Digital Dialects

I decided to review Digital Dialects because it is one of my favourite type of language learning sites.

Games!

That's right. I said games. I found you one more game site.

And this one has tons of languages to choose from!

As your faithful language course tester I jumped on to Digital Dialects and decided to see what they have to offer. 

I played around with a couple of different languages including Chinese, Maltese, and Spanish.

I picked my first language and then I was taken to a place where I could select a category. There were quite a few game categories.

Greetings and phrases, animals, and colors only name a few!

Some categories offered under Chinese

I clicked around and tried different categories. One of the first categories I tried was Greetings and Phrases in Chinese.

The game loaded and gave me the option to either study the phrases or play the game. I clicked to play the game.

Chinese greetings and phrases game

 It was easier than I thought it would be considering I haven't studied Chinese in a while.

It gave me three words and English and my job was to pick the correct Chinese word for each one.

Spanish game for learning Ser, Tener, and Estar

One of my favorite games on the site ended up being the Spanish game for learning Ser, Estar, and Tener.

Watch what happens to the man with the mustache when you answer questions. 

It's funny!

Go have fun and tease the guy with the mustache for me!

Love,

Destiny

Languages: Afrikaans, Albanian, Arabic, Basque, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Catalan, Cebuano, Chichewa, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Farsi, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Kurdish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Maltese, Maori, Mongolian, Norwegian, Oromo, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Thai, Tibetan, Tongan, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Zazaki 

The Angry Family

The Angry Family, arggggh! No, they were really just hungry, but now they are called the angry family. 

Mr. Angry Cloud just wanted to learn a language but he needed a group of like minded people so he could start a language family. This way they could practice and learn the language together!

He met Carrot, Lightbulb, Mr. Angry Potato Head, and Mr. Angry Wolf.

Together they make up the Angry Family.

So, now you might be asking me what exactly is the Angry Family?

It's a series of videos that are meant to funny and educational.

They make you laugh while helping you learn and practice your language.

Some videos are mostly educational while others will make you laugh so hard you cry!

This is Faith's favorite. Partly because she loves funny cartoons about talking objects. Partly because she is lazy and this requires no effort on her part.

Yes, I did just call my twin sister lazy on the internet! Ha!

You can watch the videos on Linguacast's website. The links are all below!

You can also watch them on Youtube but I think they are easier to find and better organized on Linguacast's website.

Go check them out! You will laugh. I promise.

Love, 

Destiny

Links to Angry Family Series

Arabic

Chinese

English

French

German

Japanese

Spanish

Languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish

Genki!

Genki can help you learn Japanese through fun songs that will stick in your head forever and ever until the end of time.

There are quite a few songs that you can listen to and watch the video for free on this site.

They include Who, What, When, Where?, The Weather, Where From?, Left And Right, and quite a few others. I could list them all but then where would the fun in checking them out for yourself be?

There is also a games section.

Yea!

Because who doesn't love games?

These are the games offered for Genki Japanese. Notice there are quite a few?

The games all have a method of try, fail, and try again until you learn the words naturally. One of the games is called, My...hurts! and the little doll says what hurts in Japanese and you have to guess what he said by clicking on it.

Most of the material is free but the guy who made it also has versions and it is good if you need the extra material or if you want to support him since he has given so much to the community. He does not overcharge for his materials like most language companies do. He doesn't charge hundreds of dollars [like one famous language company we know, won't name names] or even a hundred dollars [like a lot of language companies that call themselves affordable]. He charges $37 for a whole package. And even though, at eight, I would have to ask my mom for that, I think it's a reasonable price to ask for a program as good as this one.

He teaches other languages besides Japanese.

There is Spanish which has seventeen good games including Do You Like...?

First you can practice the words by clicking on them. Then you can play the game. The lady says Te gusta...? and then she adds a word like manzanas and you have to click on the apple or the word she says and when you get it right the doll climbs a ladder and the lady says "Bravo!" or "Muy bien!"

There is also a few other languages listed below including Chinese and Korean. Some of the languages only have games or only have music but every language has something very fun to do. So, go check it out. Sing, dance, and play your way to a new language.

Have fun!

Languages: Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Thai, German, French, Math, English

Lang 8

Lang 8 is a virtual journal for sharing. You write an entry in the language you are learning. Someone corrects it. You learn from it. First select the language you are learning and then you can write a journal entry.

This is my journal entry in Spanish.

Once you have written a journal entry you submit it. Other users will see it and can help you correct your grammar. You can also write private entries but people won't be able to see them to correct them.

You can also give back to your community by correcting their journal entries. Help other people learn your native language. 

You can show your correction by crossing out words that don't belong or adding missing words in bold. However you like to do it.

My German journal entry. I made a few mistakes. People corrected them. It helps me!

In the above picture is my journal entry that I wrote in German. People have corrected it. That's next to the check marks. Seeing the corrections shows me the mistakes that I didn't even know I was making. I'm glad I found this site.

If you love learning languages and you love journaling you will love Lang-8, which is a combination of both. Now remember, Lang-8 doesn't actually have lessons. It is just a journal where you write what you already know and submit it to native speakers. Then they correct it.

Have fun.

Languages: Afrikaans, Ainu, Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijanian, Basque, Bengali, Bihari, Bosnian, Breton, Bulgarian, Burmese, Cantonese, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Faroese, Farsi, Finnish, French, Gaelic, Georgian, German, Greek, Haitian, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Khmer, Kirghiz, Korean, Kurdish, Laotian, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Lojban, Macedonian, Malaysian, Maltese, Mandarin, Marathi, Mongolian, Myanmar, Navajo, Norwegian, Ossetic, Panjabi, Pashto, Polish, Pashto, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romani, Romanian, Russian, Sanskrit, Serbian, Sinhalese, Slavic,  Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan, Tongan  Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Turkmen, Udmurt, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uyghur, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yiddish, Zulu

Easy Japanese

When Faith and I started attending Twincentric Academy we met another set of twins named Aiko Hope and Akiko Grace who have Japanese parents. They grew up here but speak Japanese at home with their parents. Meeting Hope and Grace inspired me to learn some Japanese, too.

This is one of the best sites I found!

Easy Japanese is a site created for people who want to learn Japanese anyway. It is very kid friendly, I think with it's cute interface. Anybody of any age should enjoy it.

On the front page they have a word of the day.

Today's word of the day is Watashi.

There are a bunch of fun games to learn your Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. All of the games are fun and easy.

In the first picture above is the Kana quiz where you can see how much Kana you can recognize. This is for people who have been studying the writing.

The second picture shows a memory game which is better for beginners who are stilling getting confused.

The third picture is a game where you click on a piece of Hiragana and it shows you how to write it.

The fourth picture is Kana invaders. You can use the game to practice your Kana recognition.

They have a new area called Lessons which teaches you Japanese in lessons. It is not a game. It just shows you the words but it is interesting and if you are very interested in Japanese I think you will enjoy spending time in this area.

Personally, I think the best thing about the site is the writing games and the games that show you how to write. So, go check it out.

Have fun.

Learn A Language

You can Learn A Language! There are eight to choose from.

Sign up and choose which course you are going to learn. For this example, I chose Italian.

An overview of what you will learn from the course.

Once I signed up I was introduced to Einstein. Or at least a 3D guy who looks an awful lot like Einstein. He gave me a tour of Learn A Language.

Einstein teaches you how to use the site.

Yep, that's right. Einstein gives you the grand tour of Learn A Language. There is a lot to do on this site as you can see in the picture above.

First you learn the your new words or phrases in the Learning Lounge.

3D Animals!

They show you the word in English and then in your target language. They even show you a picture of each of the words you learn. Olive loves this site because she loves learning the animals with their 3D moving pictures. It's her favourite!

After you learn the words you are going to have to prove you know them!

The first game is multiple choice to make it easy for you and help you learn the words a little better before you test them. It is called Memory Machine.

Once you have used the memory machine you should know most of the words well enough to  play a game that requires you to type in the words. This next game is called Soccer Game.

The idea is that you are playing soccer but the concept is the same as Hangman. It just has a prettier picture. You hit letters that you think are in the word. If they are in the word they appear in the "Letters Correct" area. If they are not correct, then you don't block the soccer ball and your team loses.

So, there you go. Choose a course, practice the words, play the games, and Learn A Language with Learn A Language.

Have fun.

Oh, but don't cut out of class early. Einstein hates that and won't give you any points for the lesson you quit!

Languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish

Memrise

Haven't you always wanted a garden? To learn a language in that garden. I offer you Memrise. Memrise is a garden where you plant the seeds of foreign words and water them each day to help them grow.

On Memrise each word you learn in your new language is a seed. You plant the seed in your garden and harvest it to learn it. Then you water it or practice it until it grows into a beautiful, healthy flower. Once it is a flower you must keep watering it to stay alive. This is how the words stay in your long term memory.

Memrise is like a set of flashcards. You can choose a premade set or you can create your own set. Being able to create your own set of words is great because you can practice the exact words you want to learn.  Faith likes learning the names of instruments. Olive likes learning the names of animals. I like learning learning words about art and other languages.

Users make Mnemonics with pictures and funny sentences and share them with the community!

It's great to give back, isn't it? You can create mnemonics with funny words and pictures on them to help you learn the language. Maybe you are wondering what the word "mnemonic" means. I wondered that, too. You see it a lot on language learning sites, though. I looked it up in the dictionary. To put it simply it's a device that you helps you remember something. It's a learning tool! 

Enough about mnemonics. You will love Memrise because you will love planting seeds in the courses you like and the ones you got to create yourself. You will love it because it is free and you don't have to pay any money. You will love it because it has lots of funny mnemonics and is a lot more fun than flashcards.

So, go check it out. Have fun!

There were too many languages on Memrise to actually mention them all (Good job on that note, Memrise!) so I have listed the language groups that are offered on Memrise.

Languages: European, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Asian and Pacific, Middle Eastern, Slavic, African, Native American, Classics, Constructed Languages, Sign Languages, Other