Using ICT in Further Education

bab.la is a portal where “language lovers can meet and exchange their ideas and learn languages from each other“. A real community effort.

bab.la provides dictionaries for translation between english and spanish, german, chinese, french, portuguese, russian, turkish. There is also a german to french dictionary.

The dictionary provides direct translations for words, both in text and audio (in english), and also provides suggested similar expressions.

As a user you can add your own translation suggestions or verify the suggestions of other users as well as making quizzes. The quizzes can even be embedded into websites as shown below.

First read about bab.la on Richard’s post.

A new Irish language learning tool hit the Web this week, which is really cool as we are in the middle of “Seachtain na Gaeilge 2008“.

Talk Irish is a new Irish language learning project, aimed at adults, which will contain many resources enabling you to learn Irish online, anytime, anywhere.

Talk Irish is the brain child of Michelle Gallen.

Free Irish word-a-day emails, podcasts and flashcards are all on offer. The daily emails will include an Irish word, example sentences, and a link to a free podcast and flashcard.

Talk Irish also contains a page detailing links to some excellent resources.

And later this year Talk Irish will be launching a free audio dictionary and even “more great free learning resources – including games and quizzes“.

It’s never been easier to learn the cúpla focal !!

Lingro provides an online environment “that allows anyone learning a language to quickly look up and learn the vocabulary most important to them“. English, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish and German are all catered for on Lingro.

As well as providing a normal dictionary, Lingro also provides a web viewer and a file viewer. 

The web viewer opens a website in the Lingro viewer and allows you to select individual words for translation.

On selection, a translation box appears. This may be left open or closed before the next word is selected.

The file viewer translates files that are uploaded from your computer (txt, doc and pdf formats).

Lingro also provides study tools in the form of word lists and flash card games.

Bonjour, Buon Giorno, Dia Duit, Guten Tag, Hola!

Want to learn a new language? This might just be the time. Mango Languages, an online language learning system, is currently undergoing Beta testing and is offering free registration.

Mango Languages offers very useful features including, among others, colour coded translations, audio from native speakers, unlimited repitition (both individual words and full sentences), phonetics and memory building exercises.  Both male and female voices are used for the audio. A forum for each language has also been provided – due to popular demand from current users.

Mango Languages is another site found via Zaid’s blog. So all I can say is Gracias, Merci, Grazie, Obrigado, Danke, Go raibh míle maith agat, Спасибо, Ευχαριστώ!

Also found Livemocha (thanks to Nancy McKeand) -  another site undergoing Beta testing!

Livemocha provides an online language-learning community as well as structured lessons and promises access to a team of passionate language tutors who are “available 5 days per week to chat one-on-one or to answer questions“.