Online Radio and TV

To start out with, I’ve been fascinated in different languages for as long as I can remember. Maybe it’s from hearing a bit of Spanish early on on Sesame Street, maybe it was something else. But over the years I’ve spent a good amount of time studying Spanish, French and German. The first years of those studies were before I was even aware of shortwave radio which gives excellent listening practice.

I remember my first years online were found tuning in to various news streams in foreign languages. This had me commit to spend several years studying a single language and then move on to another. I’ve spent around the last 5 years studying the Spanish language and feel as though I’m about ready to look at studying something else. The internet though gives such a great resource that it’s hard to decide. I see some usefulness in studying German as many of the computer related web searches seem to lead me to German language pages, as well as some area businesses having strong German ties. But French intrigues me as well, in part for it’s close ties to Spanish. I’m not sure which it will be, but I can guarantee I will use some of the many resources I’ve accumulated here to help in that endeavor. (As well as maintain the Spanish that I’ve already learned.)

My interest in languages spurred my interest in shortwave radio, which further spurred interest in even more languages. now with the internet it’s possible to have access to content in most any language you can think of. There are some programs designed to help you learn languages and there is much material available online. I’ve categorized most by language. Some that address several languages may warrant their own page.

So, why should you bother to learn a second language? For me it’s curiosity mostly, but a part of my motivation is to just keep learning. I think we have to keep exercising our ability to learn and acquire new information or lose the ability. Beyond that though you learn interesting new perspectives when learning a new language. You’ll look at words that you’ve known differently if you’re studying a language with common roots because as words have developed they sometimes keep similar, yet distinct meanings. Sometimes these meanings help you see things from a slightly different point of view. Travel is a common reason that people learn languages, but don’t let that be your only motivation!

Learn Chinese Online - My page of Chinese Language Learning Resources

Learn Spanish Online - My page of Spanish Language Learning Resources

Learn French Online - My page of French Language Learning Resources

Learn German Online - My page of German Language Learning Resources

Learn Japanese Online - My page of Japanese Language Learning Resources

Learn Indonesian Online - My page of Indonesian Language Learning Resources

On all of these pages I will discuss various ways of learning new languages which may or may not solely include online resources. These days there are so many different opportunities for learning languages that it’s hard to limit your focus to just what’s available online.

As I’ve studied Spanish I’ve used many different resources from books (ordered via Amazon.com) to DVD’s as well as online radio and tv broadcasts, even spending a fair amount of time watching telenovelas and reading “recaps” in English online of what transpired. So, the internet is a great and powerful tool to add to the arsenal, but certainly not your only path towards learning a new language.

One thing that I didn’t realize in High School when I studied my first “foreign language”. Was that the language textbooks are just a structure for learning and are not a complete ticket to mastery of a second language. I don’t know that our teacher was thoroughly into the assignment to help us work towards fluency either. The textbooks should be a starting place though and after a certain amount is learning you should push yourself into new challenges outside of the textbooks.

When I re-committed myself to the improvement of my understanding of Spanish, one of the things that I thought about was how my then newborn son would learn English. He would observe and listen for about 3 years before really speaking and then the speech would be primitive and simple as he continued to learn (and make mistakes and be corrected.) He was able to be understood, but even for a child (children are considered quick learners when it comes to language), it would be about 4-5 years before he was fluent enough to be very conversational.

So, should we just observe our chosen language to learn and listen for 5 years non-stop…. I think a certain amount of listening is good and useful, but we should also take advantage of our learned literacy in our first language to give us benefits that the child doesn’t have. We can guide our learning experience, making use of dictionaries to build vocabulary lists. Using books and stories that we are familiar with in our primary language to aid in learning a second or third or fourth language.

It was at this point in my thinking that I remembered the days back in grade school English class (English is my primary language). We would have literature assignments and invariably, there would be a list of two or so words with each short story that we were to look up and copy the definitions. That was probably something we did from 2nd-8th grades (and perhaps even into High School.) So, this is the model that I’ve used to improve my Spanish language skills and will use for future language learning as well. Make use of word lists and memorizing a certain amount of word recognition, pronunciation and sentence structure. Then, strike out into reading and compile word lists to look up, or to try and infer meanings from the context where possible. Use materials for the reading that have been translated from your primary language and that you are familiar with to help in your process. Watch familiar movies or tv shows that have been dubbed into a foreign language. Continue to look for more advanced language materials to help understand the finer points of sentence construction, treatments of direct and indirect objects, more unusual verb tenses. What has worked well for me may not for you, but one thing that I like with my method is I now have such a variety of ways I can work on improving my language skills.

You also might be interested in my new site Study New Languages.