Archive
Pictolang, another flashcard site for vocabulary learning
- Distinguishing mark: Pictolang is based on the Culturally authentic Picture Lexicon. Here is an overview of the currently available languages and imagery:
-
Language Region # Images German 2631 Mandarin China 2336 ESL North America 2074 Russian 1420 French France 1231 Spanish Southern Cone 1022 Spanish Mexico 1000 Spanish Central America & Caribbean 872 Spanish Peninsular 579 Arabic 287 Special Collections 151 Ukrainian 139 Japanese 106 French Canada 47 Arabic Oman 11 - You can focus vocabulary your study on specific topics, which will likely integrate it better with your core textbook material (often divided into topical chapters).
- Suitable for self-study, the use of CAPL makes this an especially interesting tool for preparing work/study/travel abroad. It also allows for playing a classroom flashcard game in language culture and area studies, where the teacher can provide context and background information in the images from the target culture.
- Example o the Word Match Game right answer feedback:
- Wrong answer feedback:
Phonetic Russian character input on US-keyboards with Google IME in the LRC
- To write Russian phonetically in Cyrillic:
- Since “input methods”are specific to each window (and automatically switch to that of the window you make active), first open the application you want to write in, preferably MS-Word (has proofing tools for Russian).
- In the language bar on the lower right, click on “EN”, select “Russian” instead
- Click on the keyboard symbol and select “Google”:
- You first may have to right-click on the language bar on the lower right of your desktop and select “Adjust” to show the keyboard symbol:
- You first may have to right-click on the language bar on the lower right of your desktop and select “Adjust” to show the keyboard symbol:
- If you now type in MS-Word Russian (your selection did not “stick” in MS-Word? do the above steps again, eventually it will…) phonetically on a US-keyboard, you will be able to select from suggestions in Cyrillic:
- Click the desired suggestion to have it entered into MS-Word:
- To go back to writing temporarily in English (without changing the entire input method back to English), click the (Cyrillic/Latin) letter symbol on the Google Russian IME menu:
and you can enter English (Latin alphabet) without the popup suggesting you Russian equivalents: 
- To switch from the phonetic input to a floating Cyrillic keyboard,
- click on the keyboard symbol in the Google Russian IME.
- Or from the Language bar, switch to the other (Microsoft) keyboard layout for "Russian" (see #4 above), and go to "Start" / "Run" / type OSK, click "OK".
- click on the keyboard symbol in the Google Russian IME.
UIowa.edu phonetics website for learners of English, German and Spanish
Hone your foreign language pronunciation skills by learning about phonetics: This oft-recommended University of Iowa phonetics website “contains animated libraries of the phonetic sounds (….) for each consonant and vowel”, including “an animated articulatory diagram, a step-by-step description, and video-audio of the sound spoken in context”.
Spring 2012 Faculty Workshop II: Oral Proficiency testing with Audacity/Sanako
- View screens (best viewed side by side, but note that left and right screen are not synchronized):
- for full slide show (note the included short links for convenient further reading), left screen
- for Sanako interface and full audio track, right screen
.
- for full slide show (note the included short links for convenient further reading), left screen
- Table of contents:
- Overview of a Sanako Oral Exam
- Examples of Exam teachers’ exam question recordings
- Example of a Sanako Exam
- Loop induction
- creating an exam question recording
- by taking a Sanako exam as a student
- Step-by-Step of administering a Sanako oral exam
- Grading Sanako oral exam student files
- Sanako voice insert for
- facilitating recording oral assignments for student without hard-coded pauses
- commenting on student responses during grading
- Sanako voice insert for
- Sanako authoring tool for providing visual on top of aural cues to students
Linguee dictionary lookup based on parallel corpora
- Support for more languages is planned (Chinese, Japanese):
- The interesting approach based on parallel corpora provides a wealth of empirical data, albeit a bit raw and of varying quality, e.g.:
Independent study with free language learning materials from the FSI?
The Foreign Service Institute language learning materials – consisting of scanned documents and digitized audio of multiple courses per language – were still a heavily-advertised resource when I visited the Defense Language Institute in Monterey in 2006.
It is nice to see these resources be made available for free. It is also nice to see the progress that has been made not only in technological adaptation of textbook learning materials since these materials were made available (post WW II?).
This, however, comes at a cost. If you shun it, and do not take a course that works which requires (and entitles you to the use of) a textbook, here are easily accessibleviewable learning materials for a large set of languages, including many LCTL: Amharic, Arabic, Bulgarian, Cambodian, Cantonese, Chinese, Chinyanja, Czech, Finnish, French, Fula, German, Greek, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Igbo, Italian, Japanese, Kirundi, Kituba, Korean, Lao, Lingala, Luganda, Moré, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Shona, Sinhala, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Twi, Vietnamese, Yoruba.
The Forums , however seem to indicate that not too many still use these options. The transformation into a (technologically superficially) more modern format here is limited to very few languages and courses (and crashed my web browser).
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Other ways to find help
If you cannot find it here, look there: 5,500 Language-Learning Links and Programs for learning or teaching 150 languages
Shortcuts:Our Lists, Our Maps, LRC Staff Moodle Site,LRC Project Moodle Site, 49erexpress, UNCC Moodle, Student Recordings: s:claslcslrcsanakostudent
Learning usage samples: Sanako oral exam, Kaltura webcam presentation, Dictation with speech recognition, Sanako written exam, Chinese and Japanese interactive stroke-order practice
Test the Sanako Installer, Webbrowser Popup Konfigurator for XP, or Windows7, faster LRC TeacherPC Log-in Let MS facilitate diacritics writing by installing for you US-International keyboard layout
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