Today is the best time for new Language, learners. Of course, I mean today’s Internet technology. Learning, of course, requires from you to make a big effort for it. Of course, if you know 2-3 languages learning another must be easier, also Languages are categorized by difficulty
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Language_Learning_Difficulty_for_English_Speakers.
I write this as a Russian learner, for my blog. I choose Russian as the language has/use 20% of Greek and English words (eg robot=робот=ροπότ). Also Russian is an important language for science and technology. According to a recent study, the number of publications in the sciences is highest for English, with Russian second (link).
The major teaching communication (with distance teacher) tool I use is the free Skype Internet messager [www.skype.com], of course, you may use similar free chat/messager tools like GoogleTalk, MSN, …etc but you must use an identical tool with a teacher. With Skype, you may have teacher-to-student or, teacher to students (group talk), free voice/text/video chat, or even screen sharing (Skype 5). With Skype, you may also send files to your talking partner… Email client programs also are used widely for communication and homework submission.
You can find a teacher easily online using special websites like
http://language-school-teachers.com and http://skype-language.com/. Here you register for free as a teacher or as a student saying the languages you speak and the current interested language to learn. Teachers then look for you, or you(as a student) may search/browse for teachers by the language they teach, the country they are located in, and so on. If you want group lessons which I do not like (by one-to-one talking you gain more and the teacher has to do only with you, although the cost is bigger in this case, not as in a group which the cost is shared) you may find friends locally or classmates or friends online (Facebook,…etc) to learn with you.
Surely exist online websites offering ready online classes with students from around the world, not having to set up the environment…
www.mgu-russian.com/programms/online-russian-course/en
www.primelanguageservices.com
(these also offer one-to-one Lessons).
Of course, exist other languages identical Sites, just search for “Skype online French lessons” or search the language-school-teachers.com or a similar site.
Considering the vast number of sites available today, there is more than enough good information to learn/read about grammar, most common words/verbs, starter points in a language,…etc, in text, voice, or video sometimes, and also quizzes, exercises to practice on, all is free. Also, you may find online, some complete ebooks in PDF format, I found 7 in “Learn Russian” (in English) but not all at the beginning level. Ebooks are paperbacks in electronic format.
As for real paperback books, there are teach-yourself materials or teacher assistance materials for any language online, just search your online bookstore or Google eg. “teach yourself Russian books”, or “Learn French books”. You may also find story books (eg novels or short stories) in your target language or search for books in a bookstore in that country language is spoken eg in a Russian bookstore if you look for Russian books, where also you may find all kinds of books, from science to technology to social science and so on. If you have difficulty with the language you may try Google Translate to translate the whole page to eg Russian->English, also if you click a link next page is translated automatically. You may also request a friend or teacher searching for a book for you or, even send you some books… The latter may be required for your language studies.
Online also you will find free access to online live or demand, radio or TV station programs, just search eg “Russian online radio stations”, or any other language. Of course, you must pass the beginner level for this. There are also online newspapers and magazines in any field in your target language, just always search eg. “Russian newspapers”. Sometimes preferred to find a website with a list of all newspapers by country like
www.world-newspapers.com. The same applies to magazines/journals although they may be listed together along with newspapers sometimes. Another Listing is https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/complete-index-of-newspapers-across-the-globe/
As you know on the Internet you can find almost anything, so here are some Learn a Language Tips guides
www.wikihow.com/Learn-Any-Language
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com (there’s and multi-language forum too here)
In the end, if you have questions and need answers but you do not know where to get them, you may post your question in a forum of your target language, just search Google “Russian language forum” register/confirm-Your-Email, and post it to the appropriate category. Just remember to choose “email me upon reply” or you may have to return to forum/myPosts to check for a reply manually.
Other Sites:
www.languageguide.org Have categories of similar items/icons with icon and spelling/pronunciation (voice)
http://imtranslator.com Text-to-speech voice in 10 languages, virtual keyboards in many more languages, dictionaries, spell Checker, and some others
www.forvo.com All the words in the world pronounced
http://translate.google.com/#ru|en| Translation Gadget with pronunciation (voice)
http://russianpodcast.eu
Please visit my blog to read this online, or browse through the listed resources, as I say before for my target language: Russian.
LSE, Polis, Paphos.
http://leonidassavvides.com/torfl/ Russian resources.
http://leonidassavvides.com/blog/ My blog.
P.S. If you think the languages of Internet Users, see
www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm
