
