Summary

From beginner to advanced levels, ItalianPod101.com is an excellent, all-around online environment for learning Italian. The Pod101 platform, method and technology provide the necessary tools to get you immersed in the Italian language and achieve the goals you desire and/or require.

Since ItalianPod101.com is web-based, you can access your personal Italian Learning Center from anywhere, and it's really easy to download the podcasts and put them on your mp3 player (iPod, Zune, etc) or mobile phone to take them with you for practice and learning on the go.

One of the most important things when learning a language is good content - and ItalianPod101.com has this, and a steady flow of it. This constant flow of fresh content regards cultural aspects of Italian you will want to know, interesting tidbits about navigating in Italian society (whether on vacation or living abroad), practical information about getting by and much more.

Your Italian Learning Center brings together audio podcast lessons, lesson notes and checklists, transcripts, PDFs, video lessons, vocabulary training with flashcards and quizzes plus a Italian dictionary, grammar bank, a verb reference and plenty more.

And if you enjoy asking questions and learning from and helping other learners, a forum is available for all users.

It's simple to try it for free and upgrade if it works for you.

From Website

At ItalianPod101.com, our goal is to make learning the Italian language easy and fun, while also incorporating culture and current issues into our lessons. We believe that the more you speak, the quicker you learn, so we have designed our program to get you speaking right away. Situational Italian is heavily stressed, and our team role plays various situations to demonstrate the proper form of Italian to use when speaking with friends, customers, executives, and so-on. Knowing the proper form to use separates good speakers from great speakers.

ItalianPod101.com was developed with the hope of showing the world how fun and easy learning Italian can be. Here at ItalianPod101.com, we truly believe that learning can be fun, while at the same time convenient. We know how busy you are and that each day brings unexpected surprises. That is exactly why we bring the lessons to you and let you decide when they start.

Our innovative, fun, and easy to use language learning system is designed to get you speaking and interacting from the very first lesson. Learn Italian at your own convenience and pace with short, effective, fun daily lessons and a comprehensive, state-of-the-art Learning Center that provides you with the tools to take your Italian to the next level! Our interactive learning system consists of free daily audio podcast lessons, accompanying PDF materials, a Premium Learning Center, and a vibrant user community.

Our Method

ItalianPod101.com offers a unique learning experience that cannot be found in conventional classrooms. In addition to offering lessons that can be completed on your own time, we approve all of the content we release through a government certified Italian teacher. Here are just a few of the revolutionary advantages of our method:

Exposure to native speakers and many different kinds of voices and speaking styles…

ItalianPod101.com aims to have you speaking Italian after just one lesson! Our lessons focus on pronunciation and listening comprehension, so that you can start practicing what you learn from our professional teachers. Inside the PDF you will find the necessary tools for reading comprehension, and thorough explanations of phrases and key grammar points, in addition to segments on cultural insight. To address speaking practice, we have state-of-the-art software to allow you to record your own voice so you can compare your pronunciation to our teachers and continue to refine your speaking skills.

When all the aspects of ItalianPod101.com are put together, this program provides students of Italian with ultimate self-study learning course. In addition, we often provide conversations between three people to more closely simulate real-life situations.

Fresh, up-to-date content...

Many Italian teachers who live overseas have been out of the country for a long period of time and can be “out of the loop” on current words, culture, etc. This is another major gap that we fill. Lessons are carefully crafted to include current events, words, celebrities, and so-on. This is very dynamic content.

Borderless education on-demand...

We also fill a definite demand in remote locations. Our lessons provide you with a mobile classroom, as we bring you Italian on Demand. Italian lessons wherever you may be.

ItalianPod101.com offers our listeners a unique learning experience that delivers cutting-edge, dynamic content to be accessed at your convenience. With the inclusion of our lesson notes and Learning Center, we offer a full solution that provides the material, guidance, exercises, and testing to really make the knowledge your own. And it doesn’t even stop there - our vibrant and extremely helpful community provide each other not only quick answers to questions, but also give each other a sense of encouragement and motivation that is often lacking.

We focus on Italian, and Italian only...

Just Italian! All we do is Italian. ItalianPod101.com is not a generic package language learning course, such as some of the other big name language learning programs out there. Many other programs “scale” their solutions across several languages, simply recycling the same material over and over - the same pictures, the same conversations, just in a different language. But each language is unique, and at ItalianPod101.com we pride ourselves on developing a system that’s only about the Italian language and Italian culture!

One stop studying...

Have you ever found yourself lost on the information highway? Sometimes it’s like trying to drink from a fire hose! Hundreds of bookmarks, all with varying levels of quality and credibility. You finally find a great site, but it only updates once a year! ItalianPod101.com offers users one stop studying. The learning center has been carefully designed to provide you with the resources you will need to take your Italian to the next level.

Visit ItalianPod101.com.

Summary

Apple recently released a new section of the wildly popular iTunes Store available through their iTunes software. This new section is called iTunes U, and collects podcasts from numerous universities and colleges to make them available for free download to your iPod or other mp3 player, mobile/cell phone, etc.

One of the sub-sections of iTunes U is (note: you need iTunes for this link to work) specifically for languages and language education - yay!

Currently there are 60 podcasts (probably more by the time you read this) available regarding both learning foreign languages as well as general topics regarding language in general. Many of these podcasts are called OpenCourseWare, considered Open Learning materials released in the Public Domain. This means they can be used truly freely by teachers and educators without worries about copyright issues - a big plus! Be sure to look at the license for each podcast to make sure of the licensing.

The podcast-based current courses available through iTunes U are English (Medieval and ESL), French, German, Greek, Japanese, Hebrew (various), Italian (Language and Theater), Romanian, Spanish (various) plus Language Technology and Lectures, Interviews, Clubs, Lectionary at Lunch and Storytelling Colombian Style. There are many more, too.

This is really exciting to see at this professional education level. Of couse, add this to the 982 language podcasts in the "regular" (non-iTunes U) iTunes store and that makes over a whopping 1,000 language-related podcasts for download through iTunes - all free. :)

Watch the iTunes U intro video below to learn more about this new feature:

From iTunes U

iTunes U puts the power of the iTunes Store to work for colleges and universities, so users can easily search, download, and play course content just like they do music, movies, and TV shows.

Always in session.

iTunes U delivers easy, 24/7 access to educational content from hundreds of top colleges, universities, and educationally focused organizations across the country. And it’s accessible to anyone with a Mac or PC.

Learning to go.

Students can sync iTunes U content with any iPod or iPhone, so they can go right on learning while they grab a meal, walk to class, or work out at the gym.

Keeps them motivated.

Engaging students on their home turf, iTunes U offers audio and video that make subjects more vivid than any printed page ever could.

Open-minded.

iTunes U lets schools open all or part of their content to the public, from parents to alumni to anyone with a love of learning.

Find out more about iTunes U.

Summary

ItalianPod is the fourth podcast to be released by the Praxis Language team. Praxis Language bases its products on combined Web-based and mobile learning. Community, fresh media content, talented course design team, array of web-based tools for practice and review. A unique combination of media and method, it's no wonder thousands are using ItalianPod every day.

Be sure to check out the free resources available to visitors. You can sign up for an account today to start making real progress immediately.

The success of ChinesePod, FrenchPod and SpanishPod, Praxis's podcast-driven, socially enhanced, user backed language-learning phenomenon is maturing elegantly.

Word on the street is that ArabicPod, GermanPod and JapanesePod will follow...

From Website

ItalianPod is a language training service designed around your needs, rather than the traditional constraints of language schools and publishers. Technology solves these problems and can make the learning of a new language easier.

We take the best pedagogical approaches of the classroom, layer in the community features of the social web and tailor a customized learning pathway for each student.

Use ItalianPod as a replacement to classroom-study or to make better use of classroom time.

At the core of our service are four main study activities:

Listen

There are many ways to listen to ItalianPod lessons, making learning Italian as flexible and convenient as possible. If you like to study at your computer, you can listen to the lesson via the built-in Flash player on the site. Click the “Play” button, slip on your headphones or turn up your speakers, and learn.

To learn on the go, download the MP3 – either from the download links on the site or via your personalized RSS feed – and listen to it on any MP3-compatible software or device (in iTunes, on your iPod, etc.). You can even burn the MP3 to a CD and listen to it in a regular CD player.

Review

Once you’ve listened to each lesson, you need to review to ensure that the material is firmly cemented in your head. First, download the Lesson PDF, which contains the dialogue, a translation, and both key and supplementary vocabulary, and read along with the podcast. After that, come to ItalianPod.com and take advantage of the myriad of online review tools available. Pour over each line of the dialogue, looking up unfamiliar words and listening to line-by-line audio. Dig deeper into key vocabulary with expansion sentences, which put important words into varied context to get you a better idea of how they are used. Finally, complete the lesson exercises to ensure that you really know what you’ve learned.

Practice

Language is about communication, and once you’ve learned something new you need to practice using it in real communication. Guided and Executive users have individual teachers that provide critical insight into the language and opportunities to practice Italian with a native Italian speaker. In each practice session, you can expand and broaden your Italian in a friendly, stress-free way with a counselor that is familiar with you and your learning goals. Your counselor will help you identify and eliminate problem areas, and let you strengthen your Italian communication skills.

Reinforce

At the end of your learning cycle each day, you should come back and reinforce the material you’ve learned both from today’s lesson and previous lessons. Each period of reinforcement will create a stronger foundation upon which future learning will be built. Use the flashcards and concentration game to make sure that you remember the vocabulary you’ve learned from previous lessons. Review your vocabulary list, identify words you’re not sure about, and look them up in the ItalianPod dictionary. Skim through the Grammar Guide to identify structures with which you’re unfamiliar and find lessons that cover those points. Finally, take the Listening Test occasionally to see the improvement that your hard work has earned you.

Visit ItalianPod.com

Summary

The LingQ language-learning platform is among the most intentionally-created foreign language education products available. Developed by reknowned polyglot linguist Steve Kaufmann and company, LingQ is an excellent way to learn Italian using materials you choose yourself!

In fact, this is where LingQ excels as an educational platform because students can import any license-free content they want to base their lessons around. This means that the students decide what subjects and topics they wish to learn about based on professional needs and/or personal interests.

The particular podcast highlighted in this article is ItalianLingQ, a roughly weekly podcast with mp3 audio content for Italian language learners. Transcripts of the podcasts are available through LingQ, and can also serve as learning content themselves.

One additional advantage of the LingQ system is that for a single subscription, you can use their web-based platform to learn ten languages (and growing) including Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish.

From Website

What is ItalianLingQ?

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

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

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

Summary

This is a good podcast for beginner Italian language learners. Each podcast has just enough content to teach you something meaningful, but not so much that you cannot digest it in one lesson.

The site offers the first ten lessons free. After that, you can purchase 100 lessons for $15 US. This is subject to change.

From Website

Hi everybody, my name's Mike and this is the Let's Speak Italian podcast. I've found that the key to learning to speak Italian is to learn a little bit every day, and to practice it with your friends. By the end, you'll be amazed at how easy it was, and just how much you can learn by practicing a few minutes every day.

Visit letsspeakitalian.libsyn.com

Subscribe

Subscribe to Let's Speak Italian Podcast.
Subscribe to Let's Speak Italian Podcast via iTunes.

Screenshot

From the site:

"World Nomads present a series of podcast language guides. They are yours to download for free and contain all the essential phrases to keep you travelling safely.

We hope that in 2007 there'll be time to produce a few more guides, so feel free to leave us a comment or send an email with suggestions for the languages you'd like to learn."

Comments

This podcast, along with other podcasts by World Nomads, has nice entries with world-traveler action and a transcription to boot.

Visit World Nomads Italian Language Guide for your iPod.