Judith's language learning blog » German

Improve Your German Through Videos

Judith — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:25:25 +0000

I’ve recently discovered that there is a LOT of German TV available online – and not just as live stream either. Here are some selections that intermediate to advanced learners of Germans might find interesting:

News

15 minute news overview (watching Tagesschau before the movies is a tradition for many households)
Sports
Stock market

Magazines & Advice Columns

Cars & Traffic
Health
Home & Garden
Internet (tips & tricks)
Money
Technology
Culture magazine
Science magazine
Religious Messages (alternating weekly between Protestant and Catholic speakers)

Courses / Lectures

Beginner’s Cooking Course
Astronomy & astrophysics – explained in everyday German
Knowledge for kids
Biology for kids – much-acclaimed cartoon series
History for kids – much-acclaimed cartoon series

Documentaries & Expert discussion rounds

Traveling around the World
Animals around the World
Bundestag – live and archived video from the German parliament
Political discussions
More political discussions
Social discussions
On media – how reporting works in unfree places, the relation of media & politics/economy etc.
Various discussions
Various documentaries – a lot of surprising topics

Fiction

Türkisch für Anfänger – modern soap, transcripts and translations available
Tatort – the most popular German detective series
Lindenstraße – Germany’s longest-running soap opera
Verliebt in Berlin – telenovela
Jim Knopf – beloved old-style kids’ story, all done with marionettes
Naruto – an example of translated anime
Court show

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a starting point for those who wouldn’t know what to search for. Enjoy!

Please let me know if you can’t open any of these videos – some might be geographically limited – or if any infringe on copyright. From what I can see, they were all uploaded by the producers or TV stations themselves.

9th of November

Judith — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:12:04 +0000

The 9th of November is a really important date for Germany. Three historic events happened on this date:

On the 9th of November 1918, the German monarchy was overthrown and the Weimar Republic was founded, the first German democracy. Two days after this, democratic representatives authorized the armistice/capitulation that ended the 1st World War.

In the night of the 9th/10th November 1938, the Nazis burned down more than 1400 Jewish prayer rooms, synagogues etc. in the Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass).

In the evening hours of the 9th of November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. East Germans were suddenly free, dancing with their West German counterparts and starting to dismantle the Wall. There was no way this could have ended in anything but an official re-unification, but the bureaucratic process took until October 3rd 1990, which is now the German National Holiday, even though it is much less remarkable.

It is a pity that all three events share the same date, because I would have loved to celebrate the two democratic revolutions that happened on the 9th of November; they were vital to German history. Instead, the 9th of November is almost exclusively associated with the Kristallnacht. I’m not saying that it isn’t important to remember of course.

For the linguistically-inclined, here’s a famous song called “Kristallnaach” (Kristallnacht) by BAP, a German band singing in the dialect of Cologne. I shall give a translation of this dialect into Hochdeutsch and into English. Listen here.

Es kütt vüür, dat ich mein, dat jet klirrt, Dat sich irgendjet in mich verirrt, E Jeräusch, nit ens laut Manchmol klirrt es vertraut Selden su, dat mer’t direk durchschaut Mer weed wach, rief die Aure un sieht En’nem Bild zweschen Breughel un Bosch Kei Minsch, dä öm Sirene jet jitt Weil Entwarnung nur half su vill koss Et’rüsch noh Kristallnaach	Es kommt vor, dass ich meine, dass etwas klirrt, dass sich irgend etwas in mich verirrt. Ein Geräusch, nicht einmal laut, manchmal klirrt es vertraut, selten so, daß man es direkt durchschaut. Man wird wach, reibt die Augen und sieht in einem Bild zwischen Brueghel und Bosch, keinen Menschen, der um Sirenen etwas gibt, weil Entwarnung nur halb soviel kostet. Es riecht nach Kristallnacht.	It happens that I think something is clinking, that something loses its way into me. A sound, not even loud, sometimes it clinks in a familiar way, rarely in a way that you immediately know what’s up. You wake up, rub your eyes and, in a picture between Brueghel and Bosch, don’t see anyone who reacts to sirens, because the all-clear signal costs only half as much. Smells of Kristallnacht.
En der Ruhe vür’m Sturm, wat ess dat? Janz klammheimlich verlööß wer die Stadt. Honoratioren inkognito hasten vorbei, offiziell sinn die nit jähn dobei, wenn die Volkssseele – allzeit bereit Richtung Siedepunkt wütet un schreit “Heil – Halali” un grenzenlos geil noh Vergeltung brüllt, zitternd vor Neid in der Kristallnaach	In der Ruhe vor dem Sturm, was ist das? Ganz klammheimlich verläßt wer die Stadt. Honoratioren inkognito hasten vorbei, offiziell sind die nicht gerne dabei, wenn die Volksseele, allzeit bereit, Richtung Siedepunkt wütet und schreit: “Heil – Halali” und grenzenlos geil nach Vergeltung brüllt, zitternd vor Neid in der Kristallnacht.	In the calm before the storm – what’s that? In all secrecy someone is leaving the city. Notable people are hurrying past incognito, officially they don’t like to participate, when “the people”, always ready, boils in rage and shouts “Hail – Tally-ho” and boundlessly lustful screaming for revenge, trembling in jealousy in the Kristallnacht. ( a greeting/shout used by hunters)
Doch die allles wat anders ess stührt, die mem Strom schwemme, wie’t sich jehührt vör die schwule Verbrecher sinn, Ausländer Aussattz sinn bruchen wer, der se verführt. Un dann rettet kein Kavallerie, kein Zorro kömmert sich dodrömm. Dä piss höchstens e “Z” en der Schnie un fällt lallend vüür Lässigkeit öm; “Na un? – Kristallnaach!”	Doch die alles, was anders ist, stört, die mit dem Strom schwimmen, wie es sich gehört, für die Schwule Verbrecher sind, Ausländer Aussatz sind, brauchen wer, der sie verführt. Und dann rettet keine Kavallerie, kein Zorro kümmert sich darum. Der pisst höchsten ein “Z” in den Schnee und fällt lallend vor Lässigkeit um: “Na und? ? Kristallnacht!”	But those, who feel disturbed by anything that’s different those who go with the flow as is respectable for whom gays are criminals and for whom foreigners are trash they need a demagogue. And then no cavalry saves you, no Zorro cares. He’d only piss a Z into the snow and fall over nonchalantly babbling “So what? – Kristallnacht!”
En der Kirch met dä Franz Kafka-Uhr, ohne Zeiger, met Striche drop nur ließ ne Blinde nem Taube Strubbelpeter vüür hinger dreifach verriejelter Düür Un dä Wächter ‘mem Schlüsselbund hällt sich em Ähnz für jet wie e Jenie, weil’er Auswege pulverisiert un verkäuf jäjen Klaustrophobie en der Kristallnaach.	In der Kirche mit der Franz Kafka-Uhr, ohne Zeiger, mit Strichen darauf nur, liest ein Blinder einem Tauben Struwwelpeter vor hinter dreifach verriegelter Tür. Und der Wächter mit dem Schlüsselbund hält sich im Ernst für so etwas wie ein Genie, weil er Auswege pulverisiert und verkauft gegen Klaustrophobie in der Kristallnacht.	In the church with the Franz Kafka clock, without pointers, just lines on it, a blind guy is reading Struwwelpeter to a deaf guy behind a thrice-locked door. And the guard with the set of keys really considers himself a genius because he’s pulverizing exits and selling against claustrophobia in the Kristallnacht.
Währenddessen am Maatplatz vielleich, unmaskiert, hück mem wohre Jeseech, sammelt Stein, schlief et Mezz, op die, die schon verpezz probt dä Lynch-Mob für’t jüngste Jereech. Un zem Laade nur flüchtig vertäut - die Galeeren stohn längs unger Dampf – weet em Hafen op Sklaven jewaat, op dä Schrott uss dämm ungleiche Kampf us der Kristallnaach	Währenddessen, am Marktplatz vielleicht, unmaskiert, heute mit einem wahren Gesicht, sammelt Steine, schleift das Messer, auf die, die schon verpetzt, probt der Lynch-Mob für das jüngste Gericht. Und zum Laden nur flüchtig vertäut, die Galeeren stehen längst unter Dampf wird im Hafen auf Sklaven gewartet, auf den Schrott aus dem ungleichen Kampf aus der Kristallnacht.	Meanwhile, maybe on the market square, they’re without a mask, showing their true faces today, collecting stones, sharpening knives, and the lynch mob is practicing for Judgement Day using those who have already been ratted out. Just barely moored for embarkment, the galleys are ready to go, they’re waiting for slaves in the harbor, waiting for the trash from the unequal fight from the Kristallnacht.
Do, wo Darwin für alles herhällt, ob mer Minsche verdriev oder quält do, wo hinger Macht Jeld ess, wo stark sinn die Welt ess, vun Kusche un Strammstonn entstellt Wo mer Hymnen om Kamm sujar blööß en barbarischer Gier noh Profit ‘Hosianna’ un ‘Kreuzigt ihn’ rööf, wemmer irjend ne Vorteil drin sieht ess täglich Kristallnaach!	Da, wo Darwin für alles herhält, ob man Menschen vertreibt oder quält, da, wo hinter Macht Geld ist, wo stark sein die Welt ist, von Kuschen und Strammstehen entstellt. Wo man Hymnen auf dem Kamm sogar bläst, in barbarischer Gier nach Profit, “Hosianna” und “Kreuzigt ihn!” ruft, wenn man irgendeinen Vorteil darin sieht, ist täglich Kristallnacht!	Where Darwin is used to justify everything, whether you expel people or torture them where money is behind power, where being strong is everything, distorted by yielding and standing at attention where people blow hymns on a comb even in barbaric greed for profit shouting “Hosianna” and “Crucify him” if they see any advantage in it THERE Kristallnacht happens daily!

Listen to the song.

This song was written in 1982, so I was amazed to find that it’s still up-to-date, for example also referencing the gays, or the problem of too much greed.

Around the World in 25 Books & 10 Languages

Judith — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 17:07:39 +0000

The downside of living in Berlin is that there are way too many awesome bookstores here. There is one that is a particular danger to me: the Café Tasso. All books cost 1 EUR there, and since the money from sales goes to charity, lots of people donate awesome books to this place; books that are still worth much more than 1 EUR. The Café Tasso even have a large section of books in foreign languages, so I never leave without buying some. However, I don’t usually read much – in the latest Tadoku month I only read 748 pages. Now I have an ever-increasing pile of unread books.

I want to make a big dent in this pile in the next two months. My idea is an “around the world” theme. I picked 25 books representing 25 countries and all continents, and I will read all of them before January 1st. These books are written in 10 different languages, and I avoided German & English for the most part, so this will also be a linguistic challenge. Languages represented, in rough order of frequency: French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese, Latin, Greek, German, English.

Journey plan:

Join me!

This is a great chance to discover foreign cultures and authors who are less known in the English-speaking world. Have a look at the books I will be reading, maybe something interests you as well, or maybe you also have unread books that you can use for your personal round-the-world trip. The details of my journey, following the path on the map:

Egypt: Christian Jacq – Ramsès, fils de la lumière (Ramses, the son of light). This bestselling novel about Ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II is written by an Egyptologist, meaning that it’s classes better than some wanna-be historian’s image of Egypt.
Turkey: Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt – Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran. Another French best-selling book about the Middle East.
Greece: Από πού έρχεστε; A bilingual Greek-German reader about Greece.
Italy: Dino Buzzati – Lascia o Raddoppia; bilingual Italian-German
Sweden: Merit Müller – Mara en de kleur van het geluk. This is originally a Swedish book, but I have it in Dutch.
Netherlands: Arthur Japin – De grote wereld
UK: Lao She – Mr. Ma & Son, a Sojourn in London; A bilingual Chinese-English novel that sounds funny.
Canada: Michel Tremblay – Les Belles-Soeurs. I am looking forward to the liberal use of Joual (Canadian French dialect) in this drama.
USA: Gustaaf Peek – Ik was Amerika. The story of a Dutch POW who was shipped to America. A chapter of history that I hadn’t heard of.
Mexico: J.M.G. Le Clézio – Le rêve mexicain (The Mexican Dream). Essays on the Aztecs, the role of Cortes, Montezuma etc. and how the Western world might look today if the Aztec culture had been allowed to survive.
Colombia: Patricia Lara S. – Las Mujeres en la Guerra. Women telling about their role in the Colombian conflict.
Peru: Mario Vargas Llosa – Der Geschichtenerzähler. This book was selected as this year’s Free Book to be given out all across Berlin, that’s why I will read it in German rather than the original Spanish (El Hablador), maybe re-reading it in Spanish later. It’s about a man who goes to live with the Native Americans in the Peruvian jungle and learn their stories.
Chile: Joan E. Garcés – Allende y la experiencia chilena.
Suriname and the Dutch Antilles: Dylan van Eijkeren – Witboi. Another topic I never heard of before: about the relations between the Netherlands and their former colonies, and what’s really going on over there.
Tunisia: Apuleius – Apologia. Apuleius was a Roman writer, but he was also a Berber(indigenous North African), a very interesting person. The Apologia is said to be one of the funniest Latin texts to survive.
(Various African countries): An anthology of notable works by French-speaking black Africans, “Conteurs francophones noirs”.
Chad: André Gide – Le Retour du Chad. André Gide is a well-known name in French literature, and I have read far too little about Africa.
Congo: André Gide – Voyage au Congo. Ditto.
Australia: Trevor Steele – Flugi kun kakatuoj. An original Esperanto novel about an Aborigene tribe and the arrival of Europeans.
Japan: Kenzaburo Oe – Insegnaci a superare la nostra pazzia. As I’m not studying Japanese yet, I don’t feel bad for reading the great Kenzaburo Oe in Italian.
Ancient China: Shan Sa – Impératrice. I love Chinese-born French author Shan Sa for her novel “La Joueuse de Go”, which was horribly mistranslated in “The Girl Who Played Go”. Read this in French or don’t read it at all. Meanwhile, I’ll try another one of her novels.
Modern China: Annie Wang – From Mainland to Mainstream. Despite the title, this book is all in Chinese and I hope I will be up for it.
Afghanistan: Oriana Fallaci – Inciallah. Oriana Fallaci is an Italian reporter and this book, which I had started on before and found beyond my level, is a really interesting read. She illuminates not just the current situation in Afghanistan but also the historic causes, the Syrian-Lebanese conflict etc., all in the course of a long novel. I’m dying to read this; hopefully I’m not throwing the book down in frustration again.
Russia: Mikaelo Bronŝtejn – Oni ne pafas en Jamburg. An Esperanto novel about the legendary youth movement in the 70s in Soviet Russia.
Siberia/Russia: Julio Baghy – Viktimoj. A classic of Esperanto literature, about life in a Siberian gulag, written by someone who has been there and who is counted among the greatest of Esperanto-speaking poets.

Reading all these books before the end of the year will be a tough challenge, especially as I still have to work and I will be traveling a lot within that time span (our annual trip to the USA and Christmas visits to family). However, I am also looking forward immensely to reading every book on this list, and to buying more books.

Post your recommendations, tips and comments below.

Addicted to Learning Vocabulary

Judith — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:10:52 +0000

Developing your foreign language vocabulary has to be the most critical part of learning any foreign language. Without vocabulary, grammar is absolutely useless, and practice impossible. Also, very often vocabulary is the biggest hurdle when trying to understand fun authentic materials in your target language, and vocabulary is the biggest issue going from intermediate to advanced level (and beyond).

Well, I’m addicted to learning vocabulary. Yes, addicted is the right word. I can’t go a day without. It’s too much fun. How? I will tell you, but I want you to first promise that you’ll give it a try. I suggested this tip to many people, and most were skeptical at first, but those who tried it still randomly come up and thank me for it. It changed the way they learn languages.

The secret is Anki. Anki is a small, unprepossessing piece of software, open-source (though maintained and continuously improved by one Damien Elmes, who also provides awesome customer support) and available for all platforms including smartphones. Anki doesn’t look as fancy as some highly-marketed commercial software like BYKI, but in functionality it’s much better. Let me go over a few things I love about Anki.

For one, there’s the algorithm, the most important part of any SRS (= spaced-repetition software). Anki’s algorithm is well-honed, only asking me words when I’m on the verge of forgetting them, easily transferring them into my extra long-term memory. It’s also possible to tune the algorithm e. g. by giving different default intervals, or by specifying that forgotten words should be asked again right away / in 10 minutes / after 8 hours or the like. This makes Anki suitable for different styles of learners, as well as different subject materials. For example, I also study Go problems on Anki and these I don’t want to see too quickly again; while for pesky Chinese characters 10 minutes or less seems to be optimal for me to make sure I learn them.

Speaking of Chinese, one of the key features of Anki for me is the ability to have unlimited “sides” to a card. For Chinese there’s the issue of learning characters, pronunciation and translation. Using actual paper cards, I never know whether to put the pronunciation on the character side or the translation side. If I put it with the characters, I don’t learn to recognize the characters. If I put it with the translation, I don’t learn to build a link between the concept and the Chinese. This problem is not exclusive to Asian languages though. For example, for European languages I like to have another field for grammar, another field for related words, another field for a sample sentence, another field for a translation of the sample sentence… and then Anki allows me to test myself in any direction, not just word to translation but also translation to word, word to grammar, sample sentence to sample sentence translation (all automatically generated based on one-time entry)… and Anki allows me to specify what I want to see when quizzed in each of these directions, e. g. when I quiz myself on Chinese characters to translation, I also want the pronunciation of the characters to show up underneath the translation. When I quiz myself on translation to Chinese characters, I want to see the pronunciation underneath the characters, plus an example sentence or two. This flexibility is awesome.

Even more awesome is that Anki does auto-completion for Chinese, so I only enter a Chinese word and Anki will already try to fill in the translation and pronunciation for me, so entering vocabulary doesn’t take so long. There are also many awesome decks (for many languages) already available for free in the “Shared Decks” section (like a marketplace, but all free), e. g. a huge, well-made deck covering almost 10,000 Chinese words including all the HSK levels, and a deck with 20,000 Chinese sentences for those who want to try AJATT‘s 10,000 sentence method.

For Japanese there is also auto-completion but for other languages there is something almost as valuable: remembering keyboard layouts. So if I use a Greek keyboard layout to enter my Modern Greek vocabulary in the “Front” field, and then a German keyboard layout to enter the translation in the “Back” field, and I switch back to the front field to enter another word, my keyboard layout will automatically be set to Greek again. Same for Arabic. You can’t believe how much time this saves me!

Anki also has extensive plugin abilities. While I was studying Chinese characters last year, I really liked a plugin that told me how many characters I knew and how they compared to a) frequency lists and b) the HSK official character lists. I could e. g. see that I covered 95% of the HSK 2 list, and then click on it to see which characters I was missing. Click on any character to come up with a dictionary entry for it… awesome. Other plugins extend the kind of data Anki can handle, e. g. there’s a plugin for importing Smart.fm vocabulary, or one for viewing Go games / Go problems in .sgf format as part of the card. Anki natively already supports images, sounds (I made an Esperanto deck with every word recorded), video, HTML, LateX and clozes on cards. A good use for images is studying geography, e. g. learning to recognize countries on the map, also learning their capitals. My boyfriend is addicted to a deck like that.

Ah yes, addiction. The sense of achievement that comes from watching all those words wander into your long-term memory (hitting “Show next in 6 months” etc.), the stats underlining your progress, and also the simple, satisfying way of going over lots of cards at once in the 10-30 minutes I study an Anki deck every day. On the computer I use the numeric keypad 0-4 to rate cards, making the mouse unnecessary so I can go very quickly and lean back comfortably while doing this. Even better with the iPhone version, which I’ll use in bed, on the couch or (even better) on the subway and in the elevator, turning every moment into valuable language-learning time.

Get Anki and tell me about your experience with it!

Learning Languages Online – Part 2

Judith — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:51:41 +0000

Announcement: Apple just approved my new iPhone app, Intense German. This app is for those who need to learn lots of German vocabulary in just a few days, for example for an exam or an upcoming trip. The method works – I use it myself in my language study – and I’ve hand-picked the words. If you have an iPhone, give it a try!

… a continuation from part 1.

How to improve your…

Pronunciation: if you don’t know how to pronounce a foreign word, Forvo.com has a huge database of recorded words for many languages, mostly done by native speakers. If you however need to know how to pronounce a complete phrase or even a complete text, go to Rhinospike.com instead – there you can request that someone should make a recording for you (for free).

Reading comprehension: the best way to learn how to read foreign texts is – to read them. If they are beyond your level though, for example if you try to read a Mexican newspaper after only studying Spanish for 5 hours, use WordChamp (the “Web Reader” function). This will add translations to all words, so that you can rapidly move over the text and start to understand it. It’s much faster than looking every word up in a dictionary, and additionally this tool is able to understand conjugated words. There are also some browser plugins that will do the same thing. You can use these to read not just your own texts, blog posts or foreign newspapers online, but also lots of literature for example – this is a great collection of links to sites that have online literature in lots of languages, such as the Project Gutenberg. And if you prefer somewhat simplified texts, there are some websites for that as well, collected here. Also LingQ has simplified texts in a bunch of languages, and an in-built on-click translation system to boot. Parallel texts (here and here) are also very useful to beginner and intermediate students – there, one column is in the language you’re studying and another column is in your native language, but both feature the same text, so you can compare meanings and constructions across languages.

Listening Comprehension: first, there are podcasts that propose to teach you languages, such as GermanPod101, where I’m project manager, or any number of them available through a quick search on iTunes. Most of these are for beginners or lower-intermediate students. If you’re beyond that stage, there are foreign-language audiobooks (books that are read to you). Audiobooks are becoming popular now, but often they’re expensive. At Librivox.org you can find open-source free audiobooks in several languages, and there’s a more complete listing of such sites here. If your listening comprehension isn’t good enough yet though, you could try listening to an audiobook in a foreign language while reading along in your own language – a lot of words will become clear and they will enter your vocabulary with little effort. This method is called Listening-Reading (see explanations by the inventor) and some resources have been collected for it at Bilingual-texts.com, or you can mix & match your own with the literature and audiobook links above. If you’re a bit more advanced, you may also like to listen to something while reading along in the same language; for example some news sites offer recordings of the news as well as transcripts of them. Or you can watch videos in your target language with subtitles in your language – Dotsub collects subtitled videos online, or there are always DVDs. If your DVD doesn’t have the subtitles you want, you may find some at OpenSubtitles.org, and of course the internet is also your friend if you’re looking to get movies in your target language.

Writing: to get better, you should write a lot in your target language. That’s why I like the service at Lang-8.com, where native speakers correct your foreign-language texts for free. Busuu.com is similar, though it’s only good for a limited number of languages. In exchange, they offer courses and ideas what you could write about.

Speaking: even if you live in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, you can speak your target language every day. How? Use italki (or one of many similar websites) to find partners who will talk with you via Skype. They will help you learn their language and you will help him learn yours. Normally you speak half an hour in one language and half an hour in the other, but this can change if your level of language knowledge is different. If you however don’t have the time to do the exchange or if you’re still unable to talk at all, you should find a paid tutor at Myngle or Edufire. Compared to a random native speaker, who cannot explain things or empathize with your situation as a learner of his language, a tutor is often a better choice, especially if you’re not very advanced yet. The advantage of online tutoring is that you can easily find many native speakers of your target language and choose the best teacher from among them, while in your city there may only be one qualified teacher, or even none. I also like online tutoring because it saves me the time I’d otherwise spend commuting.

The rest: if you have a question about a language you’re learning, if you don’t understand the grammar, need help finding websites, are looking for a good textbook or don’t know how to learn efficiently, there are special forums about language-learning that will provide answers. For grammar or vocabulary questions about a particular language I typically recommend the Unilang forum because it unites native speakers and students of lots of languages, including very obscure ones. For questions about language-learning in general, new study methods or evaluations of textbooks / language programs, I recommend the how-to-learn-any-language forum. That one is Esperanto-phobic for the most part though, so if you speak Esperanto, join me for a more open-minded, more international language-learning forum.

Don’t forget to have fun learning languages!

P.S.: If you know other great free websites for or about language learning, please let me know!

Learning Languages Online – Part 1

Judith — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:12:47 +0000

Are you interested in language learning? If you’re reading this blog, then probably yes. However, I’m sure that you’re not aware just how much the internet can help you in learning languages. Here are my favorite resources:

First, to get a taste of a language, I normally read its article in Wikipedia and I look over the most important phrases in this language – http://travlang.com/languages/ is a great resource for that, even though it’s full of ads, because they have resources on lots of languages and even made native-speaker recordings. There’s also a much more complete phrasebook, which is almost like a course, available from 50languages.com. For the really obscure languages, this online “language museum” can give me a first impression of the language’s sound.

The internet is good for much more than just getting a first impression though. You can also learn languages completely for free online; there are lots of free online language courses. Of course those are often not as good or not as complete as commercial courses, but there are also great and really complete courses online, for example the course in Modern Greek from Kypros.org with more than 100 lessons, the German course by Deutsche Welle, or this Korean course put online by Sogang University. (This blog post won’t try to be a comprehensive listing of available good online courses, my other site tried to do that.)

Sometimes there are even online courses that used to be (or still are) sold commercially. For example, the American Foreign Service Institute allowed many of its language courses from the 60s to be published online at this site. And there’s an awesome commercial multimedia course in Modern Greek (including video!) here, made available for free. LiveMocha is a website that offers courses for a whole bunch of languages, but they are pretty bad. The best webpages are those that only teach one language, for example Lernu for Esperanto – this has to be the most awesome most complete free language site ever! Would that more languages had sites like this!

Apart from complete courses, the internet also offers great tools. I shall list them according to their learning goals. If you goal is…

A bigger vocabulary: www.yourdictionary.com/languages.html lists online dictionaries for all languages. You don’t want to learn all the words of a dictionary though, so have a look at the Unilang.org basic wordlists with around 600 of the most common words for any language (select category “Unilang Basic Wordlist” and choose your target language). There are also various topical word lists. If you’re not sure how to use a word, or how to say something correctly, www.tatoeba.org is a multilingual database of phrases, in which you can search your word. For memorizing words, definitely try out the free open-source software Anki, which is much better than commercial programs. It’s cross-platform and even available for mobile phones.

Grammar: There are online grammars (for example the complete official reference grammar for Esperanto) just like there are courses, but there’s not one page good for all. Let me just mention Verbix.com, which can conjugate any verb in more than 50 languages.

In my next post I shall look at ways to improve your pronunciation, your reading comprehension, listening comprehension, writing and speaking, and also some misc sites. Meanwhile, you can already tell me: what are your favorite language resources online?

Update: part 2 now available at http://www.learnlangs.com/blog/2010/09/03/learning-languages-online-part-2/ – and my app Intense German has been approved for the app store! Yay!

Learning German? Have an iPhone?

Judith — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:43:49 +0000

I’m not sure if you’re aware of it, but beside working for GermanPod101 and teaching private German classes online, I also created a German course for people to study on their own on the iPhone. It’s a brand new concept, involving many tiny German lessons rather than several long ones. It’s just perfect for the iPhone. When you’re waiting for the elevator, or any other of those myriad of small time wasters every day, you can just whip out your iPhone and do a German lesson in that course. You don’t have to be afraid of starting something you can’t finish, and you’ll be slowly but surely making progress in German.

For just a few days, this iPhone app is now priced at only 3 Euros / 4 dollars, as we’re preparing to send out a free upgrade to 50 lessons. Once the upgrade has been approved by Apple, the regular price will go up to 5 Euros, so get this app now – you’ll never see it that cheap again!

Get it now!

Me and Languages

Judith — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:18:02 +0000

German – my native language, which I also teach at GermanPod101.com, Edufire and Myngle.

English – I speak it totally effortlessly and at a near-native level, but employing a curious mix of British, Scottish, Canadian and American vocabulary and pronunciations. Never managed to keep them apart in my head.

Esperanto – my third strongest language. I speak it as a secret language with my boyfriend and I’ve been attending more and more international meetings as well. I had to resign as a board member of Edukado@Interreto (Esperanto-based educational non-profit org) though because of lack of time. See my online Esperanto classes, also I wrote most of the articles for Esperanto.info.

French – I’m basically fluent and my degree involves reading lots of French literature classics in the original. I would appreciate the chance to practise speaking it more often though, especially with French Canadians because I love their accent and would like to copy it.

Latin – I can read it fluently and have taught Latin for more than 7 years. I’m not one of those who’d have conversations in Latin though, that’s what Esperanto is for. Check out my Latin classes on Edufire!

Italian – Studied it for 3 years at high school, after which I spoke it pretty much fluently and got an A- in my final oral exam. However, since 2003 I have used it at most once a year and now it’s seriously rusty. I would love to revive it.

Chinese – Following a summer course in Beijing and some serious studying in Germany, I can get by in Mandarin. At this point I know approximately 1500 characters and am always working on that. I study lots of characters at once, then counter it by studying lots of texts or textbook dialogs and also taking conversational lessons.

Modern Greek – I initially started learning Greek from and because of a friend, with whom I’ve been out of touch for a while now. I still like the language though, take the occasional Greek lessons on Myngle and try to at least not let it fall into disuse. At the moment I’d classify myself an upper beginner.

Arabic, Indonesian, Maori, Spanish, Swahili – All languages that call out to me and that I’ve studied at some point or am still studying on occasion. I’m a beginner in all of them. For Swahili I’m trying to study Assimil every day, but something always comes up…

Czech, Dutch, Lithuanian, Swedish – Studied these for concrete purposes, such as upcoming travels, but they don’t really call out to me and I’ve already forgotten everything or almost everything I learned. I can still understand Dutch because of my German of course, and same goes for most Romance languages.

In a perfect world, I’d be speaking all of the world’s known languages by the time I die (yes I am a Unilang member), but I don’t think it’s going to happen. I don’t have a talent for languages, just an immense love for them. I’ll give it a shot.