Conscious Manifestations

Welcome to the Eighth Edition of The Free Language Letter.

25 new free resources for 12 languages have been added to the site. There are not as many updates as usual because I have been working behind the scenes on the new overview pages for each language.

Quick View of What's Inside

• New! Afrikaans, Arabic, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese Overview Pages
• Now Available: 34 Languages :)
• New resources for Catalan, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish
• New Social Language Learning Resources
• New News Feeds in Catalan, French, German, Italian, Polish and Spanish
• Featured Resource: Lingro Public Domain Dictionary and Online Translation Tool (and so much more)
• Language Factoid

New! Afrikaans, Arabic, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese Overview Pages

As I did for the Spanish language before the last newsletter, I have now completed four more language overview sections. Now you will find new homes on Free Language for Afrikaans, Arabic, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese.

These overview pages are basically a single spot where all the resources for a given language are brought together for users to quickly view and navigate. I like to think they are quite packed with excellent resources for learning the respective languages. :) Some are more filled than others, and the overview pages do include an overview of the language, a list of resources for learning the language, podcasts, news resources, a tag cloud, InternetTV stations, recommended software, an aggregator link and feed and other such useful info.

Now Available: 34 Languages :)

With some of the major changes I have been working on, I have also slipped in a large number of new languages. Since the last newsletter, this includes Bengali, Catalan, Czech, Dutch, Filipino, Greek, Hausa, Hebrew, Hungarian, Latin, Polish, Swahili, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.

Before you get too excited, know that I cheated a bit on most of these and they list mainly resources for learning languages socially, and do not yet list specific resources for those languages. Catalan, Polish and Swedish are the exceptions with one specific resource for each plus the social resources. Specific resources for the rest will come as soon as I can manage!

OK, onto the latest resources added for specific languages and other such goodness.

Catalan

CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Catalan and 6 Other Languages

English

Blabbinit.com Blabbinit Learn English with Podcasts, Comics, Karaoke, Blogs, Videos and Chat
EnglishLingQ.com English LingQ Podcast with Free iTunes iPod MP3 Audio using Linguist Method by Steve Kaufmann
ECPod.com ECPod Upload and Share English and Chinese Video Podcasts with a Community and Find Language Exchange Friends
Babbel.com Virtual FlashCard Language Share Site w/English, French, German, Italian, Spanish Tools and Video Game-Like Interface

French

FrenchLingQ.com French LingQ Podcast with Free iTunes iPod MP3 Audio using Linguist Method by Steve Kaufmann
CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in French and 6 Other Languages
FSI-Language-Courses.com US Foreign Service Institute French Free Audio Lessons Downloads
Babbel.com Virtual FlashCard Language Share Site w/English, French, German, Italian, Spanish Tools and Video Game-Like Interface

German

GermanLingQ.com German LingQ Podcast with Free iTunes iPod MP3 Audio using Linguist Method by Steve Kaufmann
CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European News Magazine in German and 6 Other Languages
FSI-Language-Courses.com US Foreign Service Institute German Free Audio Lessons Downloads
Babbel.com Virtual FlashCard Language Share Site w/English, French, German, Italian, Spanish Tools and Video Game-Like Interface

Italian

CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Italian and 6 Other Languages
Babbel.com Virtual FlashCard Language Share Site w/English, French, German, Italian, Spanish Tools and Video Game-Like Interface

Japanese

JapaneseLingQ.com Japanese LingQ Podcast with Free iTunes MP3 Audio using Linguist Method by Steve Kaufmann

Mandarin Chinese

EnterZon.com Zon MSU Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) for Learning Mandarin Chinese Interactively
ECPod.com ECPod Upload and Share English and Chinese Video Podcasts with a Community and Find Language Exchange Friends

Polish

CaféBabel.com Café Babel European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Polish and 6 Other Languages

Portuguese

PortugueseLingQ.com Portuguese LingQ Podcast with iTunes MP3 Audio using Linguist Method by Steve Kaufmann
FSI-Language-Courses.com US Foreign Service Institute Portuguese Free Audio Lessons Downloads

Russian

RussianLingQ.com Russian LingQ Podcast with Free iTunes iPod MP3 Audio using Linguist Method by Steve Kaufmann

Spanish

SpanishLingQ.com Spanish LingQ Podcast with Free iTunes MP3 Audio using Linguist Method by Steve Kaufmann
CaféBabel.com Café Babel European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Spanish and 6 Other Languages
FSI-Language-Courses.com US Foreign Service Institute Spanish Free Audio Lessons Downloads
Babbel.com Virtual FlashCard Language Share Site w/English, French, German, Italian, Spanish Tools and Video Game-Like Interface

Swedish

SwedishLingQ.com Swedish LingQ Podcast with Free iTunes iPod MP3 Audio using Linguist Method by Steve Kaufmann

Social Language Learning

Below are the latest additions to the social language learning section.

Babbel.com Virtual FlashCard Language Share Site w/English, French, German, Italian, Spanish Tools and Video Game-Like Interface
Palabea.net Palabea the Speaking World Social Language Exchange Network with Videolectures, Podcasts, Images, Docs
Worldia.net Worldia International Community for Making Friends to Learn and Teach Foreign Languages via Skype

News Feeds

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

CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Catalan and 6 Other Languages
CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in French and 6 Other Languages
CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European News Magazine in German and 6 Other Languages
CaféBabel.com Café Babel Local European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Italian and 6 Other Languages
CaféBabel.com Café Babel European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Polish and 6 Other Languages
CaféBabel.com Café Babel European Political, Economic and Cultural News Magazine in Spanish and 6 Other Languages

Featured Resource

Lingro is a truly useful site with a decidedly free and open approach to multi-lingual dictionaries and online web translation. It provides users with quick and powerful online translation dictionaries and study tools, vocabulary lists and games. The site is "committed to building the Web's largest collection of open dictionaries."

I was struck by the straight-forward, no nonsense approach to open content. The site content is empowered and protected by the Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 License. In short, this means the multilingual dictionaries can be copied, adapted and distributed with proper attribution. Equally, content editors must allow their additions to continue to be worked with under the same license. Thus, in an open and free way, lingro appeals to the users for help in creating "relevant translations and definitions" for the these language translation dictionaries.

Since I published the original article, several new changes have been in the works at the Lingro headquarters. Here's a list on their blog of some of the major improvements. There is also a great sections for webmasters that explains how to integrate Lingro into your website. Also added is a new feature for showing each user's personalized reading/vocabulary profile.

They are really cranking it out over there and I send lots of good vibes to this crew that is working to improve Public Domain tools for language learning. :)

Continue reading about Lingro.

Language Factoid

Mandarin Chinese is a category of related Chinese dialects spoken across most of northern and south-western China. When taken as a separate language, as is often done in academic literature, the Mandarin dialects have more speakers than any other language.

Factoid thanks to Wikipedia.

看你下一次!

Chapman
Free Language
http://freelanguage.org

Sixth Edition

Welcome to the sixth edition of The Free Language Letter.

Persian/Farsi Language Resource Section Added

We are happy to announce a new resource section for the Persian or Farsi language!

There is now a total of 16 language sections available on the site.

New Free Resources

71 new free resources for 18 languages have been added to the site.

Afrikaans

Learn Afrikaans Wikibook in English

Arabic

Syrian Arabic Free Illustrated Textbook with Audio Download
Learning Arabic Language from Didactiques Langues Publications

Dutch

Valley Trail Free Online Dutch Courses and Lessons for Beginner and Advanced Students

English

TheEnglishLanguage.org Directory of Websites about the English Language
EnglishClub.com Free ESL Learn and Teach English Lessons, Games, Forums, Quizzes, Chat
Effortless English Podcast Gives Automatic English for the People
Listen to English-Learn English Podcast
English1010.com Free Audio and Written English Lessons Online
BetteratEnglish.com Better at English ESL/EFL Podcast for Real People
Learn about the English Language at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
itcansay.com Huge Database of Audio Samples for English Pronunciation Practice, Dictionary, Online Text Reader
Englishmate.com.cn English Mate Podcast for Learning English Online with Real Teachers

Esperanto

Esperanto.info Website about the Constructed Language Esperanto

French

Fancy French: Learn to Speak, Read and Write French Online in Total Immersion with Free Podcast Downloads
Learn about the French Language at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia

German

Download Free FSI German Language Audio Courses
Learn about the German Language at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia

Hindi

Learn about the Hindi Language at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia

Indonesian

Learn about the Indonesian Language (Bahasa Indonesia) at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia

Italian

Let's Speak Italian Podcast: Learn in Minutes a Day

Japanese

Kanji-a-Day.com Learn Japanese Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana Daily Study Aid Website
KanjiQuizzer.com Free Sura Sura Kanji Quiz Web Software Interface

Korean

KoreanPod Learn Korean Podcast on Podomatic
LetsLearnKorean.com Let's Learn Korean Group Blog Website
Learn about the Korean Language at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia

Latin

Latinum - The Latin Language Learning Podcast from London

Mandarin Chinese

CSLPod.com Chinese as a Second Language Podcast
learningmandarinpod Learning Mandarin Chinese Podcast and Video Podcasts
Learn Chinese Through Music: Mandarin Language Study through Pop Music

Persian

Persian Grammar Book for Farsi Study on Google Books
Farsi/Persian Language Lessons, Reading and Dialogues for Study Materials
Free Learn Persian Flashcards in Sets from Flashcard Exchange
Free and Easy Persian/Farsi Lessons from EasyPersian.com
The Iran Podcast
BBCPersian.com BBC Persian News in Farsi
Learn about the Persian/Farsi Language at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia

Portuguese

Easy Portuguese Website for Beginner and Intermediate Brazilian Portuguese Learners
Learn Portuguese Wikibook for Beginner and Intermediate Learners/Students
Tá Falado Free Brazilian Portuguese Podcast for Spanish Speakers
Loads of Podcasts in Spanish and Portuguese Languages

Russian

Learn Russian Wikibook for English Speakers Learning the Russian Language
langintro.com An Introduction to Russian for the Casual Learner
Learn about the Russian Language at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia

Spanish

SpanishRomance.com: A Variety of Spanish Language Content
Loads of Podcasts in Spanish and Portuguese Languages
SpanishSense.com Learn Spanish on Your Terms Podcast
Learn about the Spanish Language at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia

Cool Free Tools and Multi-Lingual Resources

We added some cool tools and multi-lingual resource links, including internet TV stations, Firefox tools, recording archives and mobile phone phrasebooks!

Global Internet TV Gateway Portal with Web TV in World Languages
FoxLingo Free Firefox Browser Extension Software for Translating Web Pages
Language Learning Advisor Website for Help Learning Foreign Languages
Learno.com Free Online Foreign Language Learning Books
Verbs-Online.com Study French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, English with Verb Tools
UMN's Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition
Newseum.com Free Front Page News from over 50 Countries in Loads of Languages
WordChamp Language Toolbar for Firefox
Wikipedia Language Portal
Free and Open Mandarin Chinese University Lectures from Archive.org
Free Mobile Phone Phrasebooks for French, Spanish, German, Italian, Greek and Portuguese

New! English Language Teaching Resource Section

We started a resource database for language educators. Currently, we have resources for teaching English. We will be adding more languages soon!

Teach English

TeachingEnglish.org.uk BBC British Council Teaching English Resources
EnglishClub.com Free ESL Learn and Teach English Lessons, Games, Forums, Quizzes, Chat
TEFL.net Free Resources for English Teachers/Educators with TEFL, ESL, TESOL Help
Internet TESL Journal for Teachers of English as a Second Language
English1010.com Free Audio and Written English Lessons Online
Top ESL/EFL/TESOL/TEFL/TESL and TOEFL Salad Websites
itcansay.com Huge Database of Audio Samples for English Pronunciation Practice, Dictionary, Online Text Reader

Resources for Non-English Speakers

A few resources for speakers of languages other than English were added. This will eventually expand into localized/internationalized versions of the site.

For now, we have a handful of resources for non-English speakers to learn Mandarin Chinese. We figured with the Beijing 2008 Olympics just around the corner, these would be useful to folks out there.

Apprendre le chinois chez chine-nouvelle.com
Aprender chino a chino-china.com
Chinesisch-Lernen.org Chinesisch Lernen und China Entdecken
InfoCina.net Web site per imparare la lingua cinese
A-China.info: um Web site com informação e recursos para aprender a língua chinesa
Język-Chinski.com: Nauka języka chińskiego poznaj Chiny

New Commercial Resources

9 new commercial resources have been added for 9 languages:

English

Rosetta Stone Learn UK British English Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

French

Rosetta Stone Learn French Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

German

Rosetta Stone Learn German Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

Hindi

Rosetta Stone Learn Hindi Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

Indonesian

Rosetta Stone Learn Indonesian/Bahasa Indonesia Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

Korean

Rosetta Stone Learn Korean Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

Persian

Rosetta Stone Learn Persian/Farsi Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

Russian

Rosetta Stone Learn Russian Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

Spanish

Rosetta Stone Learn European (Spain) Spanish Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

Blatant Self-Promotion

If you have not already done so, please visit our site and use the social bookmark link on the top right side to add us to any of numerous social bookmarking services such as del.icio.us, furl, magnolia, digg, reddit, newsvine, simpy, bluedot, stumble upon and more. Please help us grow!

The Free Language blogs are still the #1 blog on TopBlogArea.com in the Resources Section. We have moved up from #7 to #4 on BlogTopSites.com in their Resources Section.

Our Alexa rating is also improving. According to this rating, Free Language currently holds the spot as the 308,598th most-visited website in the world! This is up millions from when we released Version 2 on February 1st of this year.

Thanks for all the support!

BETA Testers Needed!

If you are interested in blogging about your language-learning experiences, you are invited to join Free Language! All you have to do is request a BETA user account and we'll set you up!

As mentioned in the March 2007 Free Language Letter, when Free Language V3 is launched, revenue sharing for users will be implemented.

Show Us the Resources!

If you have a favorite language-learning resource (or manage a website of your own) that is not listed on Free Language, please let us know by suggesting a resource. This is a simple way to help us get the word out!

Current Languages

Below is a quick list of all 16 languages for which resource sections are currently available on the site. Resources for other languages are also available at the blog.

• Afrikaans
• Arabic
• Cantonese
• English
• French
• German
• Hindi
• Indonesian
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Mandarin Chinese
• Persian
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Spanish

Language Factiod

Tschüss (also tschüs) is an informal German parting phrase, used in much the same way as "good-bye" in English-speaking countries such as the United States or United Kingdom.

It is derived from Walloon adjüs (the equivalent of adieu in French), and was first taken up into the Low German language. For this reason, the word Tschüss has historically been more common in northern Germany, though it has gained country-wide acceptance. It is also commonly used in Switzerland and Austria, at the very least in Zürich and its outskirts. However, in southern Germany it is more common for the informal farewell ciao or adieu to be used, and the farewell Auf Wiedersehen is considered appropriate in more formal settings.

Factiod available thanks to Wikipedia.

Tschüss!

The Free Language Community
http://freelanguage.org

Here are the latest articles that have been promoted to the front page:

CSLPod.com Chinese as a Second Language Podcast
TeachingEnglish.org.uk BBC British Council Teaching English Resources
Apprendre le chinois chez chine-nouvelle.com
Aprender chino a chino-china.com
FoxLingo Free Firefox Browser Extension Software for Translating Web Pages
Chinesisch-Lernen.org Chinesisch Lernen und China Entdecken
Language Learning Advisor Website for Help Learning Foreign Languages
Kanji-a-Day.com Learn Japanese Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana Daily Study Aid Website
InfoCina.net Web site per imparare la lingua cinese
A-China.info: um Web site com informação e recursos para aprender a língua chinesa
Język-Chinski.com: Nauka języka chińskiego poznaj Chiny
Latinum - The Latin Language Learning Podcast from London
TheEnglishLanguage.org Directory of Websites about the English Language
Esperanto.info Website about the Constructed Language Esperanto
KoreanPod Learn Korean Podcast on Podomatic
LetsLearnKorean.com Let's Learn Korean Group Blog Website
KanjiQuizzer.com Free Sura Sura Kanji Quiz Web Software Interface
Valley Trail Free Online Dutch Courses and Lessons for Beginner and Advanced Students
EnglishClub.com Free ESL Learn and Teach English Lessons, Games, Forums, Quizzes, Chat
TEFL.net Free Resources for English Teachers/Educators with TEFL, ESL, TESOL Help

Recently, certain blog posts are being promoted to the front page. Find out why.

Today I am announcing the official release of Mandarin Chinese Info, the newest of the new for conscious manifestations websites!

This release comes as awareness of China's growth is well known around the world. China has become a mammoth world player economically, politically and not to mention physically (though it has been that big for a long time!).

As more and more people's awareness is drawn towards China, greater and greater numbers of people are learning Mandarin Chinese.

Additionally, the 2008 Olympic Games are to be held in Beijing, China.

Finally, I am learning Mandarin myself, and this site helps me to learn, as well as people out there.

Best of luck!

I have been busy here in this little room. I have just finished the initial release of My China Blog. Despite the name, it is not my personal china blog, but a place for all to have free blogs about China.

From the site:

"My China Blog is a free weblog service for all China goers, seekers, travelers, knowers and sharers. Here you can sign up for an instant free account and begin blogging about your China experiences and share with family, friends and the rest of the world! You can also upload photos to enhance your writing.

This service will always remain free with only text advertisements to help pay hosting costs. This is a service from the people for the people and you're welcome try it out and share your China with the world.

This site also has a number of links to China resources for language learning and travel. We also have blog and news feeds from other sites regarding China. Finally, we have some links that will take you to more China blogs that you can handle!

Thanks for stopping in and please feel free to start a free China weblog."

Please have a look if it interests you!

A day after I made the original post on free online resources for learning Mandarin Chinese, I had a synchronous encounter (thanks to a good friend) with someone here in Beijing who is working on a most astounding and incredibly useful project called adsotrans.

From adsotrans read me:

"To use this website simply copy Chinese text into the submission box and click "Adsotate". The text will be automatically annotated -- mouseover any word for a popup with pinyin and english. More control over annotation options and full webpage translation is possible through the advanced interface. If you're simply looking for freshly annotated Chinese texts to read, why not check out our sister site page, which is also open to the public. Students looking for study material should visit News in Chinese."

Indeed, this is a worthy, user-edited and -driven project that is quite impressive.

Their News in Chinese website is a great place for more advanced learners to experience their intuitive user translation interface for reading the latest RSS news feeds in Simplified Chinese from Xinhua. If you are very knowledgable about the Mandarin language, you can contribute greatly to the project with your expertise. Volunteer info is here.

And finally, here are a couple more links for learning Mandarin starting from the basics. Like I said above, these supplement the original post:

Sinosplice Chinese Language Study Resources

Sinosplice Chinese Study Book Reviews (Great help for choosing a text to use.)

Basic Chinese Phonetics with Pinyin Voice Recordings

Chinese Pronunciation Guide (Requires RealAudio)

In the words of Mao Zedong himself: "Study hard and make progress everyday." :)

A recent Slashdot article brought to my attention a a pilot project tha China commissioned the William McDonough and Partners firm to design. The goal is to create a sustainable city.

From the William McDonough and Partners website:

"The development of this new community is serving as a national prototype for the design of a sustainable village, an effort focused on creating a template for improving the quality of life for 800 million rural Chinese... The design of the village aspires to draw power from the sun, to maintain materials in closed-loop systems of technical and biological nutrition, and to create an intergenerational community of people productively engaged in restorative commerce. Its goal is to provide a higher quality of life for the villagers and to exemplify a more hopeful future for the children."

McDonough received press from the BBC regarding his book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.

Go McDonough and China! Best of luck in this worthy endeavor.