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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).
Eva English Word Lookup against Wordnet
- Eva Word Lookup – not listed under the extensions, but run against Wordnet, the lexical database for English – enables you to study your English words in depth. This lookup gives you information organized by the following aspects of your word, linked from an overview of each word type your search term can belong to:
- the coordinate terms (sisters)
- the derived forms
- the synonyms/hypernyms (ordered by estimated frequency)
- the hyponyms (troponyms for verbs)
- the holonyms, for nouns
- the meronyms, for nouns
- sample sentences, for verbs
- Below is what results look like for example search term “design”:
More Moodle Kaltura webcam recording homework assignments: Spanish
More Moodle Kaltura webcam recording homework assignments: German
Protected: Mock exam for Spanish combines various learning technologies in the LRC
UCL Internet Grammar of English
I2speak.com: Web-based IPA Keyboard
The Sciweavers Team announces http://www.i2speak.com: “an online Smart IPA Keyboard that lets you quickly type IPA phonetics without the need to memorize any symbol code. For every Roman character you type, a popup menu displays a group of phonetic symbols that share the same sound or shape beneath typed character. Use arrow keys to select the proper symbol then hit the Enter button. I2Speak also supports the following features:
1. The Sampa English Keyboard lets you type English phonetics using Roman characters according to SAMPA (Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet) rules.
2. The IPA English Keyboard provides you with a full English phonetics keyboard. Press the symbol of interest using a suitable input device.
3. You can type directly on your physical keyboard or on the virtual on-screen keyboard using a suitable input device such as mouse or touch screen device.
4. You can change the keyboard symbols by selecting another layout from the list box located above the virtual keyboard.
5. For every keyboard layout, more symbols can be displayed by pressing the CAPS Lock.
6. When you hover the mouse over an English phonetic button, a slick tooltip will show some example English words.
7. You can save typed phonetics as an MS-Word file by clicking the Save button, copy them to clipboard using the Copy button, or post them to Twitter, Facebook, etc. by clicking the desired button.”
Farsi phonetic input using Behnevis
- Behnevis.com (web form or downloadable Google Chrome browser toolbar) offers transliteration of phonetic input in Roman letters into Farsi and is said to be on a par with Google translate (which offers no toolbar) and MS-UIME (which has no toolbar, but can be installed in your browser to alter any web page for users lacking a physical Farsi keyboard (or overlay).
Questions? Read the About. Or just ask me a quick Our Databases: Resources with calendars -- Language learning material Moodle Sites, multimedia files -- films
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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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