I've just added two more podcasts from the LingQ Podcast Network: ChineseLingQ and ItalianLingQ.

I'd also like to point out LingQCentral, "where you'll find everything related to LingQ". It's the place to stay tuned to all things LingQ. They put out quite a lot of useful content and work very hard to create effective online resources for learning 10 foreign languages, so check them out!

Hopefully one day I will be able to interview Steve himself, though I don't know if he wants to talk to me again after I didn't follow through last time for multiple reasons. He sent me a copy of his book, which I read most of and enjoyed, but was overloaded with life at the time and didn't properly thank him. Steve: if you're out there, thanks and when you want to try again, just drop me a line. :)

LingQ Language Podcast Network

ChineseLingQ
EnglishLingQ
FrenchLingQ
GermanLingQ
ItalianLingQ
JapaneseLingQ
PortugueseLingQ
RussianLingQ
SpanishLingQ
SwedishLingQ

Summary

Collins is one of the longest standing publishers of English and bilingual dictionaries. They are currently working to pioneer ways to publish dictionaries for today's world by rapidly increasing the availability of their products in digital format.

The company has created several high-quality, professional digital products that are offered through their online store. Free samples of these products are available for download through the site.

Two of the digital products they currently offer are very useful for travelers and language learners alike: iPhraseFinders and Collins 40-Minute Lessons.

iPhraseFinders are phrasebooks tailored specifically for the iPod. These are currently available in Windows and Mac format for English to the following languages: French, German, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish. You can download free samples from the link above.

Collins 40-Minute Lessons are beginner lessons designed to empower learners with the essential phrases necessary to navigate daily life in a given foreign language. These lessons are available for English speakers interested in learning Arabic, Cantonese, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin American Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese. Wow! You can download free samples from the link above.

I know from my experience of testing the free downloads that these digital products are indeed professional, high-quality, practical and useful.

The website also offers a free dictionary search feature, with more comprehensive commercial versions available.

From Website

Free English, Cobuild and Foreign Language Dictionary look-ups available. Subscribe to or download a dictionary to your desktop or mobile device. Learn a language fast with iPhrasefinders and audio courses for iPods and mobiles. Free trials available.

Find out about these products and more at CollinsLanguage.com

A few of the latest updates include the August Free Language Letter, Wikipedia entries for Italian and Portuguese and commercial resources for Rosetta Stone Learn Italian and Rosetta Stone Learn Brazilian Portuguese.

I was sent a link recently about Cool Gorilla, a website that offers free downloads of mobile phone phrasebooks for French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese and Greek. These handy phrasebooks are quite useful for travelers.

Currently, these phrasebooks are available for Nokia and Sony Ericsson mobile phone models.

From Website

Each of the lastminute.com mobile phone phrasebooks has hundreds of sound files that can be accessed through these easy to use applications. Simply decide which language you want on your phone, follow the steps and you could have the translator of your choice within minutes.

Find out more and download these mobile phone phrasebooks.

I have just begun a website called Freestyle Language. Though it sounds like Free Language, the site is a personal blog and podcast about my experiences learning several new languages, maintaining proficiency in the languages that I do speak and offering some content for folks learning American English.

From Blog

I am a linguist and a lover of languages. My native language is English. I speak fluent French, Portuguese and Spanish. I am fairly proficient with Italian and can eek by in German and Mandarin Chinese.

On this blog, I share my experiences learning languages both on the web and off. On the web, I generally use Free Language to find solid resources. Off the web, I spend any free time working on improving some language or another.

Currently, I am interested in starting studies in Arabic and Russian, as well as continuing to improve my Mandarin Chinese, German and Italian skills. I will blog about all of these languages here - and more.

I will also start a podcast (yes, another one) for people interested in learning the English language. I will offer transcriptions of what I say - nothing fancy.

All original content on this website is protected, empowered and freely-distributable thanks to the GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL). You may recognize this license from Wikipedia.

I am going to supplement that site with some posts here regarding the most interesting things I come across.

For now, you are welcome to have a look at Freestyle Language and see if it interests you.

More to come in the near future.