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View Full Version : Learning a new language? Start here! THE language resource thread.


Zay
2008-07-30, 20:12
!!!This is the updated language resource thread!!!

There are a lot of reasons to start a new language. You may be moving to a place where a certain language is spoken, you may HAVE to for school credit, you might want to show off, or you may just be really interested in a particular language. There are a few things you need: Time(lots of it), materials, and one or more native speakers(online or off). This thread deals with materials. Here is a list compiled by many users and myself of free internet resources. You can use these to jumpstart your learning, and then go on to whatever fluency level you're willing to work towards with whatever methods suit you best.

General Languages


http://lang.syr.edu/Languages/MainMenu/
The Language log: http://tinyurl.com/3ouno

A goldmine, here you should find information and resources for any language you can think ofhttp://www.omniglot.com/

Almost as good as the last: http://tinyurl.com/z2frb

A very active language forum: http://forum.wordreference.com/index.php

General language database: http://www.word2word.com./

This is a Czech radio that you can listen and read in several language: http://www.radio.cz/en/
http://conjuguemos.com/home/index.html Multi purpose verb conjugator for spanish, french, and german.
General Linguistics

Proto-Indo European Databases: http://tinyurl.com/jas5b http://tinyurl.com/hfwlk

General Amerindian



Nahuatl Vocabulary: http://tinyurl.com/ekgj4

A huge contribution of links from half-wit goon. http://www.native-languages.org/ http://www.geocities.com/cheyenne_language/langlinks.htm http://www.hanksville.org/NAresources/indices/NAlanguage.html http://www.ewebtribe.com/NACulture/lang.htm http://www.indians.org/welker/americas.htm http://www.kstrom.net/isk/stories/language.html http://www.plumsite.com/palace/native.htm http://www2005.lang.osaka-u.ac.jp/~krkvls/lang.html

Arabic

Good Arabic Site from the University of Texas: http://tinyurl.com/kus4n

http://www.arab2.com/learn-arabic/lesson-01.htm http://www.arabicnews.com/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/news/ http://www.4arabs.com/links/ http://www.omniglot.com/writing/arabic.htm http://www.al-bab.com/arab/language/lang.htm http://www.funwitharabic.com/ http://www.languages-on-the-web.com/links/link-arabic.htm (Links) http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/mideast/cuvlm/arabic_lit.html (Literature) http://www.islamic-knowledge.com/Arabic_Language.htm (Resource) http://www.shariahprogram.ca/Arabic-alphabet.shtml http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Reading_Arabic http://www.convertstoislam.org/learning/arabic_linksfornewMuslims.htm http://www.fatwa-online.com/downloads/dow002/

The Arabic resource thread from Word Reference: http://tinyurl.com/evtn8
Lebanese http://abcleb.com/
Good, structured intro to arabic. http://www.madinaharabic.com/Index.htm
Kuwaiti TV (Arabic): www.media.kw.org (http://www.media.kw.org)
http://www.geckil.com/~harvest/arabic/
More Eastern Arabic:
http://tinyurl.com/hxjbm
http://tinyurl.com/h8ynk
Free Syrian Arabic Language Course http://syrianarabic.com/downloads.html </br> Berber

Courtesy of 2600 gitano http://wapurl.co.uk/?I3RJ6VY http://wapurl.co.uk/?IOLA8ZG


Chinese www.linese.com (http://www.linese.com) Government sponsored site for foreigners to learn chinese.
If you look at the bottom right you'll see little audio markers, the bottom one is the news feed: http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/hi/default.stm
More from the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/real_chinese/
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/chinese.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language
http://www.china.org.cn/english/feat...son/183276.htm
http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_learning/node_316.htm
http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en/node_2.htm
http://www.audioforum.com/index.php?...mode=cat_click
http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/online.htm
http://www.chinese-forums.com/archive/index.php/
http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en/node_2.htm
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com...ese/index.html
Dutch www.taalunieversum.org (http://www.taalunieversum.org)

http://www.learndutch.org/

www.nos.nl (http://www.nos.nl)

www.nos.nl/jeugdjournaal/voorpagina/index.html (http://www.nos.nl/jeugdjournaal/voorpagina/index.html)

http://tinyurl.com/zdle7

http://portal.omroep.nl/uitzendinggemist/,

www.dutchgrammar.com (http://www.dutchgrammar.com)



Totse’s own dutch guide: http://tinyurl.com/jodop

French

This is the best site to start French from scratch http://laits.utexas.edu/fi/

French Radio: http://www.europe1.fr/
Watch televised France 2 news casts. Three editions daily. (Free of course) http://jt.france2.fr/
http://www.lepointdufle.net

German
http://tinyurl.com/qah5f
German quotes: http://msd.twoday.net/

http://www.ganz.ac.nz/phorum-3.2.1/ go to NCEA worksheets or worksheets for many good German language resources compiled by German high school teachers in New Zealand.
Great German Site to Start from scratch. http://www.allemand-online.de/ German Readings: http://tinyurl.com/jmhon


Japanese www.japanese-online.com (http://www.japanese-online.com)
My favorite japanese learning site: http://www.guidetojapanese.org/start.html
Thank Huuger for this: http://www.pikkle.com/jgram/ http://www.tjf.or.jp/eng/ge/ge04ofuro.htm http://www.grandgent.com/tom/j/ http://www.manythings.org/japanese/links/' (http://www.manythings.org/japanese/links/') http://www.nuthatch.com/kanjicards/ http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/m.rowley/resources.html http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/

Latin

Latin Radio: http://www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii/

Latin Forum: http://forum.catholic.org/viewtopic.php?t=4088
http://www.textkit.com/ http://www.mentalcode.com/latin/ http://www.sprachprofi.de.vu/ Here are some short stories to read once you learn enough latin. http://tinyurl.com/ks2ym
Italian

Guide to Italian, in Spanish: http://tinyurl.com/fwszc
This is an Italian course that's great for complete beginners. http://tinyurl.com/2x6g5
Portuguese

Guide to learning Portuguese in Spanish: http://tinyurl.com/eq6l6

http://tinyurl.com/zz6t2



Russian

http://tinyurl.com/hbdez http://tinyurl.com/fbovo http://tinyurl.com/zetyb http://learningrussian.com/ http://masterrussian.com http://tinyurl.com/g49ft http://www.russianlessons.net http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_grammar Learn the russian alphabet http://tinyurl.com/glnve
Spanish

My guide on trilling your R’s: http://tinyurl.com/jjkpm

Ukrainian http://www.ukma.kiev.ua/pub/courses/UFL/

Finnish http://donnerwetter.kielikeskus.hels...ForForeigners/
http://www.cc.oulu.fi/~mkarjala/soh2/ - grammar (in Finnish)
http://www.cc.oulu.fi/~mkarjala/soh2/ - grammar (in Finnish),
a lot of excercises http://www.edu.fi/oppimateriaalit/ymmarrasuomea/ texts for listening comprehension http://donnerwetter.kielikeskus.hels...nnishForForeig ners/parts-index.htm
http://www.yle.fi/opinportti/supisuomea/
http://efe.scape.net - Finnish - English - Finnish dictionary
http://www.ilmainensanakirja.fi a lot of dictionaries.. espanja=Spanish
http://www.kmatsum.info/suomi/fin83/...fin83_g00.html
http://www.uta.fi/~km56049/finnish/
http://www.ddg.com/LIS/InfoDesignF97...nnish/sitemap. html
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/Finnish.html
http://www.transparent.com/languagep...sh/finnish.htm
http://www2.lingsoft.fi/cgi-bin/fintwol write a word and the site will tell you which form of which word it is
http://www.chiugate.fi/
http://www.quia.com/pages/lauantai.html
http://www.quia.com/pages/orjapiiskuri.html


Swedish http://tinyurl.com/lhdnr
http://www.slayradio.org/mastering_swedish.php
http://tinyurl.com/hdpl9 [/b]

Farsi: http://www.easypersian.com/farsi/per..._archive_1.htm http://www.rlrouse.com/learn-farsi.html

Bonus round If you can find your way around in cyrillic: http://uztranslations.net.ru/

LuKaZz420
2008-07-30, 20:23
good thread buddy, do you have any more links for Portuguese?

Zay
2008-07-30, 20:29
good thread buddy, do you have any more links for Portuguese?

Not yet but DerDrache might.

DerDrache
2008-07-30, 21:05
good thread buddy, do you have any more links for Portuguese?

FSI ( http://www.fsi-language-courses.com/) has a pretty extensive Portuguese course. Aside from that, I haven't really found tons of internet resources for it. I mainly just watch a lot of movies (they have an awesome film industry) and seek penpals.

Zay
2008-07-31, 18:20
If you're studying Japanese, you're going to need all the support you can get. http://www.jref.com/forum/index.php is as big as totse, the theme of the forum being learning japanese. There's your multi-thousand support group.

Sevn
2008-08-04, 10:08
I like to use the forums on this site.

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/

The members there are pretty helpful from what I have seen, though I mainly troll and see what other people are talking about.

Seems like some members know 5+ languages, and there are also a few who claim to know 10+ but I lack the knowledge to test them :P

DerDrache
2008-08-04, 10:32
I like to use the forums on this site.

The members there are pretty helpful from what I have seen, though I mainly troll and see what other people are talking about.

Seems like some members know 5+ languages, and there are also a few who claim to know 10+ but I lack the knowledge to test them :P

The idea is to keep people posting on this forum. And uh...the people are helpful, so you decide to troll them? Get the fuck out of here.

PirateJoe
2008-08-11, 03:48
One of those rare, fuck yeah sites i just stumbled across:

http://www.germanlanguageguide.com

Star Wars Fan
2008-08-12, 17:43
I don't see any English ones

Zonko
2008-08-22, 13:31
Irish

There are a lot of resources out there, and you can usually google for what specific phrases etc. you're looking for, but here's a short list of useful resources.

http://www.irishlanguagelinks.com/ - General links to Irish language resources
http://www.gaeilge.ie/ - Find Irish resources in your area. There's an English language version of the site too.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Irish - It's not 100%, but it's a very good resource
http://wikitravel.org/en/Irish_phrasebook - Good list of day to day phrases as Gaeilge.
http://ie.youtube.com - Just youtube, but there are a lot of Irish language videos on there these days.
http://www.cairde.net - Irish language social networking
http://irishrepublican.net - Not an Irish language site, but there's a user on it who does Irish lessons over voip on sunday nights aimed at beginners. Everyone is welcome.

Radio Stations
http://www.raidiofailte.com/ - Raidió Fáitle - Based in Belfast, speaking Ulster/Donegal diallect, plays modern and traditional music.
http://www.rnl106.com/ - Raidió Na Life - Community ran station, based in Dublin, plays lots of modern music.
http://www.rte.ie/rnag/ - Raidío Na Gaeltachta - Based in the Connemarra Gaeltacht region, runs a fairly strict "No English" language policy. Mostly traditional/instrumentatal music and discussion
BBC Radio Ulster also do some broadcasts as Gaeilge

Dictionaries
www.englishirishdictionary.com - English / Irish translations. Good general purpose dictionary
www.focail.ie - More of a technical dictionary, very good but may not be appropriate for beginner discussion

There is also discussion as Gaeilge on IRC, in #gaeilge on quakenet.

That's all I can think about at the minute, but there's a lot out there for Irish speakers.

Zay
2008-08-27, 17:55
French tv: lots of channels. http://www.tvonline.fr.cc/

Zay
2008-08-27, 18:20
Russian webcasts with transcripts and glossary. http://www.gwu.edu/~slavic/webcast/index.htm It's like news, but they speak slowly.

Zay
2008-08-27, 18:24
and some Russian tv.. http://telesa.tv/

DerDrache
2008-08-27, 20:42
Best Russian Course. Ever:

http://www.freelanguagecourses.com/language/russian/princeton-russian-course-51/

BSK
2008-08-28, 08:20
don´t you think you could put all the links into the first post since it´s a sticky thread about resources ..

BSK
2008-09-01, 19:19
how to learn a new language, toraton´s new blog:

http://www.howtolanguage.com/

wolfy_9005
2008-09-09, 05:07
http://the-voyagers.tripod.com/language.htm

Nepali

OneMestizo
2008-09-10, 13:35
The link for ukrainian is dead. New link is http://www.ukma.kiev.ua/ua/pub/websites/ufl/index.htms

Zay
2008-09-23, 03:29
Free MIT courses in several languages:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index.htm#ForeignLanguagesandLiteratures

This is a goldmine, really. You get texts, lessons, tests, and a free download of flashcube, a program written by MIT that consolidates and replaces flashcards and audio recording.

Hit-The-Bong
2008-09-23, 06:54
Best Russian Course. Ever:

http://www.freelanguagecourses.com/language/russian/princeton-russian-course-51/

Damn, I was about to post this.

Bar-none the best course ever.

negz
2008-10-04, 13:11
http://www.shabdkosh.com/
English-Hindi Dictionary

http://www.studyquran.co.uk/PRLonline.htm
Project Root List
Arab-English Quranic Dictionary



~~~
Zay is gay.
He lives in Northern VA.
That's all I gotta say.

negz
2008-10-10, 11:53
Edward William Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon
http://www.laneslexicon.co.uk/

KING G
2008-10-15, 03:58
Best Russian Course. Ever:

http://www.freelanguagecourses.com/language/russian/princeton-russian-course-51/

Do you know where I can find the answers for the homework problems?

DerDrache
2008-10-15, 04:55
Do you know where I can find the answers for the homework problems?

I don't think they're available (aside from the audio exercises, where they tell you the answer, of course). Try referring back to the text; as I recall most of the questions asked in the homework problems can be answered using the same constructions from the lesson's text.

Zay
2008-10-16, 05:00
I don't think they're available (aside from the audio exercises, where they tell you the answer, of course). Try referring back to the text; as I recall most of the questions asked in the homework problems can be answered using the same constructions from the lesson's text.

Dude, someone on LLF passed on to me another fat golden nugget.

http://www.euronews.net/ru

This is like radio prague, but 1000x better as the articles dont suck and you get video instead of just audio.

Description for everyone else: short news clips in french, spanish, german, italian, portuguese, russian, and arabic with a transcript on almost each one.

13579
2008-10-22, 06:00
Wow, I've wanted to learn some Russian for awhile (Beyond the 7 or so works I already know), and this really helped.

I think I'm going to set the language on the computer I use at school to Russian, see if that helps any.

Thanks to Zay and anybody who added Russian leaning aids!

PirateJoe
2008-12-06, 06:20
http://www.livemocha.com

Full courses in Russian, German, French, Spanish, Hindi, Icelandic, Mandarin, Portuguese, Japanese, and Italian. The style is similar to Rosetta, though it looks like this place adds in a little more theory and mechanics.

Nataliapicado
2008-12-17, 12:31
Nice post. Learning spanish is not a difficult task now a days.This will improve your effectiveness in learning conversational Spanish program which is designed as a second language in an easy, entertaining and active manner and the emphasis is based on the 4 language skills like reading comprehension, written expression, oral communication, and listening comprehension.

learn spanish online (http://www.lejoslearning.com)