mandarin chinese

Mandarin Chinese Gets a New Section at Free Language

New! Mandarin Chinese Overview Pages on Free Language

As I did for the Spanish language before the last newsletter, I have now completed four more language overview sections. Now you will find new homes on Free Language for Afrikaans, Arabic, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese.

These overview pages are basically a single spot where all the resources for a given language are brought together for users to quickly view and navigate. I like to think they are quite packed with excellent resources for learning the respective languages. :) Some are more filled than others, and the overview pages do include an overview of the language, a list of resources for learning the language, podcasts, news resources, a tag cloud, InternetTV stations, recommended software, an aggregator link and feed and other such useful info.

Now Available: 34 Languages :)

With some of the major changes I have been working on, I have also slipped in a large number of new languages. Since the last newsletter, this includes Bengali, Catalan, Czech, Dutch, Filipino, Greek, Hausa, Hebrew, Hungarian, Latin, Polish, Swahili, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.

Before you get too excited, know that I cheated a bit on most of these and they list mainly resources for learning languages socially, and do not yet list specific resources for those languages. Catalan, Polish and Swedish are the exceptions with one specific resource for each plus the social resources. Specific resources for the rest will come as soon as I can manage!

New Mandarin Chinese Resources

EnterZon.com Zon MSU Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) for Learning Mandarin Chinese Interactively
ECPod.com ECPod Upload and Share English and Chinese Video Podcasts with a Community and Find Language Exchange Friends

Chinese Stuff from 7th Free Language's Foreign Language-Learning Newsletter

Welcome to the Seventh Edition of The Free Language Letter. Lots has happened since the Sixth Edition.

45 new free resources for 19 languages have been added to the site. See below for language-learning videos, multilingual podcasting, free software downloads, tools, browser extensions, OpenCourseWare, online communities and more.

New! Social Language-Learning Resource Section

Social language learning has become incredibly popular on the web as it has transcended language barriers in previously impossible ways.

For example, right now someone in Russia could be waiting to teach you Russian in exchange for your English skills. Or maybe your native language is Spanish and you want to learn Mandarin Chinese - there's someone out there for that as well! In fact, chances are there are hundreds or even thousands of potential language partners with whom you can achieve your collective language learning goals in a symbiotic fashion...

Visit the Social Foreign Language Learning Resource Section.

Below you will find the most recent additions to the social learning section.

LiveMocha.com Live Mocha Social Language Learning Course and Networking Website
MyHappyPlanet.com My Happy Planet Private Social Language-Learning Community
italki.com Free Skype VoIP and IM Language Partner Community
Dickinson College's Language-Exchanges.org Mixxer Free Skype Language Exchange Community
Lingopass.com Free Global Language Exchange Community
VoxSwap.com VoxSwap Online Instant Message and Voice Social Foreign Language Exchange with Forums and Groups

New Mandarin Chinese Resources

A Torrent File for 500 Free Mandarin Chinese Audio Podcast Lessons from ChinesePod.com
nciku.com nciku Free Online Mandarin Chinese Handwriting Recognition, Conversations, Radical Dictionary
A Pinyin.info Article on Most Difficult and Challenging Aspects of Learning Mandarin Chinese
Learn Mandarin Chinese Videos on YouTube AskBenny Channel
Learn Chinese on YouTube with Mandarin Videos from ActiveChinese
FSI-Language-Courses.com US Foreign Service Institute Mandarin Chinese Free Audio Lessons Downloads
SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese
BitesizedLanguages.com Bitesized Languages Improve Your French, Spanish or Portuguese Skills with Daily Emails

Cool Free Tools and Multilingual Resources

We added some cool tools and multilingual resource links, including Firefox browser extensions for improving your productivity in foreign languages online!

Quick Translation Firefox Extension to Translate Single Words in 17+ Languages
Foreign Language Translation Extensions/Tools/Plugins/Add-Ons for the Firefox Web Browser
Langmaker.com Language Maker Website on Auxiliary and Constructed Languages
Word2Word.com Website
The Alternative Dictionary: Slang, Profanities, Insults and Vulgarisms from all the World

Instructional Foreign Language Videos

ExpertVillage.com Instructional Videos on Learning Foreign Languages
YouTube Video Language Lessons at LanguageTube.org

Multilingual Podcasting Resources

SurvivalPhrases.com Survival Phrases in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Swedish, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese

Language News

United Nations Declares 2008 the International Year of Languages

To see the news in many different languages, check out our syndicated multilingual news section.

OpenCourseWare, Open University and Distance Language Learning

Download Free Open University Courses from MIT OpenCourseWare Foreign Languages and Literatures Department
About.com Distance Learning Free Online Language Courses
open.ac.uk OpenLearn LearningSpace Open University with Free Courses in Modern Languages

Download Free Mandarin Chinese Language Software

BYKI.com Download Free Language Software for Learning 42 Languages!

Featured Resource

Mango Languages is fantastic! Truly one of the top language-learning resources available online. Indeed, it may well be the most user-friendly, feature-rich, well-organized and free resource for learning languages online.

Mango Languages offers an amazing amount of totally free lessons and courses for learning a growing number of languages. At the time this article is going to press, these include Brazilian Portuguese, English for Polish speakers, English for Spanish speakers, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Pig Latin!, Russian and Spanish.

Current Research

I am researching and drafting articles regarding foreign language study in Second Life. This metaverse approach to teaching and learning has amazing potential. Subscribe to Free Language's RSS feed to be sure you get new articles as they're hot off the press.

再见！

Chapman
Free Language
http://freelanguage.org

Mandarin Radical Dictionary, Web Tool for Chinese Handwriting and More Free Chinese Language Resources

Submitted by polyglot on Tue, 2008-01-08 00:43.
Tags: chinese | learn mandarin chinese online free | mandarin | mandarin chinese | web technology

I have made only one Chinese-specific addition to Free Language recently. It's cool, though. It's another resource to add to the palette of tools and means for learning Mandarin Chinese. Check out this new resource which includes a Chinese handwriting tool, a Mandarin radical dictionary with cool sorting...

Free Language recently reviewed or blogged about three social language learning networks. These are not only for learning Mandarin Chinese, they are for learning any language that the collective user base can speak!

Find out more details with these articles:

MyHappyPlanet.com My Happy Planet Private Social Language-Learning Community
LiveMocha.com Live Mocha Social Language Learning Course and Networking Website
Lingopass.com Free Global Language Exchange Community

Find out about loads of resources for learning Mandarin Chinese for free at Free Language!

This is a big list of the front page articles on this site. This does not include blog entries.

Learn

Multi-Lingual Resources and Cool Tools

italki.com Free Skype VoIP and IM Language Partner Community
NetTVDB Free Database of Internet/Web TV Stations in Multiple Languages and Countries
PhraseBase.com Multi-Lingual Conversational Phrase Database Resource
expatriates.com Free International Multi-Lingual Language Exchange Partner Classifieds
FoxLingo Free Firefox Browser Extension Software for Translating Web Pages
Global Internet TV Gateway Portal with Web TV in World Languages
Online Flashcard Exchange Community

Teach

English

TEFL.net Free Resources for English Teachers/Educators with TEFL, ESL, TESOL Help
EnglishClub.com Free ESL Learn and Teach English Lessons, Games, Forums, Quizzes, Chat
TeachingEnglish.org.uk BBC British Council Teaching English Resources

Language-Learning Specific

BBC Better at Languages

Commercial Resources

Arabic

Rosetta Stone Learn Arabic Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

English

Rosetta Stone Learn US American English Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)
Rosetta Stone Learn UK British English Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

French

Rosetta Stone Learn French Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

German

Rosetta Stone Learn German Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

Hindi

Rosetta Stone Learn Hindi Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

Indonesian

Rosetta Stone Learn Indonesian/Bahasa Indonesia Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

Japanese

Rosetta Stone Learn Japanese Software Level 1 (Commercial)

Learn Korean

Mandarin Chinese

Rosetta Stone Learn Mandarin Chinese Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

Persian/Farsi

Rosetta Stone Learn Persian/Farsi Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

Russian

Rosetta Stone Learn Russian Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

Spanish

Rosetta Stone Learn European (Spain) Spanish Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)
Rosetta Stone Learn Latin American Spanish Language Software Level 1 (Commercial)

Latest Free Language Updates for Mandarin Chinese

Below are the latest front page updates pertaining to learning Mandarin Chinese.

UMN's Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition
Newseum.com Free Front Page News from over 50 Countries in Loads of Languages
WordChamp Language Toolbar for Firefox
Wikipedia Language Portal
Free and Open Mandarin Chinese University Lectures from Archive.org

» polyglot's blog

May Edition of Free Language Letter is Out

The May edition of the Free Language Letter is out!

There are new resources for learning the Mandarin Chinese language.

I am reposting it here for quick access:

Fourth Edition

Welcome to the fourth edition of The Free Language Letter.

New Languages

Two new languages have been added to the site! We are happy to announce new sections for the Afrikaans and Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian) languages.

New Resources

21 new resources for 11 languages have been added to the site:

Afrikaans

LearnAfrikaans.us Learn Afrikaans Free Online Language Courses
Beeld South African News in Afrikaans

Arabic

Free Learn Gulf Arabic Language Resources
Learn Arabic Free at Speak7

English

ESL Business News Podcast
Podictionary English Dictionary Podcast

French

RFI News in Slowly-Spoken French Podcast
World Nomads iPod French Language Podcasts

German

Learn to Speak German with this Free Podcast

Hindi

World Nomads iPod Hindi Language Podcasts

Indonesian

Beginning Indonesian Learn Bahasa Indonesia Course
Learn Basic Bahasa Indonesia Phrases at Expat.or.id
SEASite Indonesia Resources for Learning Bahasa
World Nomads iPod Lingo Indonesian Language Podcast

Italian
World Nomads iPod Italian Language Podcasts

Japanese

World Nomads iPod Japanese Language Podcasts

Mandarin Chinese

World Nomads iPod Mandarin Chinese Language Podcasts

Spanish

Notes in Spanish Intermediate Podcast
Notes in Spanish Advanced Podcast
Rolling Rs Learn Spanish Podcast
World Nomads iPod Spanish Language Podcasts

Coming Soon...

Our First Podcast

The first Free Language Podcast show was supposed to be here last month, but it was put on the back burner in order to launch Afrikaans and Indonesian resources on the site. We will do our best to get this out in June.

Commercial Language-Learning Resources

Once again, this was put on the back burner. In June we hope to be rolling out a better store with a larger selection of commercial language-learning products and services. Funds earned from this new section will be put into making the interface and features of the site more rich and better organized.

Full Stats from freelanguage.org

Another back burner story... but in June we will be posting the entire history of statistics for freelanguage.org. For now, you can see a hint on polyglot's blog. You can also see a visual representation of where our visitors come from by visiting the Geovisitors tag page. Here is a screenshot of visitors from today:

The Blog Grows More

There are now six bloggers over at the Free Language Blog:

If you are interested in blogging about your language-learning experiences here, you are invited to request a BETA user account on Free Language. As mentioned in the March 2007 Free Language Letter, when Free Language V3 is launched, revenue sharing for users will be implemented.

Current Languages

A quick list of all 14 languages for which resources are currently available on the site:

Suggest a Resource

If you have a favorite language-learning resource (or manage a website of your own) that is not listed on Free Language, please let us know by suggesting a resource.

Social Bookmark Us!

If you have not already done so, please visit our site and use the social bookmark link on the left side to add us to any of numerous social bookmarking services such as del.icio.us, furl, magnolia, digg, reddit, newsvine, simpy, bluedot, stumble upon and more. Please help us grow!

Auf wiedersehen.

The Free Language Community
http://freelanguage.org

Free Language Blogs about Mandarin Chinese Language

Free Language has now got six people blogging on the Free Language Blogs.

There are quite a lots of varied resources there pertaining to many languages.

Have a look... there are many things regarding Chinese:

Blog entries tagged with "chinese".
Blog entries tagged with "mandarin".
Blog entries tagged with "mandarin chinese".

April 2007 Edition of the Free Language Letter

I thought I'd re-distribute the April edition of the Free Language Letter here:

Third Edition

Welcome to the third edition of The Free Language Letter.

New Resources

Since the last newsletter, 18 new resources for 7 languages have been added to the site:

Arabic

University of Chicago Arabic Circle Lectures Podcast
Madinah Arabic Beginner Language and Reading Courses

English

languagecaster.com Learn English through Soccer/Football Podcast
Breaking News English EFL/ESL Learning Podcast
Exam English Free Practice Tests

French

Learn French by Podcast
Easy French Poetry Podcast
BBC Languages French
Learn French Wikibook
The French École French for Beginners Podcast

German

Learn German Wikibook
MyDailyPhrase.com German Podcast

Italian

MyDailyPhrase.com Italian Podcast

Mandarin Chinese

Mobile Chinese Flashcards Cell Phone Software
Adsotrans Dynamic Chinese Annotation Website and Software Project

Spanish

Chile Podcast and Video Podcast
InstaSpanish.com's Insta Spanish Podcast

General Tools

BBC Better at Languages

Coming Soon...

Our First Podcast

The first Free Language Podcast show will be coming by the end of this month!

Commercial Language-Learning Resources

Within the next month we will be rolling out a better store with a larger selection of commercial language-learning products and services.

Full Stats from freelanguage.org

We will be posting the entire history of statistics for freelanguage.org within the next month. For now, you can see a hint on polyglot's blog.

12 New Languages

The list of potential languages to add to the site will be narrowed down to 12 and posted before the next newsletter!

The Blog Grows

There are now three bloggers over at the Free Language Blog:

polyglot

opal myth

transcombouge

If you are interested in blogging about your language-learning experiences here, you are invited to request a BETA user account on Free Language. As mentioned in last month's Free Language Letter, when Free Language V3 is launched, revenue sharing for users will be implemented.

Current Languages

A quick list of all 12 languages for which resources are currently available on the site:

Arabic

Cantonese

English

French

German

Hindi

Italian

Japanese

Mandarin Chinese

Portuguese

Russian

Spanish

Suggest a Resource

If you have a favorite language-learning resource (or manage a website of your own) that is not listed on Free Language, please let us know by suggesting a resource.

Até a proxima.

The Free Language Community
http://freelanguage.org

New! Mandarin Chinese Overview Pages on Free Language

Now Available: 34 Languages :)

New Mandarin Chinese Resources

New! Social Language-Learning Resource Section

New Mandarin Chinese Resources

Cool Free Tools and Multilingual Resources

Instructional Foreign Language Videos

Multilingual Podcasting Resources

Language News

OpenCourseWare, Open University and Distance Language Learning

Download Free Mandarin Chinese Language Software

Featured Resource

Current Research

再见！

Learn

Afrikaans

Arabic

Cantonese

English

French

German

Hindi

Indonesian

Italian

Japanese

Korean

Mandarin Chinese

Persian

Portuguese

Russian

Spanish

Multi-Lingual Resources and Cool Tools

Teach

English

Language-Learning Specific

Commercial Resources

Arabic

English

French

German

Hindi

Indonesian

Japanese

Mandarin Chinese

Persian/Farsi

Russian

Spanish

Third Edition

New Resources

Arabic

English

French

German

Italian

Mandarin Chinese

Spanish

General Tools

Coming Soon...

Our First Podcast

Commercial Language-Learning Resources

Full Stats from freelanguage.org

12 New Languages

The Blog Grows

Current Languages

Suggest a Resource

Até a proxima.

Learn Languages

Site and Web Search