Summary

Hailing from Beijing, Popup Chinese offers refreshing, high-quality audio podcast lessons for Mandarin Chinese learners: free! Carefully planned and well-recorded, these lessons are professional, useful and fun. The Popup Chinese team is young, vibrant and eager to guide Chinese learners to true fluency in the language.

Popup Chinese is truly one of the most exciting language podcast resources to hit the scene for any language! In addition to offering free audio lessons for listening and download, they also provide a host of amazinly powerful free software tools including a user-editable English-Chinese-Pinyin dictionary, an excellent Chinese text annotator, a steady flow of annotated news in Mandarin Chinese and a Firefox English-Chinese-Pinyin dictionary plugin. And for those serious about speaking Chinese, a reasonable paid upgrade that includes lesson transcripts, supplemental exercises, a personalized vocabulary training software tool and access to a vibrant user community.

All in all, the Popup Chinese team and user community are incredibly dedicated and helpful! Get started (or keep learning!) now by immersing yourself with this talented, friendly and active Mandarin Chinese learning website: Popup Chinese

From Website

An Institution in Chinese Learning...

Popup Chinese dates back to 2001, when work on our Chinese learning technology began at the University of California, Berkeley. Our service developed rapidly during the SARS crisis in 2003 with the first web-based edition of our distinctive popup annotator going online later that year, hosted from a budget server based in Beijing.

Over the next few years, our learning systems attracted a following among bilingual translators. We began to release data for use by the open source community, and eventually run ancilliary reference services including NewsinChinese, and the Adso Textbook project. By late 2006 our textbook portal was garnering rave reviews as the premiere site for students with a serious interest in advanced mandarin acquisition.

Popup Chinese is our latest step forward, and an effort to bring the same excellence in language acquisition to students at earlier stages in the learning process. From our hutong in downtown Beijing, we produce materials that give foreign speakers the confidence to engage with China in mandarin: the language of the 21st century.

We encourage you to subscribe to the site and accelerate your learning. In addition to our basic subscriptions, we're delighted to offer custom learning packages to individuals and companies with unique training needs.

Visit Popup Chinese.

Summary

Studio Chinese allows learners to engage instantly a realtime education environment for the Chinese language.

Online tools include audio, video, screencasts, exercises, etc. Live, on-demand sessions are also available.

Currently, Studio Chinese is offering a Free Trial Lesson to get the flow going. You can use this an an opportunity to start communicating in minutes with a real Chinese instructor - especially good if you are a total beginner. If you feel good about the lesson, you can continue with a paid subscription.

One noteworthy detail about Studio Chinese's program is that all subscription packages include unlimited connections with live teachers!

From Website

When it comes to Mandarin, speaking is believing.

1. Discover
Each StudioChinese session starts with you discovering the language through an interactive mix of audio, video and exercises. You’ll learn about how to use Mandarin in a specific situation while preparing the material you’ll use when you connect in the live conversation with one of our tutors.

2. Connect
Connecting to your instructor is easy. Log in, press connect, and that’s it – we’ll be there, ready to start your live session. Having live, relaxed conversations is the key to your progress. Moreover, our tutors will guide you without interrupting the flow of the conversation and help you build your own sentences, so you get the most out of your time online.

3. Review
Hearing yourself back shows you where and how to perfect what you’ve learnt. StudioChinese records your conversations, carefully marking and annotating areas to focus on. Hone in on your individual needs, so you can move on quickly and efficiently. If you want, download your conversations to your computer or mp3 player to improve your skills for the next session.

StudioChinese is designed for:

• Students ready to explore China
• Business travelers working in China
• Travelers preparing for ChinaThree simple steps in each session:
• Discover Chinese with online content
• Connect with a native Mandarin speaker
• Review feedback on conversations

Visit StudioChinese.com

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

The Rocket Chinese product from Rocket Languages has proved to be a highly successful, fun! and fast method for beginners to learn the Chinese language. The Rocket Languages team has designed a multi-faceted course including extensive audio lessons, software and learning games, grammar lessons with audio clips and a member's forum for help on demand.

As with any Rocket Languages product, try it out and if you don't like the results, you can get all your cash back for 60 days after you place an order. No risk there, and the potential to truly learn a new language!

From Website

Rocket Chinese is designed to be the easiest to follow system for learning how to speak Chinese available. It is an interactive course that makes you want to study. Also, it's practical. You'll discover exactly what to say in virtually all situations.

With Rocket Chinese, you are going to learn Chinese rapidly, effectively, and easily. You are going to be able to speak at a restaurant, at an airport, with new friends...

With the Rocket Languages Chinese Program you get:

A Rocket Languages Interactive Audio Course that prompts you to speak Chinese in a conversational and friendly way so that the words just stick in your mind! Learn a language the easy way!

Mega Software Learning Games that are specifically designed to increase your vocabulary and understanding of Chinese and allow you to have fun in the process!

Fully illustrated and easy-to-follow Grammar Lessons, for those of you who love to know how Chinese works. Most of these come with embedded audio clips in the lessons so that you can hear exactly how the words are pronounced!

If you have any questions, you can either email us or post a message on our Members Only Learners Forums, where our team of language experts and fellow enthusiasts will respond to your needs. With every Premium order you get unlimited and full access to our Forum - imagine having a teacher, virtually "on call" 24 hours a day!

And of course all Rocket Languages products are backed by a 60 Day 100% Money Back Guarantee. We're that confident, and it's that simple.

Rocket Languages will teach you how to speak Chinese naturally, so you can read, write, speak, and understand the language as though you have lived there all your life - these are truly cutting-edge multimedia courses!

Find out more about Rocket Chinese.

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