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Forgot to Mention the Ninth Free Language Newsletter

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Welcome to the Ninth Edition of The Free Language Letter.

30 new free resources for 14 languages (4 new!) have been added to the site. There are now 343 resources available for 34 languages.

Quick View of What's Inside

New! English Overview Page
New Languages! Hebrew, Irish, Luxembourgish and Norwegian
New resources for Arabic, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Irish, Luxembourgish, Mandarin Chinese, Norwegian, Polish, Russian and Spanish
List of new web feeds including news and podcasts
Online Translation Resources and Mozilla Firefox Addons
Featured Resource: The New BBC Languages
Language Factoid

New! English Overview Page

The latest language to get a shiny new overview page is English. An overview page is basically a single spot where all the resources for a given language are brought together for users to quickly navigate.

English is an Indo-European, West Germanic language originating in England, and is the first language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and the Anglophone Caribbean. It is used extensively as a second language and as an official language throughout the world, especially in Commonwealth countries and in many international organizations.

Visit the English Overview Page and continue reading.

New Languages! Hebrew, Irish, Luxembourgish and Norwegian

Since the last newsletter, four new languages have been added to the site: Hebrew, Irish Gaelic, Luxembourgish and Norwegian.

Commercial Products

earworms MBT Rapid Language line of learn to music audio courses have become a hit!

earwormslearning.com Earworms MBT Rapid Language Learning Products Accelerate Study through Music and Science

Recent News and Podcast Feeds

Below are the most recently added web feeds that Free Language syndicates.

BBC News in Chinese
Hebrew Podcasts' Podcast
LearnHebrewPod Podcast
Namaste Dosti Podcast
One Minute German Podcast
One Minute Irish Podcast
One Minute Luxembourgish Podcast
One Minute Norwegian Podcast
One Minute Polish Podcast
One Minute Russian Podcast

Featured Resource

The BBC has recently updated its BBC Languages resources! The new look and features are a considerable upgrade, making it easier to see all the resources available and get learning the languages you want to learn.

BBC Languages has always been a great place to access self-contained beginner courses in Chinese, German, Greek, French, Italian and Portuguese. There are also tidbits and goodies in other languages.

Recently, the BBC has revamped it's entire website for more flexibility, personalization and ease of use. In the languages section, this means it's easier than ever to find online courses, grammar info, learning games, dictionaries, self-assessment tests, resources for tutors, info about going abroad, photos, tips, stories, audio, video, related links, local class finder, cool/slang words and phrases, etc. It's all there and packed with good content!

Continue reading about the new BBC Languages.

Language Factoid

Approximately 375 million people speak English as their first language. English today is probably the third largest language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. However, when combining native and non-native speakers it is probably the most commonly spoken language in the world.

Factoid thanks to Wikipedia.

Slán agat!

Chapman
Free Language
http://freelanguage.org

660 reads

By chapman - Posted on June 25th, 2008

If You Read this Whole Article, You Don't Suffer from the Effects of the Internet on Concentration and Thinking

I just finshed skimreading (most of) an article about how the Web is changing the way the we read - and the way that we think. There was a tidbit about language in there that I found interesting (good thing I didn't skim past it!).

Reading... is not an instinctive skill for human beings. It’s not etched into our genes the way speech is. We have to teach our minds how to translate the symbolic characters we see into the language we understand. And the media or other technologies we use in learning and practicing the craft of reading play an important part in shaping the neural circuits inside our brains. Experiments demonstrate that readers of ideograms, such as the Chinese, develop a mental circuitry for reading that is very different from the circuitry found in those of us whose written language employs an alphabet. The variations extend across many regions of the brain, including those that govern such essential cognitive functions as memory and the interpretation of visual and auditory stimuli. We can expect as well that the circuits woven by our use of the Net will be different from those woven by our reading of books and other printed works.

Part of the reason I want to learn to read Mandarin Chinese is to expand my mind, to enhance my ability to think and process visual input in the form of characters. This fascinates me, and drives me to use sites like nciku to amass large amounts of Chinese vocabulary (well, that's a ways off yet). I want to activate those other areas of the brain that will develop as I learn to interpret Chinese characters.

In fact, aside from being able to relate with more people all over the world, that is what has most interested me about learning languages in general: new ways of thinking about the same old sh!t. But are we really thinking more and more as we delve into technology, search engines, the Worldwide Web, et al? Or are we developing into mere processors of information that have lost the ability to think and concentrate profoundly on a topic for extended periods?

I certainly feel the restlessness bubble up inside of me when faced with a Web page full of text, and chances are I won't read it all, just find what I wanted and keep going. Good or bad - who knows? But watching myself change with the amazing flux of information available to me has caused me to revert back to the "old school" in several ways, most notably forcing (literally) myself to concentrate on learning a language non-sporadically - a whole hour devoted to one language! It has also caused me to back away from information overload... cancel loads of email subscriptions and unsubscribe from a bucketload of RSS feeds in an effort to be (over-)exposed to only the most pertinent, interesting content.

Now I feel my concentration waning as I write this lengthy entry! Better check out before you do.

Tagged: chinese • mandarin • mandarin chinese • attention • cognition • information overload • internet • internet and thinking • lack of concentration skills • language learning • languages • learning • learning chinese characters • rss feeds • skimreading • technology • thinking • web • worldwide web • worldwide web and cognition

439 reads

By chapman - Posted on June 24th, 2008

Finished the Seventh Edition of the Free Language Letter

I haven't been posting here of late because I've been working on getting the Free Language Letter complete. Well, now it's complete! I am republishing it here for many reasons - some personal and some altruistic. ;)

This edition really jumps the newsletter to the next level. There are lots of upcoming changes at Free Language to look forward to in the near future.

Tagged: arabic • bahasa • cantonese • chinese • dutch • english • french • geman • hindi • indonesian • irish • italian • japanese • korean • mandarin • pig latin • polish • portuguese • russian • spanish • swedish • audio • browser • community • download • education • extensions • firefox • firefox language browser extensions • foreign • free • ipod • language • learn • learn foreign languages on youtube • mp3s • multilingual • multilingual net tv • net • news • online • online language community • opencourseware • podcasting • podcasts • social • social language learning • software • teach • tools • tools for learning foreign languages online • tv • un • videos • web • web 2.0 and foreign language learning • youtube • youtube language videos

New Spanish Section at Free Language

Free Language has begun revamping its sections. Now, instead of just a list of resources much like a blog, Free Language will truly become a meta-repository for language-learning resources!

Visit the Spanish Language Section of Free Language.