Summary

Just Vocabulary is an English vocabulary audio podcast that introduces words from the GRE, SAT and TOEFL lists. The podcast has been going strong since 2005, which is more than most podcasts can claim! You can jump straight to the audio files here.

Just Vocabulary introduces two words per episode and explains them in detail including antonyms, synonyms and example sentences. There are literally hundreds of episodes to choose from, providing listeners with hours and hours of content and hundreds of vocabulary terms. It's really quite impressive. :)

Of course, it's free to subscribe and there is also a newsletter, study quizzes/games and a map of where listeners tune in from. Also available for a nominal price are very useful study guides for iPod.

These audio lessons aren't just for people learning English! With words like quixotic, immure, abstemious and surreptitious, these lessons are incredibly useful for native English speakers preparing for SATs, GREs, college level English courses or just interested in expanding their vocabulary.

From Website

Welcome to Just Vocabulary's new website. We added lots of great stuff, like the Just Vocabulary Map, our new iPod Study Tools, a new game "the quiz" and much more. If you are new to the Just Vocabulary podcast, read more about the show here

About Just Vocabulary

Coming to you from Cape Town, South Africa! Just Vocabulary is an online audio-show/podcast, that introduces 2 words per show. It's aimed at ESL (English as second language) students. It's free, it's short, it's portable and it's on demand. No matter where you are, you can improve your English on the go! Educate yourself and subscribe for free!

The Host

Jan Folmer (1979) is the host of the Just Vocabulary podcast. He lived most of his life in The Netherlands and he moved to Cape Town in South Africa end 2004. English is his second language, which is why he understands the need to improve your vocabulary beyond your basic high school vocabulary. If you have any comments or suggestions, e-mail Jan

Show Format

The duration of each episode is about 5 minutes. During each episode, we introduce 2 English words. First, we give 3 to 5 example sentences, followed by the explanation of the meaning of the word. Synonyms and Antonyms are given for most of the words, and if it useful we give you the history of the word. At the end of the show we always review 1 word from previous episodes.

Most of the words are from the GRE word list which makes Just Vocabulary ideal for study purposes.

Test yourself!

Just Vocabulary wants your to be successfull on the SAT, TOEFL or GRE. Prepare yourself with the online quiz.

Frequently asked questions

Here you find all our Frequently Asked Questions, structured per topic. The questions are ordered per particular topic. If your question is not answered below, email your question and we'll answer it within 24 HRS.

Testimonials

All over the world people are listening to Just Vocabulary. Read what our listeners say about the podcast. And please don't forget to let us know what you think of the show.

Study Tools

We are really chuffed about the Study Tools that we developed to make your learning even more effective, and a lot more fun.

Use our flash cards on your iPod wherever you go to test your vocabulary!

Visit JustVocabulary.com

Subscribe

Subscribe to Just Vocabulary Podcast.
View Just Vocabulary Podcast Feed on Free Language.

Summary

ECPod is a booming site that has lots of different things all in one place. Mainly, the site offers a place for members of the community to upload and share videos that help others to learn Mandarin Chinese and English. Topics for the videos on the site range from Grammar to Humor to Kids to Whatever. There is a large variety of videos available on the site, and growing daily.

The site also offers a way to facilitate finding language partners for exchange and practice.

All in all, the site seems to be growing quickly into a vast repository of video materials for both English and Mandarin Chinese learners and teachers. Bravo!

From Website

Welcome to the ECpod community, where members from all walks of life in China and abroad teach each other Chinese or English and so much more. ECpod prides ourselves on the intrinsic value of not just book-learning but all the other qualitative factors that come from cultural exchange. You might learn the language, but we bet you will also learn cultural innuendo and colloquialisms. And guess what? It's free!

ECpod stands for "English Chinese Podcast" where our website's video clips are "Video Podcasted" by our members. While ECpod began as an English-and-Mandarin-only website, by popular demand we now accept clips in other Chinese dialects as well (for eg: Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkien and etc). We realized cultural exchange wouldn't be complete without the inclusion of a rich variety of Chinese dialects which tend to be characteristic of different parts of Chinese populated-areas. Furthermore, some dialects will be extinct within one or two generations. Preservation of Chinese culture and history is nothing if it does not also preserve the dialects spoken by some of the ancient families of yore.

Website Objectives

ECpod's main objective is to offer excellent interactive teaching tools for members to learn Chinese and English language. Other objectives of ECpod include:

* build a community of individuals with similar interest of learning a foreign language,
* bring the world closer together and allow members to meet and interact with people from different cultural background,
* to promote chinese cultures to the world,
* to promote English cultures to the world,
* most importantly, we strive to make education FUN and FREE !

Why learn Chinese?

(the reasons can be endless but here are some......)

Napolean Bonaparte said, "China is a sleeping giant. Let her lie and sleep, for when she awakens she will astonish the world." Little did he know......

* China with its 1.5 billion people has the world's fastest growing economy and effectively Chinese/putonghua is used by almost one third of the world's population.
* Now most foreign companies cannot resist not entering China to set up factories that tap a seemingly endless supply of cheap labor or to partner local Chinese companies for distributing their products in China. Whether you are looking to set up factories in China, pitching cross-border IPO mandates or lobbying with the Chinese government for business licenses, it always helps to speaka-the-language!
* Even if you are living on the other end of the planet, you can't escape China. China's affluent ranks are among the fastest growing in the world and these individuals are quickly upgrading their lifestyles and vacationing all over the world. Wherever in the world you are, you will probably be swamped by at least reasonably wealthy Chinese tourists willing to spend. It can only be to your advantage to sell your products or services to them in Chinese.
* Your company is expanding into China and will consider sending you there to run the show......No harm picking up the language now.
* And also the first step to understanding the beauty of the chinese ancient culture is to learn the language.

Why learn English?

(not difficult to understand why English is so important in today's information age......)

* Nearly a quarter of the world's population speaks some English. That includes around 400m who speak it as their mother tongue and about the same number who speak it fluently as their second language. (Source: The Economist, Dec 2006)
* Even though it does not have the greatest number of speakers in the world (as compared to Chinese), it is the most widely used language in the world, and it will be used by more people in the future.
* English is the major language of news and information in the world. It is the language of business and government even in some countries where it is a minority language.
* Three quarters of all telex messages and telegrams are sent in English. 80% of computer data are processed and stored in English.
* English is very important for international travel. Travel more easily and communicate with people wherever you go — English is spoken in more than 100 countries.

Visit ECPod.com

Summary

It's difficult to "summarize" the booming expansion that has occurred with the Kaufmann crew since "The Linguist" appeared on Free Language over a year ago. That is why Free Language has numerous articles on the various websites and resources available through multilinguist Steve Kaufmann's web entelechy, including the many LinqQ [liŋk] podcasts, the LingQ method, revisiting The Linguist on Language and why not throw in a little thelinguist.com love, too. :)

This particular podcast is EnglishLingQ, a roughly weekly podcast with mp3 audio content for English language learners. Transcripts of the podcasts are available through LingQ.

From Website

What is EnglishLingQ?

First of all, the name itself (which is pronounced English Link) needs a little explaining. The first part, “English”, is fairly obvious since we teach English. LingQ is the name of our online learning system which you can find at LingQ.com. At LingQ you’ll study many different languages in a fun, community atmosphere. The “Ling” in LingQ comes from TheLinguist.com the people behind LingQ. Lastly, the “Q” is important because it forms the speech bubble in our logo and throughout our site and because it makes “lingq” sound like “link” (we think!) which is what our system does for you.

At EnglishLingQ...

. we LingQ you to a world of real English content
. we LingQ you to our revolutionary learning tools
. we LingQ you to a community of fellow English learners

Our podcasts may contain interviews, articles, or audiobook excerpts but are most often just general conversations in English. We will usually talk about topics of general interest. Please do send us feedback and topic requests. We’re always happy to hear from you.

After you listen to the podcast, sign up for a free account at LingQ (l-i-n-g-q.com) and study the full transcript using LingQ's revolutionary learning tools.

At LingQ, you may also want to submit writing for correction or join live 1 on 1 and group discussions with our tutors. Plus you will find thousands more podcasts with transcript. Come and find out what LingQ is all about!

Of course, even if you don’t decide to become a member, you can continue listening to the podcasts as long as you like.

Visit EnglishLingQ.com

Subscribe

Subscribe to EnglishLingQ Podcast.
Subscribe to EnglishLingQ Podcast via iTunes.

LingQ Podcast Network

EnglishLingQ
FrenchLingQ
GermanLingQ
JapaneseLingQ
PortugueseLingQ
RussianLingQ
SpanishLingQ
SwedishLingQ

Summary

Blabbinit offers numerous useful resources for intermediate and above learners to practice and improve their English skills. Among these resources are podcasts, videos, karaoke, blogs and a chat room.

This website was brought to my attention by someone who contacted me through Free Language. Here is what she said about her experience using Blabbinit:

I would like to suggest a great resource. I found a helpful site online that really teaches English in a fun way. I enjoy listening to their podcasts because they are not boring. In fact it is the best that I have ever listened to. This site is called Blabbinit. They have videos to help with pronunciation and also even a Karaoke section to practice English through singing. There is a chatroom and a great community section where you can write anything in the forum and the members can make their own blogs. I look around a lot for good websites to help me practice and this is the best I have found yet.

In order to create the online karaoke experience, Blabbinit uses music videos from YouTube and then provides the lyrics for users to sing along.

The site also uses comic strips to explain certain concepts to English learners. View a sample comic.

As this article goes to press, Blabbinit is still in its infancy. It seems to have gone live right around the beginning of 2008. The site was created with Drupal, the same software that Free Language uses. :)

From Website

Visit Blabbinit.com

Summary

Though technically not a "podcast" (no RSS feed for subscription, only email) his is a useful resource for folks interested in finding podcasts in English on a variety of topics - and having transcripts to work with!

Designed for intermediate to advanced English learners, this podcast provides materials that aid the learner in increasing vocabulary and listening skills.

From Resource

Subscribing to the interesting, relevant and topical podcasts at Englishmate is one of the best ways for you to improve your listening and reading comprehension, your vocabulary, your confidence and your general knowledge of the world around you. Because our podcasts are short and played on-demand - whenever you have free time - they suit the busy lives of today's students and office workers. We recommend to our listeners to listen and read the podcast whenever you receive a new one in your email, and if you have enough time, you can listen to more podcasts from the archives. Generally speaking, 2-3 podcasts a week should improve your English dramatically in just a few months.

The Englishmate English podcast (an mp3 audio file) is a free, 5-10 minute presentation made by our professional language coaches and is sent along with a transcript to your email address every time we release a new one (usually every 3-4 days). The coaches have a lively and fun approach, making your learning experience enjoyable and interesting as they talk about different topics on every show – related to both general English and business English. And don't forget, because it's an mp3, you can listen whenever you want.

It's a great way to improve your listening skills, your accent and your vocabulary. All you need is a computer, an internet connection and headphones, and you can listen anywhere, anytime!

Peter McKinnon

A native of Boston, Massachusetts, McKinnon graduated from Suffolk University, MA, with a bachelor degree in Journalism and the Arts. After graduating, he taught English for 3 years in both China and Japan, and since then has continued learning Chinese. Asian culture and history are his key interests, and in the future he would like to pursue a career as a writer living and working in the East – after he gets some solid life experience. McKinnon has been a part-time podcast presenter for Englishmate in Boston for 6 months, and enjoys his work. Currently, McKinnon is also a contributor/writer for the Boston Globe

Lucy Edwards

From Birmingham, England, Edwards graduated from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, with a degree in Commerce/Law. Having grown up in England, then moving to Australia to do her degree, she now calls America home – at least while she's here in Boston making podcasts with us. Lucy sees her future as a lawyer and wishes to specialize in international law, a career that we are helping her to pursue by supporting her financially with part-time work. Her favorite TV show is Boston Legal and in her spare time she enjoys reading crime and thriller novels and occasionally writing podcast scripts for us.

We also often invite other guests to co-host the show, for variety and to keep it interesting.

Link

Visit EnglishMate.com.cn

Subscribe

Subscription by email only. Visit the site to subscribe.