Reviews

Hundreds of resources to help you teach yourself

Websites

This Is a Looooong List

General, Websites

In Wikipedia you can find a list of language academies, which are organizations that weigh in on what is and is not right and proper in a given language. They exist in Germany, France, the Netherlands, and many other countries—…

ConversationExchange.com: Barter Your Language Skills

5 Arabic, Dutch, English, French, General, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Yiddish, Websites, Classes/Conversation

Even if you live in a remote area, you can use sites such as ConversationExchange.com to find a Skype partner overseas and start speaking, say, Finnish or Xhosa. The web is a fabulous thing. Through this language-exchange community, you…

A Useful Collection of News Links

5 French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, News, Websites

On the MIT website is an easily navigable and appealing list of free foreign-language newspaper sites. They are categorized by language and draw from countries around the globe. Languages include Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. …

DLIFLC: Language Resources for Free

Arabic, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Audio Lessons, Multimedia, Websites

A reader whose opinion I respect directed me to this website for the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC). Here you can find a lot of free multimedia language-learning material (audio, video, print) for numerous languages, including multiple Arabic…

Livemocha: Seeking to Provide Casual Café Culture

Arabic, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Websites, Classes/Conversation

“As the world’s largest online language learning community,” reads the Livemocha site, “Livemocha fuses traditional learning methods with online practice and interaction with native language speakers from around the world. Livemocha delivers an unparalleled learning experience that promises…

Israeli TV on the Web!

Hebrew, Radio/TV/Video/Film, Websites

It is a fact that many people in this country watch too much television, but you can turn a bad habit into a good one by using TV to accumulate foreign-language skills. These suggestions for free Israeli TV online came…

Listenlive.eu: You Can Go for French Radio, or Estonian, or Greek, or Portuguese, or Something Else Altogether!

5 Dutch, English, French, General, German, Greek, Irish, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, News, Radio/TV/Video/Film, Websites

A valuable resource for language learners, the listenlive.eu website has a formidable collection of links to more than 4,000 European radio stations streaming live on the web in many languages. I have used listenlive.eu to access German and French…

Walking While Reading El Diario: Look Before You Cross!

4 Spanish, News, Websites

The newspaper El Diario, available in print and online, is the largest, oldest Spanish-language daily in New York City. When I was working on my Spanish, reading El Diario was an extremely…

Mingle on Myngle

Arabic, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Websites, Classes/Conversation

Founded in 2007 and based in Amsterdam, Myngle bills itself as “the No. 1 multi-language online school.” I haven’t tried Myngle out, but some of my readers have. One described it as “a great way of getting some cheap lessons to…