Let's speak Slovak!
I have to admit that Slovak language is very difficult for someone to learn it and, even more, to pronounce it well but it definately worth! So, enjoy your first, little taste of this non widely spoken but exciting language of Central Europe.
At the end of the following table a surprise is waiting for you!
In an attempt to help those who are interested in learning the Slovak language or a different language (anyone interested in becoming Polyglot?) and, of course, the future Comenius Assistants not to get lost in searching the Internet for hours in order to find language resources, I made a list with six categories, which include many websites for learning and practicing languages. I hope to find this list useful and to use it in order to discover new cultures, new horizons and even new lifestyles!
Your comments about my effort to find and categorize all these websites would give me a real happiness! Go on and drop me a line at my e-mail address: lamiraklis@gmail.com .
Slovak alphabet (slovenská abeceda) & pronunciation (výslovnosť)
Learning Languages online for free
101languages: maybe the best site for language learning! Free material which is categorized (Pronunciation, Phrases & Vocabulary, Facts about the selected language, even Travel Guides!) for 51 languages of the world! Also, this site gives you the opportunity to watch online many TV stations of the country which its language you are learning. Yes, this is my favorite one and I spent hours and hours watching the TA3 channel! About Slovak Language in this site.
book2: This site contains 100 lessons that provide beginners with a basic vocabulary in over 40 languages and in approximately 1600 language combinations. With no prior knowledge, you will learn to fluently speak short sentences in real-world situations in no time. The book2 method successfully combines audio and text for effective language learning. And yes, it is totally free! About Slovak Language in this site.
BBC – Languages: an excellent initiative of the BBC for learning languages. Audio and video courses, phrase of the day, tips, stories, foreign-language TV, newsletter and “quick fix” option with essential phrases in 36 languages are available to you with zero cost! What are you waiting for? Make your visit! About Slovak Language in this site.
Forvo: I believe that the moto of this site “All the words in the world. Pronounced.” fits well at its content. You can find 850,129 words and 846,815 pronunciations in 267 languages! Go on and check it! About Slovak Language in this site.
My Languages: If you're trying to learn new languages and need some grammar and vocabulary boost, this site should help. You can find some useful and free resources that you might enjoy for free such as lessons, language tools, audio files to download and articles. About Slovak Language in this site.
Surface Languages: an online language learning resource centre with thirty five plus languages! The aim of this site is to provide free, independent and accurate language learning information and resources for language learners. You can find thousands of phrases and hours of audio spoken by native speakers along with flashcard and multiple choice learning methods. You don’t need to download anything and it is totally free! About Slovak Language in this site.
Digital Dialects: a website with free interactive games for learning languages! You can play games for 60 languages and learn the basics (numbers, colors, fruit, vegetables, animals, vocabulary etc.) of your chosen language pretty well. For sure this site worths your visit and your time. Enjoy yourself learning languages! About Slovak Language in this site.
linguanaut: a site with phrases, videos and alphabet in more than 50 languages. More than 101 phrases and videos covering many aspects such as greetings phrases, getting directions phrases, and other sentences of everyday needs are waiting for you to discover them! By using the site’s material you can learn how to say or pronounce several words and expressions, and also if you need to know how words are pronounced, then the alphabet section would be of a big help, once you are in the phrases page you will see a link to the alphabet of that specific language. Yes! This is another free site! About Slovak Language in this site.
From Language To Language: a multilingual dictionary with which you can translate 26,434,049 words in 2,162 bilingual dictionaries. But it is more that a usual dictionary, because you can find: word of the day, a pretty clever “word quiz”, a word builder game and useful phrases for tourists (basic, greeting, questions, days, months and numbers) under the section “Traveler”. An extremely friendly site and amusing as well!
babbel: enjoy learning languages! Babbel is the new way to learn a foreign language. The comprehensive learning system combines effective education methods with state-of-the-art technology. Interactive online courses will improve your grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation skills in no time. You'll make fast progress and have fun doing it. Available only in 7 languages.
word2word: in this site you can find links in the hope of all people developing a better understanding of others through the use of language. These links contain lessons to help learn one language from another and are to free resources.
BabelNation: an online-service, which offers online language courses in 5 languages (Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese) completely free. Whether you want to travel the world, strengthen your language skills for business purposes or just learn a language for the fun of it, this site will offer you free interactive online language courses.
Speak7: you can find free lessons in 7 languages (Arabic, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian and German), that’s why it is called “Speak7”. The material of the site could be a very good way to start or improve your languages skills.
eLanguageSchool.net: it is described as “the largest website for learning multiple languages on the Internet”. I think that this description could be true because in this site there is a compilation of the best resources from a variety of sources to make learning any of 10 different languages as easy as possible. You just select the language that you want to learn and you get started. So simple.
Language online: a site dedicated to free online language learning and includes foreign language resources. Unfortunately, for Slovak Language there are only 5 resources, from which 2 of them are not working… But Vladindo’s music videos with Slovakian subtitles on youtube are very helpful.
Lexilogos: is a comprehensive set of resources for the study of the languages of the world. You can even learn Zulu! About Slovak Language in this site.
Language-base: a site for learning many languages through videos! What you can learn? Everything you need as a beginner: the alphabet, body, counting, colors, food, fruit, greetings, adjectives, clothes, places, expressions, words, time, verbs! About Slovak Language in this site.
How to learn any Language: a site which is made for people who love languages. It is totally independent and is based on the personal experiences with languages of Mr. Francois Micheloud, a Swiss entrepreneur, and on the site's discussion forum. You can find many useful texts and information about the language you choose to learn or you are willing to learn. Any questions? Feel free to use the site’s Forum. About Slovak Language in this site.
Omniglot: it is an encyclopedia of writing systems and languages, which was set up in 1998 by Mr. Simon Ager. It contains details of more than 180 writing systems, information about over 500 languages, more than 300 con-scripts - writings systems invented by visitors to this site, tips on learning languages, language-related articles, useful foreign phrases with audio recordings in numerous languages, texts, language names, country names, colours and songs in many languages, a language book store and links to language-related resources. About Slovak Language in this site.
Contacts and Tandem Learning of Languages
My Language Exchange: in this site you can subscribe for free and find a partner at the online community and practice any of the 115 languages that offer the site with a native speaker who is learning your language! Over 1 million members from over 133 countries are learning languages! What about you? About Slovak Language in this site.
Livemocha: in the main page it is described as “the World’s largest online Language Learning Community”. I don’t know if it is true but within seconds you can sign up and have access to learning material, to practice your writing and your speaking in the language you are learning and also you can help others to learn your native language. It sounds good? So, why not tasting your livemocha!
babelyou: after your registration you can find language-partners and native speakers, learn languages easily with videos and exercises, form your own classrooms, search for language-schools, language-trips or travel destinations, get to know foreign cultures and histories and find new friends. All in one site!
Resources only for Slovak Language
Slovake.eu: On this multilingual website you can learn to speak the Slovak language easily, quickly and completely free. The portal contains language courses at different levels (A1 and A2) with many exercises, fun games, dictionaries - everything you need familiarise yourself with grammar, learn new words, or even virtually interact with other users of this site in Slovak. In addition, you can find various facts about Slovakia - A central European country with an interesting history, beautiful scenery and many tourist sites.
Heart of Europe – Your comprehensive Guide to Slovakia: Part of this website, under the title “Let’s Learn Slovak”, has free interactive language course about Slovak which includes vocabulary, phrases and verbs. I would say that this material gives just a first impression about the Slovak language, but it is good enough.
Simply Put Languages: a site of free language courses on Slovak, Portuguese and Spanish, “where the emphasis is on simple explanations”. As for the Slovak course, it includes 9 pages with all the essential information for beginners. The courses designed by Mr. Gary Lord, a school teacher and former EFL teacher with a great interest in languages. He is definitely worth many congratulations for his work on these free courses.
Bratislava Guide: a site for the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava, with maps, event calendar, accommodation and much more! In this site you can find a useful list with basic phrases in Slovak, which covers many “real daily-life” situations.
Slovakia.org: a guide to the Slovak Republic with information about history, travel & tourism, economy, culture, society etc. Unfortunately in this site you can find only seven (yes, 7!) very basic words in Slovak. The reason why I am mentioning this site is that it has good information about Slovakia with breath-taking pictures.
Panorama.sk: a very nice effort of an e-guide to Slovakia. You can find both a “Small English-Slovak dictionary for tourists” and a “Small culinary Dictionary”.
The Foreigner’s Guide to Slovakia: this site is dedicated to “Slovakia, the Slovak People and their unique culture” as Ms. Margarete Hurn, highlights and it is part of a well-written book with the same title (The Foreigner’s Guide to Slovakia, Margarete Hurn, Modra Publishing). Part of this site (“Resources” tab) has a set of vocabulary with illustrations based on a specific topic. Links to two self-study websites are also available in the same place of the site, but the first one (Slovak Online) isn’t working.
Slovak Cooking: a very interesting site with Slovak recipes (110 recipes!), language lessons, links and other stuff about the natural and wholesome lifestyle of Slovakian People. In the “Language lessons” you can learn to speak Slovak from free online language lessons. These lessons include common dialogs, grammar lessons, vocabulary with pronounciation and even popular Slovak songs from the 80s with the lyrics in both Slovak and English.
Travel.Spectator.Sk: this is an article that was published in the Spectacular Slovakia travel guide, published annually by The Slovak Spectator since 1996. The article contains a very short introduction to the Slovak language, pronunciation, vowels and consonants and select glossary (numbers, basic phrases, useful phrases at the restaurant, days of the week, months, food and drink).
Software for Learning and Training of Languages
byki: Byki is a powerful and personalized language-learning system. It locks foreign language words and phrases into your memory so that you can recall them perfectly and remember them forever. It is very easy to use and I am learning Slovak (the basics such as colors, numbers etc.) by playing an interesting game with cards. You can download these cards for free and start learning in seconds! Available in over 70 languages.
Dictionaries and Translation
Dicts.info: a free dictionaries project with a massive number of great free stuff such as picture dictionaries, terminology, tests, quizzes, encyclopedias, …! The English-Slovak dictionary has 54,829 entries!
Freelang: Freelang provides free dictionaries, free human translation, and many other useful resources if you are learning a language or need a translation. You can download for free any of the 263 dictionaries that are available! Unfortunately, the English-Slovak (3,322 words), Slovak-English (3,153 words) dictionary last updated on April 2005.
Slovnik.sk: an online dictionary for English-Slovak, Slovak-English and six more languages pairs with the one language the Slovak.
IATE - InterActive Terminology for Europe: IATE is the EU inter-institutional terminology database and has been used in the EU institutions and agencies since summer 2004 for the collection, dissemination and shared management of EU-specific terminology.
LingvoSoft: LingvoSoft is home to talented and experienced software engineers and linguists who create a variety of language-learning, dictionary, translation and localization software products. The aim of this site is the profit of selling the products of LingvoSoft but there are available free online dictionaries of many languages pairs. Have a look at the English-Slovak Dictionary.
Ectaco: another company with profit in first place but you can find many free online dictionaries to play with. Have a look at the English-Slovak Dictionary.
Practicing languages through TV / Radio
Squid TV: a unique tool for watching live TV broadcasts and on-demand video clips from every corner of the earth! There are 10 TV channels available from Slovakia.
Live Internet TV: TV channels from many places worldwide. There are 5 TV channels available from Slovakia with the links of each TV station.
Internet-online: through this site you have free access to online TV, radio and Newspapers. There are 5 TV channels and 27 radio stations from Slovakia.
BeelineTV: free online TV channels around the world. Beeline TV provides a selection of the best broadband internet television channels. There are only 2 TV channels from Slovakia.
Surf Music: you can have access to web TV and radio stations around the world. There are 26 radio stations from Slovakia but none TV channel…