Free French Lessons

in | December 26th, 2009

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

• 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.

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

Free Chinese Lessons

in | December 26th, 2009

• 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.

Early David Lynch Short Films

in Film | December 26th, 2009

One thing is for sure. David Lynch has nev­er been con­ven­tion­al. Not now, and not dur­ing his ear­ly years. While putting togeth­er our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online, we unearthed sev­er­al short films from the 1960s, when Lynch was get­ting his start. His very first film, Six Men Get­ting Sick (Six Times), appears above. Links to the oth­ers can be found below. A DVD con­tain­ing these and oth­er ear­ly Lynch films can be bought on Ama­zon here.

• Six Men Get­ting Sick (Six Times) (1966)
• The Alpha­bet (1968)
• The Amputee (1974)

Relat­ed Con­tent 

See What David Lynch Can Do With a 100-Year-Old Cam­era and 52 Sec­onds of Film

David Lynch Mus­es About the Mag­ic of Cin­e­ma & Med­i­ta­tion in a New Abstract Short Film

One Hour of David Lynch Lis­ten­ing to Rain, Smok­ing & Reflect­ing on Art

eBook Primer

in | December 25th, 2009

Texts appear­ing in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks can be accessed in sev­er­al ways. Please read over the instruc­tions below, and you will quick­ly know which for­mat best suits your needs.

Read Online: Google Books has been mak­ing a select num­ber of books avail­able in a mobile for­mat. You can access these books on a com­put­er or smart phone (eg iPhone or Android phone) sim­ply by click­ing on the “Read Online” links in our Free eBook col­lec­tion. Note that Google makes apps for many devices (Android, iPhone, iPad, Sony, Nook). You can down­load them here.

Down­load: Project Guten­berg lets you down­load each ebook in mul­ti­ple for­mats, includ­ing the Kin­dle for­mat and the uni­ver­sal ePub stan­dard. Once you down­load the appro­pri­ate file, you can man­u­al­ly upload the files to your Nook, Kin­dle, Sony ERead­er, iPad, and Android read­ers. Guten­berg pro­vides tuto­ri­als here. In one of our pre­vi­ous posts we also explain how to upload files specif­i­cal­ly to your Kin­dle.

Kin­dle: Final­ly, when pos­si­ble, we have pro­vid­ed links to Ama­zon’s Kin­dle store. When you click these links, you can down­load a free text over the air, just like you would buy any oth­er text from the Ama­zon store.

Talking American History with Joseph Ellis

in History | December 23rd, 2009

Let me quick­ly call your atten­tion to an inter­view with Joseph Ellis, the Pulitzer Prize-win­ning and best­selling his­to­ri­an, who most recent­ly pub­lished Amer­i­can Cre­ation: Tri­umphs and Tragedies in the Found­ing of the Repub­lic. In this casu­al, wide-rang­ing con­ver­sa­tion (lis­ten below or here) with Russ Roberts, the host of Econ­Talk, Ellis talks through the found­ing years of the Unit­ed States — the break with Eng­land, the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War, the draft­ing of the con­sti­tu­tion and the forg­ing of the nation. A good con­ver­sa­tion for his­to­ry buffs, and an infor­ma­tive talk for those less famil­iar with Amer­i­ca’s begin­nings. You can gen­er­al­ly find Econ­Talk (which typ­i­cal­ly focus­es on eco­nom­ics) here: iTunes – RSS Feed – Web Site.

Visages d’Art

in Art | December 22nd, 2009

Anoth­er “eggman913″ mov­ing art spe­cial. (Check out his full col­lec­tion on YouTube.) This time, the images morph in sync with Bach’s Pre­lude And Fugue No. 6 In D Minor BWV 851 — Prae­ludi­um from the Well-Tem­pered Clavier, Book 1 per­formed by Daniel Ben Pien­aar (avail­able at Mag­natune).

Ravel’s Bolero

in Music | December 18th, 2009

Here we have Daniel Baren­boim, the Argen­tin­ian con­duc­tor, lead­ing the Berlin Phil­har­mon­ic at Wald­buhne in Berlin, 1998. The clip is already push­ing 1,000,000 views on YouTube. You can find a released record­ing on Ama­zon as well.

Tarantino’s Tops of ’09

in Film | December 17th, 2009

Note that one of Quentin Taran­ti­no’s very ear­ly films (My Best Friend’s Birth­day) can be found in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

In The Nick of Time: Holiday Book Sampler!

in Books, e-books, Literature | December 17th, 2009

This hol­i­day sea­son, I’m hap­py to have teamed up with eleven fab­u­lous authors in offer­ing a hol­i­day sam­pler just for book lovers! Here you’ll find excerpts of a dozen new nov­els and non­fic­tion books by these New York Times best­selling authors, suc­cess­ful entre­pre­neurs, and tal­ent­ed sto­ry­tellers. The excerpts can all be found in this nice PDF. Includ­ed you will find:

• Lau­rell K. Hamil­ton — Divine Mis­de­meanors
• Seth Godin — Tribes and an exclu­sive excerpt of Linch­pin, out next year
• Joseph Find­er — Van­ished
• Cory Doc­torow — Mak­ers
• Chris Bro­gan & Julien Smith — Trust Agents
• Robert J. Sawyer — Wake
• Mitch Joel – Six Pix­els of Sep­a­ra­tion
• Cherie Priest — Bone­shak­er
• Tara Hunt — The Whuffie Fac­tor
• Scott Sigler — The Rook­ie
• J.C. Hutchins — 7th Son: Descent
• Seth Har­wood — Jack Wakes Up

DOWNLOAD THE IN THE NICK OF TIME! HOLIDAY SAMPLER

Spot a great gift oppor­tu­ni­ty? Order from online retail­ers direct­ly from the PDF, or print the order form at the end of the doc­u­ment and present it to your local book­seller. Help­ful staff will find what you’re look­ing for.

Dan Note: Check out Seth’s upcom­ing online writ­ing course at Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies. The Essen­tial Art: Mak­ing Movies in Your Read­er’s Mind

Sapolsky Breaks Down Depression

in Psychology, Science, Stanford | December 17th, 2009

Robert Sapol­sky, a Stan­ford biol­o­gist, is cur­rent­ly one of the most pub­licly acces­si­ble sci­ence writ­ers in the coun­try, per­haps best known for his book on stress, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. In the lec­ture above, Sapol­sky takes a hard look at depres­sion. The top­ic is a lit­tle heavy. I’ll grant that. But, it’s also impor­tant. As Sapol­sky is quick to point out, depres­sion is per­va­sive and get­ting worse. Cur­rent­ly, it’s the 4th great­est cause of dis­abil­i­ty world­wide, and it will soon become the 2nd. For Sapol­sky, depres­sion is deeply bio­log­i­cal; it is root­ed in biol­o­gy, just like, say, dia­betes. Here, you will see how depres­sion changes the body. When depressed, our brains func­tion dif­fer­ent­ly while sleep­ing, our stress response goes way up 24/7, our bio­chem­istry lev­els change, etc. Giv­en the per­va­sive­ness of depres­sion, this video is well worth a watch.

Also don’t miss Sapol­sky’s amaz­ing Stan­ford course, Intro­duc­tion to Human Biol­o­gy. It’s equal­ly worth your time. It’s housed in our col­lec­tion of 750 Free Cours­es Online.