E.O. Wilson’s Olive Branch: The Creation

in Books, Religion | October 28th, 2006

A world renowned biol­o­gist, devot­ed Dar­win­ist, and unabashed sec­u­lar human­ist, Har­vard’s E.O. Wil­son has tak­en an intrigu­ing reli­gious turn with his lat­est work, “The Cre­ation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth.” A Bap­tist by upbring­ing, Wil­son offers lit­er­al­ly a ser­mon addressed to Amer­i­ca’s large and grow­ing evan­gel­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty. The essence of the mes­sage is sim­ple: We might have our polit­i­cal and intel­lec­tu­al dif­fer­ences, but, when it comes to staving off envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter, we need to put our sim­mer­ing dif­fer­ences aside and work togeth­er to solve a prob­lem that affects us all. We need to save God’s cre­ation. If you con­sid­er the divide between red and blue Amer­i­ca, you’d fig­ure that Wilson’s over­ture would fall on deaf ears. But, as Wil­son tells it on NPR, it’s any­thing but the case, and the first signs sug­gest that the cul­ture wars aren’t blind­ing either side from the much big­ger issues at stake.

Recent reviews:

Wash­ing­ton Post: “Sci­ence and Sal­va­tion”

New York Times: “God is Green”

The Chris­t­ian Post “Heed­ing Edward O. Wil­son”

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Free Language Lessons

in Language Lessons | October 1st, 2006

 

How to learn lan­guages for free? This col­lec­tion fea­tures lessons in 40 lan­guages, includ­ing Span­ish, French, Eng­lish, Man­darin, Ital­ian, Russ­ian and more. Down­load audio lessons to your com­put­er or mp3 play­er and you’re good to go.

Ara­bic

Book­mark our free Ara­bic lessons sec­tion.

Bul­gar­i­an

Cata­lan

  • One Minute Cata­lan iTunes Free — Feed
    • A good way to get going with a lan­guage still spo­ken by some 12 mil­lion peo­ple, many liv­ing in North­east Spain.

Chi­nese

  • Real Chi­nese - Web Site
    • Pre­sent­ed by the BBC. A live­ly intro­duc­tion to Man­darin Chi­nese in 10 short parts with video clips from the Real Chi­nese TV series.
  • Begin­ner’s Chi­nese iTunes Free
    • Intro­duc­to­ry audio lessons pro­vid­ed by the Open Uni­ver­si­ty.
  • Chi­nese Learn Online iTunes Free — Feed
    • A dia­logue-based intro­duc­tion to Man­darin Chi­nese. Load the lessons on your mp3 play­er and get up the Chi­nese curve.
  • Chi­nese Lessons with Serge Mel­nyk iTunes Free -Feed
    • Week­ly lessons in Man­darin that get very strong reviews from iTunes users..
  • Chinesepod.com iTunes Free -Feed
    • A series of well-reviewed lessons that will let you learn Man­darin on your own terms.
  • CSL­Pod iTunes Free -Feed
    • Here, native Man­darin speak­ers teach you Chi­nese as a sec­ond lan­guage. Audio and tran­scripts are avail­able on the web­site. The lessons also place an empha­sis on under­stand­ing Chi­nese cul­ture.
  • iMandarinPod.com iTunes Free -Feed
    • This series of lessons teach­es Chi­nese by talk­ing about Chi­nese cul­ture or what is hap­pen­ing today in Chi­na. More advanced than oth­ers.
  • Man­darin Chi­nese Feed — Web Site
    • 10 Lessons by the US Peace Corps. Make sure you vis­it the site and down­load the pdf that accom­pa­nies the lessons.
  • Man­darin Chi­nese Char­ac­ters iTunes Free
    • Cre­at­ed by Emory Uni­ver­si­ty, this series of video lessons will help you draw sev­er­al char­ac­ters and num­bers.
  • Man­darin in Chi­na Web Site
    • Lessons cour­tesy of the US Peace Corps
  • News in Slow Chi­nese iTunes Free — Web Site
    • Designed for inter­me­di­ate Man­darin speak­ers. Improve your lan­guage skills by lis­ten­ing to world news deliv­ered in slow­ly spo­ken words.
  • Num­bers and Rad­i­cals iTunes Free
    • Emory Uni­ver­si­ty teach­es you the prop­er form for writ­ing num­bers and rad­i­cals. In Video.
  • One Minute Man­darin iTunes Free — Feed
    • A quick way to cov­er the very basics…
  • Pop­up Chi­nese iTunes Free — Feed
    • Offers lessons for begin­ners and also stu­dents at inter­me­di­ate and advanced lev­els. In addi­tion to lan­guage lessons, Pop­up Chi­nese pro­vides anno­tat­ed short sto­ries, HSK test prep mate­ri­als and a vari­ety of speak­ing and lis­ten­ing exer­cis­es. They broad­cast out of Bei­jing, and all voice actors speak the stan­dard north­ern dialect.
  • Sur­vival Chi­nese iTunes Free — Feed
    • Learn the phras­es you need to get by while trav­el­ing in Chi­na.
  • World Learn­er Chi­nese iTunes Free — Feed
    • Anoth­er in the mix of pos­si­bil­i­ties.

Dan­ish

  • Dare to Dan­ish iTunes Free
    • This is not your usu­al series of lan­guage lessons. Here, a “dirty Dane” teach­es you “stu­pid phras­es and more.”
  • One Minute Dan­ish iTunes Free — Feed-
    • We get a lot of requests (believe it or not) for Dan­ish. So here’s anoth­er use­ful primer cre­at­ed by the One Minute series.

Dutch

  • Lau­ra Speaks Dutch iTunes Free
    • Lessons that will help you trav­el to Hol­land. It’s worth check­ing out the accom­pa­ny­ing web site.
  • Learn Dutch iTunes Free
    • Cul­tur­al­ly rel­e­vant lessons that are easy to lis­ten to.

Eng­lish

  • Amer­i­can Eng­lish Speech - Web — The OLI Amer­i­can Eng­lish Dialect course from Carnegie Mel­lon sup­plies the nec­es­sary rein­force­ment of dialec­ti­cal struc­ture, audio, pro­duc­tion tech­nique and pho­net­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion for each sound.
  • 6 Minute Eng­lish iTunes Free — Down­loads — Web Site
    • Learn and prac­tice use­ful Eng­lish with the BBC.
  • Bet­ter @ Eng­lish iTunes Free — Feed
    • Focus­es on con­ver­sa­tion­al Eng­lish, with an empha­sis on idioms and slang.
  • Busi­ness Eng­lish iTunes Free
    • Learn the Eng­lish you will need to func­tion effec­tive­ly in an Amer­i­can busi­ness envi­ron­ment.
  • Effort­less Eng­lish iTunes Free Feed
    • It gets sol­id reviews.
  • Eng­lish as a Sec­ond Lan­guage iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • A very well liked col­lec­tion of ESL lessons. Over 100 episodes in the col­lec­tion.
  • Eng­lish in the Real World - iTunes Free
    • The focus here is on the busi­ness world and things finan­cial.
  • Eng­lish for Span­ish Speak­ers (’Por Fin Aprende Ingles’) iTunes Free Feed
    • Si ust­ed haya asis­ti­do al menos a un cur­so de ingles, y ust­ed nece­si­ta la opor­tu­nidad de escuchar al ingles y hablar el ingles, entonces ‘Por Fin Aprende Ingles’ es el pod­cast per­fec­to para ust­ed. Pre­sen­ta­do por Car­la Staufert-Sauvi­er, una pro­fe­so­ra de Mex­i­co, y Jade Lindquist, una pro­fe­so­ra de los EE UU.
  • ESL Busi­ness News iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • A week­ly wrap of inter­na­tion­al busi­ness news read in slow, clear Eng­lish. Lis­ten to the broad­cast and fol­low along in the accom­pa­ny­ing script.
  • Gram­mar Girl iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Gram­mar Girl pro­vides short, friend­ly tips to improve your writ­ing. Whether Eng­lish is your first lan­guage or your sec­ond lan­guage, these gram­mar, punc­tu­a­tion, style, and busi­ness tips will make you a bet­ter and more suc­cess­ful writer.
  • Speak­ing Eng­lish iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • 100+ lessons focus­ing on Eng­lish pro­nun­ci­a­tion and vocab­u­lary.
  • The Eng­lish We Speak - iTunes Free — Web Site
    • Each week, the BBC looks at phras­es used in the Eng­lish lan­guage.
  • Tu Ingles! iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • “Tu Ingles” is designed to help Span­ish-speak­ers improve their ear for Eng­lish. The week­ly pro­gram fea­tures drills of verb con­ju­ga­tion, inter­views, advice about idioms, and excerpts of speech­es and oth­er record­ed spo­ken mate­r­i­al from famous Eng­lish speak­ers.

Book­mark our free Eng­lish lessons sec­tion.

Esperan­to

  • Esperan­to-Lecionoj Feed Web Site
    • These lessons will help you become famil­iar with Esperan­to, a pure­ly inter­na­tion­al lan­guage.

Finnish

  • Spe­cial Finnish Feed Web Site
    • For lis­ten­ers with some com­mand of Finnish YLE Radio Fin­land offers dai­ly broad­casts in “Spe­cial Finnish”. The five minute broad­casts cov­er items of cur­rent inter­est. To ease under­stand­ing, we sim­pli­fy the lan­guage and slow down the deliv­ery. Some gram­mat­i­cal forms are not used at all. The lev­el of Finnish used is planned to match the expect­ed abil­i­ty to under­stand Finnish shown by per­sons in Lev­el Two Lan­guage Com­mand (ofFinnish) as defined by the Coun­cil of Europe.”

French

  • French in Action Free Web Site
    • Pro­duced by Yale Uni­ver­si­ty, these video lessons uses the sto­ry­line of an Amer­i­can stu­dent and a young French­wom­an’s adven­tures in Paris to teach the lan­guage.
  • French 1 & French 2 from Carnegie Mel­lon — Web Site
    • The French cours­es are intro­duc­to­ry, inter­ac­tive video-based cours­es intend­ed for use by uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents and inde­pen­dent learn­ers on the Inter­net. 
  • Ma France Web Site
    • The BBC offers 24 video lessons that will teach you French.
  • Easy French Poet­ry iTunes Free
    • A French as a sec­ond lan­guage pro­gram, using poet­ry as a top­ic for dis­cus­sion using every­day con­ver­sa­tion­al French.
  • French for Begin­ners iTunes Free Feed
    • Fun, effec­tive lessons for begin­ners. Pro­vid­ed by the French Ecole.
  • FrenchPod.com iTunes Free Feed
    • A series of well-reviewed lessons that will let you learn French on your own terms. Lessons are accom­pa­nied by text expan­sion exer­cis­es and oth­er tutor­ing aids.
  • Le Jour­nal en français facile iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Night­ly news from RFI pre­sent­ed in slow­ly spo­ken French to assist you with your com­pre­hen­sion.
  • Learn French iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • A well-reviewed series of lessons for begin­ners and those who want to brush up on their French.
  • Learn French with Cof­fee Break French iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • The pro­duc­ers of the very pop­u­lar Cof­fee Break Span­ish now offer a pro­gram that will teach you French.
  • Learn French with Dai­ly Lessons iTunes Free Feed
    • These lessons are brought to you by French teach­ers from Paris. They are best suit­ed for those who already have some begin­ning French under their belts.
  • Mali French Feed Web Site
    • The Peace Corps teach­es you some of the French spo­ken in Mali.
  • News in Slow French iTunes Free Web Site
    • Pro­gram dis­cuss­es the Week­ly News, French gram­mar, and French expres­sions in sim­pli­fied French at a slow pace.
  • Talk French Web Site
    • A live­ly intro­duc­tion to French pre­sent­ed by the BBC.
  • The French Pod Class iTunes Free
    • A very pop­u­lar col­lec­tion that teach­es stu­dents the French lan­guage and dif­fer­ent facets of French cul­ture.
  • Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas: Fran­cais inter­ac­t­if iTunes Free — Web Site
    • UT pro­vides a series of inter­ac­tive vocab­u­lary lessons. Media can be down­loaded from the site.

Book­mark our free French lessons sec­tion.

Gael­ic

  • One Minute Gael­ic — iTunes Free — Feed
    • Get a quick ground­ing in the basics…

Ger­man

  • Deutsch — warum nicht?
  • Slow­ly Spo­ken News Feed
    • Deutsche Welle pro­vides a night­ly news broad­cast in Ger­man that’s spo­ken slow­ly so that you can work on your com­pre­hen­sion.
  • Talk Ger­man - Web Site
    • A live­ly intro­duc­tion to Ger­man by the BBC. Pre­sent­ed in ten short parts.
  • Deutsch — Ler­nen - Text
    • 10 Ger­man lessons for total begin­ners and 24 Ger­man gram­mar lessons. No audio; text only.
  • Ger­man­Pod 101 iTunes Free — Feed
    • Offers mate­ri­als for begin­ners, inter­me­di­ate and advanced.
  • Ger­man Podcast.de iTunes Free — Web Site
  • GerG­er­man­Gram­mar iTunes Free — Feed — Web Site
    • Ger­man gram­mar lessons aimed at Amer­i­can stu­dents.
  • Ler­nen Wir Deutsch iTunes Free — Feed — Web Site
    • Pre­sent­ed in video, these “vod­casts” get high marks for being not only edu­ca­tion­al but also very enter­tain­ing.
  • MyDailyPhrase.com iTunes Free — Feed
    • Learn Ger­man phrase by phrase over a course of 20 weeks. Lessons cov­er all the lan­guage you need to know to get by on a vis­it to a Ger­man-speak­ing coun­try. This series is put togeth­er by the same peo­ple cre­at­ed the pop­u­lar series “Cof­fee Break Span­ish.”
  • One Minute Ger­man iTunes Free — Feed
    • Pre­sent­ed by the Radio Lin­gua Net­work
  • Slow Ger­man iTunes Free — Feed — Web Site
    • Annik Rubens reads slow­ly and clear­ly from parts of her pop­u­lar pro­gram, Sleep­less in Munich (Schaf­los in Munchen).

Book­mark our free Ger­man lessons sec­tion.

Greek

  • Learn­ing Greek iTunes Free Web Site
    • From the Hel­lenic Amer­i­can Union, these lessons will teach stu­dents Mod­ern Greek. For those who already have some foun­da­tion in the lan­guage.

Hebrew

Hin­di

  • Hindi­Pod 101 — iTunes Web Site
    • Learn Hin­di with fun, inter­est­ing and cul­tur­al­ly rel­e­vant lessons that are easy to lis­ten to.
  • I Speak Hin­di iTunes - Feed Web Site
    • Cov­er­s­essen­tial words and phras­es that you need for your trip to India. There are also Begin­ner Hin­di lessons for those that want to seri­ous­ly start to learn the lan­guage.
  • Learn Hin­di from Bol­ly­wood Movies iTunes Free Feed
    • This looks like a fun approach to learn­ing a lan­guage.
  • Namaste Dosti — Learn Hin­di iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • There are few options when it comes to learn­ing Hin­di so the author decid­ed to fill the void.

Hun­gar­i­an

Ice­landic

  • Ice­landic Online - Web Site
    • Cre­at­ed by Uni­ver­si­ty of Ice­land. The lessons use var­i­ous media — text, flash­cards, videos and so on. Lets you track your progress. Avail­able up to expert lev­el. (Requires reg­is­tra­tion.)

Indone­sian

  • Learn­ing Indone­sian iTunes Free Feed
    • A com­plete online Indone­sian course geared towards devel­op­ing con­ver­sa­tion­al flu­en­cy in the Indone­sian Lan­guage.

Irish

Ital­ian

  • Talk Ital­ian — Web Site
    • A live­ly intro­duc­tion to Ital­ian pre­sent­ed by the BBC.
  • ItalianPod.com iTunes Free Feed
    • A series of well-reviewed lessons that will let you learn Ital­ian on your own terms.
  • LearnItalianPod.com iTunes Free Feed
    • A series of Ital­ian lan­guage lessons that will get you up and run­ning. I have per­son­al­ly used them and found them effec­tive.
  • Let’s Speak Ital­ian iTunes Free Feed
    • This col­lec­tion will help you learn Ital­ian in small, man­age­able 5‑minute bites.
  • MyDailyPhrase.com iTunes Free
    • Learn Ital­ian step by step over a course of 20 weeks. Lessons cov­er all the lan­guage you need to know to get by on a vis­it to a Ital­ian-speak­ing coun­try. Cre­at­ed by the same peo­ple who put togeth­er the pop­u­lar series “Cof­fee Break Span­ish.”
  • World Lan­guages Pod­cast­ing — Ital­ian iTunes Free Feed
    • It’s admit­ted­ly a bit of an untra­di­tion­al way to learn Ital­ian. Lets you lis­ten to con­ver­sa­tions about Aus­tralian cul­ture in Ital­ian.

Book­mark our free Ital­ian lessons sec­tion.

Japan­ese

  • Japan­ese Class (Video) iTunes Free
    • These video­casts from the Kyoto Japan­ese Lan­guage School get strong reviews. They use video effec­tive­ly to demon­strate how to write in Japan­ese.
  • JapanesePod101.com iTunes Free Feed
    • Over 100 qual­i­ty lessons aimed at the begin­ner. Users give it high marks.
  • Kan­ji Char­ac­ters iTunes Free
    • Learn the prop­er form and stroke for sev­er­al impor­tant Kan­ji char­ac­ters. From Emory Uni­ver­si­ty.
  • Learn Japan­ese iTunes Free Feed
    • Japan­cast teach­es Japan­ese using lessons from ani­me and every­day con­ver­sa­tion.
  • Learn Japan­ese Sym­bols iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • These lessons teach stu­dents how to work with Japan­ese sym­bols, such as Kan­ji, Hira­gana, and Katakana.
  • Sur­vival Phras­es iTunes Free Feed
    • Learn the must-know phras­es for trav­el­ing in Japan.

Book­mark our free Japan­ese lessons sec­tion.

Kore­an

  • KoreanClass101 — iTunes Free
    • Fea­tures dai­ly audio lessons, video lessons, word of the day, etc.
  • Kore­an Lan­gauge Adven­ture - Web Site
    • These lessons have been devel­oped in the theme of trav­el and adven­ture, allow­ing learn­ers to take a vir­tu­al jour­ney to Seoul and its near­by pop­u­lar tourist des­ti­na­tions.
  • Kore­an Learn­ing for Cor­rec­tion Pro­nun­ci­a­tion - Web Site
  • Online Inter­me­di­ate Col­lege Kore­an — Web Site
  • Path­way to Kore­an: Begin­ning Spo­ken Kore­an from Zero — Web Site
    • Cre­at­ed by the Nation­al East Asian Lan­guages Resource Cen­ter at The Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty.
  • Sur­vival Phras­es iTunes Free Feed
    • Gets the phras­es that will get you by.
  • Talk to Me in Kore­an — iTunes Free — Web Site
    • Kore­an learn­ing made sim­ple and easy.

Latin

  • Night­ly News in Latin Web Site
    • “Nun­tii Lati­ni — News in Latin — is a week­ly review of world news in Clas­si­cal Latin, the only inter­na­tion­al broad­cast of its kind in the world, pro­duced by YLE, the Finnish Broad­cast­ing Com­pa­ny.
  • Lat­inum iTunes Free
    • The Latin Lan­guage Learn­ing pro­gram from Lon­don.

Lithuan­ian

Lux­em­bour­gish

  • One Minute Lux­em­bour­gish iTunes Free Feed
    • Anoth­er niche lan­guage cov­ered by the Radio Lin­gua Net­work.

Maori

  • Toku Reo Web Site
    • Learn Maori, the lan­guage of New Zealand’s indige­nous peo­ple. Although these lessons accom­pa­ny a tele­vi­sion pro­gramme that is cur­rent­ly run­ning, the essen­tial bits of the episodes are avail­able to be watched right here on this site. The course starts at square 1. Site includes video lessons. Anoth­er use­ful site for learn­ing the gram­mar can be found here.

Nor­we­gian

  • One Minute Nor­we­gian iTunes Free Feed
    • Learn Nor­we­gian in min­utes with the Radio Lin­gua Net­work.
  • Easy-to-Read News­pa­per Text
    • This is not audio, but it’s use­ful nonethe­less. A news­pa­per that helps you learn Nor­we­gian by using large fonts and basic lan­guage.

Pol­ish

  • One Minute Pol­ish iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Anoth­er help­ful audio series pro­vid­ed by the Radio Lin­gua Net­work.

Por­tuguese

  • Brazil­ian Pod­Class iTunes Free Feed Web Site
  • Brazil­ian Por­tuguese 101 — iTunes Video Free
    • 45 lessons by Seman­ti­ca.
  • Brazil­ian Por­tuguese Pro­nun­ci­a­tion — iTunes Free
    • Emory Uni­ver­si­ty presents audio & video for learn­ing the Brazil­ian Por­tuguese alpha­bet.
  • Ta Fal­a­do: Brazil­ian Por­tuguese Pro­nun­ci­a­tion for Span­ish Speak­ers iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Cre­at­ed by the Texas Lan­guage Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­ter in the Depart­ment of Span­ish and Por­tuguese at UT-Austin.
  • Talk Por­tuguese Web Site
    • A video intro­duc­tion to the lan­guage in 11 short parts with audio clips for key phras­es.

Roman­ian

  • One Minute Roman­ian iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Quick lessons by the cre­ators of the One Minute lan­guage series.

Russ­ian

  • A Spoon­ful of Russ­ian iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Rec­om­mend­ed by our read­ers.
  • A Taste of Russ­ian iTunes Free Web Site
    • This “isn’t a bor­ing Gram­mar course, it is a real chat on dif­fer­ent top­ics which can be heard in every­day life. It is a chance to lis­ten to the native speak­ers talk­ing at home, at work, at the shop, at the par­ty, etc.”
  • Busi­ness Russ­ian iTunes Free Web Site
    • Pre­sent­ed by the UCLA Cen­ter for World Lan­guages, this series teach­es stu­dents the essen­tials of Russ­ian busi­ness com­mu­ni­ca­tion.
  • Every­day Russ­ian iTunes Free
    • Every­day prac­tice for Russ­ian lan­guage learn­ers of all lev­els.
  • Russ­ian (Kazahk) Feed Web Site
    • No Borat jokes. Learn some Kazahk style Russ­ian from the Peace Corps. Be sure to down­load the accom­pa­ny­ing PDF file.
  • Russ­ian Lit­er­a­ture iTunes Free Web Site
    • Also pre­sent­ed by UCLA, the lessons help users improve their com­pre­hen­sion and vocab­u­lary by lis­ten­ing to excerpts from Tol­stoy, Gogol, Chekhov and oth­er Russ­ian lit­er­ary greats.
  • One Minute Russ­ian iTunes Free Feed Web Site
  • RussianPod101 iTunes Free Web Site
    • Helps you learn Russ­ian and Russ­ian cul­ture at your con­ve­nience.

Book­mark our free Russ­ian lessons sec­tion.

Sign Lan­guage

  • Amer­i­can Sign Lan­guage — Web Site
    • Lessons that will get you start­ed with the sign lan­guage preva­lent in North Amer­i­ca.

Span­ish

  • Des­ti­nos: An Intro­duc­tion to Span­ish Web Site
    • This telen­ov­ela, or Span­ish soap opera, immers­es stu­dents in every­day sit­u­a­tions and teach­es speak­ing, lis­ten­ing, and com­pre­hen­sion skills in Span­ish.
  • Mi Vida Loca Web Site
    • An immer­sive video mys­tery set in Spain to help you learn sim­ple Span­ish. Cre­at­ed by the BBC.
  • Cody’s Cuen­tos iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • A Span­ish-lan­guage series of lessons focus­es of clas­sic fairy tales and leg­ends. The fact that you prob­a­bly already know the sto­ry in Eng­lish will aid your com­pre­hen­sion of under­stand­ing the tale in Span­ish.
  • Cof­fee Break Span­ish iTunes Free Web Site
    • Learn Span­ish in a low-key, effec­tive way. Cur­rent­ly the #2 over­all favorite on iTunes Free.
  • Final­ly Learn Span­ish — Beyond the Basics iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • If you’ve had some Span­ish class­es and you need expe­ri­ence lis­ten­ing to and speak­ing the lan­guage, then Final­ly Learn Span­ish has lessons for you.
  • Insta Span­ish Lessons iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Week­ly com­pre­hen­sion and gram­mar exer­cis­es for stu­dents of all lev­els. One of the more pop­u­lar pro­grams on iTunes.
  • Learn Span­ish at SpanishPod101 iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Cre­at­ed by teams from 5 Span­ish speak­ing coun­tries.
  • Learn Span­ish Sur­vival Guide iTunes Free Feed
    • If you’re plan­ning a trip to a Span­ish speak­ing coun­try, and if you don’t know the lan­guage, this will help get you up to speed.
  • Learn to Speak Span­ish iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Learn to speak Span­ish in just 15 min­utes per day.
  • Lin­gusTV iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • A unique entry into the instruc­tion­al lan­guage lessons are­na. It’s an edu­ca­tion­al video series done in the form of a tele­vi­sion sit-com (sit­u­a­tion com­e­dy), laugh track includ­ed. While the actors speak sole­ly in Span­ish, Span­ish sub­ti­tles are pro­vid­ed and expla­na­tions of vocab­u­lary and gram­mar points are pro­vid­ed on the web site.
  • Med­ical Span­ish for Health­care Providers - Web Site
    • This site is pre­sent­ed as a free med­ical Span­ish immer­sion, with vocab­u­lary includ­ing greet­ings, his­to­ry, exam­i­na­tion, and every­day speech, all with trans­la­tion and audio. It is designed to be help­ful for a vari­ety of med­ical per­son­nel. Cre­at­ed by a gen­er­al sur­geon turned Span­ish teacher.
  • Notes in Span­ish iTunes Free — Feed — Web Site
    • Pro­duced by Ben Cur­tis and Mari­na Diez, a hus­band-and-wife team out of Madrid, Spain. Ben is British and Mari­na is Span­ish and they too have built quite a large fol­low­ing for their con­ver­sa­tion­al Span­ish lessons, (for begin­ners, inter­me­di­ates and advanced stu­dents), which promise to teach lis­ten­ers “real Span­ish” the way it is actu­al­ly spo­ken every day in Spain.
  • One Minute Span­ish iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Cov­ers the absolute basics of Span­ish, focus­ing on the pro­nun­ci­a­tion used in most parts of Spain.
  • One Minute Latin Amer­i­can Span­ish iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Same as above but focus­es on the Span­ish spoked across South Amer­i­ca.
  • Rojas Span­ish Lan­guage iTunes Free Feed
    • “No Eng­lish is spo­ken here. These lessons are for the Inter­me­di­ate and Advanced Span­ish Speak­er who would like to sharp­en their Span­ish skills. The fine points of the lan­guage will be pre­sent­ed and explored through a vari­ety of top­ics to include; music, his­to­ry, cul­ture, food.”
  • Span­ish­Pod iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • A series of well-reviewed lessons that will let you learn Span­ish on your own terms.
  • SpanishPod101 iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Dis­tin­guish­es itself from oth­er cur­rent­ly avail­able pro­grams by pro­vid­ing lessons that fea­ture dif­fer­ent accents from around the Span­ish-speak­ing world. Dia­logues are repeat­ed mul­ti­ple times and an Eng­lish trans­la­tion is pro­vid­ed, to fur­ther aid learn­ing.
  • Span­ish Lessons for Begin­ners iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Lessons record­ed by native Span­ish speak­ers with clear expla­na­tions in Eng­lish.
  • Voic­es en Español iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Geared toward more advanced stu­dents, this series fea­tures an inter­view in Span­ish with a native speak­er from Spain, Latin Amer­i­ca or the U.S. It’s also accom­pa­nied by a bilin­gual blog that includes week­ly Span­ish gram­mar tips.

Book­mark our free Span­ish lessons sec­tion.

Swahili

  • Mwana Sim­ba — Web  Site
    • This mul­ti­me­dia site fea­tures, among oth­er things, 55 chap­ters of gram­mar lessons. All lessons are geared toward begin­ners.

Swedish

  • For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Basic Course Web Site
    • Offers 16 units of audio, each intro­duc­ing you to basic dia­logue and sen­tences.
  • Klar­text Feed Web site
    • News in easy-to-under­stand Swedish.
  • Learn Swedish with Swedish­LingQ iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Our read­ers have been wait­ing for Swedish lessons to come along. Here it final­ly is.
  • Swedish Sur­vival Phras­es iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • From the mak­ers of the Sur­vival Phras­es series.

Taga­log

  • Viloria.com Pinoy iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • Learn to speak Taga­log to give you the advan­tage when you trav­el to the Philip­pines.

Thai

  • Thai Web Site
    • Lessons from the US Peace Corps
  • Learn Thai: Free Eng­lish Thai Audi­olearn­ing Course iTunes Video - Web Site
    • Appar­ent­ly the lessons are good, but they’ve been hav­ing some tech­ni­cal prob­lems and not all lessons are always avail­able.
  • Thai Alpha­bet - iTunes Free
    • Emory Uni­ver­si­ty presents flash­cards for rec­og­niz­ing let­ters in the Thai alpha­bet.
  • Thai Sur­vival Phras­es — iTunes — Feed
    • Cov­ers the basics.

Turk­ish

  • One Minute Turk­ish — iTunes
    • A quick primer.

Ukrain­ian

  • Ukrain­ian Web Site
    • More lessons from the US Peace Corps.

Urdu

  • Intro­duc­tion to Urdu Alpha­bet — iTunes Free
    • Emory Uni­ver­si­ty offers a quick primer on the Urdu alpha­bet and pro­nun­ci­a­tion.

Viet­namese

  • Sur­vival Phras­es iTunes Free Feed Web Site
    • You get the gist from the title. Learn here some phras­es that will help you sur­vive in Viet­nam.

Welsh

  • Say Some­thing in Welsh iTunes Free — Web Site
    • 25 half-hour lessons avail­able for free.

Yid­dish

Gen­er­al How-To

  • The WWW Vir­tu­al Library: Inter­na­tion­al Affairs Resources Web Site
    • This web­site direc­to­ry, which is part of the WWW Vir­tu­al Library Sys­tem, fea­tures over 2000 care­ful­ly select­ed, anno­tat­ed links in 37 inter­na­tion­al affairs cat­e­gories. The site offers a great way to under­stand our chang­ing world, but it also includes its own sec­tion of lan­guage learn­ing resources, and it includes sec­tions ded­i­cat­ed to Span­ish, French and Ger­man.
  • Teach Your­self a For­eign Lan­guage iTunes Free
    • This pro­gram dis­cuss­es how to go about learn­ing a for­eign lan­guage on your own. Some peo­ple liked it, some didn’t. Check it out and judge for your­self.

    Our col­lec­tion of for­eign lan­guage lessons has been fea­tured in the New York Times, Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty’s Human­i­ties Resource Cen­ter, and The New York Times again, and yet once again in The New York Times.

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Music Podcast Collection — Classical, Jazz, and Rock

in Music | October 1st, 2006

Clas­si­cal

  • An Inti­mate Tour Through the Music of Yo-Yo Ma iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Each episode of this pod­cast delves into the his­to­ry of his career, and what led him to record each of the tracks of his cur­rent release Appas­sion­a­to.
  • Bach Pod­cast from Magnatune.com iTunes Feed Web Site
    • 60 free min­utes of Bach.
  • Bach Fes­ti­val of Philadel­phia Feed Web Site
    • Live per­for­mances of J.S. Bach works per­formed by var­i­ous artists for The Bach Fes­ti­val of Philadel­phia.
  • Boston Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra Con­ser­va­to­ry iTunes Feed Web Site
    • This edu­ca­tion­al pod­cast gives you an inside look at the sym­pho­ny. Cur­rent­ly you will find a two sea­son overview and record­ings of Beethoven and Arnold Schoen­berg.
  • Clas­si­cal Per­for­mance iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Clas­si­cal music per­for­mances from WGBH’s Stu­dio One in Boston.
  • Com­posers Date­books iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Amer­i­can Pub­lic Media’s Com­posers Date­book informs, engages, and enter­tains with time­ly infor­ma­tion about com­posers of the past and present.
  • Dan­marks Radio — Mozart Sym­phonies Feed Web Site
    • For the cel­e­bra­tion of Mozart’s 250th anniver­sary, Den­mark radio offered pod­casts of nine Mozart sym­phonies by the Dan­ish Radio Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra. Since the web site is in Dan­ish, your best bet is to access these high qual­i­ty MP3’s through the feed.
  • Deutsche Welle
    • Beethoven­fest iTunes Feed Web Site
      • Beethoven’s most famous sym­phonies per­formed by excel­lent young orches­tras and new com­po­si­tions by award-win­ning com­posers.
    • Clas­si­cal Mas­ter­pieces iTunes Feed Web Site
      • Six mas­ter com­posers, six sym­phonies, a star con­duc­tor and a lead­ing orches­tra are the main ingre­di­ents of this remark­able musi­cal feast.
  • Gramo­phone Pod­cast Feed Web Site
    • A month­ly win­dow into the world’s most author­i­ta­tive clas­si­cal music mag­a­zine, fea­tur­ing an overview of the best releas­es, news, exclu­sive inter­views with lead­ing fig­ures from the music world, and lots of great music.
  • New Clas­si­cal Tracks with Julie Amach­er iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Host Julie Amach­er pro­vides an in-depth explo­ration of a new clas­si­cal music release each week.
  • Nax­os Clas­si­cal Music Spot­light iTunes Feed Web Site
    • A lead­ing clas­si­cal music label looks at new releas­es, as well as the per­form­ers and com­posers who make Nax­os’ record­ings.
  • NPR Music iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Reviews, musi­cian inter­views, live record­ings from Morn­ing Edi­tion, All Things Con­sid­ered, and oth­er NPR pro­grams.
  • Phil­har­mo­nia Orches­tra Video Pod­casts iTunes Feed Web Site
    • A month­ly series of video pod­casts takes you behind the scenes with the Phil­har­mo­nia Orches­tra, includ­ing inter­views with con­duc­tors, soloists and lis­ten­ing guides to famous pieces from the clas­si­cal reper­toire.
  • Radio Swe­den: Mozart iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Swedish Radio has launched a Mozart Pod­cast to cel­e­brate Mozart’s 250th birth­day. They’ve been pod­cast­ing their own record­ings from the 1940–1950s of Mozart’s operas.
  • The Con­cert iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and more from the Isabel­la Stew­art Gard­ner muse­um in Boston.
  • The Music of Mas­ter­works iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Sony BMG Mas­ter­works pro­vides pod­casts fea­tur­ing inter­views with artists and upcom­ing releas­es.
  • Wag­n­er Operas Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Fea­tures, among oth­er things, per­for­mances from the Bayreuth Fes­ti­val.

Jazz & Blues

  • Bend­ing Cor­ners Feed Web Site
    • Bend­ing­Corners explores the groove with­in: acid jazz, afro-beat, bop, cool jazz, cos­mic jazz, dub, down­tem­po, elec­tro-jazz, fusion, future jazz, groove jazz, jaz­za­tron­ic, jazz dance, jazz-funk, jazz-rock, kozmi­groov, modal, phu­sion, pro­gres­sive, mod­ern, nu-jazz, soul-jazz, spir­i­tu­al, and world.
  • Brook­lyn Jazz Under­ground iTunes Web Site Blog
    • A pod­cast look­ing at the Brook­lyn jazz scene. Part music, part inter­view.
  • Chris­t­ian McBride Pod­casts iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Talks with and pefor­mances by bassist Chris­t­ian McBride. Includes some video clips.
  • Detroit Jazz Stage iTunes Feed Web Site
    • A month­ly pod­cast fea­tur­ing the best in the Detroit jazz scene.
  • In the Groove, Jazz and Beyond iTunes Feed Web Site
    • From Jazz mas­ters of past and present to emerg­ing new artists per­form­ing hard-bop jazz and fusion. Fea­tur­ing Inde­pen­dent Jazz artists from around the world. A pop­u­lar pod­cast.
  • Jazz Cor­ner Innerviews Feed Web Site
    • Jazzcorner.com innerviews are vignettes with insight­ful com­men­tary, inter­est­ing sound bites and lots of great music with great jazz mas­ters and up and com­ing musi­cians. Each pod­cast ranges in time from 4 min­utes to more than an hour.
  • Jazz in Chica­go iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Inter­views and infor­ma­tion about the jazz scene in Chica­go.
  • Jazz Pod­cast from Mag­natune iTunes Feed Web Site
    • 60 min­utes of straight, high qual­i­ty jazz.
  • NPR Piano Jazz Shorts iTunes Feed Web Site
    • For more than twen­ty-five years, pianist Mar­i­an McPart­land has wel­comed a stel­lar line-up of jazz artists for con­ver­sa­tion and impro­vi­sa­tion on her Peabody Award-win­ning pro­gram. Piano Jazz show­cas­es both acclaimed artists and up-and-com­ing per­form­ers.
  • Pat Methe­ny — The Song X Podu­men­tary iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Gui­tarist Pat Methe­ny explores his influ­ences, record­ings, music and more on this inti­mate pod­cast series.
  • Port­land Jazz Jams Pod­show iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Live jazz jams, inter­views with great play­ers, and instruc­tion­al mate­ri­als, all com­ing out of the Port­land jazz scene.
  • Son­ny Rollins Pod­cast iTunes Web Site
    • A 12-part video pod­cast series to be released in month­ly install­ments. It intro­duces Son­ny Rollins, a major Amer­i­can jazz fig­ure, to new lis­ten­ers.
  • Swing is in the Air iTunes Web Site
    • Although swing is some­thing of a focus here, this pod­cast com­ing out of Cana­da also looks at oth­er jazz forms.
  • The His­to­ry of Chica­go Blues iTunes Web Site
    • Nar­rat­ed by Bud­dy Guy, this enhanced and exten­sive pod­cast takes you on a tour (geo­graph­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal) of Chicago’s rich blues tra­di­tion.
  • The Jazz Suite Feed Web Site
    • This is a pod­cast ded­i­cat­ed to Jazz played by inde­pen­dent and indie artists that the major music labels have missed.
  • The Night Pas­sage Jazz Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
    • An Eng­lish-lan­guage pod­cast com­ing out of Rome, Italy.
  • The Tra­neu­men­tary iTunes Feed Web Site
    • A series of pod­casts fea­tur­ing the work of the jazz great, John Coltrane.

Rock

  • Beat­legs Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Fea­tures rare inter­views or behind the scenes clips, fol­lowed by a rare out­take or live per­for­mance that few have heard before.
  • Bea­t­les Minute iTunes Feed Web Site
    • A pod­cast com­ing out of Philadel­phia that gives you short, dai­ly tid­bits about the band.
  • Bob Dylan Pod­cast iTunes Web Site
    • Pat­ti Smith hosts music and con­ver­sa­tion about Bob Dylan. His friends, ear­ly influ­ences and col­lab­o­ra­tors dis­cuss their close rela­tion­ships with Dylan, the sto­ries behind his great­est songs and oth­er mem­o­rable moments of his career. Jour­nal­ists and biog­ra­phers add crit­i­cal insights and pro­vide his­tor­i­cal con­texts.
  • Bono: The Rolling Stone Inter­view iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Jann Wen­ner leads a long and wide-rang­ing inter­view with the lead singer of U2.
  • Elvis Costel­lo: The First Ten Years iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Elvis Costel­lo looks back at the begin­ning of his music career.
  • George Har­ri­son: Liv­ing in a Mate­r­i­al World iTunes
    • A look back at George Harrison’s 3rd solo album. Includes talks with artists who played on the album.
  • John Lennon: The Rolling Stone Inter­view iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Con­duct­ed by Jann Wen­ner (the founder of Rolling Stone Mag­a­zine) this famous 1970 inter­view with John Lennon was con­duct­ed short­ly after The Bea­t­les’ bit­ter breakup. Run­ning over 3 hours, it is one of Lennon’s most exten­sive inter­views, touch­ing not just on the breakup, but also on art and pol­i­tics, drugs, Yoko, pri­mal ther­a­py and more.
  • John Lennon: The Lost Lennon Tapes iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Orig­i­nal­ly pre­sent­ed by West­wood One in 1988, this pod­cast presents a col­lec­tion of Lennon’s pri­vate tapes — tapes that include ear­ly record­ings of The Bea­t­les, radio inter­views with John, demo tapes, chron­i­cles of the Dou­ble Fan­ta­sy record­ing ses­sions, and pri­vate moments at home.
  • Pet Sounds 40th Anniver­sary Pod­cast iTunes Web Site
    • The Beach Boys look back at their album that is con­sis­tent­ly con­sid­ered their finest and an impor­tant one in the rock tra­di­tion. The pod­cast includes 15 tracks.
  • Rolling Stone: Best New Bands (Video) iTunes
  • The Beach Boys: The Warmth of the Sun iTunes Web Site
    • Nar­rat­ed by The Beach Boys them­selves, this pod­casts looks at the band’s artistry and com­plex lega­cy.
  • The Elvis Pres­ley Pod­cast iTunes Web­site
    • This pod­cast, which fea­tures musi­cal excerpts and inter­views, revis­its the King’s unpar­al­leled musi­cal career.

Also see our col­lec­tion of Mp3 Music Blogs.

  • An Aquar­i­um Drunk­ard: Based in Los Ange­les, this eclec­tic audio blog “bridges the gap between con­tem­po­rary indie and vin­tage garage, psych-folk, coun­try, New Orleans funk, R&B, soul and every­thing that falls in between.”
  • Brook­lyn Veg­an: Here you get a New York City-cen­tric, most­ly-music blog that focus­es on report­ing music news, live show reviews, tour dates, and, yes, MP3’s.
  • Cacoph­o­nous: A clas­si­cal music MP3 blog.
  • Chrome­waves: Along with the rumi­na­tions of a self-con­fessed indie rock geek, you get an “MP3 of the Week” that fea­tures a ran­dom or not-so-ran­dom cov­er song.
  • Daytrot­ter: Gives you “exclu­sive, re-worked, alter­nate ver­sions of old songs and unre­leased tracks by some of your favorite bands and by a lot of your next favorite bands.”
  • Des­ti­na­tion: Out: A jazz blog focus­ing on rare or out-of-print music. Typ­i­cal­ly pub­lish­es twice a week, and leaves songs avail­able for about two weeks.
  • Dis­co­belle: A Swe­den-based music blog that posts sin­gle tracks and remix­es and occa­sion­al­ly exclu­sive mix­es from DJs all around the world.
  • Done Wait­ing: Part film, part music with MP3s.
  • Elbows: A meta col­lec­tion of great music blog posts, which col­lec­tive­ly pro­vides you a snap­shot of what’s going on in the new genre of audio/music blog­ging.
  • Fluxblog: One of the old­est and most com­mon­ly cit­ed MP3 blogs, this site posts two MP3s every week­day along with more relat­ed infor­ma­tion.
  • Goril­la vs. Bear: One of the big­gies worth check­ing out.
  • I Guess I’m Float­ing: A good music blog with a good sprin­kling of MP3s.
  • Idol­a­tor: Maybe this sum­ma­ry will help: “When the inter­net came, we over­threw the pasty white tastemak­ers, the duplic­i­tous music mar­keters and the man­u­fac­tured pop idols. And then they all came back. This is Idol­a­tor. We’re so dis­ap­point­ed.”
  • La Blo­gotheque: A well-regard­ed French lan­guage MP3 blog.
  • Large­heart­ed Boy: A “music blog fea­tur­ing dai­ly free and legal music down­loads as well as news from the worlds of music, lit­er­a­ture, and pop cul­ture.”
  • Marathon Packs: Writes about and lets you lis­ten to inter­est­ing songs, to para­phrase the sites self-descrip­tion. Keeps audio files post­ed for two weeks.
  • Moist­works: An audio blog start­ed in April 2004 (mean­ing it has a track record) that gets updat­ed Mon­day through Fri­day.
  • Motel De Moka: A dai­ly blog post­ing eclec­tic playlists, includ­ing indie rock, acoustics and ambi­ent.
  • My Old Ken­tucky Blog: What’s new and hot in indie rock, pop, folk and hip-hop.
  • Noth­ing But Green Lights: An MP3 blog that keeps track of indie, elec­tro, folk & pop, all from the UK. The site only posts tracks that the inter­net is giv­ing away for free, or ones that have been grant­ed per­mis­sion.
  • Prod­uct Shop NYC: Although not exclu­sive­ly an MP3 blog, you do get some MP3s worth your time here.
  • Said the Gramo­phone: Launched in 2003, the site is among the first MP3 blogs and it offers a dai­ly sam­pler of “real­ly good songs,” although all songs are removed with­in a week or two of post­ing. The blog comes out of Cana­da.
  • Six Eyes: An MP3 blog by Alan Williamson.
  • Skat­ter Brain: A most­ly indiepop music blog.
  • So Much Silence: MP3s a plen­ty.
  • Soul Crates: Your home for soul MP3s.
  • Stere­ogum: A pop­u­lar gos­sipy blog about the indie music scene. The site often posts MP3s of new music, plus offers record reviews, announces tour dates, and cov­ers music fes­ti­vals.
  • The Hype Machine: The Hype Machine tracks and aggre­gates a vari­ety of MP3 blogs. Anoth­er meta approach.
  • The Music Slut: A com­pre­hen­sive music blog with oodles of MP3s.
  • Trrill: Anoth­er good clas­si­cal music audio blog.
  • WFMU Beware of the Blog: An MP3 blog run by WFMU, an inde­pen­dent freeform radio sta­tion broad­cast­ing out of NYC.
  • Who Needs Radio?: We believe in music, not mon­ey. We’re here to keep your ears alive.
  • You Ain’t No Picas­so: A good music blog with a very nice blogroll and MP3s too.

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Science Podcast Collection

in Uncategorized | October 1st, 2006

Please vis­it this page at the fol­low­ing url:

http://www.openculture.com/weblog/2007/02/science_podcast.html

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Complete Podcast Collection — Fill Your Ipod

in Uncategorized | October 1st, 2006

Podcastimage100s of cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al pod­casts. Email a friend about Open
Cul­ture.

 Learn to Use Pod­casts — Buy a New iPod (Ama­zon)


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