Summary

It's difficult to "summarize" the booming expansion that has occurred with the Kaufmann crew since "The Linguist" appeared on Free Language 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 ChineseLingQ, a roughly weekly podcast with mp3 audio content for Chinese language learners. Transcripts of the podcasts are available through LingQ.

From Website

What is ChineseLingQ?

First of all, the name itself (which is pronounced Chinese Link) needs a little explaining. The first part, “Chinese”, is fairly obvious since we teach Chinese. 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 ChineseLingQ...

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

Our podcasts may contain interviews, articles, or audiobook excerpts but are most often just general conversations in Chinese. 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 ChineseLingQ.com

Subscribe

Subscribe to ChineseLingQ Podcast.
Subscribe to ChineseLingQ Podcast via iTunes.

LingQ Podcast Network

ChineseLingQ
EnglishLingQ
FrenchLingQ
GermanLingQ
ItalianLingQ
JapaneseLingQ
PortugueseLingQ
RussianLingQ
SpanishLingQ
SwedishLingQ

Summary

BBC Languages Chinese provides solid learning resources for beginning Mandarin Chinese learners. They have created a short introductory course called "Real Chinese" that teaches basic, practical Chinese for ordering food and drinks, shopping, asking directions, etc.

The BBC has done an amazing job of providing free learning resources for many of the world's languages, including French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and others.

This is a great site for total beginners to start learning basic Mandarin Chinese that for practical use while traveling in China and Taiwan.

From Website

A lively introduction to Mandarin Chinese in 10 short parts.

Follow our introductory online video course in Chinese.

For starters, Introducing yourself, Family introductions, Saying a bit about yourself, Ordering drinks, Ordering a meal, Doing some shopping, Asking for directions, Public transport, Finding and booking a hotel

Visit BBC Languages Mandarin Chinese.

Summary

Loquella has done a great job of taking Public Domain language learning materials created by the US Foreign Service Instute and porting them into a web-based language learning platform.

Their website provides users with an online interface for learning Mandarin Chinese by listening, reading and speaking. You can even customize how the site delivers the content to you by adjusting your preferences (no sign-up required!). This means you can choose to hear audio first in Chinese and then view the sentence in English or view the sentence in English and then hear the audio in Chinese. There are two other options as well.

Loquella also has a blog and a community area anyone can join and participate in a forum, and share photos and video. (View RSS feed for the community forum.)

All in all, Loquella is a great way to learn Mandarin Chinese free online by listening, reading and repeating. In addition to the free materials, Loquella sells a download of all the Chinese MP3s with a 30-day money back guarantee.

From Website

About The Language Course

The Foreign Service Institute and Loquella

Loquella developed the language course based off the well-respected Foreign Service Institute's language lessons. The method Loquella uses to teach you languages is not new, the Foreign Service Institute has been using this method for over 30 years to teach thousands of serious language students. Loquella simply developed the language tool that you use to view and hear the Foreign Service Institute course, and we also improved on the Foreign Service Institute system by adding Dialects Interviews for the Spanish lessons. The Foreign Service Institute method emphasizes language drills and pronunciation drills to ensure that language students retain and comprehend all material before moving forward.

Improving On An Already Good Thing

Although the Loquella language tool is largely based on the foundation that the Foreign Service Institute created, we believe we have made many essential improvements to the system. Instead of having to follow along with work-books while listening to tapes, Loquella.com offers two unique language tools for accessing the lessons. The first is through the free online language tool. The second is through lessons that can be downloaded to your MP3 player. You follow along with either program at your own pace. You can stop the program at any time and pick back up where you left off.

"The Foreign Service Institute is the Federal Government's primary training institution for officers and support personnel of the U.S. foreign affairs community, preparing American diplomats and other professionals to advance U.S. foreign affairs interests overseas and in Washington."

- U.S. Department of State website.

Additional Notes On The Foreign Service Institute

Since the Loquella language tool pulls information from the Foreign Service Institute which was designed in the 1970's for government officers, professionals and diplomats, a large number of references to government entities and processes are referenced in the language lessons. Keep in mind that events and political figures referred to in some of the language lessons are most likely out dated by several decades. Instead of editing out all these items, the Loquella tool includes these items as they do not hinder students from learning, instead they can be seen as an interesting reminder of our own political and cultural history. We hope you enjoy the language lessons, and maybe you'll even get a brief history refresher as well.

Immerse Yourself In Your Language

We also encourage language students to try to immerse themselves in the language they are learning. Many experts agree that the best way to learn a language is to be surrounded by it constantly for a prolonged amount of time. If you have a couple weeks to spend in Mexico, bring your lap top and work with the Loquella language tool when you have some time, plug in to an audio tape when you are traveling and simply try to listen and speak to the locals any chance you get.

About The Foreign Service Institute Method

The main method for teaching used by the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), and also used in all the language courses offered by Loquella.com, is called "guided imitation". If you listen to the way you speak your native language, you will notice that you do not use the exact same variation of common phrases in every context. Instead, you change your way of speaking to adjust to each individual situation. Therefore, this language course is designed to help you master the foreign language in most situations that you could run into in daily life in a new country.

Pronunciation

The Foreign Service Institute method focuses heavily on teaching proper pronunciation. We focus the first language lessons in each level on pronunciation due to the importance that correct pronunciation will have on your ability to master the new language.

Basic Language Dialogs

The basic dialogs are the core of each language lesson. These dialogs are recreations of the real situations a language student is most likely to encounter, and the vocabulary and sentences are those he or she is most likely to need.

In the first language lessons, new vocabulary is introduced mainly in the basic dialogs. Sometimes, in the illustrations of grammar points, new words are introduced in order to fill out patterns needed to do the exercises. Each new word will reappear many times later in the language course to help you associate each word in many different contexts.

Language Pattern Drills and Grammar

The basic dialogs are the theme throughout the language course, and the language drills are the variations of those dialogs. Patterns of basic dialogs are expanded and changed in the drills.

Pattern drills are designed to allow you to practice the sentences and phrases you have learned, and the grammar tips are there to provide further explanation. At the beginning of each drill you will be given a basic sentence or dialog, then various kinds of drills that offer variations of those basic sentences and dialogs.

The language course consists of listening to and repeating basic sentences that illustrate the grammar point that is to be learned. This structure will give you enough clues to understand and use the pattern correctly in the drills that follow. These drills are mainly exercises that use substitutions, responses, and translations that highlight the grammar points that are being covered.

There are four kinds of language drills in each unit. Two are designed to vary some basic dialogs within the vocabulary you have already learned. The other two are oriented toward the structure of the language to provide coverage of important patterns.

You Choose Your Level Of Difficulty

No matter which language tool you decide to use, you choose your level of difficulty. You can skip ahead or continue to repeat a language lesson until you feel comfortable with it. Using the MP3 downloads, you can buy just the level you want, or the complete 50 hour package. Using the free online language tool, you can skip forward or backwards through each language lesson until you find your perfect level of difficulty.

Learning Dialects Using The Language Tool

As anyone who has tried to learn a language will tell you, it's one thing to understand and respond to a question in a foreign language when it is spoken in a slow and well-annunciated manner. It's completely different to listen and repeat when actual people are talking in real dialects. As you get deeper into any language you will start to hear that people speaking the same language have very different dialects. That's why we provide sections that allow you to hear dialects used in various parts of the world.

Summary

The BBC is available in loads of languages, somewhere around 30, including Mandarin Chinese. If you are an advanced intermediate to advanced learner of Chinese, you can certainly benefit from reading the news in Chinese. It helps not only your language skills, but also keeps you up to date with current affairs in China and the rest of the world.

With the upcoming Olympics in Beijing and the ever-growing economic and political influence of the Middle Kingdom, China is quite the hot topic.

BBC gives the real deal when it comes to what's happening in China, so much so that it has historically been banned by The Great Firewall of China (Golden Shield), and thus inaccessible from within China.

Be a rebel and check it out! ;)

From Website

The BBC exists to enrich people’s lives with great programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain. Its vision is to be the most creative, trusted organisation in the world.

It provides a wide range of distinctive programmes and services for everyone, free of commercial interests and political bias. They include television, radio, national, local, childrens’, educational, language and other services for key interest groups.

Subscribe

Subscribe to the BBC News in Mandarin Chinese.
View the BBC News in Mandarin Chinese Feed on Free Language.

More BBC on Free Language

Free Language has lots of love for the BBC - they have news in so many languages, plus learning resources for multiple languages, who can resist? :)

BBC Learning English
BBC Better at Languages

BBC Languages French
BBC Languages Italian
BBC Languages Portuguese
BBC Languages Spanish

BBC Afrique News in French
BBC Brasil News in Portuguese
BBC Mundo News in Spanish
BBC News in Arabic
BBC News in Farsi (Persian)
BBC News in Russian
BBC World News in English

Summary

Zon is a cool, new (still in BETA), and (potentially) fun interactive approach to learning Mandarin Chinese online. It is an MMORPG, which basically means you play an "online video game" where you are a character in a virtual world, going about your way exploring and, in this case, learning Mandarin Chinese (rather than, say, killing the latest and greatest bad guys).

This is a sweet idea, indeed. I am looking forward to plowing in and give it a try myself. I will be updating this article with more feedback once I have had sufficient exposure to the game and how one actually learns. For now, I'll just mention some of the more obvious "overall" intriguing aspects of this method of language learning.

The virtual interaction with other people in the Zon metaverse is a way to meet people and make new friends who are interested in learning Mandarin Chinese.

Having a totally virtual environment allows players to experience and navigate through potential real-life situations and become comfortable with them before ever actually being under pressure. Such topics include arriving at the airport and working your way from there to a shopping district in Beijing. Pretty cool. It's the next best thing to doing it for real! Which is why this is so cool - most everyone can't just hop off to Beijing to "have a go at some shopping".

Children will be likely to excel in this video virtual environment. Or, at the very least, be interested in playing for a while.

Be careful, though. This might just make language learning fun for all the naysayers...

Zon is made possible thanks to MSU and its Consfucious Institute.

From Website

Zon is a multiplayer, online learning environment designed to teach Chinese language and culture through gameplay. As a web-based site, Zon provides real-time, on-demand connection to interactive learning activities and authentic cultural information. Zon players are motivated not only by their intrinsic desire to learn more about Chinese language and culture, but also the ability to interact with engaging story-driven plot lines, interesting characters, and fellow players.

Zon is built on the premise that learning is interactive. The game provides the opportunity for players to learn from non-player characters (NPCs), responsive game agents, and other players. Throughout each scene, players can engage with various elements of the environment, but they can also speak with other players in that scene or elsewhere in Zon. This allows for players to learn from both the designed game elements and other players. In this way, Zon is designed to provide social and environmental scaffolds to support player learning.

Enter Zon.