10 Free Language Learning Communities

Joining a language learning community is a great way to learn or improve your Spanish. Online communities often provide free lessons, videos, audio materials, and a chance to practice with native speakers. Here are 10 free language learning communities to explore in your free time.

Livemocha - Livemocha, the world's largest language learning community, provides more than 160 hours of free Spanish lessons in addition to courses in 30 other languages. Site members can practice with the lessons and receive helpful tips from native speakers along the way.

Busuu - Bussu is a worldwide language learning community that is free for anyone to join. The site offers an integrated video chat option as well as hundreds of image and sound-based learning units.

iTalki - iTalki combines social networking and language learning to create a global education community. Members can communicate, share files, post content, and learn from each other online.

Tomisimo - Tomisimo is a Spanish language learning community with an English to Spanish dictionary and a Spanish verb conjugator. The site also provides a forum where learners can connect with other people who are studying Spanish.

Palabea - Palabea is a large language learning community for people who want to talk to native speakers in an online exchange. The site also provides free audio and visual learning tools and a language school database.

LingQ - LingQ is a language learning site that provides an unlimited number of free language lessons and a community where language learners can chat and make new friends online.

Lang-8 - Lang-8 is a free international language exchange community for people who want to learn in a social environment. Visitors can help others learn a language, have writing corrected by native speakers, and track learning progress.

VoxSwap - VoxSwap is a social network for language learners. Users can learn a new language, teach someone else a new language, and make friends with people all over the world.

Lingorilla - Lingorilla is an award-winning global video community for people who want to learn a new language and make new friends around the world. Site members can watch free videos, join or start a language group, and quiz themselves online.

Mixxer - This free language learning community makes it easy to find free language learning partners online and communicate with them via Skype.

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online school for OnlineSchool.net.
_____________________________________________________________

Spanish activities for children ages 6-9

A few days ago, @mundaysa, an associate professor of Spanish who I follow on Twitter, passed along this wonderful resource - ¡Aprendo Jugando! Actividades de Español para niños y niñas de 6 a 9 años.

It’s a downloadable PDF file (110 pages) from the Departamento Confederal de Migraciones de UGT y de la Secretaría de Políticas Sociales de FETE-UGT. The text and activities are written by Fina García Naranjo and Concha Moreno García.

Each activity lists objectives, procedures, exercises with some of the support materials (worksheets, labels, etc.). Topics include the alphabet, numbers, food, family members, and much more. Here’s a screenshot of the table of contents.

Where to go:
¡Aprendo Jugando! Actividades de Español para niños y niñas de 6 a 9 años
________________________________________________________

Give your Spanish a boost by volunteering

As you may have noticed, I haven’t really been blogging a lot lately. Well, one of the main reasons is that I got a job back in April which has kept me extremely busy. It’s a steady paycheck so no complaining here. I work for a children’s summer camp. Some of my duties include taking photos for print materials, maintaining the website, social networking (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc), and much more. On the downside, I haven’t really used my Spanish too much except for a few emails.

Well, I decided that I needed to fix that. Very soon I’ll be volunteering as a bilingual reader for preschool age children. I’ve really missed teaching Spanish at the preschool, so I’m very excited about this new adventure. Currently all I’m doing at home is reading in Spanish… pretty much on a daily basis in fact, but I’m not using it in an active manner – i.e. conversing or writing. With this new position, I’ll be reading aloud and also interacting with the children in Spanish.

I can already tell that the “spark” has returned. In preparation for this new position I have started talking to my own kids more in Spanish, writing in my journal in Spanish and more. All I needed was that little push.

So, do you want to give it a try?

Where to go:
Volunteer Match:  http://www.volunteermatch.org/
__________________________________________________________________

The Olympics – Madrid still in the race…

Just a quick post for those who want to follow the news about who will host the Olympics in 2016. You can learn background information about Madrid’s journey and watch live: http://www.rtve.es/deportes/madrid-2016/

Edited to add: Well, the 2016 Olympics will be in Rio de Janeiro which is still pretty neat – the first time in South America. In any case, the rtve.es site is still a great place to watch Spanish-language television.
____________________________________________________

20 Free Online Resources for Spanish Language Learners

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer.

Learning Spanish is a great way to open doors to opportunities in travel, professional areas, and even education. The Internet plays host to many different resources that would be useful to anyone who wants to learn Spanish. Here is a list of 20 free resources for Spanish language learners to explore:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT offers over 1,900 free courses for online learners, including several free Spanish courses. Course offerings include Spanish I-IV, oral communication, and advanced Spanish communication.

123TeachMe - This free service offers basic and conversational courses that cover vocabulary, grammar, and conversational Spanish. 123TeachMe also has resources strictly for kids, including games and quizzes.

Discover Spanish - Discover Spanish has fun, free podcast Spanish lessons. Podcast episodes last 15 minutes and cover greetings, numbers, age, and much more.

Insta Spanish - This online learning site features free Spanish podcast lessons for all levels of learners. Throughout this site, you can also find Spanish speaking pen pals, an e-learning newsletter, and a forum.

Learn Spanish Online - Learn Spanish Online offers 903 free pages of Spanish grammar with audio files to guide all examples. Language learners can find everything they need--from accents to verbs.

BBC - The BBC offers a large collection of resources for learning Spanish. Learners can find online courses, speaking resources, and quick fixes.

Radio Lingua Network - The Radio Lingua Network provides two free learning podcasts for learners to build their Spanish speaking confidence.

Study Spanish - This teaching site offers free tutorials for anyone interested in learning Spanish. The tutorials consist of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, verbs, idioms, and a travel helper.

Vocabulix - Vocabulix offers over 90 vocabulary lessons for improving your Spanish skills. Users of this site will also find verb drills and verb conjugation tables.

Babbel - This online language platform offers fun, multimedia courses for learning Spanish, English, German, Italian, and French. This is a great place for Spanish learners to find grammar builders, multimedia courses, and grammatical exercises.

Rolling R's - Rolling R's has a series of free videos lessons for building your Spanish speaking and writing skills. The site offers over 75 video lessons, most of which are available for free download or viewing.

don Quijote - This language site offers free Spanish lessons from Spanish teachers. Simply register for a free membership to gain access to this online language resource.

Edufone - Edufone has 40 free podcast lessons for all levels of Spanish speakers. The podcasts cover grammar, verbs, pronunciations, and conversations.

SpanishUnlimited - SpanishUnlimited features free services for learning and practicing Spanish. This site offers users lessons, vocabulary words, tests, and vocabulary games.

Spanicity - This Spanish learning site features grammar and vocabulary lessons complete with audio. Spanicity also comes complete with a Spanish dictionary and quiz.

LearnerSpanish.com - The LearnerSpanish.com site provides online tutorials on vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. This site utilizes both text and audio to help you learn.

Spanish Romance - Spanish Romance offers free online Spanish courses created by Spanish teachers. This site features resources for learning vocabulary, numbers, and phrases.

Palabea - This online social network offers video lectures, virtual classrooms, documents, podcasts, and language partners for Spanish language learners.

iTalki - iTalki is an online social community for learning a wide variety of different languages including Spanish. Users of this site will find 43 different courses, language partners, groups, and a knowledgebase.

Livemocha - Livemocha is a free way for Spanish learners to find self-paced lessons, practice, and native speakers who want to share their skills. All you have to do is sign up for a free account to immerse yourself into the Spanish language.

Karen Schweitzer is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes for OnlineCollege.org, an online college resource.
____________________________________________________

Free iPod Touch/iPhone Apps for Learning Spanish

After writing about the iRAE app, I thought it would be good to write more about iPhone/iPod Touch Apps that might be helpful for the Spanish language learner. All of these are free.

El Universal (Mexico) and El País (Spain) both have news articles, videos and other “authentic” materials for the Spanish language learner. Radio Nacional de España has five channels with which you can listen to music, news, weather, traffic, sports and more. (internet connection required)

WordReference is definitely a handy little app. You can access English-Spanish dictionaries, Spanish monolingual dictionary, Spanish synonyms dictionary, plus several others. You can also link to the WordReference’s forums via the app which comes in handy. (internet connection required)

SpanishPod has an app where you can look up words in their glossary with sample sentences. The sentences are accompanied by audio. Also, if you’re a premium member, which I’m not, you can also access their flashcard feature. (internet connection required for audio)

Stanza is one of my FAVORITE apps. I love to read and I really love the ability to load many books on my iPod Touch and take them wherever I go. Well, with this app, you can also download many books in Spanish. Right now I’m reading Drácula by Bram Stoker. Other authors represented include: Miguel Cervantes, Pio Baroja, Francisco de Quevedo, Benito Pérez Galdós and many, many others.

To find them within the app go to Online Catalog –> Feedbooks –> Public Domain Books –> Languages –> Español. You can also access Project Gutenberg books using the app as well. (internet connection required to download books)

TuneWiki is a rather unique app which I’m still trying to figure out myself, but still thought it was worth mentioning here. So far, I’ve been able to listen to some of my Spanish language music (from my iPod) and read the lyrics at the same time. Sometimes the lyrics aren’t very accurate, but others are… it’s hit or miss. You can also listen to radio stations from around the world and with some of them you can read the lyrics as the song is playing. Give it a try and let me know what you find. (internet connection required)

Where to go (iTunes links):
Radio Nacional de España
El Universal
El País
WordReference
SpanishPod
Stanza
TuneWiki

What are your favorite apps for learning Spanish?

RAE – App for your iPhone/iPod Touch

The RAE (Real Academia Española) now has a free application for your iPhone and Ipod Touch. With this app you can look up words in the Royal Spanish Academy’s dictionary and search the Panhispanic Dictionary. It appears a newer version is currently under review and with that one you’ll also be able to look up synonyms.

I just loaded it this morning and so far, I like it. Thanks to a Twitter friend, @eldeingles, for the news!

Where to go:
iRAE on iTunes