Thursday, January 28, 2010

My favorite free websites for language learning

Free materials are everywhere, but so far I've found the following particularly useful.


It features a voice chat facility where you can talk to another member who speaks your target language(s) instantly if he's online. Alternatively, you can have text chats with them. For me, this site is the best place to find language exchange partners.


Short articles with audio (in which some vocabulary is explained) are published periodically. These are like short Spanish lessons. You need to know the Spanish language quite a bit (perhaps at intermediate level or above) to benefit from it.


This site contains a large number of free podcasts (with transcripts) from different sources and in various languages like Spanish, Portuguese, German, Japanese, Mandarin and Swedish. Additional features include writing correction by and conversations with tutors. You may need to buy credit points for these services.

The above websites alone are by no means sufficient for learning a foreign language to fluency. However, they are good supplements to your learning materials. See resources in my website for more listing.


Monday, January 25, 2010

Welcome to the Independent Learners' Blog!

This is a blog about language studies, and in particular learning foreign languages on your own (i.e. without regular classes). From time to time, I will post tips on learning languages and other language-related topics, in addition to those discussed in my web site.

Enjoy and feel free to comment!