Smile or Die: The Perils of Positive Psychology

in Psychology | June 8th, 2010

Pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gy is a dis­ci­pline tai­lor made for Amer­i­can cul­ture. Our cul­tur­al DNA inclines us towards opti­mism and pos­i­tive think­ing. These days we’ll even send pos­i­tive vibes your way, and what can be wrong with that? If you ask Bar­bara Ehren­re­ich, the author of the best­selling book Nick­el and Dimed, she’ll tell you what’s the prob­lem in 10 ani­mat­ed min­utes. Like the Philip Zim­bar­do video we fea­tured last week (The Secret Pow­ers of Time), this clip comes from the RSA YouTube Chan­nel, which we’ve now added to our col­lec­tion of Intel­li­gent YouTube chan­nels.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

The Secret Powers of Time

in Psychology | June 3rd, 2010

Philip Zim­bar­do, a long­time Stan­ford psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor, is per­haps most well known for the famous Stan­ford Prison Exper­i­ment con­duct­ed in 1971. But, more recent­ly, he pub­lished a book called The Time Para­dox (2008) that makes some pret­ty intrigu­ing argu­ments about how our atti­tudes toward time, often uncon­scious ones, can strong­ly shape our per­son­al­i­ties and the kind of lives we lead. The video above takes one of Zim­bar­do’s lec­tures about the Time Para­dox and syncs it with some ani­mat­ed draw­ings. Great find by Yann. Feel free to send tips our way. Just click here.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

The Beatles Complete on Ukulele

in Music | June 1st, 2010

You have to like the ambi­tion of this project. Roger Greenawalt and David Bar­ratt start­ed record­ing all 185 orig­i­nal Bea­t­les com­po­si­tions on the ukulele. They’re mak­ing a new song avail­able every week until July 31, 2012, the eve of the Lon­don Olympics. And, in each instance, they’re work­ing with dif­fer­ent accom­pa­ny­ing artists. As you’ll see, the styles and approach­es can vary wide­ly, and the ukulele sounds can be more or less pro­nounced. Just com­pare Black­bird and She Said She Said (two of my Bea­t­le faves) and you will see what I mean. To down­load the tracks, vis­it Roger and Dav­e’s web site, or load this feed to iTunes or your RSS read­er.

via metafil­ter

Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: 35 Days From Space

in Current Affairs, Life | May 28th, 2010

From Our Uni­verse Visu­al­ized on YouTube:

The MODIS instru­ment, on board NASA’s Ter­ra and Aqua satel­lites, is cap­tur­ing images of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mex­i­co. The spill began on April 20, 2010 with the explo­sion of the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon oil rig. This short video reveals a space-based view of the burn­ing oil rig and, lat­er, the ensu­ing oil spill through May 24, 2010. The oil slick appears gray­ish-beige in the images and changes due to chang­ing weath­er, ocean cur­rents, and the use of oil dis­pers­ing chem­i­cals. Images in the video time series were select­ed that show the spill most clear­ly. The full image archive is avail­able on the MODIS Rapid Response Web site at https://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/

via Moth­er­Jones

Learn 45+ Languages Online for Free: Spanish, Chinese, English & More

in | April 13th, 2010

How to learn lan­guages for free? This col­lec­tion fea­tures lessons in 48 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.

Amhar­ic

• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Basic Amhar­ic — Audio — Text­book
  • Lessons with dia­logues, drills, exer­cis­es, and nar­ra­tives will teach you the basics of this lan­guage spo­ken in Ethiopia. Includes sam­ples of speech, expla­na­tions of basic lan­guage struc­tures, and a vari­ety of prac­ti­cal exer­cis­es. Fea­tures two text­books (PDF) and eleven audio lessons (MP3).

Ancient Greek

• Ancient Greek Intro­duc­tion — Web Site
  • The UT-Austin Lin­guis­tics Research Cen­ter pro­vides an overview of Ancient Greek and 10 lessons based on famous Greek texts. It is all text-based.
• Learn Ancient Greek — Web Site
  • Leonard Muell­ner (Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus of Clas­si­cal Stud­ies at Bran­deis Uni­ver­si­ty) has post­ed 64 videos on YouTube, which, “present all the con­tent cov­ered in two semes­ters of a col­lege-lev­el Intro­duc­tion to Ancient Greek course.”

Ara­bic

• Ara­bic Lessons on Spo­ti­fy — Spo­ti­fy
  • Over 12 hours of Ara­bic lessons for begin­ners.
• Ara­bic for Begin­ners 1 — YouTube Free
  • A series of video lessons from Dalar­na Uni­ver­si­ty in Swe­den.
• Ara­bic in Jor­dan — Web Site
  • These lessons from the Peace Corps will help you learn nor­mal con­ver­sa­tion in Jor­dan, rather than focus­ing on for­mal­i­ties.
• Ara­bic­Pod — iTunes Free
  • Includes mp3s and PDF tran­scripts.
• DuoLin­go Ara­bic — Web Site
  • Learn Ara­bic in just 5 min­utes a day. For free.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Writ­ten Ara­bic — Web site
  • Spo­ken exer­cis­es in Ara­bic and the print­ed tran­scrip­tions. Four text­books (PDF) and 31 audio lessons (MP3).
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Lev­an­tine Ara­bic — Web site
  • Intro­duc­tion to pro­nun­ci­a­tion. Text­book (PDF) and 19 audio lessons (MP3). Scroll down to the sec­ond set of lessons on this page.

• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Sau­di Ara­bic - Web site
  • Cov­ers the urban Hijazi dialect. Text­book (PDF) and 51 audio lessons (MP3). Scroll down to the third/bottom set of lessons on this page.

Book­mark our free Ara­bic lessons sec­tion.

Amer­i­can Sign Lan­guage

• Intro­duc­to­ry Amer­i­can Sign Lan­guage Course — YouTube
  • By the end of this course you should have a basic bank of ASL words that you are able to use to form sim­ple sen­tences. Begin to iden­ti­fy ASL sen­tence struc­ture, which is dif­fer­ent than Eng­lish sen­tence struc­ture. Under­stand what region­al dif­fer­ences of signs are.

Bam­bara

• Bam­bara in Mali — Web Site
  • Lessons from the Peace Corps.

Bul­gar­i­an

• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Bul­gar­i­an — Web site
  • Two text­books (PDF) and 75 audio lessons (MP3).

Cam­bo­di­an

• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Basic Cam­bo­di­an — Web site
  • Two text­books (PDF) and 45 audio lessons (MP3).
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Con­tem­po­rary Cam­bo­di­an — Web site
  • Text­book (PDF) and 60 audio lessons (MP3).

Cata­lan

• One Minute Cata­lan — YouTube
  • 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 for Begin­ners — Free Online Video/MOOC
  • This is an ABC Chi­nese course for begin­ners, includ­ing intro­duc­tion of pho­net­ics and dai­ly expres­sions. From Peking Uni­ver­si­ty.
• More Chi­nese for Begin­ners — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • Also from Peking Uni­ver­si­ty, this is an advanced course for Chi­nese for begin­ners. Learn­ers will expand vocab­u­lar­ies about per­son­al infor­ma­tion, dai­ly life, food and drink, health, and more.
• Chi­nese: Start Talk­ing with 1.3 Bil­lion Peo­ple — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • Intro­duc­to­ry Chi­nese lan­guage course from Tsinghua Uni­ver­si­ty empha­sizes basic lan­guage skills for every­day life in Man­darin speak­ing coun­tries. The course uti­lizes pinyin, the stan­dard sys­tem of Roman­ized spelling for translit­er­at­ing Chi­nese, so learn­ers will find it easy to under­stand and study the lan­guage.
• Chi­nese Course — Seton Hall
  • Begin­ning Chi­nese — Free iTunes Audio — Seton Hall
  • Begin­ning Chi­nese Read­er — Free iTunes Audio — Seton Hall
  • Inter­me­di­ate Chi­nese — Free iTunes Audio — Seton Hall
  • Inter­me­di­ate Chi­nese Read­er — Free iTunes Audio — Seton Hall
  • Advanced Chi­nese — Free iTunes Audio — Seton Hall
  • Advanced Chi­nese Read­er — Free iTunes Audio — Seton Hall

• DuoLin­go Chi­nese — Web site
  • Bite-sized Chi­nese lessons. Fun, effec­tive, and 100% free.
• Fall in Love With Man­darin — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • Learn every­day Chi­nese Man­darin and dis­cov­er Tai­wanese cul­ture in the process. From Nation­al Chiao Tung Uni­ver­si­ty.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Basic Can­tonese — Web site
  • Two text­books (PDF) and 30 audio lessons (MP3).
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Stan­dard Chi­nese: A Mod­u­lar Approach — Web site
  • Designed to give a prac­ti­cal com­mand of spo­ken stan­dard Chi­nese with nine sit­u­a­tion­al mod­ules. Each mod­ule con­sists of tapes (MP3), a stu­dent text­book (PDF), and a work­book. In addi­tion to the core mod­ules, there is a resource mod­ule and eight option­al mod­ules.
• Learn Chi­nese in Your Car — Spo­ti­fy
  • Gram­mar and vocab­u­lary to begin­ners, offer­ing guid­ance in pro­nun­ci­a­tion and lan­guage fun­da­men­tals.
• Man­darin in Chi­na — Web Site
  • Lessons cour­tesy of the US Peace Corps
• Slow Chi­nese — iTunes Free
  • A cul­tur­al pod­cast for Chi­nese learn­ers. Fea­tures nar­ra­tives by native Chi­nese peo­ple read in Man­darin at a slow speed (2~3 char­ac­ters per sec­ond). Top­ics vary from lan­guage, knowl­edge, tra­di­tion and cul­ture to opin­ions on social phe­nom­e­na.

Czech

• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Czech Fast — Web site
  • Text­book (PDF) and twelve audio lessons (PDF).

Dan­ish

• Duolin­go Dan­ish (for Eng­lish Speak­ers) — Web Site  
  • A pop­u­lar free lan­guage-learn­ing and crowd­sourced text trans­la­tion plat­form. As users progress through lessons, they simul­ta­ne­ous­ly help to trans­late web­sites and oth­er doc­u­ments.
• One Minute Dan­ish — YouTube
  • 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

• Duolin­go Dutch (for Eng­lish Speak­ers) — Web Site  
  • A pop­u­lar free lan­guage-learn­ing and crowd­sourced text trans­la­tion plat­form. As users progress through lessons, they simul­ta­ne­ous­ly help to trans­late web­sites and oth­er doc­u­ments.
• Intro­duc­tion to Dutch — Web Site
  • Learn to speak, write and under­stand basic Dutch, with this free, three-week, intro­duc­to­ry for­eign lan­guage course. By Uni­ver­si­ty of Gronin­gen.
• Learn Dutch — iTunes Free
  • Cul­tur­al­ly rel­e­vant lessons that are easy to lis­ten to.

Eng­lish

• Basic Eng­lish 1: Ele­men­tary — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • Learn basic Eng­lish for every­day sit­u­a­tions and improve your lis­ten­ing skills with this online Eng­lish lan­guage course. From King’s Col­lege Lon­don.
• Basic Eng­lish 2: Pre-Inter­me­di­ate — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • Devel­op your basic Eng­lish skills for use in every­day sit­u­a­tions and build more con­fi­dence in your read­ing and lis­ten­ing skills. From King’s Col­lege Lon­don.
• The Eng­lish We Speak - iTunes Free — Web Site
  • Each week, the BBC looks at phras­es used in the Eng­lish lan­guage.
• 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: Finance and Eco­nom­ics — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • From Ari­zona State, this course helps stu­dents learn Eng­lish using com­mon busi­ness sit­u­a­tions in finance and eco­nom­ics.
• Busi­ness Eng­lish — iTunes Free
  • Learn the Eng­lish you will need to func­tion effec­tive­ly in an Amer­i­can busi­ness envi­ron­ment.
• Con­nect with Eng­lish - YouTube — Relat­ed Course Infor­ma­tion
  • Fea­tur­ing the sto­ry of Rebec­ca, an aspir­ing singer on a jour­ney across Amer­i­ca, Con­nect With Eng­lish offers 50 fif­­teen-minute video pro­grams that will teach Eng­lish as a sec­ond lan­guage to high school stu­dents, col­lege stu­dents and adult learn­ers. Pro­duced by WGBH Boston.
• Effort­less Eng­lish — iTunes Free — Feed
  • An Eng­lish pod­cast that gets sol­id reviews.
• Eng­lish as a Sec­ond Lan­guage — iTunes Free — Feed
  • A very well liked col­lec­tion of ESL lessons. Over 100 episodes in the col­lec­tion.
• Eng­lish for Aca­d­e­m­ic Study — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • Pre­pare to study at uni­ver­si­ty, explore the qual­i­ties of a suc­cess­ful stu­dent, and learn key vocab­u­lary in an aca­d­e­m­ic con­text. From Coven­try Uni­ver­si­ty.
• Eng­lish for Busi­ness and Entre­pre­neur­ship — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • From the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, this course is designed for non-native Eng­lish speak­ers who are inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about busi­ness Eng­lish and the glob­al busi­ness econ­o­my.
• Eng­lish for Busi­ness Net­work­ing — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • From the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton. Intro­duce your­self in Eng­lish, keep a con­ver­sa­tion going, and leave the con­ver­sa­tion. Write pro­fes­sion­al emails to make new con­tacts and fol­low up with peo­ple in your net­work.
• Eng­lish for Career Devel­op­ment — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • From the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, this course is designed for non-native Eng­lish speak­ers who are inter­est­ed in advanc­ing their careers in the glob­al mar­ket­place. In this course, you will learn about the job search, appli­ca­tion, and inter­view process in the Unit­ed States, while com­par­ing and con­trast­ing the same process in your home coun­try.
• Eng­lish for Health­care — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • Devel­op your lan­guage and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills for a career in health­care and learn new health­care vocab­u­lary in Eng­lish. From King’s Col­lege Lon­don.
• Eng­lish for Jour­nal­ism — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • From the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, this course is designed for non-native Eng­lish speak­ers who are inter­est­ed in devel­op­ing the skills need­ed for a career in mod­ern jour­nal­ism. In this course, you will explore print and dig­i­tal media through authen­tic read­ings and video lec­tures, while expand­ing your vocab­u­lary and increas­ing your abil­i­ty to read, research, and devel­op local and glob­al news sto­ries.
• Eng­lish for Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy, Engi­neer­ing, and Math­e­mat­ics — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • From the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, this course is designed for non-native Eng­lish speak­ers who are inter­est­ed in improv­ing their Eng­lish skills in the sci­ences.
• Eng­lish Pro­nun­ci­a­tion in a Glob­al World — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • In this course, you will improve your Eng­lish pro­nun­ci­a­tion skills and learn about speak­ing Eng­lish in today’s glob­alised world. From Vri­je Uni­ver­siteit Ams­ter­dam
• Gram­mar Girl — iTunes Free — 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.
• Speak Eng­lish Pro­fes­sion­al­ly: In Per­son, Online & On the Phone — MOOC/Online Course
  • A five-week course from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Geor­gia that will improve your skills in Eng­lish.
• Tricky Amer­i­can Eng­lish Pro­nun­ci­a­tion — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • From UC Irvine: In this course, you’ll prac­tice the sounds of Amer­i­can Eng­lish that might some­times be con­fus­ing. You’ll prac­tice both con­so­nant and vow­el sounds.
• 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.
• USA Learns — Web Site
  • A free web­site that helps adults learn Eng­lish online by pro­vid­ing engag­ing videos and edu­ca­tion­al activ­i­ties. Built by the Sacra­men­to Coun­ty Office of Edu­ca­tion, with fund­ing by the U.S. Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion and the Cal­i­for­nia Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion.
• Write Pro­fes­sion­al Emails in Eng­lish — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • This Geor­gia Tech course will help you write effec­tive busi­ness emails in Eng­lish.

• Book­mark our free Eng­lish lessons sec­tion.

Farsi/Persian

• Learn Per­sian with Chai and Con­ver­sa­tion — iTunes — Web Site
  • Offers 50 lessons via pod­cast, each run­ning about 15–20 min­utes, which will help stu­dents learn con­ver­sa­tion­al Per­sian for free. Each les­son builds on pre­vi­ous lessons, so to get the most out of the course, start from the begin­ning. The site also offers afford­able pre­mi­um learn­ing mate­ri­als.
• Easy Per­sian — Web Site
  • Easy Per­sian offers online lessons in lis­ten­ing, speak­ing, read­ing, and writ­ing Per­sian or Far­si as spo­ken in Iran. In addi­tion to Per­sian lan­guage lessons, the site intro­duces con­tem­po­rary Iran­ian poets with Eng­lish trans­la­tions of their poems. You’ll also find free Farsi/Persian soft­ware, Per­sian names with Eng­lish trans­la­tions, Far­si writ­ing drills and much more.
• Learn Per­sian Far­si Eas­i­ly, Effec­tive­ly and Flu­ent­ly — Spo­ti­fy
  • A 3‑hour series of lessons that’s freely avail­able on Spo­ti­fy.
• Per­sian of Iran Today — Web Site
  • This two vol­ume text­book inter­weaves gram­mar- and vocab­u­lary-build­ing exer­cis­es with nar­ra­tive ele­ments in order to engage and devel­op stu­dents’ abil­i­ties in Per­sian. The web site includes the text­book itself and relat­ed audio/visual files. Per­sian of Iran Today is pub­lished by The Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas at Austin’s Cen­ter for Mid­dle East­ern Stud­ies Pub­li­ca­tions pro­gram. Hard copies of the text­book can be pur­chased online (vol­ume 1 and vol­ume 2).

Finnish

• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Con­ver­sa­tion­al Finnish — Web site
  • Tran­scripts of the Finnish dia­logues with idiomat­ic Eng­lish trans­la­tions plus notes on struc­tur­al pat­tern and expla­na­tions of essen­tial points of gram­mar. A vari­ety of exer­cis­es with instruc­tions in Eng­lish.

• Spe­cial Finnish - 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.
    
• Ma France — Web Site
  • The BBC offers 24 video lessons that will teach you French.
• Duolin­go French — Web Site
  • A pop­u­lar free lan­guage-learn­ing and crowd­sourced text trans­la­tion plat­form. As users progress through lessons, they simul­ta­ne­ous­ly help to trans­late web­sites and oth­er doc­u­ments. Check out Duolin­go’s iPhone and iPad apps.
• Easy French Poet­ry - iTunes Free
  • A French as a sec­ond lan­guage pro­gram, using poet­ry as a top­ic for dis­cus­sion using every­day con­ver­sa­tion­al French.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Basic Course - Web Site — Spo­ti­fy
  • The course is designed to enable you to reach con­ver­sa­tion­al pro­fi­cien­cy. You learn how to con­trol the French sound sys­tem by lis­ten­ing to the tapes and repeat­ing each phrase. The dia­logues present nat­ur­al spo­ken French in a vari­ety of con­texts, such as, greet­ing peo­ple, reg­is­ter­ing at a hotel, get­ting a train tick­et, and shop­ping.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Basic Course: Phonol­o­gy – Web Site
  • The Intro­duc­tion to French Phonol­o­gy course pro­vides addi­tion­al drills for those who wish to sound like a native speak­er of the lan­guage. The course may be used ben­e­fi­cial­ly at any stage of learn­ing the lan­guage.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute French Fast – Web site
  • Designed to famil­iar­ize you with sit­u­a­tions encoun­tered abroad, and to pro­vide you with the lan­guage skills you need to cope effec­tive­ly with those sit­u­a­tions.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute French: Head­start for Bel­gium – Web site
  • Text­book and cul­ture notes (PDF) and six­teen audio lessons (PDF).
• Foun­da­tions of French for Glob­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tion — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC) — King’s Col­lege Lon­don
• Fran­co­lab — Web Site
  • French Cana­di­an site pro­vides resources for lan­guage learn­ers and teach­ers. Includes videos, quizzes, inter­ac­tive mod­ules, audio-visu­al pre­sen­ta­tions, and a wide selec­tion of Cana­di­an pro­grams cov­er­ing a vari­ety of social and cul­tur­al top­ics.
• French Begin­ner’s Ser­i­al and Oral Course 2016 — YouTube
  • Learn basic French with the Manesca French Course. 91 videos on YouTube.
• Le Jour­nal en français facile — iTunes Free — 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 in Your Car — Spo­ti­fy
  • Gram­mar and vocab­u­lary to begin­ners, offer­ing guid­ance in pro­nun­ci­a­tion and lan­guage fun­da­men­tals.
• Learn French with Cof­fee Break French — iTunes Free — 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
  • 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.
• Learn French with Spo­ti­fy — Spo­ti­fy
  • A col­lec­tion of audio cours­es on Spo­ti­fy, that will take you from begin­ner lessons to advanced conversations–featuring essen­tial trav­el phras­es and vocab­u­lary.
• 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.
• Speak and Read French — Spo­ti­fy
  • Three albums of a French lan­guage course, Speak and Read French, cre­at­ed by Armand Bégué, a pro­fes­sor at Brook­lyn Col­lege and his wife, Louise Bégué, in 1959. For basic and inter­me­di­ate lev­els.
• Talk French — Web Site
  • A live­ly intro­duc­tion to French pre­sent­ed by the BBC.
• Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas: Fran­cais inter­ac­t­if – Web Site
  • UT pro­vides a series of inter­ac­tive vocab­u­lary lessons. Media can be down­loaded from the site.

Frisian

• Intro­duc­tion to Frisian — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • Did you know that, besides Dutch, a sec­ond offi­cial lan­guage is spo­ken in the Nether­lands? It’s a lan­guage even more close­ly relat­ed to Eng­lish than Dutch. This lan­guage is called Frisian. From the Uni­ver­si­ty of Gronin­gen.

Ger­man

• Deutsch — warum nicht? - Web Site
  • An exten­sive col­lec­tion of intro­duc­to­ry Ger­man lessons put togeth­er by Deutsche Welle.
• Deutschtrain­er — Web site
  • Use the Deutschtrain­er to effec­tive­ly learn basic vocab­u­lary need­ed for every­day life and to improve your pro­nun­ci­a­tion. The 100 lessons are bilin­gual (Eng­lish-Ger­­man) and address var­i­ous sit­u­a­tions — from greet­ing peo­ple and going to the doc­tor, to shop­ping and find­ing accom­mo­da­tions. From the Ger­man broad­cast­er Deutsche Welle.
• Deutsch im Blick — Web site
  • A free online text­book for learn­ing Ger­man from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas. It’s the web-based first-year Ger­man pro­gram devel­oped and in use at the uni­ver­si­ty.
• Mis­sion Berlin — iTunes Free — Web
  •  Learn Ger­man through a mys­tery adven­ture. Cre­at­ed by Deutsche Welle.
• Radio D - Series 1 iTunes — Series 2 iTunes — Series 1 RSS — Series 2 RSS
  • Ger­man for begin­ners: Paula and Philipp are Radio D reporters who have sev­er­al mys­te­ri­ous cas­es to inves­ti­gate. Join them as their research takes them across Ger­many — and learn Ger­man along the way! Cre­at­ed by Deutsche Welle.
• Slow­ly Spo­ken News — iTunes Free
  • 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 Inter­ak­tiv — Web
  • 30-part self-study course in Ger­man. Fea­tures authen­tic videos, slideshows and audio texts that con­vey a vibrant pic­ture of life in Ger­many, Aus­tria and Switzer­land. Cre­at­ed by Deutsche Welle.
• Duolin­go Ger­man — Web Site 
  • A pop­u­lar free lan­guage-learn­ing and crowd­sourced text trans­la­tion plat­form. As users progress through lessons, they simul­ta­ne­ous­ly help to trans­late web­sites and oth­er doc­u­ments. Check out Duolin­go’s iPhone and iPad apps.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Ger­man Pro­grammed Intro­duc­tion — Web site
  • The text (PDF) and tapes (MP3) present, in a pro­grammed learn­ing style, the struc­tur­al fea­tures and vocab­u­lary con­tained in the first six units of the FSI Ger­man Basic Course. Serves to accel­er­ate the progress of stu­dents who sub­se­quent­ly move to the Basic Course.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Ger­man Basic Course — Web site
  • Two text­books (PDF) and 24 audio lessons (MP3).
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Ger­man Fast - Web site
  • Text­book (PDF) and ten audio lessons (MP3).
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Ger­man Head­start - Web site
  • Text­book (PDF) and four­teen audio lessons (MP3).
• Ger­man­Pod 101 — iTunes Free — RSS
  • Offers mate­ri­als for begin­ners, inter­me­di­ate and advanced.

• Book­mark our free Ger­man lessons sec­tion.

Greek

• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Greek Basic — Web site
  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Kath­omilu­meni vari­ety that is the “stan­dard” speech of edu­cat­ed Greeks. Three text­books (PDF) and 75 audio lessons (MP3).
• Learn­ing Greek — 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

• Hebrew­Pod 101 — iTunes
  • A way to learn some quick Hebrew on the fly.
• Bib­li­cal Hebrew Gram­mar I  (YouTube) and Gram­mar II (YouTube)
  • These are cours­es taught at The Mas­ter’s Sem­i­nary in Sun Val­ley, Cal­i­for­nia.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Hebrew Basic — Web site — Spo­ti­fy
  • One text­book (PDF) and 40 audio lessons (MP3). The Hebrew Basic Course is designed to teach spo­ken and writ­ten mod­ern Hebrew that is the ordi­nary, infor­mal speech of edu­cat­ed native Israelis. It is not intend­ed as a text for the study of the Old Tes­ta­ment or oth­er Hebrew lit­er­a­ture.
• Learn Hebrew (Bib­li­cal) — YouTube
  • Clas­si­cal Hebrew taught using the ser­i­al and oral method. Fea­tures 56 videos. This intro­duc­to­ry video presents the out­line for the course.

Hin­di

• DuoLin­go Hin­di — Web site
  • Learn Hin­di in just 5 min­utes a day. For free.
• Hindi­Pod 101 — iTunes — YouTube
  • Learn Hin­di with fun, inter­est­ing and cul­tur­al­ly rel­e­vant lessons that are easy to lis­ten to.
• Hin­di: An Active Intro­duc­tion — Text­book
  • A short text­book by DN Shar­ma & James Stone on behalf of For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute (FSI).

Hun­gar­i­an

• DuoLin­go Hun­gar­i­an — Web site
  • Learn Hun­gar­i­an in just 5 min­utes a day. For free.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Hun­gar­i­an — Web site
  • Two text­books (PDF) and 24 audio lessons (MP3). Also includes a grad­ed read­er.
• Let’s Learn Hun­gar­i­an — iTunes Free — Web Site
  • Learn with Steve or Gyor­gyi, a native speak­er.

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.)
• Vil­tu læra íslen­sku? - Web site
  •  21 TV episodes of Ice­landic lessons. Each episode deals with dai­ly life and com­mon sit­u­a­tions in Ice­land. Accom­pa­ny­ing every episode is a thor­ough sum­ma­ry, explain­ing the sub­ject of the episode. The episodes have Ice­landic sub­ti­tles, mak­ing the dia­log eas­i­er to fol­low.
• A Begin­ners’ MP3 course in Mod­ern Ice­landic — Web Site
  • This is an exper­i­men­tal eight-hour begin­ners’ Ice­landic course, based on Alar­ic’s expe­ri­ences liv­ing in Ice­land in 2010,

Indone­sian

• Learn­ing Indone­sian - iTunes Free
  • A com­plete online Indone­sian course geared towards devel­op­ing con­ver­sa­tion­al flu­en­cy in the Indone­sian Lan­guage.
• Indone­sian News — iTunes Free
  • This is the lat­est news in Indone­sian from NHK World Radio Japan. For more advanced learn­ers.
• SBS Radio Indone­sian Lan­guage Pro­gram — iTunes Free — Web Site
  • For more advanced learn­ers, SBS Radio Indone­sian Lan­guage Pro­gram offers exten­sive cov­er­age of inter­na­tion­al, nation­al and local news and cur­rent affairs, includ­ing inter­views with Indone­sian com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers and oth­er cul­tur­al pro­grams.

Irish

• Duolin­go Irish (for Eng­lish Speak­ers) — Web Site  
  • A pop­u­lar free lan­guage-learn­ing and crowd­sourced text trans­la­tion plat­form. As users progress through lessons, they simul­ta­ne­ous­ly help to trans­late web­sites and oth­er doc­u­ments.
• Irish 101: An Intro­duc­tion to Irish Lan­guage and Cul­ture — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • From Dublin City Uni­ver­si­ty, this course offers an intro­duc­tion to Ireland’s cul­ture by learn­ing the basics of the Irish lan­guage. This is the begin­ning of a larg­er course sequence.
• Irish 102: An Intro­duc­tion to Irish Lan­guage and Cul­ture — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • Find out how to speak, write and under­stand basic words, phras­es and dia­logues in Irish.

Ital­ian

• Talk Ital­ian — Web Site
  • A live­ly intro­duc­tion to Ital­ian pre­sent­ed by the BBC.
• BBC Ital­ianis­si­mo — Web Site — YouTube
  • Ital­ianis­si­mo was a TV series to learn Ital­ian first broad­cast in 1992 and repeat­ed reg­u­lar­ly over the next 10 years. You can watch the videos online.
• Ital­ian Lan­guage and Cul­ture: Begin­ner — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • In this lan­guage course from Welles­ley Col­lege, you will learn the four basic skills (speak­ing, lis­ten­ing, read­ing and writ­ing) in the con­text of major themes in Ital­ian cul­ture. By the end of the course you will be able to describe peo­ple, events and sit­u­a­tions, both in the present and the past, and you will have acquired the nec­es­sary vocab­u­lary to com­mu­ni­cate about every­day sit­u­a­tions.
• Ital­ian Lan­guage and Cul­ture: Inter­me­di­ate — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • In this lan­guage course from Welles­ley Col­lege, you will enhance your Ital­ian lan­guage skills, enrich your vocab­u­lary and expand your con­ver­sa­tion­al skills. You will learn how to have exchanges on a vari­ety of top­ics, and con­tin­ue your immer­sion in the Ital­ian cul­ture through unique videos and inter­views. You will also become more con­fi­dent as you con­tin­ue prac­tic­ing your read­ing and writ­ing skills.
• Ital­ian Lan­guage and Cul­ture: Advanced — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • Learn how to per­fect your skills in Ital­ian (speak­ing, lis­ten­ing, read­ing and writ­ing), and by the end of this course you will be able to express opin­ions and hypothe­ses, and sus­tain an argu­ment using a vari­ety of reg­is­ters. You will also expand your vocab­u­lary to include top­ics beyond every­day con­ver­sa­tion. This course is from Welles­ley Col­lege.
• Duolin­go Ital­ian — Web Site  
  • A pop­u­lar free lan­guage-learn­ing and crowd­sourced text trans­la­tion plat­form. As users progress through lessons, they simul­ta­ne­ous­ly help to trans­late web­sites and oth­er doc­u­ments.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Ital­ian Head Start — Web site
  • Text­book, glos­sary, cul­ture notes (PDF) and 21 audio lessons (MP3).
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Ital­ian Fast Course — Web site
  • Includes a text­book (PDF) and 30 audio lessons (MP3).
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Ital­ian Pro­grammed Course — Web site
  • Text­book and instructor’s man­u­al (PDF) and 24 audio lessons (MP3).
• Speak Ital­ian with Your Mouth Full — Web site
  • MIT instruc­tor Dr. Pao­la Rebus­co uses cook­ing to help her stu­dents learn to speak Ital­ian.

Book­mark our free Ital­ian lessons sec­tion.

Japan­ese

• DuoLin­go Japan­ese — Web site
  • Learn Japan­ese in just 5 min­utes a day. For free.
• Easy Japan­ese — Web site
  • A free course from the Japan­ese nation­al broad­cast­er, NHK. This audio and text-based course of 48 lessons is designed for begin­ners.
• Easy Japan­ese for Work — Web site
  • Accel­er­ate your Japan­ese lan­guage skills! Learn prac­ti­cal, effec­tive work­place expres­sions, under­stand busi­ness cul­ture and improve your kan­ji. From NHK.
• Easy Trav­el Japan­ese — Web site
  • When trav­el­ing in Japan for the first time, what phras­es do you need? Each 3‑minute episode pro­vides sim­ple expres­sions you can put to use as soon as you land. The pro­gram also offers tips for get­ting around the coun­try.
• Easy Japan­ese: Gram­mar Lessons — Web site
  • Learn gram­mar from NHK.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Japan­ese — Web site
  • Stu­dent guide, text­book, glos­sary, flash­cards (PDF) and nine audio lessons (MP3).
• JapanesePod101.com — iTunes Free — Feed
  • Over 100 qual­i­ty lessons aimed at the begin­ner. Users give it high marks.
• Let’s Speak Japan­ese Basic — YouTube
  • 26 video lessons pro­duced by the Japan Foun­da­tion.
• Let’s Learn Japan­ese Basic II — YouTube
  • 25 video lessons pro­duced by the Japan Foun­da­tion.
• Maru­go­to Japan­ese Online Course — Web Site 
  • The Maru­go­to Japan­ese Online Course is a course for learn­ing Japan­ese lan­guage skills com­pre­hen­sive­ly. It’s oper­at­ed by the Japan Foun­da­tion.
• Week­ly News in Sim­ple Japan­ese — Web site
  • From the Japan­ese broad­cast­er NHK.

Book­mark our free Japan­ese lessons sec­tion.

Kore­an

• First Step Kore­an — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • From Yon­sei Uni­ver­si­ty, this is an ele­men­tary-lev­el Kore­an lan­guage course, con­sist­ing of 5 lessons with 4 units, and cov­ers 4 skills: read­ing, writ­ing, lis­ten­ing and speak­ing. The main top­ics include basic expres­sions used in every­day life, such as greet­ings, intro­duc­ing your­self, talk­ing about your fam­i­ly and a dai­ly life and so on. Each les­son cov­ers dia­logues, pro­nun­ci­a­tion, vocab­u­lary, gram­mar, quizzes and role-plays.
• Let’s Speak Kore­an — YouTube
  • Orig­i­nal­ly aired on Ari­rang, Korea’s Eng­lish-lan­guage tele­vi­sion net­work, these lessons soon made their way to Youtube, where you can watch hun­dreds of episodes that start teach­ing the Kore­an lan­guage from the very basics onward.
• Intro­duc­tion to Kore­an — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • Get an intro­duc­tion to the lan­guage and cul­ture of Korea, with this online Kore­an course from Hanyang Uni­ver­si­ty in Seoul.
• Intro­duc­tion to Kore­an: 2 — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • Devel­op your under­stand­ing of the Kore­an lan­guage and explore Kore­an cul­ture.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Basic Kore­an — Web Site
  • Includes the orig­i­nal and updat­ed cours­es, each with text­books (PDF) and audio lessons (MP3).
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Kore­an Head­start — Web site
  • Text­book, cul­tur­al notes, and eight units of audio lessons (MP3).
• KoreanClass101 — iTunes Free
  • Fea­tures dai­ly audio lessons, video lessons, word of the day, etc.
• Kore­an Learn­ing for Cor­rec­tion Pro­nun­ci­a­tion - Web Site
• Let’s Speak Kore­an Sea­son 1 - YouTube
  • 130 video lessons pro­duced by Ari­rang TV.
• Let’s Speak Kore­an Sea­son 2 — YouTube
  • 130 video lessons pro­duced by Ari­rang TV.
• Let’s Speak Kore­an Sea­son 3 — YouTube
  • 130 video lessons pro­duced by Ari­rang TV.
• Let’s Speak Kore­an Sea­son 4 — YouTube
  • 100 video lessons pro­duced by Ari­rang TV.
• Let’s Speak Kore­an Sea­son 5 — YouTube
  • 26 video lessons pro­duced by Ari­rang TV.
• Path­way to Kore­an: Begin­ning Spo­ken Kore­an from Zero — Web Site
  • Cre­at­ed by the Nation­al East Asian Lan­guages Resource Cen­ter at The Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty. When you get to the web­site, look for the “Units” in the top nav­i­ga­tion bar.
• Talk to Me in Kore­an — iTunes Free — Web Site
  • Kore­an learn­ing made sim­ple and easy. Quite pos­si­bly the most thor­ough, fre­quent, slick, and enter­tain­ing lan­guage-instruc­tion pod­cast of any kind.

Lao

• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Lao — Web site
  • Basic text­book, read­ing text­book (PDF), and two parts of audio lessons (MP3).

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.
• The Lon­don Latin Course — YouTube
  • Learn Latin from the ground up. This is a ser­i­al course, struc­tured to bring you to a high lev­el of Latin flu­en­cy. The pace is slow and unhur­ried. This course is suit­able for all abil­i­ty lev­els. Restored Clas­si­cal Pro­nun­ci­a­tion. Find relat­ed course mate­ri­als here. You can also find lessons on advanced vocab­u­lary here.
• Latin Intro­duc­tion — Web
  • The UT-Austin Lin­guis­tics Research Cen­ter pro­vides an overview of Latin and 10 lessons based on famous Roman texts.

Lithuan­ian

• Lithuan­ian Out Loud — iTunes Free — Feed — Web Site
  • Offers begin­ners, inter­me­di­ate and advanced lessons.

Lux­em­bour­gish

• One Minute Lux­em­bour­gish — YouTube
  • 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

• Intro­duc­tion to Nor­we­gian — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • From the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oslo. Start learn­ing Nor­we­gian today. Learn to speak, write and under­stand basic Nor­we­gian with this free four-week course.
• Intro­duc­tion to Nor­we­gian 2 — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • Learn to write, speak, and under­stand inter­me­di­ate Nor­we­gian with this fun and engag­ing four-week course.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Nor­we­gian Head­start — Web site
  • Text­book (PDF) and eight audio lessons (MP3).
• One Minute Nor­we­gian — YouTube
  • 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 — YouTube
  • Anoth­er help­ful audio series pro­vid­ed by the Radio Lin­gua Net­work.

Por­tuguese

• Lín­gua da gente — iTunes Free — Web site 
  • Por­tuguese learn­ing pod­cast for Eng­lish speak­ers. Fea­tures a lot of dis­cus­sion, con­ver­sa­tion, cul­tur­al tid­bits, and slang. From the Cen­ter for Open Edu­ca­tion­al Resources and Lan­guage Learn­ing (COERLL) at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas.
• Brazil­ian Pod­Class — iTunes Free
  • Free pod­cast is released once a week, for all lev­els, with a focus on con­ver­sa­tion, pro­nun­ci­a­tion, vocab­u­lary, gram­mar and pop­u­lar expres­sions.
• Brazil­ian Por­tuguese 101 — iTunes Video Free
  • 45 lessons by Seman­ti­ca.
• Duolin­go Por­tuguese — Web Site
  • A pop­u­lar free lan­guage-learn­ing and crowd­sourced text trans­la­tion plat­form. As users progress through lessons, they simul­ta­ne­ous­ly help to trans­late web­sites and oth­er doc­u­ments.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Por­tuguese Pro­gram­mat­ic Course — Web site
  • Two vol­umes includ­ing text­books (PDF) and audio lessons (MP3).
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute From Span­ish to Por­tuguese — Web site
  • Text­book (PDF) and three audio lessons (MP3).
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Brazil­ian Por­tuguese Fast — Web site
  • Two vol­umes includ­ing text­books (PDF) and audio lessons (MP3).
• Ta Fal­a­do: Brazil­ian Por­tuguese Pro­nun­ci­a­tion for Span­ish Speak­ers — iTunes Free — Web Site
  • Cre­at­ed by the Texas Lan­guage Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­ter in the Depart­ment of Span­ish and Por­tuguese at UT-Austin.
• Talk Por­tuguese — Web Site
  • From the BBC, a video intro­duc­tion to the lan­guage in 11 short parts with audio clips for key phras­es.

Roman­ian

• One Minute Roman­ian - iTunes Free
  • Quick lessons by the cre­ators of the One Minute lan­guage series.

Russ­ian

• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Russ­ian Fast — Web Site
  • Text­book (PDF) and eight audio lessons (MP3).
• For­eign Ser­vice Russ­ian: An Active Intro­duc­tion - Web site
  • 11 lessons and a text­book.
• Learn Russ­ian — Web Site
  • A free course by RT.com that cov­ers all aspects of Russ­ian includ­ing alpha­bet, pho­net­ics, vocab­u­lary and gram­mar. It also has mul­ti­ple gram­mar tables and tests. RT.com is a Russ­ian 24/7 Eng­lish-lan­guage news chan­nel.
• Learn Russ­ian Flu­ent­ly, Eas­i­ly and Effec­tive­ly - Spo­ti­fy
  • A 4‑hour series of lessons that are freely avail­able on Spo­ti­fy
• Russ­ian Gram­mar — YouTube
  • 50 free, short videos on top­ics in basic Russ­ian gram­mar. Fund­ed by a grant from the Uni­ver­si­ty of South Car­oli­na, the videos were cre­at­ed by Cur­tis Ford, a senior instruc­tor at the Uni­ver­si­ty.
• Russ­ian Lit­er­a­ture — 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 — YouTube
  • Learn the absolute basics of Russ­ian with a 10-les­­son course of “espres­­so-break” episodes. In this course you’ll learn to greet peo­ple, say that you’re learn­ing the lan­guage, intro­duce your­self and ask peo­ple how they’re feel­ing, and lots more.
• RussianPod101 — iTunes Free
  • Helps you learn Russ­ian and Russ­ian cul­ture at your con­ve­nience.

Book­mark our free Russ­ian lessons sec­tion.

Ser­bo-Croa­t­ian

• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Ser­bo-Croa­t­ian Basic — Web site
  • Includes two text­books (PDF) and twelve audio lessons (MP3).

Sign Lan­guage

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

Span­ish

• Basic Span­ish 1: Get­ting Start­ed — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • Learn Span­ish and explore Span­ish cul­ture in this intro­duc­to­ry lan­guage course, designed for Eng­lish speak­ers. Cre­at­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty Poly­tech­ni­ca Valen­cia.
• Basic Span­ish 2: One Step Fur­ther — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • Begin­ners course for learn­ers of Span­ish that focus­es not only on lan­guage, but also on cul­tur­al aspects, specif­i­cal­ly designed for Eng­lish speak­ers. Cre­at­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty Poly­tech­ni­ca Valen­cia.
• Basic Span­ish 3: Get­ting There — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • Begin­ners course for learn­ers of Span­ish that focus­es not only on lan­guage but also on cul­tur­al aspects, specif­i­cal­ly designed for Eng­lish speak­ers.
• Begin­ners’ Span­ish: Get­ting Around — Web Site
  • Pre­sent­ed by the Open Uni­ver­si­ty, this free course con­cen­trates on Span­ish as a tool for com­mu­ni­ca­tion, but it also pro­vides some insights into His­pan­ic soci­eties and cul­tures through authen­tic print­ed and audio mate­ri­als. This Open­Learn course focus­es on pub­lic spaces and how to get by in a His­pan­ic city.
• 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.
• Cof­fee Break Span­ish — iTunes Free — Web Site
  • Learn Span­ish in a low-key, effec­tive way.
• Cof­fee Break Span­ish: To Go — YouTube
  • Build your Span­ish com­pre­hen­sion by lis­ten­ing to real native speak­ers.
• Duolin­go Span­ish — Web Site
  • A pop­u­lar free lan­guage-learn­ing and crowd­sourced text trans­la­tion plat­form. As users progress through lessons, they simul­ta­ne­ous­ly help to trans­late web­sites and oth­er doc­u­ments. Check out Duolin­go’s iPhone and iPad apps.
• Show Time Span­ish - iTunes Free
  • Pro­duced by the same folks who cre­at­ed Cof­fee Break Span­ish, this pod­cast is for inter­me­di­ate and advanced learn­ers.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Basic Course — Web site
  • This course in the Latin Amer­i­can dialect pre­pares stu­dents to func­tion effec­tive­ly in con­ver­sa­tions. Pro­nun­ci­a­tion, inflec­tion, and into­na­tion are heav­i­ly stressed.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Span­ish Pro­gram­mat­ic — Web site
  • Two vol­umes includ­ing text­books (PDF) and audio lessons (MP3).
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Span­ish Head­start for Puer­to Rico — Web site
  • Stu­dent text, glos­sary (PDF), and four mod­ules of audio lessons (MP3) with self-eval­u­a­­tion quizzes.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Span­ish Head­start for Spain — Web site
  • Text­book and cul­tur­al notes (PDF) and four mod­ules of audio lessons (MP3).
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Span­ish Head­start for Latin Amer­i­ca — Web site
  • Text­book (PDF) and fif­teen audio lessons (MP3).
• Learn Span­ish: Basic Span­ish Vocab­u­lary — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
  • This spe­cial­iza­tion is designed for the begin­ner who may have no expe­ri­ence with learn­ing a sec­ond lan­guage but who wants to be able to read, write and speak Span­ish for per­son­al, trav­el or busi­ness use, or who just wants to learn a sec­ond lan­guage and build cul­tur­al aware­ness. From UC-Davis.
• Learn Span­ish in Your Car — Spo­ti­fy
  • Gram­mar and vocab­u­lary to begin­ners, offer­ing guid­ance in pro­nun­ci­a­tion and lan­guage fun­da­men­tals.
• Learn Span­ish on Spo­ti­fy — Spo­ti­fy
  • A col­lec­tion of audio cours­es on Spo­ti­fy, that will take you from begin­ner lessons to advanced conversations–featuring essen­tial trav­el phras­es and vocab­u­lary.
• 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 — YouTube
  • Cov­ers the absolute basics of Span­ish, focus­ing on the pro­nun­ci­a­tion used in most parts of Spain.

Book­mark our free Span­ish lessons sec­tion.

Swahili

• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Swahili — Web site
  • Includes “Swahili: An Active Intro­duc­tion” and basic course with text­book (PDF) 150 audio lessons (MP3).

Swedish

• Duolin­go Swedish (for Eng­lish Speak­ers) — Web Site  
  • A pop­u­lar free lan­guage-learn­ing and crowd­sourced text trans­la­tion plat­form. As users progress through lessons, they simul­ta­ne­ous­ly help to trans­late web­sites and oth­er doc­u­ments.
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Swedish Basic — Web site
  • Includes text­book (PDF) and six­teen audio lessons (MP3).

Thai

• Let’s Learn Thai Lan­guage — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC) — Uni­ver­si­ti Malaya
• Let’s Learn Thai Lan­guage: Basic Con­ver­sa­tion Skills — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC) — Uni­ver­si­ti Malaya
• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Thai — Web site
  • Text­books (PDF) and 50 audio lessons (MP3).

Turk­ish

• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Turk­ish — Web site
  • Text­books (PDF) and 50 audio lessons (MP3).
• Hands On Turk­ish — Web site
  • Fea­tures a short course for absolute begin­ners, and a full course for peo­ple learn­ing the lan­guage for busi­ness pur­pos­es. The project was fund­ed by the EU.

Twi 

• Intro­duc­tion to the Twi Lan­guage - Web Site
  • 17 audio lessons by the Peace Corps will get you start­ed speak­ing Twi, one of the most wide­ly spo­ken of the 70 lan­guages in Ghana.

Viet­namese

• For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Viet­namese — Web site
  • Includ­ed famil­iar­iza­tion course and basic course with two vol­umes of text­books (PDF) and audio lessons (MP3).

Welsh

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

Gen­er­al How-To

• GLOSS — Defense Lan­guage Insti­tute — Web Site
  • These lessons (6,000 in total) are devel­oped for inde­pen­dent learn­ers to pro­vide them with the learning/teaching tools for improv­ing their for­eign lan­guage skills.  Read­ing and lis­ten­ing lessons are based on authen­tic mate­ri­als (arti­cles, TV reports, radio broad­casts, etc.) and con­sist of 4 to 6 activ­i­ties. GLOSS offers cer­tifi­cates pro­vid­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion of work accom­plished.
• 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.

Our col­lec­tion of for­eign lan­guage lessons has been fea­tured in the New York Times, The New York Times again, and yet once again in The New York Times.

Libel Reform: A Conversation with Simon Singh

in Law, Science | April 6th, 2010

Simon Singh is a man who refus­es to be silenced.  In 2008, the British sci­ence writer pub­lished an arti­cle in The Guardian call­ing atten­tion to some of the wilder claims of the chi­ro­prac­tic indus­try.  A short time lat­er he found him­self sift­ing through 35 pages of legal doc­u­ments from a libel suit brought by the British Chi­ro­prac­tic Asso­ci­a­tion.  The law­suit specif­i­cal­ly named Singh, and not the news­pa­per.  As he told The Times of Lon­don recent­ly, the expe­ri­ence was “scary.”

Singh decid­ed to fight back. Two years lat­er, the British Chi­ro­prac­tic Asso­ci­a­tion has received a great deal more pub­lic scruti­ny than it bar­gained for, while Singh and his predica­ment have become the cause célèbre of a rapid­ly grow­ing move­ment to reform England’s noto­ri­ous libel law. London’s sta­tus as “Libel Cap­i­tal of the World “ has begun to teeter.

The chain of events began April 19, 2008, on the “Com­ment and Debate” page of The Guardian: “This is Chi­ro­prac­tic Aware­ness Week,” wrote Singh. “So let’s be aware.  How about some aware­ness that may pre­vent harm and help you make tru­ly informed choic­es?”  From there Singh went on to report that the founder of chi­ro­prac­tic ther­a­py, Daniel David Palmer, had claimed that “99% of all dis­eases are caused by dis­placed ver­te­brae.” Even now, Singh wrote, mod­ern chi­ro­prac­tors still hold some “quite wacky ideas.”  The law­suit revolves around a par­tic­u­lar pas­sage, quot­ed last week in a court doc­u­ment:

“The British Chi­ro­prac­tic Asso­ci­a­tion claims that their mem­bers can help treat chil­dren with col­ic, sleep­ing and feed­ing prob­lems, fre­quent ear infec­tions, asth­ma and pro­longed cry­ing, even though there is not a jot of evi­dence.  This orga­ni­za­tion is the respectable face of the chi­ro­prac­tic pro­fes­sion and yet it hap­pi­ly pro­motes bogus treat­ments.”

When the BCA object­ed, The Guardian offered to make space avail­able for a rebut­tal — if there was “a jot of evi­dence,” the BCA could present it.  Instead, the orga­ni­za­tion declined the offer and sued the writer.

At the time, Singh was pro­mot­ing his new book, Trick or Treat­ment: Alter­na­tive Med­i­cine on Tri­al, which he co-wrote with Edzard Ernst.  Sev­er­al of his ear­li­er books were inter­na­tion­al best­sellers, includ­ing Big Bang: The Ori­gin of the Uni­verse, and Fermat’s Last The­o­rem, which was pub­lished in Amer­i­ca as Fermat’s Enig­ma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World’s Great­est Math­e­mat­i­cal Prob­lem.  The com­mer­cial suc­cess of Singh’s books enabled him to absorb the enor­mous expense of fight­ing a case in the British libel courts.

Singh was dealt a seri­ous set­back in a pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing last May, when a judge ruled that the writer’s phrase “hap­pi­ly pro­motes bogus treat­ments” amount­ed to a fac­tu­al claim that the BCA was inten­tion­al­ly dis­hon­est – an inter­pre­ta­tion of mean­ing which Singh flat­ly denied.  Singh appealed the deci­sion, and last Thurs­day, in a rul­ing that may prove to be a water­shed, not only in Singh’s case but in the larg­er strug­gle for libel reform, the Eng­land and Wales Court of Appeal reversed the low­er court judge’s deci­sion and cleared the way for Singh to use a “fair com­ment” clause in his defense.

In the writ­ten deci­sion, Lord Chief Jus­tice Igor Judge com­ment­ed on the soci­etal impact of the BCA’s action.  “It is now near­ly two years since the pub­li­ca­tion of the offend­ing arti­cle,” Lord Judge wrote. “It seems unlike­ly that any­one would dare repeat the opin­ions expressed by Dr. Singh for fear of a writ.  Accord­ing­ly this lit­i­ga­tion has almost cer­tain­ly had a chill­ing effect on pub­lic debate which might oth­er­wise have assist­ed poten­tial patients to make informed choic­es about the pos­si­ble use of chi­ro­prac­tic.”

In the days fol­low­ing last week’s land­mark deci­sion, we talked with Singh by email.

OPEN CULTURE: Con­grat­u­la­tions on your vic­to­ry in the Court of Appeal.  How do you feel?

SIMON SINGH: I am delight­ed that the Court of Appeal has backed my inter­pre­ta­tion of my own arti­cle, name­ly that the British Chi­ro­prac­tic Asso­ci­a­tion is reck­less, but not dis­hon­est.  I will still have to defend my arti­cle at tri­al, but I will be defend­ing some­thing I meant to write, as opposed to an extreme accu­sa­tion that nev­er exist­ed in the first place.  Although this is a big step for­ward for me, there is still a long way to go on libel reform in the UK.  Eng­lish libel laws are the worst in the free world, and they need rad­i­cal reform so that oth­er sci­en­tists and jour­nal­ists do not find them­selves in my posi­tion next year.

OPEN CULTURE: What hap­pens next?

SIMON SINGH: I think the British Chi­ro­prac­tic Asso­ci­a­tion is in a dif­fi­cult posi­tion, but it has three choic­es.  First, it could take the case to tri­al, which is fine by me because I would rel­ish the oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss my arti­cle in a court­room.  Sec­ond, it could appeal last week’s deci­sion and go to the Supreme Court, but again this is fine by me because I would rel­ish the oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss my arti­cle in such an ele­vat­ed forum.  Third, it could aban­don the case, but the BCA would have to pay my costs before being allowed to walk away.

OPEN CULTURE: Those costs have been con­sid­er­able, haven’t they?

SIMON SINGH: I esti­mate that in my case both par­ties have run up bills of over £300,000, of which £200,000 has been spent estab­lish­ing the mean­ing.

OPEN CULTURE: The Appeal Court rul­ing quotes Mil­ton on the impris­on­ment of Galileo, and warns that under cur­rent law the court is invit­ed to become “an Orwellian min­istry of truth.”  Do you think the tide is turn­ing in favor of libel reform?

SIMON SINGH: I think the Appeal Court judges were send­ing a clear mes­sage that they are unhap­py with libel law, which should encour­age politi­cians to act rad­i­cal­ly on libel reform.  All the main par­ties seem keen to reform our libel laws, but this is not yet in the man­i­festos of the two main par­ties.  I think the pres­sure from cam­paign­ers, the pub­lic and the legal pro­fes­sion will ulti­mate­ly encour­age the next gov­ern­ment to reform libel, but we have to main­tain the pres­sure.

OPEN CULTURE: What makes Eng­lish libel law so oner­ous?

SIMON SINGH: There is so much wrong with Eng­lish libel law that it is hard to know where to start.  It is hor­ren­dous­ly expen­sive, which forces writ­ers to back down even if they are right, because they can­not afford to defend their writ­ing.  It has been esti­mat­ed that an Eng­lish libel tri­al can eas­i­ly cost over £1 mil­lion, and this is over 100 times more than the cost of an aver­age libel case in main­land Europe.  Sec­ond, there is the prob­lem that large cor­po­ra­tions can sue lone sci­en­tists, jour­nal­ists and blog­gers, which again forces them to back down because they are up against such pow­er­ful and rich orga­ni­za­tions.  Third, the bur­den of proof is uneven, because writ­ers are assumed to be guilty until proven inno­cent.  Fourth, there is no so-called robust pub­lic inter­est defense, name­ly some­thing that would pro­tect writ­ers com­ment­ing on impor­tant issues.  The law should encour­age such debate, not silence it.  Final­ly, there is a prob­lem of libel tourism, where­by over­seas com­pa­nies sue over­seas writ­ers in Lon­don because they know that Eng­lish libel law is hos­tile to jour­nal­ists.

OPEN CULTURE: Why should this con­cern some­one liv­ing away from the British Isles?

SIMON SINGH: The issue of libel tourism means that every­one in the world should be scared of the Eng­lish libel law.  If you write any­where in the world about a bil­lion­aire, then the Lon­don court can prob­a­bly claim juris­dic­tion because the mate­r­i­al can prob­a­bly be read in Eng­land over the inter­net and bil­lion­aires typ­i­cal­ly have busi­ness inter­ests in Eng­land so they can claim to have a rep­u­ta­tion in Eng­land.  There are many cas­es of libel tourism, such as Sau­di bil­lion­aires suing an Amer­i­can jour­nal­ist, a U.S. com­pa­ny suing a Dan­ish researcher, an Israeli tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny threat­en­ing to sue a paper writ­ten by a Swedish pro­fes­sor, a Tunisian man suing a Ger­man news­pa­per, an Ice­landic bank suing a Dan­ish news­pa­per, and so on – all these cas­es end­ed up in Lon­don, the libel cap­i­tal of the world.

OPEN CULTURE: Libel law affects all forms of jour­nal­ism and free expres­sion, but the British sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty has been espe­cial­ly out­spo­ken on this issue.  Richard Dawkins for exam­ple gave a high-pro­file speech on the prob­lem.  Why are sci­en­tists, in par­tic­u­lar, so up in arms?

SIMON SINGH: I think sci­en­tists are at the fore­front of the cam­paign for libel reform because sci­ence can only progress through open dis­cus­sion and robust debate and crit­i­cism.  I think the pub­lic accepts that libel is impor­tant for pro­tect­ing the rep­u­ta­tion of indi­vid­u­als, but they now real­ize that there must be a prob­lem when libel blocks sci­en­tif­ic dis­cus­sion.  In addi­tion to my case, in the last year we have seen the sci­ence jour­nal­ist Ben Goldacre, the car­di­ol­o­gist Peter Wilmshurst, the Swedish lin­guist Pro­fes­sor Lac­er­da and the Dan­ish med­ical researcher Hen­rik Thom­sen all being sued for libel in Lon­don.  The libel laws block our right to dis­cuss sci­en­tif­ic ideas, but they also block the public’s right to hear these ideas.

OPEN CULTURE: With every­thing that has hap­pened, have you been able to car­ry on with your work as a writer?  Are you writ­ing a new book?

SIMON SINGH: As well as the legal costs, I have also lost out because my income has been seri­ous­ly dam­aged by my inabil­i­ty to write.  I should be writ­ing a new book now, but I can­not even sub­mit a book pro­pos­al because I don’t know if I would ever be able to deliv­er it.  Right now I am spend­ing the major­i­ty of my time on my own legal case, and devot­ing any spare time to the cam­paign for libel reform.

OPEN CULTURE: Are you work­ing with any orga­ni­za­tions to bring about reform?

SIMON SINGH: I am work­ing close­ly with three char­i­ties (Sense About Sci­ence, Eng­lish PEN and Index on Cen­sor­ship), who have formed the Libel Reform Coali­tion.  We have a peti­tion for libel reform and we wel­come sig­na­to­ries from around the world, because Eng­lish libel law affects writ­ers all over the globe.  I hope that read­ers will add their names to the peti­tion at www.libelreform.org/sign — I have spent over a mil­lion min­utes of my life defend­ing my arti­cle and my right to free speech, so I hope read­ers will take one minute to show their sup­port.

This arti­cle was con­tributed by Mike Springer, a jour­nal­ist in Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts.

“April is the Cruellest Month…”

in Literature, Poetry | March 31st, 2010

T.S. Eliot reads from The Waste­land, one of the great poems of the last cen­tu­ry. It begins famous­ly:

APRIL is the cru­ellest month, breed­ing
Lilacs out of the dead land, mix­ing
Mem­o­ry and desire, stir­ring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Win­ter kept us warm, cov­er­ing
Earth in for­get­ful snow, feed­ing
A lit­tle life with dried tubers.
Sum­mer sur­prised us, com­ing over the Starn­berg­ersee
With a show­er of rain; we stopped in the colon­nade,
And went on in sun­light, into the Hof­garten,
And drank cof­fee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were chil­dren, stay­ing at the arch­duke’s,
My cous­in’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was fright­ened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the moun­tains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the win­ter.

Get the full text here.

Where Is Technology Taking Us?

in Economics, Web/Tech | March 4th, 2010

A recent Front­line doc­u­men­tary, Dig­i­tal Nation: A Life on the Vir­tu­al Fron­tier, asks just this question–particularly with regard to edu­ca­tion. Sub­jects include atten­tion span, mul­ti-task­ing, and the doubts of one-time tech­nol­o­gy evan­ge­list Dou­glas Rushkoff. But while some see tech­nol­o­gy as an obsta­cle to clear think­ing and human inter­ac­tion, oth­ers see it as essen­tial to con­tem­po­rary edu­ca­tion.

I have to say the whole sub­ject res­onates with my own ambiva­lent technophil­ia. You can watch the doc­u­men­tary above or here (and the trail­er fol­lows), but don’t for­get to check your news feeds, twit­ter, and face­book while it’s on in the back­ground.

Wes Alwan lives in Boston, Mass­a­chu­setts, where he works as a writer and researcher and attends the Insti­tute for the Study of Psy­cho­analy­sis and Cul­ture. He also par­tic­i­pates in The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life, a pod­cast con­sist­ing of infor­mal dis­cus­sions about philo­soph­i­cal texts by three phi­los­o­phy grad­u­ate school dropouts.

Deep Thinking on the Web

in Education | February 17th, 2010

This morn­ing, a New York Times edi­to­r­i­al is help­ing get the word out. Deep think­ing is alive and well on the web:

There is a lot of talk about how the Inter­net is dri­ving cul­ture ever low­er, but it also makes a wealth of seri­ous think­ing avail­able. From the com­fort of home, one can down­load free audio books by authors like Jane Austen and Joseph Con­rad and free pod­casts of uni­ver­si­ty lec­tures (openculture.com has an assort­ment of both).

The rest of the piece right­ly focus­es on a BBC pod­cast called In Our Time (iTunes — Feed — Web Site). It’s list­ed in our Ideas & Cul­ture Pod­cast Col­lec­tion, along with many oth­er thought­ful pro­grams that make mean­ing­ful sub­jects rel­e­vant to a broad­er, glob­al audi­ence. (For some­thing sim­i­lar in video, see our col­lec­tions of Intel­li­gent Video Sites and Smart YouTube Chan­nels.)

Yes, intel­li­gent media does­n’t dom­i­nate the web. But, it’s flour­ish­ing in the nich­es and crevices, and we want to bring it to the sur­face. Per­haps you’ll want to join us? If you’re inter­est­ed in con­tribut­ing to Open Cul­ture, we’re always look­ing for your sug­ges­tions. I have put togeth­er a page that out­lines our edi­to­r­i­al approach. Take a look, and if you find great pieces of intel­li­gent media while surf­ing the web, please send them our way. We thank you in advance.

F. Scott Fitzgerald Reads Shakespeare

in Literature | February 7th, 2010

The Uni­ver­si­ty of South Car­oli­na hosts a few gems, includ­ing F. Scott Fitzger­ald (The Great Gats­by) read­ing lines from Shake­speare’s Oth­el­lo. Or, more specif­i­cal­ly, Oth­el­lo’s ora­tion to Venet­ian sen­a­tors.

This comes to us via Mike. Thanks to all who start­ed send­ing good links our way. When­ev­er you see some­thing good, please fire us a quick email. It will take one minute out of your day and make the day for many oth­ers.

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google Plus and LinkedIn and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.