Chanpory Rith
May 7, 2008
I was just browsing iTunes for poignant Morrissey covers when I discovered nearly a thousand free language courses on iTunes. 926 courses to be exact. Holy Moleskine, Batman!
The extensive library of courses span over 35 languages, from Arabic to Yiddish. Each course comes as a convenient podcast which you can subscribe and put on your iPod or iPhone.
To get the entire list of language learning podcasts, hit the browse button on the lower-right corner of your iTunes window—it’s the icon that looks like an eye. Then browse to the Podcasts/Education/Language Courses directory.
Or you can simply do a search for the language you’re interested in.
Here’s a sample list of available languages (with links to iTunes):
- Arabic
- Bible Greek
- Brazilian Portuguese
- Bulgarian
- Cantonese
- Danish
- Dutch
- English
- Esperanto
- French
- German
- Greek
- Hawaiian
- Hebrew
- Hindi
- Hungarian
- Indonesian
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Lakota
- Lithuanian
- Luxembourgish
- Mandarin
- Norwegian
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Romanian
- Russian
- Shanghainese
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Tagalog
- Thai
- Uyghur
- Uzbek
- Vietnamese
- Welsh
- Yiddish
Don’t forget to check out some of the more unusual podcasts such as:
I’ve been teaching myself Brazilian Portuguese with Rosetta Stone, so having access to a free supplemental iTunes podcast is nice. Oh, and emphasis on the free, because I’m broke after buying that big yellow box.
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What language have you been itching to learn?
22 Comments
Jordan
9:34 am
Is the Rosetta Stone software any good? I wanted to buy some software so that my wife and I can learn some languages together, but I heard mixed reviews on the quality. What’s your experience?
Chanpory Rith
9:58 am
Hey Jordan, I quite like the Rosetta Stone software. The lessons are completely in the native language. The idea is to replicate learning by immersion.
I’ve only made it through the first part of the course. The lessons do feel really basic and repetitive at first, but its gradually increasing in difficulty. Some people might find it too basic at first and are anxious to jump quickly into learning more complex phrases.
My major gripe is the price. Even though the program is well done, it’s quite expensive. After I bought the boxed version, I found out that Rosetta Stone has online versions of their courses, which are significantly cheaper. However, you only have access to the course for a certain period of time.
wingy
2:47 pm
Pimsleur’s lessons are really great for speaking. The method they use teaches you with minimal English, like a kid learning a first language. The lessons are a bit expensive, but they’re very good quality and if you stick with it you will learn. Apparently the CIA uses the Pimsleur method. The downside is that it doesn’t show you how to spell the words, but once you know how to speak it it’s not too hard to figure out the spellings.
Samuel Powell
4:48 pm
Check out iTunes U… Concordia Seminary. We have both Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Greek available.
Jason
6:18 pm
Thanks for all the links. One thing, though: the link for Romanian points to the Russian podcasts.
Chanpory Rith
7:00 pm
Hey Jason, thanks for pointing that out. It’s fixed now. ;-)
Leonidas
2:43 pm
This is great! finally I can learn some portuguese for FREE!! I am also curious why they don’t have any Latin or Aramaic podcast?? ……I guess cause they’re dead! :( crud!
Celeste
6:03 pm
This is fantastic! I’ve been looking for a way to brush up on my French after being out of school for a few years, and this podcast looks good. Thanks! =)
sylikon
4:07 am
I’ve found a course of languages such as French, German, Spanish, italien, dutch, japaneese… All very well explained with grammar and you learn progessively at you own ryhtm in your computer. Price is really good, less than 15 $, contact me for address
Zoli
11:56 pm
Please add finnish language to! :)
Rogério Rocha
5:15 pm
Great tip.
It’s also great to see so many people interested in learning Brazilian Portuguese. If any of you need some help, don’t hesitate to contact me.
I need to get my French sorted out for a trip I’m taking soon.
Steve Kaufmann
10:39 am
For Brazilian Portuguese I recommend getting some audio books recorded by Rubem Alves, a great educator and speaker. They are addictive to listen to and the texts can usually be found on the internet. I import the texts into LingQ to learn the vocabulary.
LingQ has a library of content in a variety of languages and provides a range of tools to learn from the best podcasts on the web.
Chanpory Rith
10:16 pm
Hey Zoli, I can’t seem to find Finnish in iTunes. If you see it, post up the link.
sOjahund
7:30 pm
I can really suggest chinesepod.com, its also a podcast for itunes, but you can personalize the podcast so they match your skill level and interests…
great one
Sergei Muller
9:01 am
Hi guys
Coffee Break Spanish on iTunes and http://coffeebreakspanish.com is really great.
Shaun
9:43 pm
Hi Folks,
Perhaps the Indonesian link should go to our “Learning Indonesian” podcast instead. The one you linked to died a long time ago.
I’m actually the producer, so I am kind of biased! But really we are the only active Indonesian lesson podcast right now. It’s on iTunes or you can get it at http://www.learningindonesian.com.
Nabeel
9:26 am
this is a nice resources, thank you. I already speak 4 languages and wanted to learn a new one, was thinking about French. At first I had rosetta stone in mind, but i am definitely gonna give this iTunes language a try.
Satara
9:19 am
I don’t find a site anywhere that gives a free (isi)Xhosa coarse! It’s a language that I really want to learn!! Can anyone help me out, please!!
juancarlos
1:21 am
i am looking for a PORTUGUESE podcast course. under the icon above (portuguese) tre is no connection to portuguese courses, but to polish language courses. plese could you correct this. thanks
Rocket French Review
1:06 pm
woohoo! this is a goldmine! thanks a lot for this..! i think i’m going to start with spanish! muwahaha..
Alex
10:58 pm
This is the best thing I have ever stumbled upon.
Thank you for this. or should i say, “Xie xie”
dave
7:53 am
rocket french is suppose to be pritty good.. i found a review for it if anyone is interested.
http://squidoo.com/rocketfrenchreviewnow