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There are many internet language sites that excel in their quality or in the variety of services that they provide. Here are a few that should be helpful in your quest to learn a foreign language.

There are many internet language sites that excel in their quality or in the variety of services that they provide. Here are a few that should be helpful in your quest to learn a foreign language. They are presented in no particular order.

Asbjorn Lonvig has constructed a website called Children's Books Online. In addition to multi-language books, there are also coloring books, slide shows, posters, and T-shirt transfer motifs. Asbjorn is Danish, and he offers translations of his books in several languages, including Danish, English, Italian, German, French, Hebrew, Chinese, and Japanese. Other languages are presented as well (in machine translation). Any beginning to intermediate student should benefit from the stories.

Learning a new language can be a lot more fun if you have penpals in the language you are trying to learn. You might want to check out Linguistic Funland. They include links to several penpal directories. Visit their home page for a categorized list of other language resources as well.

Flashcards are a good way to learn any subject. How about software that you can use on your computer? Before You Know It - by Transparent.com has a free download available in several languages - including French, Dutch, German, Spanish, and many more. The download is not time-crippled. You can use it forever, along with the included audio and language files. Upgrade to the full version and receive dozens more files with the ability to create your own flashcards. The paid version even allows you to record your own voice and compare it to native speakers.

Not sure about how to pronounce an unfamiliar word? Check this text-to-speech conversion website. Key in an English, German, Spanish, or French phrase, pick a voice/language, and hear it spoken by a voice synthesizer. The sound produced here is superior to the sound files offered by many other sites.

Language forums allow you to post questions about translations, grammar, culture, and other language-related inquiries. About.com, while not specifically a language site, has areas that are run by guides proficient in specific foreign languages. There are forums in several languages, including the following:

[li]French Forums and Chat - including a beginners' forum, bilingual intermediate forum, and an advanced all-French language forum

[li]Spanish Language Forum - which allows posting in either Spanish or English.

[li]German Language Forums - including one bilingual forum for all levels and an advanced forum in German only

To find other foreign language forums at About.com, go to their home page and type a suitable query into their 'Search' form near the top of the page. Note: once you register for a forum, you can use the same login information for any of the About.com forums.

The BBC Languages website will take any beginner through a series of easy-to-learn lessons. They also have resources for intermediate learners and tutors. You will also find some broadband video, holiday phrases, and online competitions. Be sure to click on the 'Other' link to access resources you might miss on the main page.

The Beatrix Potter Kids Corner has a colorful site with multi-language stories in text, audio, and slide-show format. Remember the story of Peter Rabbit? Miss Moppet? Timmy Tiptoes? This well-presented site has been put together by the Ohio University Telecommunications Center in Athens, Ohio.

Audio presentations of prose and poetry in the public domain are available online thanks to librivox.org. Native-speaking volunteers in several languages have produced audio files in Finnish, Hebrew, German, Japanese, Russian - and even Latin! The price is perfect (free - gratis - complimentary). Perhaps you might even want to volunteer and flex your narrating muscles!

Having trouble translating a snippet of text? Can't understand a website in a foreign language? Try Google Language Tools. Get a machine translation - free of charge - in any of over 100 languages. Remember, though, that the translation is done by a machine, and is usually only a rough representation of correct grammar.

Are you a budding poet looking for just the right rhyming word in another language? Try the Alcor Software Rhyming Dictionary. Several languages are represented, including English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, German, and others. Many languages have both online versions (free) and an inexpensive downloadable version with more features than the online dictionary. Depending on the language, you can search for rhymes for the last syllable(s) or a specified number of characters at the end of a word.

And last but not least, i Love Languages has a categorized list of resources for many languages. Spend some time digging through their site, and you will likely find some interesting links for your bookmark list.

(c) Copyright Kathy Steinemann: This article is free to publish only if this copyright notice, the byline, and the author's note below (with active links) are included.

About the Author:

Kathy Steinemann is a busy webmaster and author who enjoys writing German-English stories in parallel translation. She works behind the scenes at several websites, including A-Language-Guide dot com. Article Source: A Language Guide - http://www.a-language-guide.com

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Some of the best foreign language learning resources will be available on websites written in the language you are attempting to learn. How can you make purchases if you don't speak the language?

Some of the best foreign language learning resources will be available on websites written in the language you are attempting to learn. How can you make purchases if you don't speak the language?

One approach for a beginning to intermediate language learner would be to have one of the online translation sites translate the foreign order page for you. You can often enter the exact URL of the page you want translated, or copy and paste portions of the text. Some sites will even allow you to browse your hard drive and upload a file for online translation. Here are a few links to sites that will help:

[li]Google Translate - copy and paste or enter url
[li]Babel Fish Translation copy and paste or enter url
[li]Translation Booth - copy and paste or upload file you want translated

There are many others. An online search for 'translate foreign languages online' will bring up thousands of results. Remember that all the online translators will give you approximate meanings. With today's technology, nobody has been able (or taken the time) to write translation software that does a 100% job of encompassing language idioms and idiosyncrasies.

A second approach, the best for a beginner, is to shop at a site that has both English and foreign language interfaces. You're on your own here. You will have to spend time searching - and make sure to bookmark any site you find.

Amazon.com has made the shopping process easier. Their sites, in several countries and languages, have a fairly consistent setup. It is worth mentioning that if you have an account at any of the North American or European Amazons, you can probably use the same login at all sites. Most share a common user database.

To order from a foreign language Amazon, keep an English language Amazon page open in another window on your computer. As you navigate through the foreign language site, perform the same on the English site. Write down key phrases and learn them for future reference.

Be very careful when you come to the part when you have to enter your credit card information and place your order. Here is where you don't want to make any mistakes!

If you have a friend (or teacher) who can help you through your first order, all the better!

A final note: remember that shipping from overseas can be expensive. It is usually much more cost effective to place infrequent large orders than repeated smaller orders.

(c) Copyright Kathy Steinemann: This article is free to publish only if this copyright notice, the byline, and the author's note below (with active links) are included.

About the Author:

Kathy Steinemann is a busy webmaster and author who enjoys writing German-English stories in parallel translation. She works behind the scenes at several websites, including A-Language-Guide dot com. Article Source: A Language Guide - http://www.a-language-guide.com

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If you are stagnating in your foreign language education, read on! Find out how to jumpstart your intellectual juices and get back on the road. This vocabulary expansion method is so easy you will wonder why you did not think of it yourself.

If you have reached a point in your foreign language education where you feel like you are spinning your wheels, read on! Find out how to jumpstart your intellectual juices and get back on the road. It is so easy that you will wonder why you did not think of it yourself.

Where and when are you most likely to need communication skills? The answer is simple: in your daily activities. Map out yesterday in your mind. With whom did you have conversations? What were the topics you discussed? Could you have conducted those conversations in the foreign language you are attempting to learn?

Why not? The answer to this question is usually: a lack of vocabulary.

It does not matter where you are in your learning process. You can be a beginning, intermediate, or advanced student. However, if you do not have a decent pool of words to draw from, you will never be able to make yourself understood.

Forget about grammar. If you do not know the foreign language equivalent of 'telephone', you will never be able to say something like, 'Where is the nearest telephone?'

Here is how to solve your problem.

1. Make a list of ten topics that you might need to talk about during a normal day.

2. Write the topics down on individual slips of paper and put them into some kind of container.

3. Every day, draw a topic out of the container and talk for one minute. Pretend that a national news network is interviewing you. Do not permit yourself to use any 'ums', 'ers', 'ehs', or 'ahs'. Think quickly and improvise, using words that you know.

4. If you do not know how to form future or past tense, substitute with a phrase that means something like, 'Next Friday I go shopping,' or 'Last Friday I go shopping'. The point is to converse in an understandable manner without awkward pauses.

5. After your one-minute talk, quickly jot down all the words you could have used if you knew them, and look them up in the dictionary.

6. As soon as possible, try a similar speech, incorporating the new words. Throughout the day, attempt to recall what you learned, and replay the speech in your mind.

7. Every day pick a new random topic.

8. After you have gone through the ten topics, increase your talks to two minutes, or develop ten more topics to work with. After you reach two minutes, see if you can stretch the time to three.

Here are some questions that an interviewer might ask:

[li] What do you eat for breakfast? Do you cook it yourself?
[li] What do you do for a living? Do you find it enjoyable?
[li] What is your favorite hobby? How much time do you devote to it?
[li] Tell me about your family. Do you have a happy home life?
[li] Where were you born? Did you grow up there?
[li] Why are you attempting to learn a foreign language? Is it fun?
[li] Who has been your biggest inspiration in life, and why?
[li] Have you read any good books lately? Why - or why not?
[li] Where do you do most of your shopping? Why?
[li] What is your favorite TV series? Why?

You will be amazed at how quickly you can increase your vocabulary with this method. Additionally, you will learn to think faster and apply grammatical concepts easier with each session.

(c) Copyright Kathy Steinemann: This article is free to publish only if this copyright notice, the byline, and the author's note below (with active links) are included.

About the Author:

Kathy Steinemann is an author and webmaster who enjoys writing German-English short stories and poetry in parallel translation. More of her foreign language articles are available at A-Language-Guide. Article Source: A Language Guide - http://www.a-language-guide.com

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Yes - you can unleash the hidden power of your mind during sleep to help learn a foreign language - or any other subject. The average person utilizes less than of 10% of the brain's capacity. What is happening with the other 90-plus%?

Yes - you can unleash the hidden power of your mind during sleep to help learn a foreign language - or any other subject. The average person utilizes less than of 10% of the brain's capacity. What is happening with the other 90-plus%?

Did you know that approximately 100 common words form about 50% of the speech in most languages? The vast majority of everyday speech is comprised of less than 1000 common words. If you were to determine those words and learn them, you would make a giant leap towards mastery of any language. A list of only 1000 words shouldn't be a formidable task!

Perform internet searches like:

- 1000 most common words German
- 1000 most common words French
- 1000 most common words Spanish
- 1000 most common words Portuguese
- 1000 most common words Russian
- 1000 most common words Swedish

You will locate many excellent internet sites with vocabulary lists and audio files. There are even websites with complete audio CDs, flashcard software, crossword puzzle generators, and other language-learning materials. You can use these materials to custom-design your own 'sleep-learning' lessons.

But remember: sleep learning is not a completely passive activity.

Language is much more than a conglomeration of sounds. It is a harmonious integration of vocabulary, spelling, and grammar that utilizes brain, eyes, ear and mouth. The best way to advance quickly with sleep learning is to spend a few minutes before bedtime reading and reviewing the material you will be hearing as you doze.

Use a single recording (no more than 100 words) that plays repeatedly. Ensure that the volume is just loud enough so that you can hear it. Loud volume settings may disturb your sleep or damage your ears. Nod off to dreamland while you listen, and first thing in the morning spend a few more minutes reviewing the same vocabulary once again.

Some individuals respond to this method of learning extremely well. Others complain of poor quality sleep. Experiment with volume levels. If you are using earphones or earbuds, listen to a bedside CD-player instead. (If you are sharing the bedroom, this might not be feasible.) Another approach: try sleeping for an hour less than usual during the night, and then take a nap during the day using the same review-sleep-review technique.

Once you have mastered rudimentary vocabulary, you may want to tackle more ambitious projects like MP3 e-books. Make sure that you review printed copies of recordings the same way you did with your vocabulary lists. The eye-mind-ear connection is important!

Consider purchasing a self-hypnosis CD that you can play prior to the language audio. There are many programs available that have been designed to relax you and render your mind receptive to the learning process.

An internet search for 'self hypnosis' will pinpoint numerous websites offering CDs and books. There are even some that will allow you to create your own personalized downloadable MP3 hypnosis recordings in a male or female voice.

We spend about one-third of every day sleeping. Why not utilize that time for more than snoring and dreaming!

(c) Copyright Kathy Steinemann: This article is free to publish only if this copyright notice, the byline, and the author's note below (with active links) are included.

About the Author:

Kathy Steinemann is a busy webmaster and author who enjoys writing German-English stories in parallel translation. She works behind the scenes at several websites, including A-Language-Guide dot com. Article Source: A Language Guide - http://www.a-language-guide.com

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Learning a foreign language may seem like a difficult task at first. However, with a bit of help, you can soon be on your way to bilingual fluency. This article presents a few useful tips that can fast-track you on the road to language diversity.

(c) Copyright Kathy Steinemann

Learning a foreign language may seem like a monumental task when you first approach it. Once you have made the decision to get started, however, a few simple tips can make the process much easier. Part of the secret is to be organized; another is to rely on the experiences of others.

This article explains.

1.) Do not pick any language at random just because you have heard that the learning process might help to prevent age-related degenerative brain disorders, or because a specific language is the "second most widely spoken language in the world".

Perhaps you are doing genealogy research for a family tree or your company has regular dealings with branch offices in a specific country. Maybe you plan to travel overseas and want to learn a few foreign language phrases to make your trip easier.

Choose a language that you are likely to use, and select the appropriate dialect. Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, and many other languages have various versions that are significantly different from one another.

2.) Rely on the experiences of other people. Talk to friends, relatives, or co-workers who have successfully acquired foreign language skills. Ask them how they did it and what software, courses, or techniques worked best for them.

3.) Visit your local library to see what they offer.

4.) Go to the Internet and research the available resources, checking reviews by people who have actually used the products in which you are interested.

5.) Spend plenty of time listening and watching. Hearing spoken language and watching how the lips and facial muscles move when speaking are critical. Writing and reading skills, while important, cannot replace the process we use as infants when acquiring our native tongues. Infants do not learn from books!

Listen to foreign language TV and radio stations online. Additionally, many Internet sites offer free audio that you can download and play back on any MP3-compatible device.

6.) If possible, use earbuds or headphones while listening to audio productions so that you are able to discern subtle differences of tone, cadence, and emphasis. The difference between an "f" and an "s" or an "m" and an "n" might not be obvious if there is any ambient noise that interferes with the listening experience.

Active noise-cancelling equipment works best, but any earbuds or headphones are better than using nothing at all.

7.) Learn a few key phrases and repeat them to yourself whenever you are alone, associating the phrases with mental pictures rather than translating them into English first.

8.) Try talking to yourself after you have learned enough vocabulary to make it feasible. Attempt to use correct grammar, but expect to make plenty of errors. Mistakes are part of the learning process.

9.) If you use a smartphone or PDA for listening to foreign language audio, consider getting a downloadable dictionary that you can access whenever you want to find the meaning of a new word.

10.) Be sure to check the author's information box below for a link to her eBook containing hundreds of tips and hints for learning foreign languages. She has done the research to locate free resources that can save you days or even weeks of searching. Her book can fast-track you on the road to bilingual freedom.

The above tips will jumpstart you. If you spend some time every day listening and actively participating, you should make rapid progress.

(c) Copyright Kathy Steinemann: This article is free to publish only if this copyright notice, the byline, and the author's note below (with active links) are included.

About the Author:

Kathy has written a book about learning foreign languages that contains hundreds of tips, ideas, and free Internet resources. The free resources alone will save you many times the book's cost. This is a practical book with real advice from someone who has "been there - done it". Be sure to visit her site A-Language-Guide.com as well, for tips and articles by other authors. Article Source: A Language Guide - http://www.a-language-guide.com

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