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The good old days

Once upon a time it was difficult to get language resources. We relied on language schools to get them and to show us how to learn. We used textbooks as an entrance to a new language. Reading and writing were important activities in learning a language.

You were a student. The teacher was your Boss. The teacher’s boss was the curriculum and the curriculum was usually decided by some nerd who liked to write textbooks.

Progress was measured by exams and the level of text book that you reached. It didn’t matter whether or not you could understand a native speaker of that language.

The much better new days

Language schools are still around and thriving. Some have moved away from textbooks and offer real choice for the students.

Whether or not you choose a language school, you have much more choice now than before to be the boss of your language learning.

What’s new!

The internet.

This has allowed several things to change with language learning.

• Learners can talk to each other.
• It’s much easier to get in contact with someone who speaks the language you’re learning.
• It’s much easier to get resources.
• Language learning communities have developed based on ‘sharing’.

Learners talk to each other

This is important. The old advice was work hard and get through the text book. This simply didn’t and doesn’t work for a lot of people.

The new advice from learners

• Listen more
• Get ‘real’ language materials. Youtube has tonnes of language material, though at the moment it’s a pain to find useful stuff.
• Focus on your language Environment.
• Get resources that you enjoy.
• Involve people
• Use space repetition to help remember
• Use Audio Books.
• You can find out which language schools have been recommended by other learners.

Get in contact

Facebook, Lingq, Skype, LiveMocha and Meetup are some of the ways you can use to meet native speakers.

New Resources

Free

• Examples of using Youtube - English Dutch
• Lingq (lots of free listening resources)
• Dutch Resources

Paying Resources
• Yabla TV - Yabla English TV
• Podcasts - Germanpod101

Community learning

Lingq has lots of listening and reading material avai
lable for downloading. The community created the content. I find this approach very interesting and a forebearer of things to come in the language learning world.

Livemocha and Buusu are other language learning communities. Though I’m not sure what exactly they offer.

English - Reading on Youtube

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Some English reading resources that are on Youtube

Beginners and Elementary

Channel Appuseries

This Channel has lots of children stories and rhymes on video. There are pictures to help you understand and the text is read with a clear voice.

The Ginger Bread Man



Childrenworld2u

This channel has short videos conversations. The conversations use simple language.

Daily Conversation

World English Club

World English has everyday conversations on video. They only provide text.

Short conversations with text

Douglas King

This is from a book on rhymes. The meaning can be guessed from the pictures. The language flows easily and is good to read along to.



Teacher Phil

He has lots of videos on line. He reads and uses pictures to help with comprehension. He also describes the pictures.

Teacher Phil - vacations

Intermediate (possibly advance)

Easy Reader Jack

In this video Jack reads a book called 'Bicycle Shop Murder'. To read along with the video, you need to go to his website. Sound quality is not so good on this video.

Bicycle Shop Murder Video

Other articles for English Resources

Lingq English Reading Material

Easy English Videos - Watch and Learn

More Dutch Language Resources

There should be something for everyone here.


Dutch fun with Sesame Street or Sesamstraat. I find this hilarious.



Talking Website

Dutch culture in Audio. The Rijksmuseum has many of its pages put into audio. The audio follows the words, so it’s pretty useful. The voice is a little metallic but it's a Dutch voice.

Rijksmuseum website education page

Children Stories

Audio only

Mixture of audio children stories

Story and Audio

These two websites should be really good. They have lots of children stories and the audio. Though, I have a problem with the site. I can’t get the audio to work with some of the stories. The one story that I did get the audio to work with, didn't match the story exactly.

Grimm stories

Andersen Stories

Sexy Dutch

A story about the most beautiful bottom in the Netherlands.

The most beautiful bum in the Netherlands

There’s also a video of a journalist who isn’t a bottom man but a breast man. He goes round looking for the perfect breasts.

Journalist looks for perfect breast.

Previous Dutch Resources

Easy Dutch Youtube Videos


Songs, TV for Dutch learners and more

English Resources - LingQ

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For English Learners (also Spanish, German, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Russian, Korean, Portuguese, Swedish and French)

There’s never been a better time to learn a language than now. We have access to more resources than ever before.

This video was a timely remember that LingQ has lots of listening and reading resources for English Learners.



Lucas Fischer Raymundo said that he didn’t know any English seven months ago but through listening, reading and reviewing he can now speak English comfortably.

To get access to LingQ resources you can join here

Join LingQ

Check out the site here

Welcome to LingQ

Your English gets better everyday

Chris

Dutch Language Resources.

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For me, finding language resources is one of the most frustrating things in language learning as I feel a lot of the time I’m just wasting my time.

For example, I like to listen to the language a lot but often I go to websites and there’s no listening or very little.

So here’s a list Dutch resources I’ve been using or come across. I have a preference for Dutch only material and most of the material is TV or visual.

Taalklas TV show episode 1-12

Taalklas is a TV programme for immigrants learning Dutch. Here they have the full length programme, which are about 20 mins long. They consist of an opening sketch, vocab section, a singing sketch and some grammar. Each programme is based on a theme, i.e. the house. The programme is Dutch only.

Taalklas website

Taalklas also have their own website. You need to ‘registreren’, which is simple. You write your name and they’ll give you a pass number. This website compliments the TV show by also having exercises relating to each show. There are also 12 additional programmes and sketches on the site.

Links on 2BDutch website

More links. On this page I’ve used the following;

Woordwijzen – a five minute TV programme that introduces 5-6 new words each episode. Dutch only programme for learners.

Doe Maar Gewoon – 10-15 minutes long. This programme is about dos and don’ts in Dutch life. There are two sketches, the first shows an immigrant person/couple not following Dutch customs and the second shows them doing it right. Dutch only.

Lyrics training

But there’s only 4 Dutch songs here.

Netherlands TV

Links to some Dutch TV.

Learn Dutch with translation

I haven’t used this as it contains translations that are hard to avoid. Maybe useful for beginners.

Dutch TV with subtitles

Dutch TV with subtitles in Dutch and a choice of five different languages. Dutch TV themes include, children, political, history, comedy and music programmes. I found these useful as a lot of the videos have a Dutch focus.

Dutch Soap

If you’re into soaps, then this show might be good for you. They seem to upload the full show onto Youtube.

This is not an exhaustive list. There must be lots of quality Dutch material out there. You just have to have the patience and look.

I hope this list gets you started. A lot of the links are from the 2BDutch website. I’m sure that Youtube has a lot of potential too.



If you know any cool Dutch resources, please let me know in the comments.

Doo-i