Useful Languages WebsitesTSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Subject Guides > Languages > Useful Languages Websites
TSR Societies:
Online Dictionaries and Reference Tools:
- Wordreference.com is an excellent online dictionary that mainly covers French, Italian, and Spanish - contains many phrases as well as individual words. Also has Spanish-Portuguese, Spanish-French, English-only and Spanish-only dictionaries.
- Le grand dictionniare terminologique includes many entries for scientific and technical French words.
- Here is a dictionary of synonyms for French.
- LEO has dictionaries for German-English, German-French and German-Spanish.
- Here is a Swedish-English dictionary. The page also includes links to Swedish-Albanian, Swedish-Arabic, Swedish-Bosnian, Swedish-Croatian, Swedish-Finnish, Swedish-Greek, Swedish-Russian, Swedish-Serbian, Swedish-Spanish, Swedish-Turkish and Swedish-only dictionaries (all aimed at immigrants to Sweden).
- Verbix can conjugate verbs in 86 languages (including Klingon!). There's also a free program you can download to your Windows computer, which only covers less-common languages.
- Wikipedia doesn't just do English - it does almost every common language you can think of!
Offline:
- Interlex could be useful if you keep a notebook of found vocab - you can test yourself on them much more easily.
- Simillarly to Interlex, those of you with Pocket PCs might find 3 Shoeboxes useful.
Useful Links:
General
- How to type accents on your computer - aimed at French, but valid for any language.
- How to learn any language dispenses good non-language-specific advice on learning languages, and rates each language according to its percived difficulty.
- Force Feed Your Brain uses a vocabulary learning system called ALBIS to allow you to test yourself on/teach yourself vocab in 24 languages.
- To improve your pronunciation skills, it's often recommended to try saying tongue twisters out loud. Here's a site that provides them in 107 languages, from Acholi to Zulu (!) Comes with English translations.
- If you're looking for someone to practise a language with, I can recommend eTandem
- Comfm lists a large number of internet radio and video streams in many languages. Is biased towards French and English though, and these are the only languages the site is available in.
- If you're learning French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Swedish, Icelandic, Faroese, Croatian, Ukrainian, Russian, Finnish, Indonesian or Turkish (whew *takes a breather*), Indo-European Languages has tutorials and material for all of these languages, although in varying amounts for each. Worth a look :)
- You may or may not have heard of the Common European Framework, for assessment of language ability. Here are a quick reference grid and a very detailed checklist(helpful if you think you're over/under estimating your skills, but might take a while to complete) to help you assess your skills in relation to the CEF.
French
- French resources, from the Uni of Adelaide contains a wealth of French links. Includes links to newspapers and radio/TV.
- French@About.com is good for browsing, and has some interesting lessons and audio files. They also put out a weekly newsletter featuring selected lessons and articles.
- The VERBcast is a good podcast for brushing up on verbs - however, it uses relaxation techniques, which put me to sleep... (ooops).
- INSÉE, Ifop, Ipsos and TNS-Sofres are all good sources of statistics and surveys for A-level students.
- CERIMES has over 200 documentary-type films online - most are about the sciences, but there are a few for the arts, history, geography and social sciences.
- The French Pod Class is quite a good little podcast aimed at all levels. Could be useful for GCSE/AS.
- Zut! is a neat site that offers online activities for school students, from Year 7 right up till Year 13. However, you can only get free access before 9am and after 4pm. Also comes in German, Spanish and Welsh flavours.
- Radio France puts out a multitude of podcasts, using material taken from its broadcast shows.
- Ado Doc is a flashy looking site that provides interactive exercises for "intermediate" students - approx the level of Higher GCSE students or A-level students.
- Learn French by Podcast offers podcasts that are mostly aimed at beginning and intermediate students, about some very useful topics. Could be good for GCSE students.
- Le Conjugueur conjugates verbs (no surprises there...), and is also available to download, for use offline. Nice layout, very comprehensive.
- Here is an introduction to l'argot français. aka French slang, with exercises.
- If you haven't yet found Le journal en français facile, you're missing out on an easy and painless way to improve your listening skills. 10 minutes of the news in "easy" French, every weekday, at 8.30am and 8.30pm (UK time), with transcripts and exercises. Plus, you can download the morning version as a podcast (transcript here).
- Simillarly, try listening to TV news from channels such as TF1.
German
- German links from the Uni of Minnesota contains a lot of links that would be useful to German learners at many levels.
- I'm currently following this course by Deutsche Welle myself, it's a good (free!) introductory German course. Their homepage also has a lot of useful-looking content in many languages. Includes some audio/video stuff, and live streams of TV & radio (TV won't work if you're in the USA, or on AOL).
- The Goethe Institute's webpage includes materials, news, and (yet more) links.
- Hoergold is a German audiobook company that provides free mp3 clips on its website.
- Gut! is a neat site that offers online activities for school students, from Year 7 right up till Year 13. However, you can only get free access before 9am and after 4pm. Also comes in French, Spanish and Welsh flavours.
- AudibleBlog.de is a prolific source of listening material. I can't understand any of it yet, but it looks good :)
- You can find beginning German lessons and exercises on The German Tutor, in both English and Spanish.
- Exeter University have made available an entire beginner's course in German - sadly, bits of it don't work.
Italian
Spanish
- Insta Spanish seems to be a good podcast.
- Learn Spanish has plenty of resources, and extensive free grammar notes, but you have to pay for some of the vocabulary and grammar tests.
- Oye! is a neat site that offers online activities for school students, from Year 7 right up till Year 13. Also comes in French, German and Welsh flavours.
- El Conjugador conjugates verbs (no surprises there...), and is also available to download, for use offline. Nice layout, very comprehensive.
Other Languages
Comments
Taken from the list in this thread on TSR Forums compiled by Ana and other TSR users.
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