The Eighth Edition of the Free Language Letter was published a few days ago. Lots of good info there, so check it out if you haven't yet.

Also, I added two new podcasts to the new Learn Hebrew section of the site. They are both great resources for Hebrew language learners!

HebrewPocasts.com Learn to Speak Hebrew at your Leisure with Free MP3 Audio Podcast Downloads
LearnHebrewPod.com Learn Hebrew Podcast with Free MP3 Audio Lessons for Conversational, Listening and Written Practice

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

Over the last few days I've added eight articles on podcast resources from the LingQ podcast network. This is a group that currently consists of eight podcast websites that provide a steady (weekly) flow of listening material for each individual language. Accompanying transcriptions are made available through the LingQ [liŋk] store. Some are free, some are not.

Pursue the LingQ above or click on the huge image above to learn more about the LingQ Method.

LingQ Podcast Network

EnglishLingQ
FrenchLingQ
GermanLingQ
JapaneseLingQ
PortugueseLingQ
RussianLingQ
SpanishLingQ
SwedishLingQ

Similar Foreign Language Learning Methods

The Linguist Method
Mobile Language Learning Method
iPod and Go Method

I just published a couple of articles on Freestyle Language:

Simple English Wikipedia is a Good Way to Practice English Reading Comprehension
The Swadesh List and Action-Oriented Language Learning

The second article has some information about action-oriented language learning, a theory that I am only just beginning to develop.

I use Firefox for browsing the web. Firefox has so many cool tools - known as "extensions" - for translating words, phrases and whole web pages on the fly with one click.

Free Language has published articles on two of these thus far...

Quick Translation Firefox Extension to Translate Single Words in 17+ Languages
FoxLingo Free Firefox Browser Extension Software for Translating Web Pages

...and there are loads more!

With this quick blog post, I just wanted to point out a pre-defined search for "translation" on the Firefox extension download site. Have a look, try out a few and find one or two that work best for your particular target language(s) and needs. These web browser extensions can be a huge time-save, making your language work online more productive.