Learn Anything Online for Free: A Primer

in Online Courses | January 5th, 2010

If you’re com­plete­ly new to the con­cept of “open” cours­es, then this primer is worth a good look. The new edi­tion of the AARP Bul­letin (which tar­gets mil­lions of Amer­i­cans over the age of 50) tells you where to find open cours­es, what soft­ware you might need, how to store files, etc. We get a lit­tle men­tion here, and if you’re vis­it­ing from AARP, I would encour­age you to delve into our large col­lec­tion of free cours­es from top uni­ver­si­ties. (It cur­rent­ly fea­tures over 250 cours­es.) Our col­lec­tions of free audio books, free lan­guage lessons, free e‑books, free online movies, edu­ca­tion­al video sites, and smart YouTube chan­nels will also be of inter­est. Some of these col­lec­tions also appear on our free iPhone app.

For more Open Cul­ture, become a fan on Face­book and fol­low us on Twit­ter.

Earthrise in HD

in Science | January 3rd, 2010

In Novem­ber 2007, Japan’s Kaguya space­craft orbit­ed the moon with a high-def cam­era onboard. You can see the first HD footage of an “earth­rise” and “earth­set” by check­ing out these still images (Earth­rise and Earth­set). The video above gives you a good look at what an “Earth­rise” looks like from out­er space.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

John Irving: The Road Ahead for Aspiring Novelists

in Literature, Writing | January 2nd, 2010

The world accord­ing to John Irv­ing. Times are tougher for young writ­ers. But the book isn’t going away. You can watch the full inter­view with Irv­ing here.

Free English Lessons

in | January 1st, 2010

Learn Eng­lish for free online. Down­load free audio lessons to your com­put­er or mp3 play­er and start learn­ing Eng­lish instant­ly. To learn more lan­guages, please vis­it our com­plete col­lec­tion of Free Lan­guage Lessons.

• 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.

To learn more lan­guages, please vis­it our col­lec­tion: Learn Lan­guages for Free: Span­ish, Eng­lish, Chi­nese & Beyond.

Free Arabic Lessons

in | January 1st, 2010

• 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.

To learn more for­eign lan­guages, please vis­it our com­plete col­lec­tion of Learn Lan­guages for Free: Span­ish, Eng­lish, Chi­nese & Beyond.

Twenty-Five Essential Films of the 2000s

in Film | December 26th, 2009

It’s that time of the year. Or rather that time of the decade. It’s time for “best of” lists — good ones, often banal ones, and some­times bad ones. Here’s one good list that might serve you well next year. Twen­ty-Five Essen­tial Films of the 2000s fea­tures some films that you’ve undoubt­ed­ly seen (The Lord of the Rings, Munich, There Will Be Blood) , but prob­a­bly a good num­ber that you haven’t (Three Times, Fat Girl, The Blind Swords­man: Zato­ichi). If you’re look­ing to replen­ish your Net­flix queue in 2010, it’s not a bad place to begin …

Free Spanish Lessons

in | December 26th, 2009

Learn Span­ish for free online. Down­load free audio lessons to your com­put­er or mp3 play­er and start learn­ing Span­ish instant­ly. To learn more lan­guages, please vis­it our com­plete col­lec­tion of Free Lan­guage Lessons.

• 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.

To learn more lan­guages, please vis­it our col­lec­tion: Learn Lan­guages for Free: Span­ish, Eng­lish, Chi­nese & Beyond.

Learn Japanese Free

in | December 26th, 2009

Learn Japan­ese for free online. Down­load free audio lessons to your com­put­er or mp3 play­er and start learn­ing Japan­ese instant­ly. To learn more lan­guages, please vis­it our com­plete col­lec­tion of Free For­eign Lan­guage Lessons.

• 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.

Free Italian Lessons

in | December 26th, 2009

Learn Ital­ian for free online. Down­load free audio lessons to your com­put­er or mp3 play­er and start learn­ing Ital­ian instant­ly. To learn more lan­guages, please vis­it our com­plete col­lec­tion of Free Lan­guage Lessons.

• 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.

To learn more lan­guages, please vis­it our col­lec­tion: Learn Lan­guages for Free: Span­ish, Eng­lish, Chi­nese & Beyond.

Free German Lessons

in | December 26th, 2009

• 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.

To learn more lan­guages, please vis­it our col­lec­tion: Learn Lan­guages for Free: Span­ish, Eng­lish, Chi­nese & Beyond.