Learn Japanse online - Konnichiwa Japón

Usually, some post come out talking about web pages to learn different languages online for free. You can also learn about the country where the language is spoken as well as their culture, history, gastronomy and so on. On this post we recommend a site to learn Japanese. If you want to find more sites to learn Japanese read our precvious post Learning Japanese - web pages.

Konnichiwa Japón is a non-profit-making site that promotes the Japanese culture and its language. The site is in Spanish. They try to teach Japanese in a fun way. The page has got resources for those who cannot attend regular classes in a language school, although, those who attend classes can also use these resources to reinforce their study of Japanese.

There ar e 50 lessons in the site. They start right from the beginning. So those who have no knowledge of Japanese can start learning it with Konnichiwa Japón. In addition, they got a section called Mundo Kanji where to learn the Japanese pictograms. Even thoguh, you'll notice that some lessons are still under construction.

Moreover, there's a blog where you can read news and comments about Japan, culture, technology, games, manga, anime... They write about diverse topics which are captivating for those who learn Japanese.

Finally, it is remarkable their video channel in Youtube with lessons. These lessons are presented by Yoshiyuki Kubo and William Ariasin an entertaining way. You can watch the introductory video bellow:



Links to Konnichiwa Japón

• Web: http://konnichiwajapon.com
• Blog: http://konnichiwajapon.com/news/
• YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/user/konnichiwajapon

Practice and learn languages easily

If you want to make new native friends to learn and practice languages check out Babelan. There's also an area for private lessons, where teacher offer their seervices.

Language exchange with native speakers

First of all, if you want to exchange languages, you have to meet someone. Nowadays, thanks to internet this is not difficult. On the other hand, and not less important, the question is what to do when exchanging langagues. Probably, you might consider these points:

• You should find someone with a similar level to yours. Different levels could fail the exchange.
• Talk about common interests: hobbies, travels, culture, sports... Perhaps, you don't know the other's hobby. Although, asking and learning about it could become interesting for you.
• You can teach some grammar points, vocabulary, pronunciation and help solving some doubts.
• You may also exchange videos and articles that could engage your partner.
• It is also attractive to teach idioms and quotes.
• Correct your partner. Even though, not too much, not all the time. It could be boring and prevent fluency.
• In addition, everyone likes to talk about their countries, habits, people in their countries, popular gastronomy, history...

I hope these tips are a good starting point for you language exchange. If you want to share your suggestions and experiences, just post a comment below.

You can contact native speakers and make new friends from all around the world in Babelan. Check it out.

Documentaries in English

If you learn English, you probably know that there hundreds of sources on internet to listen to English audios and videos. For instace, BBC produces astonishing documentaries which are excellent. And those are great tools to listen to English.

Those who has got an intermediate level or higher and like science and technology will enjoy the documentaries recomended bellow. They are a fair way to improve the listening skills. One of them, 'Wonders of the Solar System', has captions in Spanish.

If you know more interesting videos or podcasts, please, post a comment and leave a link. On the other hand, if you want to meet native speakers and practice languages visit Babelan.


The Virtual Revolution (Web)

The Virtual Revolution is a British television documentary series presented by Aleks Krotoski, which began airing on BBC Two on 30 January 2010. A co-production between the BBC and the Open University, the series looks at the impact the World Wide Web has had since its inception 20 years ago.

Links to watch:
1. The Great Levelling?
2. Enemy of the State?
3. The Cost of Free
4. Homo Interneticus?

Wonders of the Solar System (Web)

Wonders of the Solar System is an award-winning 2010 television series co-produced by the BBC and Science Channel, and hosted by physicist Brian Cox. Wonders of the Solar System was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on 7 March 2010. The series comprises five episodes, each of which focuses on an aspect of the Solar System and features a 'wonder' relevant to the theme. The series was described as one of the most successful to appear on BBC Two in recent years.

Links to watch:
1. Empire of the Sun
2. Order out of Chaos
3. The Thin Blue Line
4. Dead or Alive
5. Aliens

Take advantage of your time learning a foreign language

Learning a foreign language is time consuming. Most of us think that we aren't able to learn because of lack of time. And, as you should know regarding languages, the more you study and practice the more you learn.

Problably, you could take advantage of your spare time. Espacially, when cummuting to work. People who live in large cities spend long hours during the day communting (by undergroud, train or bus) from home to work place.

There are different activities you can do. You can take your class notes and read them. Also, you can read books in your target language. In addition, if you have an eBook or smartphone you can listen and read.

There are some web pages that offer audio recordings with transcripts. Here, you can see some examples for Russian or for English. You should look for suitable recordings for your target language and level.

Then, upload the recordings and transcripts to your eBook or smartphone. During your communting you can listen and read the audios. Later at home, you can search new words and work the grammar points. This way you will improve your listening as well as your reading skills, your vocabulary and your grammar knowledge.

Everyday you could do it for 15 minutes on the train or bus. This, at the end of the month, could be about 5 or 6 hours of extra work. And this will help you to improve faster. Hence, take advantege fo your time... commuting.

Links

Babelan, you can meet people and practice your target language. Check it out.

Lyrics Gaps. A fun way to learn languages

Lyrics Gaps is a fun method to learn and improve languages through music and typing in song lyrics.

On Lyrics Gaps, there are different activities with music videos to practice different languages: karaokes, quizes and fill in the gaps exercices for different levels (beginner, intermediate and expert). With these activites you can improve your listening skills and broaden your vocabulary.

They have got, also, a community, where you can review and add exercises of your native tongue. In additon, there is a new functionality for teachers to create and costumized the exercices.

The languages that you can practice are: Catalan, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu.

Links

If you want to meet people and practice languages visit: Babelan.

Study Tips: How can I improve my English?

Recently, I read a short but useful post with learning tips. Read the whole post here: Study Tips. There, you'll also find some related and interesting links.

In a nutshell, Melanie (an English teacher) states that:

Learning English takes a lot of time, patience and effort. It’s not always fun and easy! In order to improve your English, you need to make English a part of your life. Do something in English every day!

time + patience + effort = success

Links

If you want to meet people and practice languages visit: Babelan.

Kitabu. Book exchange site for language learners

As you know, Babelan.net is a community where you can meet native speakers and practice languages (language exchange). You can practice your speaking face to face, if you are in the same city, or virtualy (with skype, messenger, etc). Also, you can practice your wirting if you exchange language through a chat or e-mail.

There is another way of free exchange to learn and practice foreign languages. It's a new web page called Kitabu. And in a nutshell is a book exchange site for language learners.

How it works

It's pretty simple. If you have a book in good conditions, just fill in the form in the section "I have a book that you no longer need", and it will be collected.

And if you need a book that is available, you have to order it (in section "I want a book"). You'll just pay the shipping.

You can see that it is really easy. So far, there are books to learn English, French and German. And more will be added.

Reasons

There are different reasons to built a community like this that you can read here:

- Environmental: sharing books, save natural resources such as wood, save water and to prevent its pollution, save energy and prevent pollution.
- Collaborative consumption: there are books than you don't use any longer, but other people could take avantage of them.
- Economic: it's cheaper to share book than buying new ones.
- Convenience: you will receive at home the book your ordered.

Hence, If you like Kitabu join them and share its link: http://llibresidiomessegonama.wordpress.com

Language Exchange

If you want to practice, improve and exchange languages visit Babelan.

Am I capable of learning a foreign language?

What a question! It may seem difficult to answer it but the answer is pretty categorical: Yes. Anyone willing to learn a foreign language is capable of it.

There is another related question: is it easy? Now the answer is No. Everyone can learn a language although it requires time, an effort and the patience of a saint. Some people learn faster than others. And some have more spare time to study. However, in the end, you will speak a foreign language if you really want.

First of all, you must believe that you can get it. Also, you must believe that you are able to learn it. Then you will success.

In addition, you need to find a motivation. Some people learn languages for professional purposes. Also, there are people who like to travel and need languages. Having a fiance is another good reason. In fact, learning languages can be just a hobby. Simply find your goal.

You need to be a bit tenacious and to study or practice everyday a bit and never leave it. Everyday you can do different activities such as your homework (if you are studying in a language school). You can also read articles or special books for students of languages. You can often listen to your target language (thanks to internet you'll be able to watch videos, television programmes or to listen to radio stiations). Search web sites to learn your target language (there are dozens of them) or to practice with native speakers (e.g. here).

Finally, never forget that if you work everyday, soon you'll notice your improvement.

You can read these related previous post:

• Strategies to learn a foreign language
• Ten Commandments for language learning

If you want to meet people and practice languages with native spakers visit Babelan.

How to learn a language

So far on this blog, you can find several posts telling you some tips regarding language learning. They tell how to learn a foreign language easily and sometimes how to practice a language for free.

From now on, you can see a tab called How to learn a language with a collection of these posts published previously. We will add all the new posts with guidelines to follow when learning languages.

These are some posts that you can read so far:

Five tips to learn French or any language quickly

It tells ways of learning any language quickly.

Radio, a mean to learn languages

Thanks to internet, now you can listen foreign stations and practice your listening skills.

Simple ways to learn new words

Different ways to learn new words in Russian, although these tips are useful for any foreign language that you may be learning.

10 steps to becoming fluent in a language in 6 months or less

Interesting article with some tips to learn a foreign language in a few months.

Strategies to learn a foreign language

Learning a foreign language could be easier than you expect. You must work different skills such as reading, writing, speaking and listening. Just attending a class a few hours every week is not enough, you must work every day a bit at home. Obviously, the best way is to live in the country where the target language is spoken. Although, if you do not have the chance, you can improve so much in your home country.

Improving listening skills (tip)

As you probably know, internet offers endless chances of improving your listening skills: radio broadcasts, podcasts, videos, films, etc. Although, there are other ways of working your listening skills. The following is a useful tip.

Ten Commandments for language learning

Kató Lomb was a Hungarian interpreter, translator, language genius and one of the first simultaneous interpreters in the world. She spoke 17 different languages. And she suggested the Ten Commandments for language learning.

Meet people from around the world (language exchange)

New technologies (skype, messenger, e-mail, voice, chat, webcam, msn,...) allow students to make new friends and talk in different languages.

Language exchange pubs in Madrid

There are different ways of exchanging and practicing languages. You can meet someone individually (face to face or virtually), although, you can also join a group of people who usually meet in pubs or cafes purposely  to speak in foreign languages.

These groups usually organize activities with the aim of learning languages: encounters, dinners, cinema, parties, excursions, sports, cultural visits, wine tastings...

Joining them you'll know people who speak English, German, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian, French, Japanese or Spanish among other languages.

In Babelan, in the section of Language exchange in Madrid, some language groups posted messages about their activites. Here’s a list of some of them:

Club LTL
Offers conversation & cañas every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 20.30 h. Mainly English and Spanish.
http://www.clubltl.com

Multilinkual
Cinema every Friday and right after language exchange at 4D pub. And other activities. Multilingual (English, German, Italian, Brazilian, Japanese, Spanish...).
http://www.facebook.com/groups/19988858992/

Downtown Madrid
Conversations in a bar every Thursday, from 18 to 23.30 h. Multilingual (English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish).
http://downtownmadrid.es/idiomas.html

Madridbabel
Every Wednesday (20.30 h) and Sunday (19 h) language exchange at a cafe. Weekends other activites such as films, dinners, excursions, sports, parties, etc. Multilingual.
http://madridbabel.weebly.com/

Spanish Globes

Spanish Globes is a new language web page. Here, users can learn and practice Spanish. It covers from beginners to advanced students.

Basically, it's got a comprehensive set of listening activites. For every level, there are several audio recordings that deal different topics. You can listen the audio recordings and read the transcript that is just under the audio. This way you can improve your listening skills and broaden your vocabulary.

As they state: "Learn and practice Spanish for free, listening usual conversations from latinamerican people. Learn about Latin American culture, food, relationships, travels, books, carrers and more...".

• Spanish Globes
• Facebook

Practice Spanish and other languages

You can meet people and practice languages here.

Web pages to learn Romanian online for free

This is a list of web pages offering lessons, activities, tips and resources to learn Romanian. If you know online resources about Romanian, please, leave a comment with a link.

• Aprender rumano - http://www.mailxmail.com/curso/idiomas/rumano
• Proiectul "Limba - mijloc de integrare socială" - http://cnt.md/romint/undp/index.php
• Lessons: Romanian - English - http://www.internetpolyglot.com/lessons-ro-en
• Romanian from Wikibooks - http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Romanian/Table_of_Contents
• Romanian language lessons podcast - http://romanian-podcast.blogspot.com
• Romanian lessons - http://www.romanianlessons.com
• Verbix, Romanian verbs - http://www.verbix.com/languages/romanian.shtml

Links

If you want to meet people and practice languages such as Romanian visit: Babelan.

All Japanese all the time

All Japanese all the time is a web page to know how to learn Japanese online having fun. The author of the page tells how to learn the language and built confidence. It's full of guidelines and tips for anyone willing to learn Japanese.

You'll also find usefull links related to Japanese. As well as, book recommendations, movies, podcasts, etc.

As Khatzumoto, its author, states: This site is about how you can learn Japanese without taking classes, by having fun and doing things you enjoy—watching movies, playing video games, reading comic books—you know: fun stuff! Stuff that you feel guilty about doing because you should be doing “serious things”.

(...)

So, if you’re wanting to learn Japanese but don’t know where to start, or if you already know some but want to take it further, and if you want to not just get by in Japanese but to own it, than this site is here for you, to share with you the tools and information that you can use to learn Japanese to native-level fluency.

Links

If you want to meet people and practice languages visit: Babelan, people learning, practicing or teaching languages.

Have Fun with Russian - Learn Russian online for free

Last February 2012, RIA Novosti, Russia's leading news agency, launched a new online project to learn and practice Russian. The site is called Have Fun with Russian.

You can have fun learning Russian with its quizzes, images, dialogues, audiovisual games, Russian rock and news supported with audio files.

Also, there is an area to learn business  in Russia, "this is a resource for all those who want to find learn business vocabulary and the idiosyncracies of the Russian economy"

Have Fun with Russian is suitable for a range of levels: from beginners to advanced students.

In addition to grammar, vocabulary and other language issues, you will learn about Russian culture and history.

• Have Fun with Russian:
  http://en.rian.ru/learning_russian/

Related posts

• Learn Russian with Alla's videos
• Watch Russian films online
• Russian language: web sites
• Beginning Russian through film
• Russian Language Podcast

Links

If you want to meet people and practice languages visit: Babelan, people learning, practicing or teaching languages.

Speaking English - Hungry for English!

Speaking English - Hungry for English! is a Youtube channel with hilarious lessons of English. A group of guys recorded funny lessons of English for beginners. Their aim is to teach English through their videos without texts but with dialogues, songs, quizes.... just learning by listening as children learn their own language.

As they state "Welcome to Hungry for English, our free ESL YouTube series! If you want to learn how to speak English, you've come to the right place. Our online lessons are created to get you speaking English in an intuitive way. As often as possible, we want to show you what we are talking about. You won't find much in the way of written text on our videos and that is intentional. We want you to learn to speak English in the same way that we all learned to speak our native languages as babies - by hearing it instead of reading it."

Speaking English: Lesson #1 - Greetings (Hello/Goodbye)


Speaking English - Hungry for English!

• Youtube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/HungryForEnglish 
• Website: http://hungryforenglish.com

Practice & learn languages

In Babelan, you can contact native speakers and practice foreign languages.

Web pages to learn Belarusian

This post shows a list of web page to learn and practice Belarusian online.

Belarusian is an East-Slavic language spoken by over nine million people as a first language in Belarus and in other countries.

The languages most similar to Belarusian are Russian, Ukrainian and Polish.

• Belarusguide.com - http://www.belarusguide.com/dictionaries/
• Belarusian audio lessons - http://www.radiobelarus.tvr.by/eng/lessons.asp?pr=audio
• Belarusian from Wikibooks - http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Belarusian
• Pravapis.org - http://www.pravapis.org/
• Vitba.org - http://vitba.org/

If you want to know more about Belarusian, read more information from Wikipedia: Belarusian language.

Links

If you want to meet people and practice languages visit: Babelan, people learning, practicing or teaching languages.

Paradise Uruguay Blog: Montevideo Language Exchange - Uruguayans, expats,...

Interesting language group in Montevideo, Uruguay. If you're around, want practice languages and have fun,   it's a good choice.

• Paradise Uruguay Blog: Montevideo Language Exchange - Uruguayans, expats,...: It’s Friday evening in the Montevideo neighborhood of Pocitos. I am approaching Costa Azul Café where the Montevideo Language Exchange is meeting. I see a long row of tables outside with more than 20 people sitting on each side. As I approach, the subtle humid scent of the city gives way to the smell of pizza.(...)

Related links

Online language exchange

How do you become fluent in 11 languages?

Sometimes, people believes that they cannot learn a language, although they can. Read the following news from the BBC about a student who speak several languages. Amazing!

How do you become fluent in 11 languages?

BBC. 21 February 2012
Twenty-year-old Alex Rawlings has won a national competition to find the UK's most multi-lingual student.

The Oxford University undergraduate can currently speak 11 languages - English, Greek, German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Afrikaans, French, Hebrew, Catalan and Italian.

Entrants in the competition run by the publishers Collins had to be aged between 16 and 22 and conversant in multiple languages.

Alex drew on all his skills to tell BBC News about his passion for learning languages and how he came to speak so many.

Watch the video of Alex Rawlings talking about languages in 11 different languages: How do you become fluent in 11 languages?

In addition, you can meet people who is interested in practicing and exchanging languages in Babelan.

Resources for foreign language tutors - BBC Language Tutors

BBC Languages is a great resource for students of languages. It's got audio and video courses for students of French, German, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Portugues, Chinese and so on.

As well, BBC Languages has got a web page for foreign language tutors. It's focus on tutors of French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Here, teachers can find different resources. You can find news and programmes online in the Foreign-language TV. Transcripts are available to download.

It's worth visiting the areas where you can read tips, guidelines and internet resources.

There's a forum where you can post your tips and read what other teachers say about teaching strategies.

Also, in order to get the latest, you can sign up the monthly BBC Languages newsletter that features current highlights from the Languages site.

• BBC Language Tutors: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/tutors/

Practice & learn languages

In Babelan, you can contact native speakers and practice foreign languages.

Learn Russian the Fun Way

Victoria is a Russian native speaker who also speaks English. She built Learn Russian the Fun Way, a blog that teaches you Russian.

She states in her blog: I do believe that learning a foreign language doesn’t need to be boring. It can be fun! This is why I am starting this blog – to make learning Russian fun and easy for you.

The blog is fun. It's got video lessons, posts about cultural topics, useful vocabulary, helpful hints about learning Russian, interesting links, phrases to get by in Russian and so on.

In additon, the blog has got a page with tasty recipies from Russia and Ukraine: Борщ, пельмени, блинчики... (do not miss it out).

• Learn Russian the Fun Way: http://www.funrussian.com

Bellow you can watch a lesson from the blog: Colours in Russian. Enjoy!



Related posts

• Learn Russian with Alla's videos
• Russian Language Podcast
• Russificate
• Russian language: web sites

Language exchange

Babelan: language exchange with native speakers, teachers and translators

Web pages to learn German online

Some sites where you can learn German for free online. Enjoy:

Aprender alemán

BBC Languages - Learn German

Deutsch happen

German from Wikibooks

Hauptstraße 117

Languages Online - German topics

Manual de alemán para hispanohablantes


If you know more online resources, please, leave a message and a link.


Links

• Babelan. Meet people who learn and practice languages (German, Spanish, English, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic...).

How To Learn A Foreign Language

Georg Grey, a freelance language teacher and translator - English, Spanish, German, reflects on language learning in his blog Thoughts On Life And Livin'.

(...) I don’t approve of most language teaching methods as applied by modern language schools, and it will become more transparent why in the course of this article.

His tips are quite interesting. He suggests to learn a foreign language as a toddler learns their mother language. And he recommends to avoid direct translation.

(...) If you have already learned a foreign language, or you are in the process of it, you will inevitable feel that you are translating one language into the other. And that’s the fundamental mistake most people make.

Hence, read the whole post and take into acount his tips: How To Learn A Foreign Language.

Finally, if you know tips about learning languages, you can post a comment or leave a related link.

Links

• Babelan. People learning, practicing or teaching languages

Let's learn Italian

Let's learn Italian is a play list of videos to learn basic Italian. They're in the Rocket277's Channel. There are 16 video lessons that allows you to know about Italian language and its grammar.

• Let's learn Italian

Italian Lesson n.1 - Italian Alphabet



If you know more videos or web pages to learn Italian, please, leave a comment.

Links

If you want to meet people and practice languages such as Italian visit: Babelan, people learning, practicing or teaching Italian and other languages.

Web pages to learn and practice Persian (Farsi)

A list of resources to learn Persian (Farsi) online:

• Easy Persian - http://www.easypersian.com
• Iranian songs translations - http://iraniansongstranslations.blogspot.com
• Learn Persian - http://www.learn-persian.com
• Lengua persa - http://www.lenguapersa.com
• Persasencilla - http://persa.sencilla.googlepages.com
• Study Persian - http://www.studypersian.com

If you know more web pages, please, leave your comment and share them with the rest of users.

Persian language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Persian or Farsi is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence. The Persian language is classified as a continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of Sassanid Persia, itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language of Persian Empire in the Achaemenid era. Persian is a pluricentric language and its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages.

Persian has ca. 110 million native speakers, holding official status respectively in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. For centuries Persian has also been a prestigious cultural language in Central Asia, South Asia, and Western Asia.

Persian has had a considerable influence on neighboring languages, particularly the Turkic languages in Central Asia, Caucasus, and Anatolia, neighboring Iranian languages, as well as Armenian, Arabic and other languages. It has also exerted a strong influence on South Asian languages, especially Urdu, as well as Hindi, Punjabi, Sindhi, Saraiki, Sylheti, Bengali, Oriya.

With a long history of literature in the form of Middle Persian before Islam, Persian was the first language in Muslim civilization to break through Arabic’s monopoly on writing, and the writing of poetry in Persian was established as a court tradition in many eastern courts. Some of the famous works of Persian literature are the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, works of Rumi (Molana), Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Divan of Hafiz and poems of Saadi.

If you want to meet people and practice languages such as Persian visit: Babelan, people learning, practicing or teaching languages.

Five tips to learn French or any language quickly

This is an article posted in articlesbase.com about ways of learning French although this applies to any language.

Five tips to learn French quickly

Below are five specific ways to accelerate learning the French language.

1. Incorporating studying into your daily routine means taking advantage of all the time you spend not working during your busy day. This could be your drive to work, a walk to work, all your breaks, your lunch hour, your bathroom breaks, your morning routine before leaving for work. Take advantage of all the time during your work day you are not actively working. Start by picking up a disc man or I pod of some kind. You want to have your French learning audio CDs and downloads ready for use throughout the day. Calculate all the time during your daily routine where you are not working and write down the number of hours per week. You would be surprised. During this non active working time, plug in and start listening to your French study courses.

2. Make sure the materials you are using for study are effective. You can study all you want during your downtime but if the method of study is poor you will not learn a thing. When choosing a good audio course on French you want to make sure it is an audio course that allows you to immerse yourself in the language. This does not mean just learning nouns. Try to stay away from courses that are excessively heavy on teaching nouns. Learning nouns in French is necessary but make sure it has a good mix of nouns, verb conjugation, grammar and conversational French. The immersion method offers the best way to learn the language quickly.

3. When learning French words you can always have a stack of index cards and use them when you have some downtime. But when you are learning words be sure to use your imagination. For example you may want to group certain words together and imagine a scenario that is particularly memorable. Be creative and make your own scenarios. This is much more effective than just memorizing words with no creative thought.

4. Power studying is important when you study during your free time. So you have had a great day immersing yourself in the French language. To really accelerate the process all you need is 15-30 minutes of power studying in the evening. Power studying means absolutely no distractions with a specific goal in mind. Do not allow yourself to listen to music, watch TV, talk on the phone or get up from your study area. The more disciplined you are with your power studying the less time you will need to master French.

5. Language Exchange is the icing on the cake. Once you have immersed yourself in study you need to learn how to use it in conversation. Language exchange is an activity that should be fun! During Language Exchange you spend one hour teaching your language and one hour learning their language. This is what will bring you to fluency without actually moving to France.

Remember that consistency and discipline is key. Before you start following any of these steps you should write down your daily schedule. It is also a good idea to have a checklist. The checklist could be a way of tracking your daily activities. This will keep you accountable for your actions.

Moreover, you can share your tips. Just leave a comment.

Language Exchange

If you want to practice, improve and exchange languages visit Babelan.

Languages of the World

Languages of the World is an excellent blog about languages. It's got posts and discussions about all the languages that you know as well as about others that you don't still know. It examines all the aspects regarding languages.

Asya Pereltsvaig, linguist and educator, is the author of the blog and she states: this site is intended to be a resource and place for discussion for those interested in languages, their histories and their interactions.

Among several posts I would like to recommend the first one I found and read: Languages of the World: Linguistic diversity in Africa and Europe: As can be seen from the map below, Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the world's hotbeds of linguistic diversity. Indeed, the Niger-Congo languag...

Enjoy the world of languages

• Languages of the World: http://languages-of-the-world.blogspot.com

Links

If you want to meet people and practice languages visit: Babelan, people learning, practicing or teaching languages.

Watch Russian films online

Mosfilm, a Russian film studio, has got in Youtube a channel with several Russian films. Hence, either you are studying Russian or you already speak it, you will enjoy watching this channel. Then, sit down and enjoy Russian cinema.

About Mosfilm (from Wikipedia):
Mosfilm (Russian: Мосфильм, pronounced [məsˈfʲɨlʲm]) is a film studio, which is often described as the largest and oldest in Russia and in Europe. Its output includes most of the more widely-acclaimed Soviet films, ranging from works by Tarkovsky and Eisenstein (commonly considered the greatest Soviet directors), to Red Westerns, to the Akira Kurosawa co-production (Дерсу Узала / Dersu Uzala) and the epic Война и Мир / War and Peace.

• Mosfilm Youtube channel
• Mosfilm web page [in English]

More about language learning

• If you want to meet people and practice languages such as Russian, Spanish or French, etc visit: Babelan, people learning, practicing or teaching languages.
• Moreover, you can read a previous post with online resources to learn Russian: Russian language: web sites.

Radio, a mean to learn languages

Not long time ago, I used to listen to short wave stations (SW). When listening to these international broadcasts I improved quite a lot my English listening skills. Moreover, I enjoyed so much discovering new countries and its culture, people, history, gastronomy, etc.

Right now, you can easily listen to international and local radio stations from around the world. You just need to have a WiFi radio set or a smartphone (preferably with WiFi).

The best advice is to listen for a while a radio station of your target language everyday. Also, you can download podcasts of your favourite programmes and listen to them whenever you feel like.

You can start listening to international stations. They speak slower and are easy to understand as they target foreign audiencies.

Most of them also broadcast language courses that you can find in their web pages.

Some international stations are:

• For those learning English:  BBC Worldservice
• Spanish: REE (Radio Exterior de España)
• German: DW (Deutsche Welle)
• Russian: Voice of Russia
• French: RFI (Radio France)
• Korean: KBS
• Japanese: NHK
• Chinse: CRI (China Radio International)
• Czech: Radio Praha

You can search  local and international broadcasters in different directories:

• Live-Radio.net
• Listenlive.eu

Above all, do not forget to listen to radio in your target language everyday. You'll notice soon how much you improve.

Also, you can write a comment if you know more tips about learning languages.

More about language learning

• If you want to meet people and practice languages visit: Babelan, the languages site.

English for You, Rosa´s Blog

This is a blog intended for those young students of English, basically teenagers from 15 to 18. The whole blog is in English, this way the students are always in touch with the language.

You can find tips, videos, photos, reading activities, jokes and grammar stuff... all presented in a funny way.

Rosa describes her blog this way: This blog is mainly for my students (aged 15-18) but everybody is welcome!. I write about stuff that I find interesting for them, not only for our classes but for their general knowledge, i.e. about anything that comes up.

• English for You, Rosa´s Blog: http://inglesiesollosgrandes.blogspot.com

Practice languages

Check this site out, Babelan. You can contact native speakers and practice foreign languages.