Summary

Quizlet.com is a great website for effectively learning vocabulary, for languages and anything else! For a quick video on how the whole thing works, check out the demo video. Cool fact: It was started by a 15-year-old high school student!

Basically, you can add and share vocabulary lists, make them public, private or share only with certain groups. Once you have them in the system (or you find an existing set you want to study), you can choose between several options for learning/familiarizing and self-assessment.

The site is slick, fast and has lots of active users. It's really a cool place to learn anything from the Greek Alphabet to TOEFL and SAT vocabulary and plenty more.

There are already gobs of lists available on the site - so many that individual attention is being brought to amazing collections available on the site, such as the HSK Test Vocabulary Preparation Pack and more.

So take a look at Quizlet when you get the chance. It's likely that content already exists for what you need to study! I have added this to all the language sections even though there are not vocabulary stacks yet for all of these. Reason being you can use the site to create any vocabulary lists you want - it's wide open!

From Website

The Quizlet Story

For lack of a professional writer working for Quizlet, here are some ramblings from me, Andrew Sutherland, creator of Quizlet, president of Brainflare, web developer, and high school student.

Quizlet is how I occupy my free time and even some of my non-free time. My mission for Quizlet is to make learning vocabulary not a chore. I know a lot of teachers assign vocabulary to students, but few students actually "absorb" words into their vocabularies after they take their test. Which kind of defeats the purpose, right? So Quizlet is my response - it aims to make learning fun, thus make learning effective. At the very least, it can help students do better on quizzes and tests even if they don't fully "absorb" their words.

I started Quizlet in October 2005, back when I was a mere 15-year-old (human years). I had just received a list of 111 French Animals to memorize from my magnanimous French teacher. I was puttering along with my dad with some call-and-response type quizzing. "Man, I love doing this" was NOT what I was thinking. So I put my thinking cap on, and the first line of code for Quizlet was written that night. Of course, that code was all deleted when I thought about what Quizlet would be. You really should plan first.

Quizlet is a shoestring operation. For its first 420 days, it was the work of only myself. I did all the designing, programming, debugging, and perfecting. The project had no product managers, no marketers, and no venture capitalists. It was just me and my testers. Recently I've realized some things are out of my field of expertise (I'm not a lawyer, for example). So there are a few other people involved these days.

Quizlet is free and will remain free to all users. The current plan is to offer targeted advertising on the non-studying pages. I'm hoping to make some deals with some educational and test-prep companies and perhaps some universities. If you're interested in advertising to my userbase of highly-motivated high-school and college students, shoot me a note (see above right).

Let's see, what haven't I covered? Ahh, the name Quizlet comes from Quizlette, the name of the "little" quizzes my French teacher gives. She could have charged royalties, but that just wouldn't be right…

And because you really want to know, I made Quizlet using only the finest ingredients:

PHP
MySQL
Apache
Mootools Thanks Valerio!
XHTML, CSS, Javascript, JSON, etc etc…

Visit Quizlet.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 RussianLingQ, a roughly weekly podcast with mp3 audio content for Russian language learners. Transcripts of the podcasts are available through LingQ.

From Website

What is RussianLingQ?

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

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

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

Subscribe

Subscribe to RussianLingQ Podcast.
Subscribe to RussianLingQ Podcast via iTunes.
View RussianLingQ's Feed on Free Language.

LingQ Podcast Network

EnglishLingQ
FrenchLingQ
GermanLingQ
JapaneseLingQ
PortugueseLingQ
RussianLingQ
SpanishLingQ
SwedishLingQ

Summary

This site has a good selection of online games and activities for learning the Russian language.

There are also many other languages available on the site.

From Website

Digital Dialects was launched in January 2007, originally a by-product of a dissertation reviewing web resources for language learning. The site was conceived as an educational tool for learning languages, and as a guide to online resources.

All animation and webpage design is by Craig Gibson. The animated activities are intended to incorporate the interactivity of computer aided language learning software with the web-design principle of simplicity in use and access. In essence the games are intended to provide a relaxed way of acquiring basic language skills, a break from the books!

The site will continue to be a work in progress, and it is intended that Digital Dialects will represent the World’s major languages, with a cross-section of languages from diverse regions. Audio files are to be gradually incorporated into animations for certain languages. The development of particular language sections will be dependant on assistance from translators and native speakers.

Link

Visit DigitalDialects.com Russian Resources

License

View the DigitalDialects.com Terms and Conditions.

Summary

Due to inflated price, Free Language no longer recommends Rosetta Stone. Find out why.

Recommended Language Freeware

Byki has stepped up their freeware. You can literally download and use their software to start learning the basics of over 60 languages in minutes without paying a cent. If you decide to continue learning past the basics, you can upgrade to the full version for a reasonable $49 USD.

Recommended Podcast Subscriptions

Free Language embraces the content-driven, social-based and software-enhanced Web platform brewed up at Praxis Language. Praxis Language's podcast-based system provides a well-rounded online language learning experience. They are real people and the info is current and steady.

Praxis Language's podcasts and community are open to users for free. Subscriptions to gain access to additional materials and instruction start at $5 USD/month. The only unfortunate thing about Praxis Language is that it's only available in four languages!

Have a look at their free podcasts and decide if this might work for you.

Why no Rosetta Stone?

We just don't feel Rosetta Stone is worth it with all the other options available these days.

Rosetta Stone has spent millions advertising their software in magazines, airports and online. They claim it's intuitive, that it "allows you to learn a foreign language like you learned your native language". They've marketed themselves rather effectively and even fancy themselves an international standard for diplomats, companies and organizations wishing to prepare for working and living abroad.

Free Language is not sure about all of that, but we do know it costs an awful lot for Rosetta Stone's software. In recent years the language-learning climate has been stormed with new and innovative ways to teach and learn languages. Many of these new products and services are in the form of websites, some of which are free!

Above you will find some products and services that we do recommend, and that offer enough free materials to get you started for free.

Summary

This site is a great introduction to the Russian language for those that have never been exposed to it previously. The site offers introductions to the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, numbers, left and right, restaurants and meals, when and where and important basic words useful to new learners.

From Website

This tutorial is designed as a beginning point for a casual learner. It does not require any special Russian fonts or software.

Why Learn Russian?

* Your company has started doing business in Russia
* You're going on a business trip to Russia
* You're going to Russia for a vacation
* You just decided it might be interesting

Why Learn The Alphabet?

Probably the easiest thing you can do to make a visit to Russia more pleasant is to learn the alphabet. You'll feel much more comfortable if you can read street signs and advertisements; you won't have that absoutely helpless feeling that comes with being illiterate.

If you're learning Russian just for fun, the alphabet is a quick and easy way to get into the subject.

You keep saying "Easy"

Yes. It is easy. Russian is a very phonetic language, which means that, in general, things are pronounced exactly as written. Once you've learned the alphabet, you'll be ahead of the game. Click the right arrow below to find out the big secret to the game.

Visit An Introduction to Russian at langintro.com

Website Content License

The content on this website is empowered by the GNU General Public License and is, thus, free and open the the general public!