Summary

We're pretty big on Babbel, the online language learning platform, and wanted to let Free Language readers know that in June they released a new browser-based speech recognition feature.

This unique tool encourages users to practice the language they are learning out loud and gives them the opportunity to fine-tune their pronunciation. Some traditional e-learning software includes this sort of tool, but none of them do it online in quite the same way. It is also one of the first applications to incorporate the new Adobe Flash Player 10.1.

Language Learning System Babbel Introduces Speech Recognition

• Foreign language pronunciation training online
• Real-time technology based on the new Adobe Flash Player 10.1
• Speech recognition with Babbel iPhone apps also planned

Babbel integrates a unique speech recognition tool into its language learning system. The feature encourages practice and gives the opportunity to fine-tune pronunciation skills. This adds yet another dynamic dimension to online language learning.

The browser-based speech analysis gives learners an instant evaluation, letting them know how close their pronunciation is to that of a native speaker. Included in all Babbel courses, the feature will take effect automatically. No installation is necessary beyond the latest Flash Player.

Active speech

Many students of foreign languages, regardless of their level, lack speaking practice and often shy away from direct communication. Breaking out of the shell can take courage that is not always at hand. The idea of the speech recognition feature is to give them the confidence to open their mouths. "We're encouraging learners to speak and improve their pronunciation with a technical tool before they have to face real-life situations", says Markus Witte, Managing Director of Babbel.

In a new kind of exercise integrated into the Babbel courses, learners hear a word or phrase and are prompted to repeat it back. The quality of the pronunciation is then rated on a scale of 0-100. A result of 50 or higher means that the utterance is generally understandable. Beyond that point, the user can continue to polish their pronunciation to desired perfection.

New technology from audio software experts

The Babbel founders have an extensive background in audio technology. Among them are the original developers of TRAKTOR, the world renowned DJ software. This professional-level technology has been channeled into the online language learning system Babbel and made accessible for anyone online.

The new speech recognition tool marks a milestone in online language learning and underscores Babbel’s technological lead. It works directly with the popular Flash Player and is the first to make use of its new capabilities

Another implementation of speech recognition technology is planned for the recently released Babbel iPhone apps.

About Babbel

Babbel is an online language learning system. Along with the website, there are apps for iPhone and a downloadable vocabulary trainer. Both beginners and returning learners will find interactive exercises for studying English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese and Swedish. Among diverse kinds of courses there are Basic and Advanced Vocabulary, grammatical exercises and pronunciation training. More than 700,000 people from over 200 countries have already registered with Babbel, while the iPhone apps have had at least 100,000 downloads.

We have reviewed Babbel for the seven languages it's currently working for. Have a look at our articles to find out much more about this unique language-learning platform:

Babbel English
Babbel French
Babbel German
Babbel Italian
Babbel Portuguese
Babbel Spanish
Babbel Swedish

Summary

Lang-8 is a free, unique and popular website for learners of many languages to come together and correct one another's writing. Native speakers review writing submitted by learners who wish to improve. You can help and be helped!

The free tools provided in the interface are straightforward and tuned in such a way that it's quite easy to correct another user's writing, as well as to see exactly how others have corrected yours.

Lang-8's interface also provides social tools for interacting amongst users, including a way to find language matches to suit your needs.

Lang-8 has a large user community, coming from over 180 countries around the world, and together they provide access to help in some of the more exotic languages for which it's often hard to find resources, much less free help. Yes, there really are plenty of people out there willing to help you improve your writing for free! In turn, you can choose to help others as well.

Also available is a mobile version of the website.

From Website

Real Interactions

Learn from real native speakers excited to help you with the language that you are learning.

International Community

Community members from all over the world make Lang-8 a fun, social experience.

Keep Track

Tag and keep track of the things you learn from native speakers. Refer back and remember!

See Results

By using Lang-8 you will get better, make friends, and see real results. There’s no better help than native speakers.

Lang-8 Intro Video

Visit Lang-8.com

A guest article by author Susanna Zaraysky.

The radio, TV and You Tube are free. Use them to learn languages for free.

Music engages more parts of the brain than language does. Use music to help you learn and remember your new language.

Just turn on your radio, relax and get in the groove of your new tongue. Paying attention to media in your target language introduces you to the phonetical and grammatical structure of your target language. After you get used to the melodies of your new languages, then you can insert the grammar and vocabulary. Listen first. Speak later.

Enjoy the learning process and you will learn much more.

Tips on How to Learn a Foreign Language Using The Media for Free

1. Listen Carefully

Learning a new language means you have to change your key and tune. Dancing the cha-cha to waltz music is like speaking a new language, while still using the rhythm of your mother tongue. Let yourself take in the sounds of the language as though you were listening to a new piece of music. Even if you are just a beginner and barely know any words, you can still learn by listening. Pay attention to how people speak. Does it seem like they are reading a phone number or rattling of a list of numbers? Are they angry? Happy? Sometimes, you have to shut off your brain and inclination to interpret to analyze. Listen to the words spoken and to your intuition.

2. Relax and Just Listen

Find music in your target language that you like. It does not matter if at first you do not understand the lyrics. You may start singing along without even knowing what you are singing. You are not only learning the rhythm of the language, you are learning new vocabulary.

Relax and close your eyes. Turn off the lights. Lie down or sit in a comfortable position. Do not try to understand the words, just listen. You might fall asleep or daydream. Give yourself the time to simply listen and not do anything else. Your mind needs to be calm in order to absorb the sounds. Your ears need no other distractions to let them properly hear all the high, medium and low frequencies of the language. Do this regularly.

3. As You Listen Write Down the Lyrics

Listen to music with the lights on, your eyes open and a pencil in hand. Write the lyrics of the songs while listening. You will have to pause the music and rewind or repeat many times to get the words down. Some words will be hard to write because they may be idioms or slang that you have not learned yet, but just write as much as you can understand.

Do not be frustrated with obscure words. Compare the lyrics you noted with the original song and see how well you were able to understand the song. Some CDs come with the lyrics inside the CD case. If you do not have them, look for them online on lyrics websites. Once you have your version of the lyrics and the original, you can see how much you were able to understand from listening to the song. Use your dictionary to translate the words you do not know.

4. Listen to the Radio in this New Language

When you start listening to radio broadcasts, the radio announcers may sound like they are emitting a stream or storm of sounds and not individual words. In time, you will hear familiar words repeated and will learn to distinguish them. You can actively listen to the radio attentively and take notes, listen to it in the background or just close your eyes to listen without straining yourself to understand.

5. Find You Tube videos in other languages

Go on You tube and find music in your target language that you like. Some videos even come with subtitles in the target language or in translation. Look for the lyrics of the song by doing a search online. Type in the name of the song and “lyrics”. The videos may also help you understand what the song is about. This is especially important for visual learners.

6. Watch TV Daily!

Let's say you are learning Spanish. You have found a local Spanish language TV station in your area or you are watching the national Univision news. Even without knowing all the words, you will be able to get the gist of some of the news reports. The images and video footage of events already tell you what the news announcers are talking about. Tune into how they are speaking and the words they are using to describe the images on screen.

Even if you cannot watch TV all the time, it is all right to do errands around the house as you listen to the TV in the background. Think of the TV as background music like you would hear in a cafê or restaurant. Even though it is not at the forefront of your consciousness, your brain is still processing it and getting used to the flow of the language.

So go forth, turn up the music and turn on the language-learning!

You can find out more info about Language is Music online at:

www.languageismusic.com
www.createyourworldbooks.com

About the Author

Susanna speaks seven languages (English, Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Serbo-Croatian) with excellent accents because she learn languages like she learns music. She has also studied Hungarian, Hebrew and Arabic. After teaching English in Argentina, Bosnia and the United States, she realized how to make foreign language learning fun and easy through listening exercises and music.

Susanna's Books

Language is Music
Travel Happy, Budget Low

For those interested in investing in their Spanish education, Freestyle Spanish is a new project to put together all of the existing Spanish language products in one place so people know what they're looking for.

Also of intrigue is an emergent language learning method, called the Freestyle Spanish Method.

From Website

The days of one-stop language learning solutions are over. Spanish does not exist in a vacuum. Now you bring together what you need to learn the Spanish you want to speak. You can manage this by basing your studies on the kinds of things you want to read, hear, talk about and perhaps see.

The Freedom to Choose

* Use good tools and materials to build a solid foundation in Spanish.
* Cater Spanish study topics to your individual interests and needs.
* Create a steady flow of interesting Spanish content from wherever you choose.
* Grow your personal vocabulary by exposing yourself to this content consistently.
* Work to become comfortable writing and talking about your chosen interests in Spanish.
* Keep it real and put it to practice through language exchange.

Visit Freestyle Spanish.

Summary

Babbel combines multi-media visual and auditory learning, social networking interactivity, sound educational methodology, mobile apps (for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad - Babbel Mobile) and desktop goodies (Babbel Refresh) in a one-stop integrated platform for learning Italian.

They've very recently expanded their platform by adding loads of new features to the Web interface as well as mobile and desktop apps to enhance your Italian learning efforts online - and take them mobile:

Babbel Refresh: Bite-sized units catered to your individual Italian learning program, spaced out appropriately and delivered to your via a free desktop app! (Free, works with Windows and Mac.)

Babbel Mobile: Synchronizes your Babbel account with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, allowing you to study Italian on your mobile device - even if you're offline! Babbel Mobile is free to download for everybody, and access to the Vocabulary is available for free for those who already are subscribers to Babbel. If you're not on Babbel, you can purchase the vocabulary as a stand alone app, which has 3000 words and phrases, for a onetime $7.99 USD.

Babbel's interface is the definition of eye candy, works on any modern Web browser, loads quickly and runs solidly. The dynamic learning system reviews you on terms and phrases you've learned while seamlessly incorporating new ones on topics you select. This guarantees you'll be interested in what you're studying - and that it will be the most applicable to your specific needs and goals.

Part of the Babbel learning system involves media-rich (and user shared) virtual flash cards. The flash card stacks are organized into "packages" (groups of cards) that treat common themes (eg, youth hostels, winter sports, restaurants and eating out, fruits and vegetables, clothing, standard greetings, giving and receiving compliments, etc). With input and contributions from the users, these packages get consistently better as more contributions flow in.

Furthermore, an intelligent system organizes all the vocabulary words you've learned. You get a comprehensive overview of everything you've studied - and it signals which are your problem words so you'll know you need to practice them again. This syncs seamlessly with the Babbel Refresh desktop application as well, using your personalized Vocabulary list to calculate reminders for what's best to review next and how often. Wow - talk about helpful!

Add to all of this Babbel's social networking tools, including the ability to hook up with other users interested in sharing and exchanging language skills, and you have a dynamic Italian-education platform that covers all the bases.

In addition to Italian, Babbel is available for learning Brazilian Portuguese, English, French, German, Spanish and Swedish.

So try a Babbel lesson free and see if it works for you. You can select one of various options for your free lesson, too. Chances are you'll be up and learning in no time, making friends to share with, quizzing yourself on the go and progressing more quickly than you thought possible.

Treat yourself and have some fun learning Italian - go Babbel!

Free or Subscription?

Let's face it: finding resource online for learning Italian is not quite like Spanish or French - it can be tough and take valuable time you could be using to learn! Thus it's well worth subscribing to a paid service to truly open the doors to your virtual classroom.

Having researched and tested free and paid options extensively, we definitely say that Babbel sits right at the top of your options - it's incredibly fun and intuitive, offers online and offline solutions and is amazingly fairly priced: between $6.62 and $11.95 USD per month depending on your subscription option. (Compare that with $539 for the full Rosetta Stone Italian course, for example. You could use Babbel for 67+ months at that price!)

For most people's needs, we recommend the 3-month option which runs $7.95 per month. It's a great way to leap ahead.