Overview: Language Courses, Reviews, Comparisons, Ratings

ieLanguages

1/6/2012

Review of IELANGUAGES.com/languages.html
Web, No pronunciation scores, Free, ★
This private site has free recordings of the numbers 0-21 and many other words in 8 mostly European languages. It has recordings of a few words in three more languages, and free text on several other languages, including some uncommon ones. The recordings are either the FSI courses, which are in more detail on the FSI site, or they speak long lists of words with no pauses, pictures nor sound effects, so learners have to read along to know the meaning.

They give detailed explanations (for example declension of the Russian numbers) which other sites omit. They also have links to many sites for one or a few languages, which I do not review here. See "All Languages" for other sites with similar helpful links

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Alphabetical Indexes of Languages

1/6/2012

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Many Languages

Learning materials for 400 languages are reviewed in the basic List of Language Courses on this site.

Learning materials for 2,300 languages are listed by Jim Martindale, They are not reviewed. Many are online and free, so you can try them. He links to online keyboards for many alphabets.

For other languages, you can listen to religious recordings while reading the meaning in your own language. Audio of the Bible is available in 700 languages, some with written text too. There are many ways to search the religious recordings:

GlobalRecordings indexes audio in 6,000 languages by country or by name of the language. It allows many alternate names for each language (Fante, Mfantse, Twi, Akan, etc.). If you still do not find the language you want, it is useful to search Ethnologue.com for alternate names and then search for these in GlobalRecordings. (Ethnologue lists 6 alternates for Chumashan; GlobalRecordings does have one of them.) If an audio Bible is available, GlobalRecordings connects to one of the links below and tells you which alternate name is used there. Aside from Bibles, the site offers Christian stories in all 6,000 languages, which you can download. Printed text of each story is generally in Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Indonesian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Thai. If you need explanations in any of the other 6,000 languages, write down the text from the recordings in your language.
Bible.is/ENGESV/Gen/1 Click ESV to search for other languages. It always has audio, and sometimes text, for example Chinese Union Version. It has a few alternate names of languages. For example you can find Fante by typing either Fante or Akan.
Bible.is/download/audio has a search bar for audio only. Be persistent. For example Fante and Twi do not appear as languages, but Akan does; then Akuapem, Asante and Fante are choices under Akan in the drop down menu for "Bible version."
FaithComesByHearing.com/store/languageconfig has a drop-down menu for audio only. You have to browse their alphabetical list persistently. Fante is listed under Akan, not F.
ForeignLanguageExpertise indexes 500 of the languages by country and by linguistic family. In your browser, use Edit/Find or Ctrl-F to find a country or language you want. If the language is available, you can then select it in the dark red bar near the top of the page. Also select a Bible chapter and download or listen. You can freely search on Akan, Fante, Asante, or even Twi (the more common name of Akan Asante, and it shows you that you need to type Akan Asante into the dark red bar).

Written text of the Bible is available in 2,400 or 2,800 languages, though some are hard to find. Many online bibles are at ScriptureEarth.org and eBible.org. Many printed bibles and some electronic are listed at VirtualStorehouse.org, EthnicHarvest.org/bibles, BibleinMyLanguage.com and FindABible.net. No other book is as widely translated.

Intermediate learners can practice listening and reading with radio stations and news on the web.

Few Languages
Other language sites are not reviewed or indexed here, because they only teach how to speak one or a few languages. You can find links to these more focused sites at Martindale's large site above, and at:

Omniglot (600 languages)
UCLA (150 languages)

QuickOnlineTips (17)
Dietrich Reimer Publisher (5)

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ieLanguages

Alphabetical Indexes of Languages

Reviews of Courses