Languages

Websites/apps:

• Italki: to find (professional or amateur) teachers for private lessons, filtered for instance by their knowledge in other languages

• Memrise: to enhance the vocabulary (via a flashcard system with spaced repetition); many lists of words (e.g. the 1000 most common words in a given language) are already present, but you can also create your own personalised ones; useful only in parallel to a more standard course (and/or other methods of learning) 

• Duolingo: to learn the basics (via translating sentences in a technology tree-like system); not suited for a proper study of grammar, nor to reach higher levels

Youtube channels:

• Ecolinguist: linguistic mutual intelligibility experiments (mainly among Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages)

• Easy Languages: collection of channels devoted to random street interviews to native speakers

• Wikitongues: people all over the world casually speaking for a few minutes their own language (including all sorts of accents/dialects/varieties)

Others:

• HYPIA: international association of polyglots, with inspiring tips on language learning by its members (e.g. my sister)

• Bilinguism matters: tips for parents teaching their (different) native languages to their children

• E-book readers: while reading in general is always beneficial for improving language knowledge (including one's own), reading e-books in foreign languages has a little advantage against reading the same work on paper books, namely the very useful (and not very well known) possibility to use an integrated dictionary. This avoids the need to interrupt the flow of the reading and overcomes the (reasonable) laziness of getting up/grabbing a phone/consulting a dictionary/etc., since a simple click allows to enrich one's vocabulary and continue smoothly with the reading

Multilingual series and movies (when the presence of different languages plays a role in the plot, often related to real or metaphorical clash of cultures):

• Historical series Barbaren (German and Latin)

• Historical series Vikings (mainly English, Old Norse, Old English, Latin, plus occasional Old French, Arabic, Byzantine Greek, Sami, Old East Slavic and Miꞌkmaq)

• Historical film Inglorious Basterds (English, German, French and Italian)

• Trilogy of comedy films L'Auberge espagnole, Les Poupées russes and Casse-tête chinois (mainly French, English and Spanish, plus occasional Catalan, Danish, German, Italian and Russian)

• Comedy anthology film One day in Europe (Galician, Russian, German, Turkish, Spanish, French, English)

• Science-fiction series (from the creator of Dark) 1899 (mainly English, German and Danish, plus occasional Spanish, French, Polish, Portuguese and Cantonese)

Books to read (easy enough for beginners)*:

• C'era due volte il Barone Lamberto by Gianni Rodari

• Il colombre e altri cinquanta racconti and I sette messaggeri by Dino Buzzati

• Le cosmicomiche, Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore and Il castello dei destini incrociati by Italo Calvino

* taking into account that it's extremely difficult to give good advice on one's own native language

Musical parodies to watch/listen (with subtitles):

• Several literature classics in a few minutes by Oblivion

• The Odissey in 15 minutes by a group of high school students!

Youtube channels with exaggerated representations of characters to satirically portray stereotypes of different accents, traditions and cultures within Italy:

• Il Milanese imbruttito: stereotypes of northern Italians (fast-paced, business-oriented, money-obsessed) - see also the movie Mollo tutto e apro un chiringuito, taking place in the same universe

• Casa Surace: stereotypes of southern Italians (laid-back, family-oriented, food-obsessed)

Youtube channels with animated videos, created with a distinctive drawing style and voiced by a single artist, with both recurring and one-time characters, full of pun of words (for people with a GOOD knowledge of italian):

• Scottes: short, absurd and nonsensical videos containing quirky humour and many hidden easter eggs

• Cartoni Morti: satirical videos addressing social, cultural and political issues, related to current events and/or Italian culture

Animated comedy-drama short series (drawn and voiced by Zerocalcare) involving personal introspection and critiques of contemporary society (for people with some exposure to the Romanesco dialect):

• Strappare lungo i bordi

• Questo mondo non mi renderà cattivo

Being the most common first foreign language, everybody can find useful learning resources everywhere. I will only list two websites full of interesting and educational videos with subtitles, which has been useful to improve my listening skills in high school and at the beginning of my university studies:

• MIT Opencourseware: recordings of MIT lectures in a wide range of subjects (the courses on classical physics are so experiment-dense and maths-free that they can be easily understood by high school students)

• TED talks: short talks on practically every existing topic

Books to read (easy enough for beginners):

• Le petit prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

• L'Écume des jours de Boris Vian

• Candide by Voltaire

• La religieuse by Denis Diderot

• Lettres persanes by Montesquieu

• Probably all the books by Jules Verne (but I have already read them in Italian as a child and not yet re-read them in French)

Books to read (easy enough for beginners):

• Koning van Katoren and Zoektocht in Katoren by Jan Terlouw

• De brief voor de koning and Geheimen van het Wilde Woud by Tonke Dragt

• Torenhoog en mijlen breed and Ogen van tijgers by Tonke Dragt

• Stad in de Storm by Thea Beckman 

• Met hartelijke groenten by Vinnie Ko

Things to watch/listen (easy enough for beginners):

• Raveleijn, De Magische Wereld van Pardoes and Marjolein en het geheim van het Slaapzand: short Dutch series inspired by the Efteling theme park

• De Universiteitsstrijd: Dutch quiz for university students (inspired by University Challenge)

• De Campus Cup: Belgian quiz for university students (inspired by University Challenge)

• Jan Beuving: maths-themed songs by a cabaret performance with a maths degree from Utrecht (lyrics in the description of each song)

• Griekse Tango: funny math-themed song (with subtitles in Dutch syncronised a couple of seconds in advance) by Drs. P, author of many non-sensical songs, e.g. on broccoli and on other vegetables, or on a weird Siberian journey (which got a Covid-themed parody)

Books to read (easy enough for beginners):

• Momo by Micheal Ende

Things to watch:

• Dark (maybe not the easiest, but definitely wonderful)

• German Period Drama translations: subtitles for historical movies and tv-series in German

I have never learned (European) Spanish and Portuguese properly, but I strongly recommend the following two TV series (the second is a remake of the first one) in order to get an idea of the language (if you speak another Romance language natively, it could be enough for improving your passive understanding) and at the same time learn more about the history and the culture of Spain and Portugal:

• El Ministerio del Tiempo, freely available on RTVE.es (with subtitles in Spanish)

• Ministério do Tempo, available in Portugal on RTP.pt (with subtitles in Portuguese), or worldwide on youtube (without subtitles)