Anxious Times — A Stanford Roundtable

in Current Affairs | October 30th, 2006

What hap­pens when you get Amer­i­ca’s lead­ing minds in a room to talk about the major threats of the 21st cen­tu­ry — ter­ror­ism, nuclear pro­lif­er­a­tion, pan­demics, ener­gy short­ages, etc? Well, frankly you get a lit­tle scared … and a bit more aware of the com­plex­i­ties of our glob­al­ized world.

Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty recent­ly host­ed a round­table led by Ted Kop­pel, which brought togeth­er Supreme Court Jus­tice Antho­ny Kennedy, for­mer Sec­re­tary of State George Schultz, for­mer Sec­re­tary of Defense William Per­ry, Yahoo co-Founder Jer­ry Yang, and Stan­ford Pres­i­dent John Hen­nessy, among oth­ers. The event, enti­tled “Anx­ious Times See­ing Beyond a World of Per­pet­u­al Threats,” is now avail­able for free as a pod­cast in both audio and video. It’s per­haps one of the more edu­ca­tion­al pod­casts that you’ll come by.

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Richard Dawkins — The God Delusion

in Books | October 29th, 2006

As E.O. Wil­son gives, Richard Dawk­in’s takes. Every­thing evens out.

Richard Dawkins is biol­o­gist of inter­na­tion­al stature, too. But while Wil­son is extend­ing olive branch­es, Dawkins is tak­ing no pris­on­ers.  Bent on “con­vinc­ing the lit­er­ate pub­lic that they must now take evo­lu­tion­ary the­o­ry seri­ous­ly,” Dawkins, a schol­ar of evo­lu­tion (who has brought us The Self­ish Gene and The Ances­tor’s Tale) has tak­en an offen­sive pos­ture in recent years against the evan­gel­i­cal con­tin­gent look­ing to replace evo­lu­tion the­o­ry with intel­li­gent design. Now, with The God Delu­sion, he is going direct­ly after reli­gion itself. In today’s polit­i­cal cul­ture, a com­plete dis­missal of reli­gion in the name of athe­ism and sci­ence is a hard thing to come by (unless you’re read­ing Sam Har­ris or Daniel Den­nett). But here you have it. Cur­rent­ly, the num­ber #2 best­seller on Amazon.com, The God Delu­sion has clear­ly tapped into some­thing. On one lev­el, the strong sales can be attrib­uted to Dawk­in’s book being the lat­est vol­ley in the ongo­ing cul­ture war that has pro­pelled many books — most of the them mediocre — to the top of charts. (Cur­rent­ly, Bill O’Reil­ly’s Cul­ture War­rior is #10 on the Ama­zon charts. So there you go.) But on anoth­er lev­el, it could have some­thing to do with the fact that reli­gion is nowa­days very au courant, and, the room to take an agnos­tic or athe­is­tic posi­tion has all but dis­ap­peared in the Amer­i­can pub­lic sphere. So, when a strong, unapolo­getic defense of athe­ism comes along, there may well be a pent up desire — at least, in some cor­ners of the coun­try — to embrace what Dawkins has to say.

Although some main­stream review­ers have ques­tioned whether he makes the best case for athe­ism, it nonethe­less remains true that Dawkins is one of our lead­ing pub­lic intel­lec­tu­als and can make his case with style and verve, some­thing that comes across in his 11/1 NPR inter­view and this BBC broad­cast, both well worth a lis­ten.

On a some­what less seri­ous note, it also seemed worth post­ing Richard Dawk­in’s inter­view with anoth­er char­ac­ter who has been mak­ing news this week — Ted Hag­gard, the evan­gel­i­cal min­is­ter who has been embroiled in a sex scan­dal and had to resign his posi­tion as pres­i­dent of the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Evan­gel­i­cals, an orga­ni­za­tion that boasts 30 mil­lion mem­bers.

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E.O. Wilson’s Olive Branch: The Creation

in Books, Religion | October 28th, 2006

A world renowned biol­o­gist, devot­ed Dar­win­ist, and unabashed sec­u­lar human­ist, Har­vard’s E.O. Wil­son has tak­en an intrigu­ing reli­gious turn with his lat­est work, “The Cre­ation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth.” A Bap­tist by upbring­ing, Wil­son offers lit­er­al­ly a ser­mon addressed to Amer­i­ca’s large and grow­ing evan­gel­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty. The essence of the mes­sage is sim­ple: We might have our polit­i­cal and intel­lec­tu­al dif­fer­ences, but, when it comes to staving off envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter, we need to put our sim­mer­ing dif­fer­ences aside and work togeth­er to solve a prob­lem that affects us all. We need to save God’s cre­ation. If you con­sid­er the divide between red and blue Amer­i­ca, you’d fig­ure that Wilson’s over­ture would fall on deaf ears. But, as Wil­son tells it on NPR, it’s any­thing but the case, and the first signs sug­gest that the cul­ture wars aren’t blind­ing either side from the much big­ger issues at stake.

Recent reviews:

Wash­ing­ton Post: “Sci­ence and Sal­va­tion”

New York Times: “God is Green”

The Chris­t­ian Post “Heed­ing Edward O. Wil­son”

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Free Educational Web Resources

in Uncategorized | October 2nd, 2006

Online Texts & Text Search


  
  • Autho­ra­ma
    • This site pro­vides many impor­tant pub­lic domain texts in a free, easy-to-read for­mat.
  • Bartel­by
  • Elec­tron­ic Text Cen­ter Col­lec­tions
    • Orga­nized by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia, this col­lec­tion fea­tures 70,000 elec­tron­ic texts, rang­ing across many top­ics and lan­guages. This col­lec­tion holds a great deal of texts from the Amer­i­can and Eng­lish lit­er­ary tra­di­tion (poet­ry, essays, fic­tion etc.). The Mod­ern Eng­lish col­lec­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly robust.
  • Epis­teme Links — Phi­los­o­phy e‑texts
    • From this site, you can search by name for texts writ­ten by indi­vid­ual philoso­phers, and the site will then point you to them.
  • Euro­pean Lit­er­a­ture
    • This site will con­ve­nient­ly direct you to col­lec­tions of lit­er­ary e‑texts from dif­fer­ent Euro­pean coun­tries.
  • Google Book Search
    • Once ful­ly devel­oped, Book Search will ide­al­ly let users search the world of print text and help them dis­cov­er new books and ideas. You might par­tic­u­lar­ly want to check out the area ded­i­cat­ed to Shake­speare.
  • Google Schol­ar
    • Pro­vides a sim­ple way to broad­ly search for schol­ar­ly lit­er­a­ture. Includes peer-reviewed papers, the­ses, books, abstracts and arti­cles, from aca­d­e­m­ic pub­lish­ers, pro­fes­sion­al soci­eties, preprint repos­i­to­ries, uni­ver­si­ties and oth­er schol­ar­ly orga­ni­za­tions. You can get more infor­ma­tion about the scope of the prod­uct here.
  • High­Wire Press
    • The same idea as Google Schol­ar above. Actu­al­ly much of High­Wire’s con­tent is con­tributed direct­ly to Schol­ar’s con­tent col­lec­tion. So you can access HW mate­r­i­al in essen­tial­ly two places.
  • Inter­net His­to­ry Source­books Projects
  • Live Aca­d­e­m­ic Search (Microsoft)

    • Win­dows Live Aca­d­e­m­ic Search is Microsoft­’s ver­sion of Google Schol­ar.
  • Mak­ing of Amer­i­ca
    • Assem­bled by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan, this site offers a dig­i­tal library of pri­ma­ry sources in Amer­i­can social his­to­ry from the ante­bel­lum peri­od through recon­struc­tion. The col­lec­tion cur­rent­ly con­tains approx­i­mate­ly 9,500 books and 50,000 jour­nal arti­cles.
  • Online Books Page
  • Oxford Text Archive
    • The OTA works close­ly with mem­bers of the Arts and Human­i­ties aca­d­e­m­ic com­mu­ni­ty to col­lect, cat­a­logue, and pre­serve high-qual­i­ty elec­tron­ic texts for research and teach­ing. It’s an extreme­ly rich col­lec­tion, rang­ing from ancient texts to mod­ern.
  • Perseus Dig­i­tal Library
    • A data­base offer­ing access to over 600 pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary texts focus­ing on the Clas­si­cal World. Here, you’ll find Home­r’s Ili­ad and the Odyssey, among oth­er works.
  • Phi­los­o­phy on eServ­er
    • Anoth­er site that offers access to canon­i­cal philo­soph­i­cal texts, from Aris­to­tle to Der­ri­da.
  • Project Guten­berg
    • Con­tains 19,000 free books in full text.
  • The New York Times First  Chap­ters Col­lec­tion
    • Access the com­plete first chap­ters of books reviewed in NY Times Book Review, or appear­ing on the best­seller lists.

Web Direc­to­ries

Ref­er­ence

Stay tuned — this page will be under con­tin­u­al and active devel­op­ment.

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Free University Online Courses

in Online Courses | October 2nd, 2006

This page is no longer updat­ed, please our new col­lec­tion of Free Cours­es from lead­ing uni­ver­si­ties.
  • Carnegie Mel­lon Open Learn­ing Ini­tia­tive
    • A col­lec­tion of free online cours­es and course mate­ri­als. Cours­es range from physics and chem­istry, to french and sta­tis­tics, to eco­nom­ics and cal­cu­lus.
  • Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty — The Fath­om Archive
    • This archive, pro­vid­ed by Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, offers access to a com­plete range of free con­tent devel­oped by mem­ber insti­tu­tions for Fath­om. The mem­ber insti­tu­tions includ­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go, Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan, Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics, British Muse­um, and British Pub­lic Library, among oth­ers.

  • Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty — e‑Seminars
    • Colum­bia offers here a series of e‑seminars, which are three to five hour online class­es. Reg­is­tra­tion is required. How­ev­er, Colum­bia offers a 60-day free tri­al before ask­ing for pay­ment.
  • Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty
  • Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty
    • CyberOne: Law in the Court of Pub­lic Opin­ion. Click here to access. Also see Open Cul­ture descrip­tion.
    • Home­r­ic Odyssey and the Cul­ti­va­tion of Jus­tice. Cick here to access.
    • Under­stand­ing Com­put­ers and the Inter­net. Click here for more info.
  • Johns Hop­kins School of Pub­lic Health — Open­Course­Ware
    • The project pro­vides access to course mate­ri­als from the school’s most pop­u­lar cours­es.
  • MIT Open­Course­Ware
    • Pro­vides access to MIT syl­labi and course mate­ri­als for edu­ca­tors, stu­dents,
      and self-learn­ers around the world. MIT is the leader in the Open­Course­Ware ini­tia­tive.
  • MIT Open­Course­ware (with Video and Audio)
    • While
      MIT’s Open­Course­ware ini­tia­tive most­ly focus­es on pro­vid­ing edu­ca­tors
      with syl­labi, read­ing lists and lec­ture notes for MIT cours­es, the
      uni­ver­si­ty has decid­ed to pro­vide more com­plete video and audio
      ele­ments for some cours­es. You can access the list here.
  • Notre Dame Open­Course­Ware
    • A very diver­si­fied set of edu­ca­tion­al resources for fac­ul­ty,
      stu­dents, and self-learn­ers through­out the world.
  • Open­Course­Ware
    • The Open­Course­Ware Con­sor­tium is a col­lab­o­ra­tion of more than 100
      high­er edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tions world­wide com­mit­ted to cre­at­ing free and open dig­i­tal pub­li­ca­tions of high qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als. Here you can find a com­plete list of uni­ver­si­ties offer­ing Open­Course­Ware.
  • Open­Learn
    • The Open Uni­ver­si­ty’s Open­Learn web­site pro­vides free and open edu­ca­tion­al resources for learn­ers and edu­ca­tors around the world.
  • Paris­Tech “Grad School” Open­Course­Ware
    • A large col­lec­tion of free course mate­ri­als pre­sent­ed by eleven of France’s fore­most sci­en­tif­ic and engi­neer­ing insti­tu­tions.
  • Tufts Open­Course­Ware
    • Fol­low­ing MIT, Tufts is mak­ing avail­able its syl­labi, read­ing lists and course mate­ri­als for edu­ca­tors around the world. They’re putting a focus on med­i­cine, den­tistry, nutri­tion, for­eign rela­tions, and arts & sci­ences.

Uni­ver­si­ty Video

Uni­ver­si­ty Radio Shows


  • George­town Uni­ver­si­ty Forum
    • The George­town Uni­ver­si­ty Forum is a week­ly radio pro­gram high­light­ing
      the research and exper­tise of George­town Uni­ver­si­ty fac­ul­ty.

Stay tuned, this page will be under con­tin­u­al and active devel­op­ment!

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Open Culture in the Media

in Uncategorized | October 2nd, 2006

Recent men­tions of Open Cul­ture in the media:

07/08 — Haaretz - arti­cle

06/08 — The Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion — blog post

05/08 — MSN Sym­pa­ti­co — Arti­cle

01/08 — The Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion — arti­cle

12/17 The Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion — Wired Cam­pus — arti­cle

11/07 Guest on FORA.tv — here

10/23/07 Boing Boing - blog post

10/2007 Smart Mon­ey: The Wall Street Jour­nal Mag­a­zine (Print edi­tion. Page 132)

08/08/07 El Pais — arti­cle

6/05/07 The Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion — pod­cast

5/16/07 Life­hack­er — arti­cle

5/01/07 Engad­get Spain — arti­cle

3/21/07 PBS’s Medi­aShift — arti­cle

3/13/07 Future Tense (Amer­i­can Pub­lic Media) — blog + inter­view

2/09/07 Future Tense (Amer­i­can Pub­lic Media) — blog

2/08/07 Hous­ton Chron­i­cle — arti­cle

1/07 About.com Web Search — “Best of” Gallery

“One of the best places on the Web to find edu­ca­tion­al media.” “Open Cul­ture

is one of the best sites I’ve come across late­ly for a wide vari­ety of

not only uni­ver­si­ty pod­casts, but any­thing relat­ed to cul­ture and

edu­ca­tion­al media.”

1/20/07 Lifehacker.com blog

1/11/07 Future Tense (Amer­i­can Pub­lic Media) — inter­view + blog

1/04/07 Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor — arti­cle

12/07/06 Der Spiegel’s Ehrensenf — arti­cle

12/08/06 TUAW.COM — blog

“Open Cul­ture, the web­site which recent­ly brought TUAW read­ers a dose of pod­cast cul­ture, reports on a series of 22 pod­casts avail­able from the New York Times. … I’m quick­ly becom­ing a big ‘open cul­ture’ fan, as they keep dig­ging up these great pod­cast media finds.”

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Smart Talks — Leading Thinkers in Multi-Media

in Uncategorized | October 2nd, 2006

Here you can get direct access to audio and video pre­sen­ta­tions by lead­ing thinkers in our soci­ety. Next to each entry, we’ve not­ed the media for­mat in which each pre­sen­ta­tion is deliv­ered. Just click and enjoy.

Also See Open Cul­ture’s Pod­cast Col­lec­tions:

Arts & Cul­ture — Audio Books — For­eign Lan­guage Lessons — News & Infor­ma­tion — Sci­ence — Tech­nol­o­gy — Uni­ver­si­ty (Gen­er­al) — Uni­ver­si­ty (B‑School) — Uni­ver­si­ty (Law School) — Pod­cast Primer


  

Fiction/Literature

Non-Fic­tion

Polit­i­cal Com­men­tary

Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy

Busi­ness Lead­ers

World Lead­ers

This is a new and grow­ing list. Stay tuned for more.

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Free Language Lessons

in Language Lessons | October 1st, 2006

 

How to learn lan­guages for free? This col­lec­tion fea­tures lessons in 40 lan­guages, includ­ing Span­ish, French, Eng­lish, Man­darin, Ital­ian, Russ­ian and more. Down­load audio lessons to your com­put­er or mp3 play­er and you’re good to go.

Ara­bic

  • Ara­bic Lan­guage Lessons - iTunes Free
    • The US Peace Corps serves up 10 free lessons that will teach you the Ara­bic spo­ken in Jor­dan. The web site includes a use­ful tran­script.
  • Ara­bic­Pod iTunes Free
    • Includes mp3s and PDF tran­scripts.
  • For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Basic Course
  • Sur­vival Phras­es Ara­bic - iTunes Free
    • Pro­vides the essen­tials you’ll need to get around.

Book­mark our free Ara­bic lessons sec­tion.

Bul­gar­i­an

Cata­lan

  • One Minute Cata­lan iTunes Free — Feed
    • A good way to get going with a lan­guage still spo­ken by some 12 mil­lion peo­ple, many liv­ing in North­east Spain.

Chi­nese

  • Real Chi­nese - Web Site
    • Pre­sent­ed by the BBC. A live­ly intro­duc­tion to Man­darin Chi­nese in 10 short parts with video clips from the Real Chi­nese TV series.
  • Begin­ner’s Chi­nese iTunes Free
    • Intro­duc­to­ry audio lessons pro­vid­ed by the Open Uni­ver­si­ty.
  • Chi­nese Learn Online iTunes Free — Feed
    • A dia­logue-based intro­duc­tion to Man­darin Chi­nese. Load the lessons on your mp3 play­er and get up the Chi­nese curve.
  • Chi­nese Lessons with Serge Mel­nyk iTunes Free -Feed
    • Week­ly lessons in Man­darin that get very strong reviews from iTunes users..
  • Chinesepod.com iTunes Free -Feed
    • A series of well-reviewed lessons that will let you learn Man­darin on your own terms.
  • CSL­Pod iTunes Free -Feed
    • Here, native Man­darin speak­ers teach you Chi­nese as a sec­ond lan­guage. Audio and tran­scripts are avail­able on the web­site. The lessons also place an empha­sis on under­stand­ing Chi­nese cul­ture.
  • iMandarinPod.com iTunes Free -Feed
    • This series of lessons teach­es Chi­nese by talk­ing about Chi­nese cul­ture or what is hap­pen­ing today in Chi­na. More advanced than oth­ers.
  • Man­darin Chi­nese Feed — Web Site
    • 10 Lessons by the US Peace Corps. Make sure you vis­it the site and down­load the pdf that accom­pa­nies the lessons.
  • Man­darin Chi­nese Char­ac­ters iTunes Free
    • Cre­at­ed by Emory Uni­ver­si­ty, this series of video lessons will help you draw sev­er­al char­ac­ters and num­bers.
  • Man­darin in Chi­na Web Site
    • Lessons cour­tesy of the US Peace Corps
  • News in Slow Chi­nese iTunes Free — Web Site
    • Designed for inter­me­di­ate Man­darin speak­ers. Improve your lan­guage skills by lis­ten­ing to world news deliv­ered in slow­ly spo­ken words.
  • Num­bers and Rad­i­cals iTunes Free
    • Emory Uni­ver­si­ty teach­es you the prop­er form for writ­ing num­bers and rad­i­cals. In Video.
  • One Minute Man­darin iTunes Free — Feed
    • A quick way to cov­er the very basics…
  • Pop­up Chi­nese iTunes Free — Feed
    • Offers lessons for begin­ners and also stu­dents at inter­me­di­ate and advanced lev­els. In addi­tion to lan­guage lessons, Pop­up Chi­nese pro­vides anno­tat­ed short sto­ries, HSK test prep mate­ri­als and a vari­ety of speak­ing and lis­ten­ing exer­cis­es. They broad­cast out of Bei­jing, and all voice actors speak the stan­dard north­ern dialect.
  • Sur­vival Chi­nese iTunes Free — Feed
    • Learn the phras­es you need to get by while trav­el­ing in Chi­na.
  • World Learn­er Chi­nese iTunes Free — Feed
    • Anoth­er in the mix of pos­si­bil­i­ties.

Dan­ish

  • Dare to Dan­ish iTunes Free
    • This is not your usu­al series of lan­guage lessons. Here, a “dirty Dane” teach­es you “stu­pid phras­es and more.”
  • One Minute Dan­ish iTunes Free — Feed-
    • We get a lot of requests (believe it or not) for Dan­ish. So here’s anoth­er use­ful primer cre­at­ed by the One Minute series.

Dutch

  • Lau­ra Speaks Dutch iTunes Free
    • Lessons that will help you trav­el to Hol­land. It’s worth check­ing out the accom­pa­ny­ing web site.
  • Learn Dutch iTunes Free
    • Cul­tur­al­ly rel­e­vant lessons that are easy to lis­ten to.

Eng­lish

  • Amer­i­can Eng­lish Speech - Web — The OLI Amer­i­can Eng­lish Dialect course from Carnegie Mel­lon sup­plies the nec­es­sary rein­force­ment of dialec­ti­cal struc­ture, audio, pro­duc­tion tech­nique and pho­net­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion for each sound.
  • 6 Minute Eng­lish iTunes Free — Down­loads — Web Site
    • Learn and prac­tice use­ful Eng­lish with the BBC.
  • Bet­ter @ Eng­lish iTunes Free — Feed
    • Focus­es on con­ver­sa­tion­al Eng­lish, with an empha­sis on idioms and slang.
  • Busi­ness Eng­lish iTunes Free
    • Learn the Eng­lish you will need to func­tion effec­tive­ly in an Amer­i­can busi­ness envi­ron­ment.
  • Effort­less Eng­lish iTunes Free Feed
    • It gets sol­id reviews.
  • Eng­lish as a Sec­ond Lan­guage iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • A very well liked col­lec­tion of ESL lessons. Over 100 episodes in the col­lec­tion.
  • Eng­lish in the Real World - iTunes Free
    • The focus here is on the busi­ness world and things finan­cial.
  • Eng­lish for Span­ish Speak­ers (’Por Fin Aprende Ingles’) iTunes Free Feed
    • Si ust­ed haya asis­ti­do al menos a un cur­so de ingles, y ust­ed nece­si­ta la opor­tu­nidad de escuchar al ingles y hablar el ingles, entonces ‘Por Fin Aprende Ingles’ es el pod­cast per­fec­to para ust­ed. Pre­sen­ta­do por Car­la Staufert-Sauvi­er, una pro­fe­so­ra de Mex­i­co, y Jade Lindquist, una pro­fe­so­ra de los EE UU.
  • ESL Busi­ness News iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • A week­ly wrap of inter­na­tion­al busi­ness news read in slow, clear Eng­lish. Lis­ten to the broad­cast and fol­low along in the accom­pa­ny­ing script.
  • Gram­mar Girl iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Gram­mar Girl pro­vides short, friend­ly tips to improve your writ­ing. Whether Eng­lish is your first lan­guage or your sec­ond lan­guage, these gram­mar, punc­tu­a­tion, style, and busi­ness tips will make you a bet­ter and more suc­cess­ful writer.
  • Speak­ing Eng­lish iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • 100+ lessons focus­ing on Eng­lish pro­nun­ci­a­tion and vocab­u­lary.
  • The Eng­lish We Speak - iTunes Free — Web Site
    • Each week, the BBC looks at phras­es used in the Eng­lish lan­guage.
  • Tu Ingles! iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • “Tu Ingles” is designed to help Span­ish-speak­ers improve their ear for Eng­lish. The week­ly pro­gram fea­tures drills of verb con­ju­ga­tion, inter­views, advice about idioms, and excerpts of speech­es and oth­er record­ed spo­ken mate­r­i­al from famous Eng­lish speak­ers.

Book­mark our free Eng­lish lessons sec­tion.

Esperan­to

  • Esperan­to-Lecionoj Feed Web Site
    • These lessons will help you become famil­iar with Esperan­to, a pure­ly inter­na­tion­al lan­guage.

Finnish

  • Spe­cial Finnish Feed Web Site
    • For lis­ten­ers with some com­mand of Finnish YLE Radio Fin­land offers dai­ly broad­casts in “Spe­cial Finnish”. The five minute broad­casts cov­er items of cur­rent inter­est. To ease under­stand­ing, we sim­pli­fy the lan­guage and slow down the deliv­ery. Some gram­mat­i­cal forms are not used at all. The lev­el of Finnish used is planned to match the expect­ed abil­i­ty to under­stand Finnish shown by per­sons in Lev­el Two Lan­guage Com­mand (ofFinnish) as defined by the Coun­cil of Europe.”

French

  • French in Action Free Web Site
    • Pro­duced by Yale Uni­ver­si­ty, these video lessons uses the sto­ry­line of an Amer­i­can stu­dent and a young French­wom­an’s adven­tures in Paris to teach the lan­guage.
  • French 1 & French 2 from Carnegie Mel­lon — Web Site
    • The French cours­es are intro­duc­to­ry, inter­ac­tive video-based cours­es intend­ed for use by uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents and inde­pen­dent learn­ers on the Inter­net. 
  • Ma France Web Site
    • The BBC offers 24 video lessons that will teach you French.
  • Easy French Poet­ry iTunes Free
    • A French as a sec­ond lan­guage pro­gram, using poet­ry as a top­ic for dis­cus­sion using every­day con­ver­sa­tion­al French.
  • French for Begin­ners iTunes Free Feed
    • Fun, effec­tive lessons for begin­ners. Pro­vid­ed by the French Ecole.
  • FrenchPod.com iTunes Free Feed
    • A series of well-reviewed lessons that will let you learn French on your own terms. Lessons are accom­pa­nied by text expan­sion exer­cis­es and oth­er tutor­ing aids.
  • Le Jour­nal en français facile iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Night­ly news from RFI pre­sent­ed in slow­ly spo­ken French to assist you with your com­pre­hen­sion.
  • Learn French iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • A well-reviewed series of lessons for begin­ners and those who want to brush up on their French.
  • Learn French with Cof­fee Break French iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • The pro­duc­ers of the very pop­u­lar Cof­fee Break Span­ish now offer a pro­gram that will teach you French.
  • Learn French with Dai­ly Lessons iTunes Free Feed
    • These lessons are brought to you by French teach­ers from Paris. They are best suit­ed for those who already have some begin­ning French under their belts.
  • Mali French Feed Web Site
    • The Peace Corps teach­es you some of the French spo­ken in Mali.
  • News in Slow French iTunes Free Web Site
    • Pro­gram dis­cuss­es the Week­ly News, French gram­mar, and French expres­sions in sim­pli­fied French at a slow pace.
  • Talk French Web Site
    • A live­ly intro­duc­tion to French pre­sent­ed by the BBC.
  • The French Pod Class iTunes Free
    • A very pop­u­lar col­lec­tion that teach­es stu­dents the French lan­guage and dif­fer­ent facets of French cul­ture.
  • Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas: Fran­cais inter­ac­t­if iTunes Free — Web Site
    • UT pro­vides a series of inter­ac­tive vocab­u­lary lessons. Media can be down­loaded from the site.

Book­mark our free French lessons sec­tion.

Gael­ic

  • One Minute Gael­ic — iTunes Free — Feed
    • Get a quick ground­ing in the basics…

Ger­man

  • Deutsch — warum nicht?
  • Slow­ly Spo­ken News Feed
    • Deutsche Welle pro­vides a night­ly news broad­cast in Ger­man that’s spo­ken slow­ly so that you can work on your com­pre­hen­sion.
  • Talk Ger­man - Web Site
    • A live­ly intro­duc­tion to Ger­man by the BBC. Pre­sent­ed in ten short parts.
  • Deutsch — Ler­nen - Text
    • 10 Ger­man lessons for total begin­ners and 24 Ger­man gram­mar lessons. No audio; text only.
  • Ger­man­Pod 101 iTunes Free — Feed
    • Offers mate­ri­als for begin­ners, inter­me­di­ate and advanced.
  • Ger­man Podcast.de iTunes Free — Web Site
  • GerG­er­man­Gram­mar iTunes Free — Feed — Web Site
    • Ger­man gram­mar lessons aimed at Amer­i­can stu­dents.
  • Ler­nen Wir Deutsch iTunes Free — Feed — Web Site
    • Pre­sent­ed in video, these “vod­casts” get high marks for being not only edu­ca­tion­al but also very enter­tain­ing.
  • MyDailyPhrase.com iTunes Free — Feed
    • Learn Ger­man phrase by phrase over a course of 20 weeks. Lessons cov­er all the lan­guage you need to know to get by on a vis­it to a Ger­man-speak­ing coun­try. This series is put togeth­er by the same peo­ple cre­at­ed the pop­u­lar series “Cof­fee Break Span­ish.”
  • One Minute Ger­man iTunes Free — Feed
    • Pre­sent­ed by the Radio Lin­gua Net­work
  • Slow Ger­man iTunes Free — Feed — Web Site
    • Annik Rubens reads slow­ly and clear­ly from parts of her pop­u­lar pro­gram, Sleep­less in Munich (Schaf­los in Munchen).

Book­mark our free Ger­man lessons sec­tion.

Greek

  • Learn­ing Greek iTunes Free Web Site
    • From the Hel­lenic Amer­i­can Union, these lessons will teach stu­dents Mod­ern Greek. For those who already have some foun­da­tion in the lan­guage.

Hebrew

Hin­di

  • Hindi­Pod 101 — iTunes Web Site
    • Learn Hin­di with fun, inter­est­ing and cul­tur­al­ly rel­e­vant lessons that are easy to lis­ten to.
  • I Speak Hin­di iTunes - Feed Web Site
    • Cov­er­s­essen­tial words and phras­es that you need for your trip to India. There are also Begin­ner Hin­di lessons for those that want to seri­ous­ly start to learn the lan­guage.
  • Learn Hin­di from Bol­ly­wood Movies iTunes Free Feed
    • This looks like a fun approach to learn­ing a lan­guage.
  • Namaste Dosti — Learn Hin­di iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • There are few options when it comes to learn­ing Hin­di so the author decid­ed to fill the void.

Hun­gar­i­an

Ice­landic

  • Ice­landic Online - Web Site
    • Cre­at­ed by Uni­ver­si­ty of Ice­land. The lessons use var­i­ous media — text, flash­cards, videos and so on. Lets you track your progress. Avail­able up to expert lev­el. (Requires reg­is­tra­tion.)

Indone­sian

  • Learn­ing Indone­sian iTunes Free Feed
    • A com­plete online Indone­sian course geared towards devel­op­ing con­ver­sa­tion­al flu­en­cy in the Indone­sian Lan­guage.

Irish

Ital­ian

  • Talk Ital­ian — Web Site
    • A live­ly intro­duc­tion to Ital­ian pre­sent­ed by the BBC.
  • ItalianPod.com iTunes Free Feed
    • A series of well-reviewed lessons that will let you learn Ital­ian on your own terms.
  • LearnItalianPod.com iTunes Free Feed
    • A series of Ital­ian lan­guage lessons that will get you up and run­ning. I have per­son­al­ly used them and found them effec­tive.
  • Let’s Speak Ital­ian iTunes Free Feed
    • This col­lec­tion will help you learn Ital­ian in small, man­age­able 5‑minute bites.
  • MyDailyPhrase.com iTunes Free
    • Learn Ital­ian step by step over a course of 20 weeks. Lessons cov­er all the lan­guage you need to know to get by on a vis­it to a Ital­ian-speak­ing coun­try. Cre­at­ed by the same peo­ple who put togeth­er the pop­u­lar series “Cof­fee Break Span­ish.”
  • World Lan­guages Pod­cast­ing — Ital­ian iTunes Free Feed
    • It’s admit­ted­ly a bit of an untra­di­tion­al way to learn Ital­ian. Lets you lis­ten to con­ver­sa­tions about Aus­tralian cul­ture in Ital­ian.

Book­mark our free Ital­ian lessons sec­tion.

Japan­ese

  • Japan­ese Class (Video) iTunes Free
    • These video­casts from the Kyoto Japan­ese Lan­guage School get strong reviews. They use video effec­tive­ly to demon­strate how to write in Japan­ese.
  • JapanesePod101.com iTunes Free Feed
    • Over 100 qual­i­ty lessons aimed at the begin­ner. Users give it high marks.
  • Kan­ji Char­ac­ters iTunes Free
    • Learn the prop­er form and stroke for sev­er­al impor­tant Kan­ji char­ac­ters. From Emory Uni­ver­si­ty.
  • Learn Japan­ese iTunes Free Feed
    • Japan­cast teach­es Japan­ese using lessons from ani­me and every­day con­ver­sa­tion.
  • Learn Japan­ese Sym­bols iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • These lessons teach stu­dents how to work with Japan­ese sym­bols, such as Kan­ji, Hira­gana, and Katakana.
  • Sur­vival Phras­es iTunes Free Feed
    • Learn the must-know phras­es for trav­el­ing in Japan.

Book­mark our free Japan­ese lessons sec­tion.

Kore­an

  • KoreanClass101 — iTunes Free
    • Fea­tures dai­ly audio lessons, video lessons, word of the day, etc.
  • Kore­an Lan­gauge Adven­ture - Web Site
    • These lessons have been devel­oped in the theme of trav­el and adven­ture, allow­ing learn­ers to take a vir­tu­al jour­ney to Seoul and its near­by pop­u­lar tourist des­ti­na­tions.
  • Kore­an Learn­ing for Cor­rec­tion Pro­nun­ci­a­tion - Web Site
  • Online Inter­me­di­ate Col­lege Kore­an — Web Site
  • Path­way to Kore­an: Begin­ning Spo­ken Kore­an from Zero — Web Site
    • Cre­at­ed by the Nation­al East Asian Lan­guages Resource Cen­ter at The Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty.
  • Sur­vival Phras­es iTunes Free Feed
    • Gets the phras­es that will get you by.
  • Talk to Me in Kore­an — iTunes Free — Web Site
    • Kore­an learn­ing made sim­ple and easy.

Latin

  • Night­ly News in Latin Web Site
    • “Nun­tii Lati­ni — News in Latin — is a week­ly review of world news in Clas­si­cal Latin, the only inter­na­tion­al broad­cast of its kind in the world, pro­duced by YLE, the Finnish Broad­cast­ing Com­pa­ny.
  • Lat­inum iTunes Free
    • The Latin Lan­guage Learn­ing pro­gram from Lon­don.

Lithuan­ian

Lux­em­bour­gish

  • One Minute Lux­em­bour­gish iTunes Free Feed
    • Anoth­er niche lan­guage cov­ered by the Radio Lin­gua Net­work.

Maori

  • Toku Reo Web Site
    • Learn Maori, the lan­guage of New Zealand’s indige­nous peo­ple. Although these lessons accom­pa­ny a tele­vi­sion pro­gramme that is cur­rent­ly run­ning, the essen­tial bits of the episodes are avail­able to be watched right here on this site. The course starts at square 1. Site includes video lessons. Anoth­er use­ful site for learn­ing the gram­mar can be found here.

Nor­we­gian

  • One Minute Nor­we­gian iTunes Free Feed
    • Learn Nor­we­gian in min­utes with the Radio Lin­gua Net­work.
  • Easy-to-Read News­pa­per Text
    • This is not audio, but it’s use­ful nonethe­less. A news­pa­per that helps you learn Nor­we­gian by using large fonts and basic lan­guage.

Pol­ish

  • One Minute Pol­ish iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Anoth­er help­ful audio series pro­vid­ed by the Radio Lin­gua Net­work.

Por­tuguese

  • Brazil­ian Pod­Class iTunes Free Feed Web Site
  • Brazil­ian Por­tuguese 101 — iTunes Video Free
    • 45 lessons by Seman­ti­ca.
  • Brazil­ian Por­tuguese Pro­nun­ci­a­tion — iTunes Free
    • Emory Uni­ver­si­ty presents audio & video for learn­ing the Brazil­ian Por­tuguese alpha­bet.
  • Ta Fal­a­do: Brazil­ian Por­tuguese Pro­nun­ci­a­tion for Span­ish Speak­ers iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Cre­at­ed by the Texas Lan­guage Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­ter in the Depart­ment of Span­ish and Por­tuguese at UT-Austin.
  • Talk Por­tuguese Web Site
    • A video intro­duc­tion to the lan­guage in 11 short parts with audio clips for key phras­es.

Roman­ian

  • One Minute Roman­ian iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Quick lessons by the cre­ators of the One Minute lan­guage series.

Russ­ian

  • A Spoon­ful of Russ­ian iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Rec­om­mend­ed by our read­ers.
  • A Taste of Russ­ian iTunes Free Web Site
    • This “isn’t a bor­ing Gram­mar course, it is a real chat on dif­fer­ent top­ics which can be heard in every­day life. It is a chance to lis­ten to the native speak­ers talk­ing at home, at work, at the shop, at the par­ty, etc.”
  • Busi­ness Russ­ian iTunes Free Web Site
    • Pre­sent­ed by the UCLA Cen­ter for World Lan­guages, this series teach­es stu­dents the essen­tials of Russ­ian busi­ness com­mu­ni­ca­tion.
  • Every­day Russ­ian iTunes Free
    • Every­day prac­tice for Russ­ian lan­guage learn­ers of all lev­els.
  • Russ­ian (Kazahk) Feed Web Site
    • No Borat jokes. Learn some Kazahk style Russ­ian from the Peace Corps. Be sure to down­load the accom­pa­ny­ing PDF file.
  • Russ­ian Lit­er­a­ture iTunes Free Web Site
    • Also pre­sent­ed by UCLA, the lessons help users improve their com­pre­hen­sion and vocab­u­lary by lis­ten­ing to excerpts from Tol­stoy, Gogol, Chekhov and oth­er Russ­ian lit­er­ary greats.
  • One Minute Russ­ian iTunes Free Feed Web Site
  • RussianPod101 iTunes Free Web Site
    • Helps you learn Russ­ian and Russ­ian cul­ture at your con­ve­nience.

Book­mark our free Russ­ian lessons sec­tion.

Sign Lan­guage

  • Amer­i­can Sign Lan­guage — Web Site
    • Lessons that will get you start­ed with the sign lan­guage preva­lent in North Amer­i­ca.

Span­ish

  • Des­ti­nos: An Intro­duc­tion to Span­ish Web Site
    • This telen­ov­ela, or Span­ish soap opera, immers­es stu­dents in every­day sit­u­a­tions and teach­es speak­ing, lis­ten­ing, and com­pre­hen­sion skills in Span­ish.
  • Mi Vida Loca Web Site
    • An immer­sive video mys­tery set in Spain to help you learn sim­ple Span­ish. Cre­at­ed by the BBC.
  • Cody’s Cuen­tos iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • A Span­ish-lan­guage series of lessons focus­es of clas­sic fairy tales and leg­ends. The fact that you prob­a­bly already know the sto­ry in Eng­lish will aid your com­pre­hen­sion of under­stand­ing the tale in Span­ish.
  • Cof­fee Break Span­ish iTunes Free Web Site
    • Learn Span­ish in a low-key, effec­tive way. Cur­rent­ly the #2 over­all favorite on iTunes Free.
  • Final­ly Learn Span­ish — Beyond the Basics iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • If you’ve had some Span­ish class­es and you need expe­ri­ence lis­ten­ing to and speak­ing the lan­guage, then Final­ly Learn Span­ish has lessons for you.
  • Insta Span­ish Lessons iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Week­ly com­pre­hen­sion and gram­mar exer­cis­es for stu­dents of all lev­els. One of the more pop­u­lar pro­grams on iTunes.
  • Learn Span­ish at SpanishPod101 iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Cre­at­ed by teams from 5 Span­ish speak­ing coun­tries.
  • Learn Span­ish Sur­vival Guide iTunes Free Feed
    • If you’re plan­ning a trip to a Span­ish speak­ing coun­try, and if you don’t know the lan­guage, this will help get you up to speed.
  • Learn to Speak Span­ish iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Learn to speak Span­ish in just 15 min­utes per day.
  • Lin­gusTV iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • A unique entry into the instruc­tion­al lan­guage lessons are­na. It’s an edu­ca­tion­al video series done in the form of a tele­vi­sion sit-com (sit­u­a­tion com­e­dy), laugh track includ­ed. While the actors speak sole­ly in Span­ish, Span­ish sub­ti­tles are pro­vid­ed and expla­na­tions of vocab­u­lary and gram­mar points are pro­vid­ed on the web site.
  • Med­ical Span­ish for Health­care Providers - Web Site
    • This site is pre­sent­ed as a free med­ical Span­ish immer­sion, with vocab­u­lary includ­ing greet­ings, his­to­ry, exam­i­na­tion, and every­day speech, all with trans­la­tion and audio. It is designed to be help­ful for a vari­ety of med­ical per­son­nel. Cre­at­ed by a gen­er­al sur­geon turned Span­ish teacher.
  • Notes in Span­ish iTunes Free — Feed — Web Site
    • Pro­duced by Ben Cur­tis and Mari­na Diez, a hus­band-and-wife team out of Madrid, Spain. Ben is British and Mari­na is Span­ish and they too have built quite a large fol­low­ing for their con­ver­sa­tion­al Span­ish lessons, (for begin­ners, inter­me­di­ates and advanced stu­dents), which promise to teach lis­ten­ers “real Span­ish” the way it is actu­al­ly spo­ken every day in Spain.
  • One Minute Span­ish iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Cov­ers the absolute basics of Span­ish, focus­ing on the pro­nun­ci­a­tion used in most parts of Spain.
  • One Minute Latin Amer­i­can Span­ish iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Same as above but focus­es on the Span­ish spoked across South Amer­i­ca.
  • Rojas Span­ish Lan­guage iTunes Free Feed
    • “No Eng­lish is spo­ken here. These lessons are for the Inter­me­di­ate and Advanced Span­ish Speak­er who would like to sharp­en their Span­ish skills. The fine points of the lan­guage will be pre­sent­ed and explored through a vari­ety of top­ics to include; music, his­to­ry, cul­ture, food.”
  • Span­ish­Pod iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • A series of well-reviewed lessons that will let you learn Span­ish on your own terms.
  • SpanishPod101 iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Dis­tin­guish­es itself from oth­er cur­rent­ly avail­able pro­grams by pro­vid­ing lessons that fea­ture dif­fer­ent accents from around the Span­ish-speak­ing world. Dia­logues are repeat­ed mul­ti­ple times and an Eng­lish trans­la­tion is pro­vid­ed, to fur­ther aid learn­ing.
  • Span­ish Lessons for Begin­ners iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Lessons record­ed by native Span­ish speak­ers with clear expla­na­tions in Eng­lish.
  • Voic­es en Español iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Geared toward more advanced stu­dents, this series fea­tures an inter­view in Span­ish with a native speak­er from Spain, Latin Amer­i­ca or the U.S. It’s also accom­pa­nied by a bilin­gual blog that includes week­ly Span­ish gram­mar tips.

Book­mark our free Span­ish lessons sec­tion.

Swahili

  • Mwana Sim­ba — Web  Site
    • This mul­ti­me­dia site fea­tures, among oth­er things, 55 chap­ters of gram­mar lessons. All lessons are geared toward begin­ners.

Swedish

  • For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Basic Course Web Site
    • Offers 16 units of audio, each intro­duc­ing you to basic dia­logue and sen­tences.
  • Klar­text Feed Web site
    • News in easy-to-under­stand Swedish.
  • Learn Swedish with Swedish­LingQ iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Our read­ers have been wait­ing for Swedish lessons to come along. Here it final­ly is.
  • Swedish Sur­vival Phras­es iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • From the mak­ers of the Sur­vival Phras­es series.

Taga­log

  • Viloria.com Pinoy iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Learn to speak Taga­log to give you the advan­tage when you trav­el to the Philip­pines.

Thai

  • Thai Web Site
    • Lessons from the US Peace Corps
  • Learn Thai: Free Eng­lish Thai Audi­olearn­ing Course iTunes Video - Web Site
    • Appar­ent­ly the lessons are good, but they’ve been hav­ing some tech­ni­cal prob­lems and not all lessons are always avail­able.
  • Thai Alpha­bet - iTunes Free
    • Emory Uni­ver­si­ty presents flash­cards for rec­og­niz­ing let­ters in the Thai alpha­bet.
  • Thai Sur­vival Phras­es — iTunes — Feed
    • Cov­ers the basics.

Turk­ish

  • One Minute Turk­ish — iTunes
    • A quick primer.

Ukrain­ian

  • Ukrain­ian Web Site
    • More lessons from the US Peace Corps.

Urdu

  • Intro­duc­tion to Urdu Alpha­bet — iTunes Free
    • Emory Uni­ver­si­ty offers a quick primer on the Urdu alpha­bet and pro­nun­ci­a­tion.

Viet­namese

  • Sur­vival Phras­es iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • You get the gist from the title. Learn here some phras­es that will help you sur­vive in Viet­nam.

Welsh

  • Say Some­thing in Welsh iTunes Free — Web Site
    • 25 half-hour lessons avail­able for free.

Yid­dish

Gen­er­al How-To

  • The WWW Vir­tu­al Library: Inter­na­tion­al Affairs Resources Web Site
    • This web­site direc­to­ry, which is part of the WWW Vir­tu­al Library Sys­tem, fea­tures over 2000 care­ful­ly select­ed, anno­tat­ed links in 37 inter­na­tion­al affairs cat­e­gories. The site offers a great way to under­stand our chang­ing world, but it also includes its own sec­tion of lan­guage learn­ing resources, and it includes sec­tions ded­i­cat­ed to Span­ish, French and Ger­man.
  • Teach Your­self a For­eign Lan­guage iTunes Free
    • This pro­gram dis­cuss­es how to go about learn­ing a for­eign lan­guage on your own. Some peo­ple liked it, some didn’t. Check it out and judge for your­self.

    Our col­lec­tion of for­eign lan­guage lessons has been fea­tured in the New York Times, Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty’s Human­i­ties Resource Cen­ter, and The New York Times again, and yet once again in The New York Times.

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.