Summary

The BBC is such an amazing resource for learning languages online for free that we've done a 6-minute video showing how you can effectively use this resource to learn at least the basics of 36+ languages.

BBC offers materials for the following languages: Albanian, Basque, Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Mandarin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian (FYROM), Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian

Enjoy and please leave comments to help us focus our efforts!

Screencast Video

Helpful Links for this Screencast

http://freelanguage.org/learn/bbc
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/english
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/french
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/german
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/greek
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/italian
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/portuguese
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/quickfix

Summary

This is our first humble effort to disseminate much of the good info found on this website via screencast videos that make it easy to get a picture of learning languages online for free while kicking back, watching and soaking it up rather than reading through loads of material.

With this video we offer a 10-minute intro to useful sites for learning languages online for free. The web tour covers essential resources for vocabulary, grammar, dictionaries, translation, verb conjugation, language exchange and more.

We have started a channel on YouTube for these screencasts: http://www.youtube.com/user/freelanguageorg - you can help us a lot by rating and commenting on these videos on YouTube

Please let us know what you would like to see in future videos, too. We have a series planned and will be releasing them here frequently - your input will be valued and appreciated!

Screencast Video

Links in this Screencast

http://quizlet.com
http://www.transparent.com/wotd
http://lingro.com
http://www.gutenberg.org
http://wikibooks.org
http://www.busuu.com
http://www.babbel.com
http://www.myhappyplanet.com
http://palabea.net
http://www.reverso.com
http://www.wordreference.com
http://www.google.com/translate
http://www.verbix.com
http://freelanguage.org/the-big-list

Summary

Wikibooks.org is a community for creating a free library of educational textbooks that anyone can edit. The Wikibook's Languages of Europe category can serve, for the language learner, educator and enthusiast, as an enormous doorway into the many European languages, both living and historical.

The European subcontinent has birthed and/or attracted an enormous variety of languages from many sub-branches of what linguists call the Indo-European languages.

Below you'll find direct links to a wide variety of European language open-content textbooks. These are free and open source, for everyone to use and benefit from. And collaborate on - especially language educators who have the knowledge to share with all through this open medium.

To boot, Wikibooks.org itself is available in a wide range of world languages!

From Wikibooks.org

Wikibooks Category: Languages of Europe

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

These language books concern Languages of Europe. See also Subject:Languages of Europe.

European Languages with Books or Pages

Albanian, Aragonese, Armenian, Austrian, Basque, Belarusian, Breton, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chechen, Croatian, Danish, Galician, Gothic, Greenlandic, High Icelandic, Hungarian, Høgnorsk, Icelandic, Insubric, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Leonese, Lowland Scots, Macedonian, Manx, Neapolitan, Norwegian, Old Church Slavonic, Polish, Provençal, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sicilian, Silesian, Slovene, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Welsh

This may be incomplete when you read this. Please check the Languages of Europe page for the latest content.

European Language Wikibooks Subcategories

Dutch language
English language
Finnish language
French language
German language
Greek language
Latin language
Lithuanian language
Portuguese language
Scottish Gaelic language
Spanish language
Yiddish language

Visit Wikibooks.org on Languages of Europe.
Wikipedia.org also has a category on Languages of Europe.

Summary

This (lengthy) article brings together a pile of Free Software (GNU GPL'd as Public Domain), freeware and shareware for language learning and reference for Mac OS X.

Software descriptions are taken from Apple Downloads. We will be adding more GPL applications soon.

Summary

The now-ubiquitious Wikipedia.org has some multilingual gems tucked away in its folds. This article serves to point out one of the most powerful polyglot culture feaures that Wikipedia offers: the myriad articles in a multitude of languages at a single click away.

For instance, while browsing the topic "Language" on Wikipedia in English, down the left navigation bar you will find entries for the same topic in literally dozens of languages:

Afrikaans, Alemannisch, العربية, Aragonés, Arpetan, Asturianu, Avañe'ẽ, Aymar aru, Azərbaycan, Bamanankan, Bân-lâm-gú, Basa Banyumasan, Башҡорт, Беларуская, Беларуская (тарашкевіца), Boarisch, Brezhoneg, Български, Català, Чăвашла, Cebuano, Česky, Cymraeg, Dansk, Deitsch, Deutsch, Diné bizaad, Eesti, Ελληνικά, Español, Esperanto, Euskara, فارسی, Français, Frysk, Furlan, Gaeilge, Gàidhlig, Galego, ગુજરાતી, 한국어, हिन्दी, Hrvatski, Ido, Ilokano, Bahasa Indonesia, Interlingua, isiXhosa, Íslenska, Italiano, עברית, Basa Jawa, ქართული, Kernewek, Кыргызча, Kiswahili, Коми, Kongo, Kreyòl ayisyen, Kurdî / كوردی, Latina, Latviešu, Lëtzebuergesch, Lietuvių, Limburgs, Lingála, Lojban, Magyar, Македонски, Malagasy, मराठी, مَزِروني, Bahasa Melayu, Nederlands, 日本語, Нохчийн, Norfuk / Pitkern, Norsk (bokmål), Norsk (nynorsk), Nouormand, Occitan, پښتو, Polski, Português, Ripoarisch, Română, Romani, Runa Simi, Русский, Саха тыла, Sámegiella, Sardu, Scots, Seeltersk, Sicilianu, Simple English, Slovenčina, Slovenščina, Српски / Srpski, Suomi, Svenska, Tagalog, தமிழ், Tatarça/Татарча, ไทย, Tiếng Việt, Тоҷикӣ, Türkçe, Türkmen, Українська, Volapük, Võro, Walon, Winaray, ייִדיש, 粵語,Zazaki, Žemaitėška, 中文

This list discludes several languages for which this particular computer does not have fonts installed. Many of you will see font-related issues for some of the languages above. Find out more here if you do.

How to find the links.

This image shows how to find what other languages are available for a given topic on Wikipedia:

These are not translations.

Each entry is an organically-written encyclopedia article on the topic of "Language" in a language. The time and space for language and culture persists!

It's quite intriguing surfing Wikipedia for multilingual goodness. If you'd like to hear more on this topic or have something of value to share, please comment on this article!

Use these to learn!

This feature of Wikipedia can be used to learn and teach languages. Find a topic of interest and study up on the vocabulary in your target language, build a linguistic knowledge of specific interests, get materials for educating, compare entries in different languages to bring out cultural nuances and more. There are many ways to twist and tweak this vast maze of plurilingual content!

From Website

A language is a dynamic set of visual, auditory, or tactile symbols of communication and the elements used to manipulate them. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon. Strictly speaking, language is considered to be an exclusively human mode of communication. Although other animals make use of quite sophisticated communicative systems, sometimes casually referred to as animal language, none of these are known to make use of all of the properties that linguists use to define language.

In Western Philosophy, language has long been closely associated with reason, which is also a uniquely human way of using symbols. In Ancient Greek philosophical terminology, the same word, logos, was used as a term for both language or speech and reason, and the philosopher Thomas Hobbes used the English word "speech" so that it similarly could refer to reason, as will be discussed below. More commonly though, the English word "language", derived ultimately from lingua, Latin for tongue, typically refers only to expressions of reason which can be understood by other people, most obviously by speaking.

Visit "Language" on Wikipedia in English and look at all the languages on the left navigation bar. Those are the languages for which the article you are viewing has equivalents.

Summary

Apple recently released a new section of the wildly popular iTunes Store available through their iTunes software. This new section is called iTunes U, and collects podcasts from numerous universities and colleges to make them available for free download to your iPod or other mp3 player, mobile/cell phone, etc.

One of the sub-sections of iTunes U is (note: you need iTunes for this link to work) specifically for languages and language education - yay!

Currently there are 60 podcasts (probably more by the time you read this) available regarding both learning foreign languages as well as general topics regarding language in general. Many of these podcasts are called OpenCourseWare, considered Open Learning materials released in the Public Domain. This means they can be used truly freely by teachers and educators without worries about copyright issues - a big plus! Be sure to look at the license for each podcast to make sure of the licensing.

The podcast-based current courses available through iTunes U are English (Medieval and ESL), French, German, Greek, Japanese, Hebrew (various), Italian (Language and Theater), Romanian, Spanish (various) plus Language Technology and Lectures, Interviews, Clubs, Lectionary at Lunch and Storytelling Colombian Style. There are many more, too.

This is really exciting to see at this professional education level. Of couse, add this to the 982 language podcasts in the "regular" (non-iTunes U) iTunes store and that makes over a whopping 1,000 language-related podcasts for download through iTunes - all free. :)

Watch the iTunes U intro video below to learn more about this new feature:

From iTunes U

iTunes U puts the power of the iTunes Store to work for colleges and universities, so users can easily search, download, and play course content just like they do music, movies, and TV shows.

Always in session.

iTunes U delivers easy, 24/7 access to educational content from hundreds of top colleges, universities, and educationally focused organizations across the country. And it’s accessible to anyone with a Mac or PC.

Learning to go.

Students can sync iTunes U content with any iPod or iPhone, so they can go right on learning while they grab a meal, walk to class, or work out at the gym.

Keeps them motivated.

Engaging students on their home turf, iTunes U offers audio and video that make subjects more vivid than any printed page ever could.

Open-minded.

iTunes U lets schools open all or part of their content to the public, from parents to alumni to anyone with a love of learning.

Find out more about iTunes U.