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.

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.

Sit back... Watch... Learn (Learn a language on YouTube)

Sit back... Watch... Learn (Learn a language on YouTube) is a blog with a colection of youtube videos focused in learning foreign languages. In fact, it's a compilation of a different channels that you can find in Youtube to help you to learn languages.

The blog currently has posted video channels to learn Arabic, Chinese, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Maori, Old English, Portuguese, Sign Language, Swedish and Welsh.

Moreover, the blog recommends other sites with language activities, listening materials, grammar tutorials, reading handouts, etc. This blog is a comprehensive source of online language learning resources.

• Sit back... Watch... Learn:
  http://learn-with-youtube.blogspot.com

Links

• Babelan. Language exchanges, private lessons and translations

The top 100 language blogs

"The Top 100 Language Blogs is probably the largest language blog competition hosted annually by bab.la and Lexiophiles. It is aimed at finding the best blogs related to languages and awarding language-loving bloggers."

In Top 100 Language Blogs 2010, you can find an interesting list of 100 language blogs. It's a list of online resources to learn a foreign languages such as Korenan, English, Russian, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Thai, Dutch, etc.

• Top 100 Language Blogs: http://en.bab.la/news/top-100-language-blogs-2010

Practicing and learning languages

In addition, you can find native speakers for a language exchange, a private class or a translator in Babelan.net: www.babelan.net

Audio Lingua - mp3 in French, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian and Portuguese

Audio Lingua is a great site to listen real native speakers and to improve listening skills of French, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian and Portuguese.

You can search short audio files in the previous languages and listen them. All the recordings are uploaded by native speakers who talk about their interests, their countries or their lives.

In addition, you can contribute recording your own voice in your native language to help students of your language.

Audio-Lingua introduction (from the web page)

• What is Audio-Lingua? A collaborative bank of authentic audio resources, recorded by native speakers, for a freely pedagogical or personal use.
• Audio documents? Short, a maximum recording length of two minutes, on various subjects…
• Collaborative? It means that any person who feels interested may contribute sending personal audio documents by filling in the form.
• Authentic? For they are only made by native (English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian or Spanish) speakers ! All accents can be useful.
• Aim? To train oral comprehension for anyone who would like to improve this language skill.

Audio Lingua: http://www.audio-lingua.eu

More links

• Babelan. Language exchanges, private lessons and translations

Lyrics Training - Improving your foreign languages skills

"Lyrics Training is an easy and fun method to learn and improve your foreign languages skills like English through the music and lyrics of the songs."

It offers music videos in different languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Dutch). Their lyrics are displayed under the image with gaps to be filled in. This way the user can improve their listening skills. All the videos are categorized by levels (easy, medium and hard).


Lyrics Training: http://www.lyricstraining.com

Other recommended links

• Babelan (language exchanges, classes & translators): http://www.babelan.net

Help others to find a language exchange, a private lesson or translation service

You can help others to find a person for a language exchange. Also, you can help a student to find a private tutor (and vice versa) or a freelance translator a work.

Just place a link in your blog or personal page. Babelan has a free message board to offer and find a language exchange, a class or a translation service.

Example

Babelan - The languages site.

Copy and paste this code

<a href="http://www.babelan.net/">Babelan</a> - The languages site.

Improving foreign languages skills - Language exchange

When learning a foreign language, there are some different skills we need to improve in order to comunicate: writing, reading, speaking or listening. For example, it is pretty clear that we cannot speak if we cannot understand (listen) what the interlocutor is telling us.

Probably, the very first step learning a new foreign language is enroling a class. This could be either in a language school or with a private tutor. Obviously, this cannot be only source of learning and improving a new foreign language. Nowadays, new technologies, such as internet, offer us a wide range of languages resources.

Thanks to internet, you can improve your reading skills just with newspapers, magazines or blogs in the target language. Listening can also be boosted by listening radio stations and watching tv channels or videos.

The list of sites is endless in any language: English, Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, Czech, Romanian, Vietnamese, French, Dutch, Hungarian, Polish...

Thus, it could be wise to search for pages that deal with a topic you like (e.g. a hobby). You will improve faster because the topic will attract you and you will pay much more attention rather than a boring issue. In addition, when you know the topic in your mother language helps to understand the new language easily.

Thousands of language students are willing to speak a foreign language with native people. So, why do not try to find a language exchange. This could be a one-to-one exchange if you both live in the same city or a virtual exchange using the new techonologies (e-mail, chat, messenger, webcam, microphone...).

Recently, I searched some different sites to meet native people for a language exchange. Check them out and use the one that fits your needs.

• Babelan is a languages site. There you can find for free (not registration required) native people from around the world for a language exchange via mail, chat, voice,... Also one-to-one exchanges in New York, London, Barcelona, etc.
  http://www.babelan.net/
• Another place is My Language Exchange. You can find several registered members to practice a foreign language via email, text chat or voice chat. Needs registration.
  http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/
• Shared Talk is a community to practice foreign languages. It has different tools such as text chat or a voice chat. Needs registration.
  http://sharedtalk.com/
• In Speak Mania you can find penpals for a language exchange. Needs registration. It has a an audio and video chat.
  http://www.speakmania.com/index.php?language_id=1
• Lang-8 is a language exchange community focus in writing skills. Needs registration.
  http://lang-8.com/
• ConversationExchange.com is a community offering three types of language exchange face to face, penpals and text and voice chat. Needs registration.
  http://www.conversationexchange.com/
• Gumtree is a classifieds website, although, it has a languages swop category mainly for the UK and Ireland. It's free and needs no registration.
  http://www.gumtree.com/
• Another classifieds site with a language exchange category is Justlanded. It works in a wide range of countries, The UK, Ireland, Romania, China, Russia, Italy, Spain, USA, Germany, South Korea and so on.
  http://classifieds.justlanded.com/

There ara several sites where you can find native people for a language exchange, you can find them searching in internet. This is only a sample of some of them that could be useful.

Language teaching abroad

Probably, you want to travel abroad to stay in a foreign country for a long time. Some people want to learn a language, to study in an university or just long for an experience in a different place.

Unless you are a rich person, you'll need to earn your living abroad. When arriving a new country this could be a problem, specially, if you don't speak the native language.

There are many sort of jobs as bartender, bellboy, cook,.. the list is endless. Although, you may choose to teach your own language and get some extra money. It makes no difference which language you speak German, Russian, English, French, Italian, Chinese or Japanese. There are hundreds of chances to teach languages in language schools or offering private tuition.

A part from rendering your CV in all the languages schools, you may use internet to offer you private lessons. It's free and everyone can reach your post.

Nowadays, internet provides many sites to post free adverts. Here, you can find a sample list of sites to find students for your private classes:

First of all, a language site called Babelan. Currently, this has a free message board to offer classes in New York, London, Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Paris, Berlin, Sydney, Toronto, Vancouver and Chicago. This website is focus in languages.
http://www.babelan.net

Another site to place your free classifieds is Justlanded. It works in a wide range of countries, The UK, Ireland, Romania, China, Russia, Italy, Spain, USA, Germany, South Korea and so on.
http://classifieds.justlanded.com

A New York classifieds site is ikinewyork.com that has got a tutors, language lessons category.
http://www.ikinewyork.com

A UK based forum for tutors, students and parents is Local Tutor Forum. Here you can offer your private tuition in the UK.
http://www.localtutorforum.com

Japanese, English and other languages can be offered in Tokyo Notice Board.
http://www.tokyonoticeboard.co.jp

Loquo is a free classifieds site in Spain. It's got dozens of categories such as room, cars, jobs or servicies, also, it has a 'tutoring and private lessons' area to post your adverts.
http://www.loquo.com

Campusanuncios.com and mundoanuncio.com are two global classifieds web pages. So you may post your advert to teach not only in Spain but around the world.
http://www.mundoanuncio.com
http://www.campusanuncios.com

Related links

Finally, I'd like to add some other related links that could be useful:

English language teaching job opportunities worldwide http://www.eslbase.com/jobs/

Language recruitment and Language Jobs in Madrid, Spain
http://www.toplanguagejobs.es

Classes, courses or private lessons
http://www.language-school-teachers.com

Directory of jobs for teaching abroad
http://www.teachabroad.com/search.cfm

English Teachers - Madrid
http://madridteacher.com/

• Babelan, the languages site >>