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in: Pages containing guild links after August 2023, The Armory, Guilds

The Keep:The Language Hackers

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The Keep: Index > The Armory > The Language Hackers


Description[]

For all language learners. Whether this is your 1st new language or your 5th, or you just need to know some phrases for an upcoming business trip, this is a place to challenge and encourage each other as we learn. Originally the #Add1Challenge guild, it is now broadened and renamed to include similar language learning hacks, like fluentin3months by Benny Lewis and All Japanese All the Time. Come share your favorite tips and tricks, your roadblocks, and get encouragement in all your language hacking endeavors.

Link to the guild

General Resource List[]

Here are some links that might be helpful in your language learning endeavors:

Disclaimer: None of these sites are affiliated with Habitica or the guild. They are being provided purely as suggestions.

General websites, apps and blogs[]

Free

  • Duolingo has a number of online courses in various languages
  • Busuu has a number of online courses in various languages (basically similar to Duolingo, but with more languages). Although generally useful I'd approach cautiously cause I've found few mistakes in intermediate Japanese sentences.
  • Cambridge University Open Courseware - German, Chinese, French, Italian, Russian resources and a handful of advices from professional academics.
  • HiNative (formerly lang-8) write something in your target language, have it corrected by a friendly native. Give back to the community by correcting other people's writing in your mother tongue.
  • italki write something in your target language, have it corrected by a friendly native. Give back to the community by correcting other people's writing in your mother tongue.
  • Bliu Bliu  reading comprehension; some subscription elements
  • Memrise vocabulary retention using mnemonics
  • Quizlet a flash cards app (web+mobile), lots of searchable material. includes phonetic reading option for the cards.
  • Anki is flashcard (SRS) application. It's completely free and open source and can be used on Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS, and through a web browser. The dev funds the project through the anki client on iOS (it's $24). The android app is developed by a different group of people and they release it for free. You can make your own decks or download shared decks. It's very customizable which comes at the cost of making it a bit obtuse. Definitely read the manual.
  • Mnemosyne A flash card app basically similar to Anki. At a time I've used both due to different flat hard sets available for each.
  • CueCard is a basic flashcard program available for download. Great for review when you don't have internet access. Got me through my exams :P
  • Forvo is a pronunciation database. If you need recordings of words by native speakers, search here. If the word doesn't already exist you can ask for it. In many cases, there will be multiple recordings, marked by gender of the speaker and their location (e.g., a pronunciation of 'gato' in Spanish by a man from Chile, a woman from Spain, etc.). But you need to be careful because some pronunciations might be wrong.
  • HelloTalk is a language exchange app. There are people from all over who are available to chat and text. There are lots of nice features including, voice recording, free voice calls, video chat, sentence correction, text to speech, transliteration, translation etc.
  • ClozeMaster Learn your language in context, with an 8-bit multiple choice game.
  • DFLIFLC The Defense Language institute used by the U.S military for language training has some very valuable resources for free in select languages
  • LyricsTraining Improve your listening comprehension and practice with different accents interacting with the best musical videos, filling the gaps in the lyrics and using the Karaoke.
  • FutureLearn Currently Dutch, Spanish & Italian.
  • Linguti has gamification courses for a number of languages.
  • Reverso dictionary on-line with the app if you prefer. It supports different languages and includes the words in different expressions.
  • Beelinguapp is an app for Android and iOS that shows the exact same text in two languages; side by side. At the same time, it is an audiobook, and with its unique karaoke reading you follow the audio in the text on both sides. There are many texts available in 10 languages, and new ones are added every week. The access to some texts is paid.
  • Tinycards a flashcard website made by Duolingo. Has sets of cards supporting the Duolingo language courses, and also allows people to make and share their own sets of cards on any subject.
  • Verbix is a free online verb conjugator. It will fully conjugate verbs in over 50 languages and dialects.
  • Lingvist An online class that is like Duolingo in some ways, but is also a little more than that.
  • Free4Talk webpage to create and join chat rooms to practice languages talking with other language learners.
  • LangCorrect a free community-driven writing site where users can both contribute to editing others' work and receive feedback on their own writing.

Paid

  • MosaLingua has apps for several languages that include learning tips. The apps are specific to the language chosen and work offline. They use a spaced repetition system where you can choose from around 3000 words and phrases or make your own. There are also extra packs that you can buy to include things like slang and local expressions. These apps a really good at teaching you phrases that can be put together into sentences and also has example dialogues to listen to with or without subtitles.
  • italki is a site you can use to practice conversation over the internet
  • innovative language an umbrella company with several websites, each dedicated to a separate language, altogether covering comprehensive language courses with plethora of resources to read, learn vocabulary, grammar, with videos, planned lessons and more. Covers about 30 languages. Check the internet for possible discounts! There are some floating around most of the time. Highly recommended, I've been using their Italian and Japanese, especially the latter was oh so well worth the price with all the materials I was given access to.
  • Fluentu is a website that teaches a language by having you watch movies and other video content in that language. It offers subtitles and allows you to slow down the video if needed. It's currently available for English, Spanish, French, Chinese, German and Japanese.
  • on Audible: The Great Courses Series. You have to pay monthly for Audible but the Great Courses Series have a lot of audiobooks about linguistics and language that are free. You can also purchase the audiobooks on the Great Courses website.

Useful Blogs

  • Fluent. Simple. A polyglot's tips to learn any foreign language put together into an on-demand video course.
  • The Jack Sparrow Approach Some useful advice on speaking a language you aren't confident in.
  • Fluent Forever , a blog run by an opera singer and language learning enthusiast. Focuses on using neuroscience to create efficient methods of study (he uses Anki a lot). The author also has an associated book, posts youtube videos, and creates both free and paid study materials for a long list of languages.
  • The Polyglot Dream - a guy who speaks several languages shares his musings and advice on learning.
  • All Japanese All the Time nice resource for learners of any language. Doesn't focus on Japanese but on the method.
  • The Mezzofanti Guild - a polyglot's place to be, gathering many resources and people together.
  • LingoSteve is a YouTube channel made by a polyglot Steve Kaufmann. It has a lot of inspiring videos, reviews of different language learning techniques, and general tips.

Useful Extensions

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)[]

Free

  • Yorku.ca has a unique interactive IPA chart.
  • Fluent Forever has a series of videos on how the IPA works and how to use it to improve pronunciation when learning foreign languages.
  • Classzone.com is a website that follows language books by schools and has videos, flashcards, and a home tutor to help with broadening vocabulary and grammar concepts

Paid

  • To go along with the video series, Fluent Forever has a pre-made Anki deck for learning the IPA. ($3)


Language Specific Resource Lists[]

Disclaimer: None of these sites are affiliated with Habitica or the guild. They are being provided purely as suggestions.

Ancient Languages[]

Free

  • The Perseus Project is a dictionary and form analyzer for Latin and Ancient Greek (also for Norse, but works not that well, and for Arabic but I haven't tested that), and database of classical literature

Sign Languages[]

American Sign Language (ASL)[]

Free

  • SignSchool An amazing resource that teaches ASL in simple short lessons. It is similar to Duolingo in my opinion but changed to fit sign language perfectly. Still in beta, but works great.

Australian Sign Language (Auslan)[]

Free

  • Signbank has a fantastic video dictionary as well as several other resources

German Sign Language - Deutsche Gebärdensprache (DGS)[]

Free

  • Marco-Sergej Efimov is a Youtube Channel with an eight part course and a few translated songs.

Japanese Sign Language (JSL)[]

Free

  • SignTV2009 is a Youtube Channel with single word videos
  • shuwaisland is a Youtube Channel with longer videos that usually contain a conversation in Japanese Sign Language beween two people with one of them directly translating to spoken Japanese.

Spoken Languages[]

Chinese

Free

  • Yellow Bridge - possibly the oldest and biggest Chinese related resources repository.
  • China.org.cn - a Chinese portal for learning Chinese.
  • Chinese4.eu - a Sino-European portal designed to help people learn Chinese for free.
  • Chinese Tools - also a very resourceful repository of all things Chinese.
  • Mandarin Tools - a rather resourceful website with many different gizmos to make learning faster and nicer.
  • Learn Chinese @ CRI English Portal - a rather big website which can serve as a bilingual reader.
  • Basic Chinese - a Cambridge University course.
  • Beginner's Chinese - an Open University course.
  • Intermediate Chinese - a Cambridge University course.
  • MJChinese - a very useful blog breaking down difficult grammar points and providing other resources.
  • Thinking Chinese - language resources by topic hasn't been updated in a while, but the resources are still up.
  • China Smack - a bilingual reader with a pop-up dictionary.
  • Watch to Learn Chinese - a video repository.
  • Chinese Dictionary - goes by character elements, translates, provides pinyin, has a character quiz. There's an offline desktop version of this dictionary for Windows computers .
  • Chinese Subtitles for Chinese Films - a thread in the Chinese Forums where those are being gathered.
  • Decipher Chinese - for reading bite-size news in Chinese. The articles are classified according to HSK level. You have options to read either in traditional or simplified Chinese. It also comes with an android app.
  • PLECO - This is a good android dictionary app. It's features apart from the dictionary include flash cards and OCR screen reader. More complex features need to be paid.
  • Chinese Skill  - Another android app which uses game-based techniques to teach Chinese. It aims to improve grammar, vocabulary, writing characters and pronunciation.

Paid

  • Chinesepod.com a website similar to the above model, but specializing -only- in Chinese. It has an astonishing amount of dialogues with corresponding readers, questions and practice. There's a fairly useful forum there too, and their customer response is really decent. New content created each week.
  • Melnyks.com - a paid course in Chinese. Contains 270+ audio lessons with PDF transcripts.
  • Written Chinese - paid course, promises to be most helpful to visual learners. Looks interesting.

Useful Blogs

Youtube Videos:

French[]

Free

  • Native French Speech A podcast of native French speakers talking about various topics, in order to provide authentic and interesting education for those interested in speaking French like a native. There are over 200 episodes! There is paid content elsewhere on this site as well.
  • Talk in French Podcast A podcast where they discuss French culture, language, and the country of France.
  • French-Podcasts.com A site with various podcasts about French vocabulary in day-to-day life.
  • JeFrench French Audio Lessons A site with a few simple audio lessons on useful basic phrases in French.
  • Bonjour A site with eight free french lessons
  • The French Experiment A site with online French lessons, childrens' stories in French, and reviews of French-learning products.
  • French in Action A collection of video lessons on French for a high school or college audience produced by Yale University.
  • OLI - Elementary French I This is a free online French course created by Carnegie Mellon for anyone's use. This is a full online class, including a final exam.
  • OLI - Elementary French II Another class meant to sequentially follow the above class.
  • MaFrance An old video series by the BBC for learning French. It runs with flash and uses popups.
  • France Bienvenue An intermediate wordpress blog made for people who already have a good amount of French under their belt, but want to learn more. If you can't keep up with the videos, there is a full transcript below each one.
  • LiveLingua FSI French Phonology An online lesson to help beginners speak French like native French speakers. The page includes a PDF download.
  • FrancoLab A French Canadian site with a variety of resources for French learners.
  • Talk French Another BBC video series on French, this one with worksheets and transcripts.
  • Coffee Break French A beginner podcast course. There is some additional paid material on their website but it's not necessary for following along with the podcast.

German[]

Free:

  • German-for-English-Speakers Great resources for learning german grammar if English is your native language.
  • DW Lots of learning resources for beginner to intermediate learners.
  • Radio TEDDY geared towards german children this resource can be helpful for the intermediate learner
  • Slow german podcast beginner to intermediate podcast about random, but still interesting topics

Free online dictionaries:

  • Pons Online-Wörterbuch relieable free online dictionary, offers German to and from English as well as a variety of other languages. Service offered by one of the most well known publishers of dictiories in Germany.
  • Langenscheidt Wörterbuch relieable free online dictionary, offers German to and from English as well as a variety of other languages. Service offered by one of the most well known publishers of dictionaries in Germany.
  • dict.cc free online dictionary, offers German to and from English as well as a variety of other languages. Open source.
  • dict.leo.org free online dictionary, offers German to and from English as well as a variety of other languages (including Chinese). Operated by a small company. Also offers courses of some kind and (paid?) apps.
  • Der Duden THE authority for German spelling and grammar. Offers a free online German-German dictionary and a spelling and grammar check for short texts (still in beta). Offers all grammar rules and word definitions as well es style sheets, synonyms and more. This page also offers a free online dictionary (German-English). Otherwise German only. Services include podcasts and an app (free trial). Germans use Duden whenever in doubt about language use.

Useful Blogs:

Hebrew[]

Modern Hebrew[]

Podcasts:

  • Streetwise Hebrew is a podcasts with over 150 episodes that teaches vocabulary in context. Episode descriptions contain vocabulary lists and links to songs used. Also available for free on iTunes.

Italian[]

Useful Blogs

Japanese[]

Free:

  • Delvin Language is a spaced repetition (SRS) vocabulary learning site that gives you XP for each word you get right. It plays a video containing the word with a subtitle with the word blanked out beneath it and prompts you to type the reading in kana (it will automatically convert romaji typed here) and then the meaning. If you answer correctly, you will gain XP, but if you answer wrongly, it will play the clip with the word visible in the subtitle. It allows you to progress through several sorted groups or through all the words in one large group.
  • The News Web Easy site is for NHK articles with furigana written above the kanji. It also gives the audio of each article and underlined words can be hovered over to read the dictionary definition in Japanese. There's a button which highlights people's names, places and company names in different colors.
  • Matcha has articles on places in Japan with furigana and occasionally English.
  • Erin's Challenge has subtitled (English/kana/romaji/Japanese with no aids) videos where the eponymous girl will teach about Japanese culture through skits, and lots of resources can be accessed without an account (free) - they include manga, vocabulary, and quizzes.
  • Imabi has many lessons from beginning Japanese all the way through Classical Japanese, with detailed explanations (including the Japanese grammatical terminology), and examples.
  • Nihongo no Mori lessons for different levels on Youtube.
  • Renshuu is a customizable spaced repetition quizzing site. You can create study "schedules" for vocabulary, kanji, and grammar that you can customize to include items from different lessons or the dictionary. It includes many "official" lessons (created by the site) that correlate to various books (Genki, etc.) or test levels (N5-N1 (JLPT), etc.), and many user-created lessons in different categories. There are also games and activities to help build knowledge. Many things are available for free with an account, though some things (certain quiz question types, listening practice, many grammar terms, and some games, as well as graphs showing some stats surrounding your study) are only accessible through a "pro" subscription.
  • Kanji Study (iOS and Android) is an app that can help you learn all your kana (hiragana and katakana) and kanji. It works like a dictionary, but in a better way: each kanji has a detailed description (reading, meaning, example sentences and words, radicals, etc), and you can train yourself to write kanji with the correct stroke order or challenge yourself with a personalized quiz. The app is available free, but there is a one-time upgrade available to unlock more features and kanji study groups.

Free online dictionaries:

  • Denshi Jisho is a comprehensive online Japanese-English dictionary. It interlinks word entries with their kanji characters and radicals, displays example sentences, and tags for common words and JLPT levels.
  • Saiga Kanji Dictionary alternative dictionary.
  • JED  app for Android is a solid Japanese-English dictionary app including kanji radical lookup, example sentences, and verb conjugations. It covers a wide range of words including esoteric technical phrases and coarse slang terms so proceed with caution in sensitive situations.
  • Zkanji It's a free desktop software. It's primarily a Japanese-English dictionary. You can search for Kanji and the definitions include kana. It also allows you to search for stroke order and also has flash cards. It's a powerful tool for efficiently improving your Japanese and for free! Check the screenshots for more info.
  • Glosbe is a Japanese dictionary for pretty much every language. It offers you various translations and definitions, pictures, as well as (translated) example sentences. Since the list of languages is long here is the English-Japanese Glosbe .
  • Kotobank is a Japanese site that kind of works like a Japanese-Japanese dictionary. 
  • There are quit a lot free German-Japanese dictionaries online: Wadoku  and Großes Japanisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch  are general Japanese-German online dictionaries. Wadoku Kezai  specifies in economic terms. The Japanisch-Deutsches Kanji-Lexikon is only for Kanji.

Free Extensions for your Browser:

  • Rikai-chan (for Firefox) and Rikai-kun (for Chrome) are browser plugins linking to the Denshi Jisho dictionary. With the plugin enabled you can mouseover Japanese text on a webpage and it will display a popup with the text's reading and definition.

Paid Sites:

  • Genki is a textbook produced by the Japan Times, pretty much the textbook for English-speaking Japanese learners in academic settings.
  • Situational Functional Japanese is another solid and commonly used textbook for English speakers, organized on the concept of learning comprehensive conversational skills for specific situations (asking directions, ordering at a restaurant, requesting help from a professor/boss, etc). Also way more affordable than Genki.
  • WaniKani is a spaced repetition (SRS) site for learning kanji that orders kanji (and vocabulary containing those kanji) in order of complexity. It features mnemonic stories to aid in recall. It costs $10 a month, or $100 a year, or $299 for a lifetime membership, but the first three levels can be accessed for free.
  • News in Slow Japanese is mostly premium content, but there are a few samples on the homepage that can be done for free, and they give not only the kanji, but also the romaji and furigana of the articles given. There are also popups that explain words you don't know. The lowest amount you'll have to shell out is $7.60 USD for a one-month subscription, the highest is $28 USD for 6 months.
  • iKnow is a site for learning vocabulary. It uses SRS and also has example sentences and a sentence building/reviewing function which is wonderful. 

Useful Blogs:

  • All Japanese All the Time nice resource for Japanese learners.
  • KanjiDamage is a popular site dedicated to learning kanji. Their approach is entertaining and original, but expect coarse humor. They also create some of their own radicals and readings designed to make the learning process easier, just realize you won't necessarily find them on other sites. Also be aware that they put the imperial navy flag on some entries as an indicator of the entry's status.
  • Gabriel Wyner (Fluent Forever) 's blog posts on Japanese are full of background and assistance (especially for kanji beginners) and include free downloads of his model Anki decks, which have a bunch of customizations to make flashcard creation faster and easier. He includes videos and detailed written descriptions on how to install and use the decks, plus suggested methods for speeding up your learning process and the neuroscience behind the suggestions if you're into that.
  • Fluent Forever Japanese resources cover textbook and dictionary recommendations, pronunciation videos, word frequency lists, web resources, etc.

Korean[]

Free

Paid

  • Integrated Korean textbooks published by University of Hawai'i. These have a reading section (1-2 pages of text) in every chapter so you gain reading comprehension very quickly.

North Sámi[]

Free

  • Kursa is a free textbook for North Sámi.  It's mostly in Norwegain, (which goes through Google translate pretty well, English speakers), but the first part of it has been translated into Finnish.
  • Oahpa is a set of free tools for practicing various Sámi languages, including North Sámi.  Make sure to check out the short grammer in English.
  • Bildetema is a visual dictionary for large number of langauges, including North Sámi.  Select "Nordsamisk."  It has a HTLM-5 version as well.  If you click the "ok" button in the yellow box to the left, you can pick which lanuages you compare.

Norwegian[]

Free

Portuguese[]

Free

  • Conjuga-me A website that conjugates verbs in Portuguese. Put in the infinitive form and you will be given a table showing the conjugations, with any irregular forms highlighted.
  • Learning Portuguese  A website by Russell Walker promoting his book "Learning Portuguese", but it also has a lot of free content and is particularly useful for its information on grammar.

Spanish[]

Free

  • Spanishpod101 is a series of audio lesson podcasts (only the first 3 in each series are free, but there are many series)
  • RTVE is a site where you can find TV shows in Spanish
  • Mitele.es is another site for Spanish film and television
  • The Spanish Experiment  lessons plus children's stories to introduce reading skills
  • Spanish Stack Exchange is a discussion board for more advanced students of spanish.
  • Coffee Break Spanish podcast lessons that start from a beginner level. They have some additional paid materials on their website, but not necessary for following along with the podcast.

Useful Blogs

Russian[]

  • Ruspeach "Russian for foreigners." An online resource for learning Russian with excercises and written texts to translate with key words. They also have a Facebook and a Tumblr that posts pictures accompanied by a text in Russian.
  • VK (ВКонтакте)  Basically the Russian version of Facebook. Be careful where you go, it can get a tiny bit sketchy, but it is a good way to meet Russian speakers to practice with.
  • Ma
  • ria Zdorovetskaya (youtuber) She posts informative videos about Russian language and culture.
  • pikabu.ru The Russian version of reddit,

Ukrainian[]

Dictionaries

  • Горох (Horoh, Pea) — meaning in Ukrainian, conjugation tables for words. Also, there is translation page, but don't use it because it contain many mistakes (probably problem in database)
  • Вікісловник — Ukrainian segment of wiktionary. There is about 38 thousands of articles for Ukrainian language, but if you can't find one that you need you can left a request here.

(Anki) Flashcard Decks

  • Ukrainian Oblasts (Geography) — this deck is dedicated to learn Ukrainian administrative regions, but in back side it has English and Ukrainian namings.

Free

  • Duolingo — Ukrainian course for English speakers. Good start point. Don't rely on it fully.
  • LingQ — app for iOs and Android in which you can listen audios with matching transcript. They have own dictionary and SRS system for learning. Seems to be free.

Paid

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