Libraries, Archives, Museums: Foreign Language Resources: Language Resources

Defense Language Institute

The Defense Language Institute offers a variety of free resources for foreign language and culture study. Some may require free registration.

Rapport
Created for troops deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan, this program provides cultural and language training in Dari, Pashto, and Iraqi.
Defense Department's Online Diagnostic Assessment
Assess your language ability. Free registration is required. The assessment will take 1-2 hours, and at the end you'll get a language score of 0-3.
Post Basic Delivery Service
"The materials, intended as teacher-mediated lessons, are available in Arabic, Chinese, Dari, Korean, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Russian, Hebrew, and Persian Farsi. PBDS materials consist of eight 6-week courses created in a modular design which focus on Final Learning Objective topics."
Advanced North Korean Dialect Materials
Supplementary, interactive, online materials for basic, intermediate, and advanced courses.
Cultural Orientations
Supplement your language learning with basic information about a cultural group. Some find that Mango Languages is great for spurring a connection for history or geography. This resource may work that way, too!
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"Topics include religion, traditions, family life and differences in the lifestyles of urban and rural populations."
Accents Library
Hear regional speech variations of Spanish or Arabic by listening to conversations. Available in three levels and a variety of topics.
Area Studies
Learn about Spanish-speaking countries and regions.
Arabic Grammar Search
If you already have learned Arabic, but want to look up a specific aspect of grammar.
Countries in Perspective
"Each country study starts with a Country Profile section containing basic facts about the target country, followed by selected themes organized under the major headings of Geography, History, Economy,Society and Security." Similar to CIA World Factbook, at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/.
Cultural Awareness Assessment
How much do you really know about a culture?
Online Diagnostic Assessment
Assess your knowledge of Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Farsi, Spanish, Tagalog, North Korean
GLOSS
"G.L.O.S.S.online language lessons are developed for independent learners to provide them with the learning/teaching tools for improving their foreign language skills." GLOSS has thousands of lessons in 24 languages.
Headstart2
Downloadable language learning programs.
Even more resources on culture and language
Familiarization modules, legends and folktales, weekly training events.

Practice Groups

The Alaska State Library has begun practice groups that are available in-person in Juneau and throughout the state via the OWL Network or conference call. Please contact the guide author for more information, or if you know of or would like other language practice groups available across communities.

French language group
The French discussion group is not currently being held regularly. Please contact Freya if you'd like to meet!

Classes and language games

RadioLingua
Although additional resources are available for purchase, the free offerings are substantial. I'm personally enjoying Coffee Break French.
BBC Languages
Digital Dialects
"Games for learning phrases, numbers, useful words, spelling, verb conjugation and alphabets." Site is Flash intensive.
MindSnacks
Learn languages (or other things) through games on your iPhone with their free apps.

Practice your new language

Forvo: The pronunciation guide
Audio pronunciations in over 200 languages. You can join to add content, but it's not required to use the service.
Newspaper listing
Find a newspaper in the language you're studying. In addition to language practice, you'll keep up on the news, and learn about different cultures and perspectives.
News sites for foreign language students, from MIT
These resources are specifically chosen for language learners in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
LangMedia: Resources for World Languages
While geared towards students of the Five Colleges, this site hosts an abundance of resources that are free for all. The focus is on multimedia. I particularly like the Culture Talks, which feature native speakers on topics from music to family introductions and more.
Internet Public Library: Language and Linguistics
Find additional resources from volunteer librarians.
Duolingo
Learn the basics with their extensive tutorial, and then practice a language by translating web pages. Done with small snippets, so there's not a great time commitment.
LibriVox
Chose the language tab to find free, public domain, audiobooks in many languages.
italki
Practice speaking with native speakers. You provide your expertise as a native speaker of your first language, and in exchange, someone else will help you. You can also get help with written language. italki charges for some optional services.
Verbling
Practice speaking with native speakers using headphones on your computer with a broadband connection. You can speak with "friends" from the system, or join classes.
Word of the Day
Get a word each day by email, Facebook, Twitter, RSS feed, or by visiting their website. Choose languages from Arabic to Urdu, including Leet!
Byki
From Transparent Language. Free virtual flash card lists. Pay for additional features.

Subject Guide

Freya Anderson

she/her

Email Me

Contact:

Alaska State Library
PO Box 110571
Juneau, AK 99811-0571

907-465-1315

Subjects: SLED, SOA - Education and Early Development, SOA - Governor's Office, SOA - Legislature, SOA - Lieutenant Governor's Office, SOA - Talking Books

Keyboard shortcuts

Many foreign languages use different characters than we do in English. Here are some resources for accessing them from Windows or Mac machines.

Computing with accents, symbols, & foreign scripts
From Penn State University.
Alt codes for foreign language letters with accents
This list is fairly small - good for languages that use a mostly Latin alphabet - and is in a nice, easy to use format