Language Practice: Children's Library

Today, I want to talk about a place called Children's Library. It's located here.

http://www.en.childrenslibrary.org

Click on Read Books and you'll be taken to a library of books in different languages.

Select the language you're studying and select the length you want to read. If you are beginner, I recommend choose a SHORT book. If you are advanced try choosing LONG books. Once you've selected these specifications you should have some pretty good options related to your learning level.

Once you select the book you can flip through the pages and read it. It looks like a real book, but it's virtual! See how easy the German text from the book Waldo And His Colors is?

Have fun reading and practicing!

Love, Destiny

Utilizing Youtube For Language PRACTICE.

Aside from using Youtube to learn languages, you can also use it to practice languages.

Chinese Practice

This t.v show appears to be for preschoolers. It has singing, captions (in Chinese characters), and fun. It should be easy enough for beginner to intermediate Chinese learners. Beginners will catch at least some of the words.

Die Zauberer Vom Waverly Place (German Practice)

You can find Disney shows in a lot of language. Here is one example: Wizards Of Waverly Place. In order to find your favourite show in the language you are learning, it helps to translate the show into the language first and then do a Youtube search.

I recommend this for intermediate/advanced learners.

Trotro (German Practice)

Trotro is a very simple, easy-to-understand cartoon for preschoolers with simple language. If you have the knowledge of a 4-5 year old in your target language you should be able to understand Trotro. Very good for beginners.

Trotro comes in a few other languages.

Trotro Francais

Trotro English

Trotro Türkçe

Utilizing Youtube For Language Learning: Day 2

Learn Chinese

Mandarin For Kids

Utilizing Youtube For Language Learning: Day 1

Alright, so I haven't found any good sites to review lately. But I was answering some questions about language learning the other day and it got me thinking. One resource that a lot of people skim over is Youtube.

"You can use Youtube to learn a language?" Faith asked me when I bounced my idea off her.

"Yes, you can!" I told her. "In fact, if you want to learn Spanish all you have to do is type in 'Learn Spanish' and lots of resources come up. But to start you off, I am going to give you a glimpse of a few Youtube Language Learning Courses."

Learn Irish Gaelic with Puppets!

Learn Lebanese

Learn Japanese

You can click on the video to go to Youtube and learn more about the course. You don't even have to have a Youtube account to use it for language learning, but it really helps if you get one. Then you can subscribe to every course related to learning your language.

Babbel

Babbel  is a language course that I have been very hesitant to review because it appears that you only get a very, small amount for free.

Well, it's true. You don't get much for free. About one lesson, that's it.

They have 13 languages to choose from.

I like the feel of the course. Once I got into it I was really disappointed that they didn't offer more for free because I love the format. It kind of reminded me of Rosetta Stone but it has a much better value ($44.70 for a six month subscription). I'm not a fan of subscriptions myself but if you try out Babbel and like it then it something your Mom and Dad might find affordable as a birthday present for you.

There are some really good features here. I liked the "gamey" feel of the site and the writing practice where I was asked to type in letters or even whole words. I even got to listen to two native speakers have a conversation and write in some of the vocabulary.

All in all, it's a good language learning course, but it shouldn't call itself free because it only has a "free demo" of each language. It is worth checking out, though, as you may find it is the language course that will work for you.

Love,

Destiny

Languages: German, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Indonesian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish

Free Language

Free Language is a language information site that has information about many free and partially free courses.

And that, my friends, is why I chose to review it.

That and because it kept popping up in my search and I finally decided, "What the heck? I'll check it out. It can't hurt and it does say free in the title."

That's one of my favourite words.

So are gratis, kostenlos, gratuito, and gratuitement

A lot of information here.

There is a lot of information on this site. I scrolled through it for a while and I think it is best if you can check it out for yourself. I would like to say that they have tons of information on learning, teaching, videos, apps, software. You just have to pick the language you are learning and check out all the stuff that is listed under it.

Check out all those languages!

Hope you have fun!

Love,

Destiny

Languages: Too many to list

LanguageCourse.net

Language Course is  a site that helps you pick a school to study a language abroad. You can read reviews about language courses in different countries.

They also have a free vocabulary trainer which is a lot of fun.

I like to spend time on this one because I find it challenging.

You look at flashcards while listening to a native voice.

She goes over the list.

After going through the list you are tested on the vocabulary. There are a lot more features to this course than I even realized at first.

There is a nice video to go with it and teach you how to use the course. This course is well worth it.

Many thanks to LanguageCourse.net for allowing me to embed the video!

Languages: Czech, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish