By Renata Rodrigues de Mesquita, São Paulo October 28^th 2011

4^th Semester – System Analysis and Development

Technology has made a lot of things easier. One of the greatest things technology has done is shortening distances. It means that I don’t need to go to a library to know if they have a certain book I’m looking for. I can read a newspaper from Greece without being physically there. And I can learn a different language without even moving from my comfortable sofa.

The article is about learning languages over the web. The web is full of great stuff to help us to learn more and more about any language you want.

Nowadays if I want to learn a new language I can be easily helped by the web. First of all, I am going to find a lot of schools and teachers in my area with one or two clicks. Then there are a number of courses online. Paid or free, you can join them. Additionally, you can get in touch with a new language. And that’s my favorite thing when trying to improve my knowledge.

Getting in touch with a foreign language means much more than learning words and composing sentences.  Learning a new language is also acquiring a different point of view. Each language and culture has a particular way to express, feel and understand things. Language is a part of culture. Behind each sentence in each language there is a whole world of meanings. Once I read an article by the great author Partha Chanterjee about the difficulty, even impossibility of translation of terms between cultures. My point is, if you want to really learn a language, you need to learn the culture and the hidden meanings behind the words.

And Internet is just great for that. The “www” is there to shorten any distance between you and other cultures.

You can read several newspapers from almost every corner of the Earth, written in a lot of different languages.  If you experience trouble in finding a newspaper in a particular language or from a specific country, this website might be useful: http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/. It´s cool to read news in other languages because they offer different points of view about world issues. And it’s also interesting to see what other countries and cultures consider important enough to become news.

You can also try some radio stations. That’s my favorite part. I am always looking for radios on the web. I love to hear news in other languages, even when I am not able to understand what they are saying. My ears can get accustomed to the sound and that’s very important when learning a language. Furthermore, you can perceive what kind of songs they like, what kind of songs they produce, what kind of advertising they have.  Since I am always looking for new radios or new database websites, I don’t know any particular site to recommend, but among all sites I visit, I particularly like the BBC. Although I have to confess that I prefer local radios and newspapers when I am looking for radios on other languages other than English, BBC radio broadcasting in different languages are easy to find. I just google it and there it is: a radio in Hindi. But actually BBC is very helpful when we think about learning languages: they have good online courses. Interested? Have a look at their website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/

There are a couple websites where you can actually talk to people from all around the world and while you learn more and more about the way they talk, speak and act, they also learn about you. You can have a look at http://www.livemocha.com or www.busuu.com. Internet allows us to have this great exchange that was unthinkable 20 years ago. The interaction between people from different backgrounds can extend our minds’ frontiers and let down barriers of prejudice and racism. So, maybe the Internet is helping us to build a better world full of understanding and respect for the difference.

Some links that might interest you:

http://www.shoutcast.com/

http://www.hindiradios.com/

http://www.learn4good.com/

http://www.hello-world.com/