Language/Multiple-languages/Culture/Internet-resources-for-polyglots
Hello polyglots, 😀
The Internet is a giant treasure. It provides so many free services.
On this page we have listed the sites that offer the most useful services for polyglots.
Introduction
Advices
This page is updated from time to time, not frequently, not regularly. “But how do I know what you have changed since the last time I come here?” Try this: hover your mouse over “Actions” on the upper right corner of this page, click on “history”, select the current and the version you saw last time, click on “Compare selected versions”.
It would be great if you pay a visit to every site on the list. Don't lose your curiosity.
If you want to do creative work to help others to learn languages and to know about cultures, please visit Language/Multiple-languages/Culture/Productivity-tools-for-polyglots.
If you see GitHub or GitLab links, please notice that the download icons mean to download the source code. Unless its language is interpreted like Python and Perl, you will need to build the program on your own. Links to download binaries (built programs) are elsewhere like “Releases” or links in the README.MD file.
It is not recommended to put some banner like “featured in Polyglot Club” on your website, because this list is dynamic.
It is highly recommend to have privacy protections on. An open-source website on privacy: https://privacyguides.org/
Resource Selection Criteria
To be listed on this page, resources should possess at least one of the following characteristics:
- be rich in FREE content (not just a trial or not fulfilling the need in the free part), and the free content is mostly accurate, and the free content is not all covered by other free ones;
- be made with a unique good idea;
- has no better alternatives.
Resources must not possess the following characteristics:
- propagate specific political or religious ideas without possibility of discussion.
Resources with the following features will be given a little priority:
- available offline;
- available on multiple platforms;
- multilingual user interface;
- lightweight;
- open source;
- privacy-friendly (including “registration not required”).
Blue Light Filter & Dark Mode
Filter for Linux and Windows. It is open-source.
!! https://github.com/LibreShift/red-moon/
Filter for Android. It is open-source.
!! https://github.com/Tyrrrz/LightBulb
Filter for Windows 7 and newer versions. It is open-source.
Dark mode for web browsers. It is open-source.
Reminder
Rest reminder. It can lock your keyboard and mouse buttons when it is time. It is open-source.
!! https://hovancik.net/stretchly/
Rest reminder. It supports Windows, Linux, BSD and macOS. Fewer features than Workrave. It is open-source.
!! https://github.com/adrcotfas/Goodtime
Pomodoro timer on Android. It is open-source.
!! https://gitlab.com/axet/android-hourly-reminder
Repeating timer. It alarms every hour or even minute. This reminds you how a minute passes by. It is open-source.
!! https://github.com/thetwom/toc2
Metronome on Android. It is open-source.
!! https://www.antcom.de/gtick/
Metronome on Linux. It is open-source.
!! https://sourceforge.net/projects/openmetronome/
Metronome on Windows. It is open-source.
!! https://tmendes.gitlab.io/waterydroid/
Reminder of drinking water on Android with the notification function. It is open-source.
Self-Control Helper
!! https://www.proginosko.com/leechblock/
Browser add-ons for blocking websites. It is open-source.
Limit your app using time for Android. It is open-source.
!! https://detoxdroid.flx-apps.com/
Some other measures to help you on Android. Need to use a PC to enable developer mode. It is open-source.
It can be downloaded from F-droid.
!! https://selfcontrolapp.com/
Block websites for Mac. It is open-source.
Activity and Habit Tracker
Track your own activity. It is open-source.
https://codeberg.org/fynngodau/usageDirect
It shows your app usage on Android. It is open-source.
!! https://github.com/SamAmco/track-and-graph
Habit tracker with graphs for Android. It is open-source.
!! https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits
Simple habit tracker for Android. It is open-source.
!! https://github.com/Glitchy-Tozier/githo
Form a habit step by step, on Android. It is open-source.
!! https://gottcode.org/kapow/
Timer for activities. It can also generate a report. It is open-source.
!! https://github.com/albertvaka/bettercounter
Counter for activities on Android. It is open-source.
Brain Training
Notice: Whether brain training works or not is still controversial. If you don't believe it works, please skip this section.
Practise through mini-games, 3 random games everyday for free.
https://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/Apps/gbrainy
Mini-games. It is open-source.
http://brainworkshop.sourceforge.net/
Dual n-back. It is open-source.
Its latest version 4.8.7 is not available on the website, but on the SourceForge page.
https://github.com/vivekthazhathattil/dekadico
Memory trainer with numbers. It is open-source.
Workout
!! https://github.com/oliexdev/openWorkout
Workout assistant for Android with videos. It is open-source.
Eating
https://world.openfoodfacts.org/
Information about food nutrition.
Relaxation & Meditation
!! https://www.freesoundslibrary.com/
It has more than 200 ambient sounds for download. Turn loop on and enjoy.
!! https://gitlab.com/tslocum/meditationassistant
Meditation assistant. It is open-source.
!! https://gitlab.com/axet/android-binaural-beats
Binaural beats. It is open-source.
!! https://ashutoshgngwr.github.io/noice/
Background noise. It is open-source.
!! https://sites.google.com/view/jithware
Meditation helper with breath control for Android. It is open-source.
This one supports a lot of languages in Latin script, but it means to learn typing again. It is worth it. You may have noticed that “Kolemak” is even better than Colemak. How to modify keyboards will be discussed below.
Note that the download link on the home page is “Caps Lock Unchanged”. The idea of replacing Caps Lock with Backspace is great because of its convenience to press Backspace, but having it unchanged is generally better because it's punitive to press Backspace, urging you to make fewer misspellings.
There is a flaw of no “„” or “‚”. You can replace “÷” and “×” with them. Also, the positions of single and double quotation marks only benefit British people for not pressing Shift. You can exchange their positions, too.
- Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator for Windows;
- Karabiner-Elements for macOS;
- A guidance for Linux.
If you want to type even more characters, you will need the autocorrection, which can turn multiple characters into one.
- AutoHotkey for Windows, a video about it;
- Automator for macOS, a video about it;
- AutoKey for Linux, a video about it.
There is a modified version and local variants.
Based on French, giving consideration to European languages. But if you don't type French much, it might be not ideal.
No English translation for this site, but it doesn't matter, because this keyboard is generally pre-installed in common operating systems. You just need to find it in the “French” section of keyboard settings.
https://forum.colemak.com/topic/519-rulemak-russian-colemak-layout/
Variant of Colemak for typing Cyrillic. It is available as source code. It is pre-installed in Linux, but it require some effort as mentioned in the “Colemak” section to make sure it appears in the files. “Greek (Colemak)” is also available.
For Windows, Portable Keyboard Layout is required. Or you can use that keyboard creator to do it manually.
!! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kl.ime.oh
It is lightweight and supports many languages, with many keyboard layouts. But it has problems, such as poor Japanese support.
Typing
!! https://klavaro.sourceforge.io/
Typing tutor. It is open-source.
A place to train typing.
Shortcut
!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_keyboard_shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts in general.
Keyboard shortcuts for specific programs.
To-Do-List & Task Calendar
A to-do-list with different views. It is open-source.
!! https://super-productivity.com/
Good-looking schedule with a pomodoro timer. It is open-source.
By the way, that “at a glance” video recording guy behaved so similar with some college lecturers.
It has many functions: hierarchy, progress, different views of the list. It is open-source.
!! https://github.com/ransome1/sleek
To-do-list based on todo.txt. It is open-source.
Electron.js is used, which means a lot of bloat.
To-do-list on Android. It is open-source.
!! https://crazymarvin.com/to-dont/
To-don't-list on Android. It is open-source.
!! https://eck.cologne/peafactory/en/html/calendar_pea.html
Calendar program with encryption. Java is required. It is open-source.
!! https://github.com/Etar-Group/Etar-Calendar
Calendar program. It is open-source.
Notebook
!! https://github.com/zadam/trilium
Advanced notebook with hierarchy, text formatting, link map, synchronization and encryption. It is open-source.
!! https://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/
Simple notebook with hierarchy. It is open-source.
Markdown notebook with a lot of features such as LaTeX. It is open-source.
Electron.js is used, which means a lot of bloat.
Similar products built with Electron.js are Zettlr and Mark Text.
https://wereturtle.github.io/ghostwriter/
Simple markdown notebook. It is open-source.
!! https://gsantner.net/project/markor.html
Text editor with markdown and todo.txt supports on Android. It is open-source.
A simple desktop wiki. It is open-source.
Non-linear Wiki on web that require some effort to install. It is open-source.
Plain text markup for GNU Emacs. It is open-source.
!! https://eck.cologne/peafactory/en/html/notebook_pea.html
Write RTF files with encryption. Java is required. It is open-source.
!! https://rednotebook.sourceforge.io/
Notebook for diary. It is open-source.
!! https://xournalpp.github.io/
Handwritten note ditor. It is open-source.
Simple note taking app with binaries available for Linux and Android. It is open-source.
Mind Map
!! https://www.freeplane.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Successful fork of the discontinued FreeMind. Java is required. It is open-source.
A video about it; another video about it.
!! https://github.com/juzzlin/Heimer
Simple and intuitive mind map. It is open-source.
Hierarchical Spreadsheet
!! https://strlen.com/treesheets/
It combines mind map, spreadsheet and other forms of data. It is open-source.
Web Table Extraction
!! https://merribithouse.net/copytables/
Capture tables from webpages for Chrome and Safari. It is open-source.
!! https://github.com/nirantak/copytables
Fork of Copytables for Firefox. It is open-source.
International Phonetic Alphabet
!! https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/
The site of the maker. The full IPA chart can be downloaded here. There is also a link to an interactive IPA chart.
!! https://easypronunciation.com/en/ipa-phonetic-transcription-converters
IPA and romanization transcriptions. Very detailed, but there is a limitation for each hour. Its “More Tools” is also noteworthy.
https://github.com/dmort27/epitran/
Transcription to IPA. It is open-source. It won't help if you don't know Python.
It only supports words, as is discussed. Somebody can develop a tool for sound change.
Logic
https://forallx.openlogicproject.org/
Book under a public license and is edited by different people.
https://tellerprimer.ucdavis.edu/pdf
Book under a public license. Old and short.
https://www.logicmatters.net/tyl/
All rights reserved, conditioned distribution allowed.
!!!! https://www.duolingo.com/
The best free online language courses. It is actually a collection of exercises instead of real teaching courses. It is also under criticism, from quality to method.
Don't neglect their other products, especially Push.
https://www.coerll.utexas.edu/coerll/materials
This one has a lot of materials as well as other things.
https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/
Mainly courses of Foreign Service Institute, Defense Language Institute, Peace-Corps. FSI is initially aimed at middle-aged officials, so maybe not everyone likes it.
https://www.coursera.org/browse/language-learning/
Some super cool courses. This is suggested by RomDasha.
!!!! https://www.lingolia.com/
A little site with useful basic courses of 5 languages with good design.
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Subject:Languages
Books are mostly incomplete and in lack of update, but some are nearly completed or completed, not bad.
An experimental language-learning platform by community. Still far from being mature and is active. It is open-source.
Speaking
!!!! https://forvo.com/
Dictionary of pronunciation.
Submit the recording and wait for the response. Supported languages are not many.
https://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/
With this one, you can say you are “studying” pronunciation.
A little tutorial and a big playlist of various videos.
!! https://ivypanda.com/tongue-twisters
Try not to hurt yourself when practicing.
It covers an older site and has improved a lot. There's no copyright affair involved because such a list is not a “creative work”.
You may want to ask if this page is protected by copyright. All my comments are protected, the list of links like the one in that brief version is not.
Vocabulary
!!!! https://apps.ankiweb.net/
Offline flashcard platform. You can find its manual at “Docs” on the website. Content can be rendered in HTML and CSS. There are also many powerful add-ons for it. It is open-source.
Its community has many shared decks, but this is not mentioned at the home page. There is a successful collaborative project: Ultimate Geography.
Unfortunately, not free on iOS.
- A video about the intervals of Anki;
- An article and a video about how to import from a spreadsheet;
- An article about how to add images and audios;
- A video about how to split audios and add them into cards.
- A playlist of tutorial.
- A channel about add-ons and techniques.
Related add-on wiki page. Some are picked out by me.
You can set up your own server for synchronization with djankiserv or anki-sync-server; learn with new tabs in Chromium or Chrome; make it a slideshow.
If you want to batch rename files, there is a program to do it and it is open-source.
If you are still confused, go to communities about Anki and find solution.
!! https://github.com/tema6120/ForgetMeNot
Flashcard program for Android. More advanced than AnkiDroid in many aspects, including necessary instructions. You can even set intervals for the spaced repetition. It is open-source.
!! https://mnemosyne-proj.org/
If your want a simple alternative to Anki, try this one. It is open-source.
Flashcards in high quality can be found. Some most popular languages have courses of 0-5k and 5k-8k words, or divided differently and still reach 8k. A few can be over 30k.
To see the flashcards without registration, go here.
Though it is said to be memorizing words with “mems” (memes in many cases), the “mems” are actually not in good quality.
You can import from a spreadsheet.
It is not so good at efficient memorization as Memrise. It is for having quizzes. But you can find specific practice such as reflexive verbs, weak nouns.
It even encourages you to copy other people's card decks and create your own variants, in case a good deck has flaws and the creator doesn't respond to it.
You can import from a spreadsheet.
!!!! https://www.clozemaster.com/
Learn with cloze. It is effective, but sometimes it is just repeating the same point in different questions. Also, synonyms are not supported.
!!!! https://context.reverso.net/translation/
Among its products, the mobile version of Context seems to be the most helpful: learn and practise new words with example sentences.
!!!! https://babadum.com/
It's pretty good for educating young polyglots.
!!!! https://github.com/tkrajina/10000sentences
Sentences from Tatoeba to practice. It is aesthetically same with Anki (I mean copy-paste). It is open-source.
!! https://www.languageguide.org/
Some basic vocabulary.
Visual dictionary. No grammatical genders or pronunciation, suitable for reviewing.
A lot of languages has not been completed yet, without any notice. Also, look out for polyseme mistakes.
https://github.com/lexica/lexica
Game of finding words on Android. It is open-source.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Swadesh_lists
Swadesh lists are basic vocabulary initially for linguistic use. But it can be the starting point of vocabulary building for language learners as well.
!! https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Frequency_lists
Frequency lists. Make use of it with programs that help to memorise, such as Anki.
If you seriously want to learn a language, and there are no ready-made free flashcards reaching the native level, and you don't want to spend money, this may be the most effective way to memorise words.
Test
A few materials for beginners. Better treat it as your proficiency tests instead of learning materials because it's not much.
!! https://www.transparent.com/language-resources/tests.html
Test your proficiency.
There is only one set of test for each language. Don't search the meanings of the words you don't know, if you want to take this test again later.
!! https://www.arealme.com/vocabulary-size-test/en/
For testing your vocabulary size.
There is only one set of test for each language. Don't search the meanings of the words you don't know, if you want to take this test again later.
!! https://www.ezglot.com/vocabulary-test.php
Test your vocabulary size. It's faster and maybe not so accurate. The result is at an inconspicuous corner.
Reader for desktops. It supports annotations. Dark mode at “Settings -> Configure Okular... -> Accessibility -> Change Colors”. It is open-source.
!! https://www.sumatrapdfreader.org/
Reader for Windows. Dark mode and Annotation are available. It is open-source.
!! https://johnfactotum.github.io/foliate/
Reader for Linux with features like layout and online translation. It is open-source.
E-Book management tool. It is open-source.
The main drawback is it has to keep a copy of your book in a central directory, which will cause duplication if you also keep the book elsewhere.
Reader for Android. It is open-source.
Reader with a simple user interface for Android. It is open-source.
Image viewer. It is open-source.
RSS feeder for desktop. No pre-installed mainstream media. It is open-source.
If you don't know what RSS is, you can read this article.
!! https://gitlab.com/spacecowboy/Feeder
RSS feeder for Android. It is open-source.
Numerous articles in many languages and they are usually proofed to read.
Use Privacy Redirect to be redirected to a Wikiless instance, a private front-end.
Also take a look at its sister projects on Wikimedia.
Remember it is left-leaning and this is nothing new.
!! https://wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page
Literature in public domain. They can be downloaded.
Raed Wikipedia and some other sites offline. It is open-source.
https://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/
The largest collections of books in the public domain, mostly in English though.
There is a book catalog website with ever-changing domain names: LibGen, which contains a wider range of books. Make sure you don't see any strange link there. It is also available on Android.
Stories in a lot of languages and are under a public license.
https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/archives.html
List of book collections. Many links are available in “https” now but appear as “http” on this page.
Read and create flashcards to learn. The response of a contact is quick and friendly.
Articles in many languages, with online dictionaries.
!! https://vocabhunter.github.io/
Find unfamiliar words in a document. Great for getting familiar with all words in a document before reading. Better to disable the filter. Java is required. It is open-source.
For Chinese, Japanese, Lao, Thai, Vietnamese and some other languages, word segmentation is required.
!! https://github.com/jeffkowalski/gritz
Reading speed trainer. Perl and GTK are required. It is open-source.
To open it, just run “gritz.pl”.
For Chinese, Japanese, Lao, Thai, Vietnamese and some other languages, word segmentation is required.
You can also modify the source code (don't execute the file, but open it with a file editor), like these:
- $font: font name and size.
- $span_black_open: colors of black characters.
- $span_red_open: colors of red characters.
p.s. Colors are “web colors”. You can find a “color picker” to get the hex values of a color.
- $wpm = 200: default reading speed (words per minute).
- button_slower: WPM increment per click.
- button_faster: WPM decrement per click.
Maybe when I have free time, I can try converting it into Python and do some modification: add shortcuts, create a user interface with BeeWare, add word segmentation support.
!! https://comfortreader.rhizomaticdesign.net/
Streaming reader for Android. It is open-source.
!! https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/autoscrolling/
Autoscrolling for Firefox. Good for practising reading speed. It is open-source.
!! https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/simple-auto-scroll/dccjkemhmffnljlnnoffljpkhkfpldff
Autoscrolling for Chrome. Good for practising reading speed.
Declaration: suggesting it is not for preaching.
The full Bible has been translated into at least 670 languages, more than double the number of languages of Wikipedia.
!! https://github.com/gildas-lormeau/SingleFile
Save the web page as a single file.
There is also a SingleFileZ, which can compress pages.
https://learning-with-texts.sourceforge.io/
This is a PHP project. The page design is very bad and you need sufficient patience to read the guide and follow it. It's a DIY, offline and free version of LingQ. Inflection is not supported. It is open-source.
LingQ is freemium, but it can't be recommended for its unacceptable limitations on free users.
A video for its introduction; a video about its setup; a video about its more features.
Their discussion is open again now. Hope they can get on well with each other.
I have a question: Why not Python?
Writing
It is not for learning languages, but for how to write and read.
It is teaching about English, so something does not applies to some other languages.
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/purdue_owl.html
Another online writing lab. A bit dumb but also good.
https://www.theologeek.ch/manuskript/
Tool for writing stuff. It is open-source.
!!!! https://www.wiktionary.org/
Practical, no need to switch dictionaries, translations in many languages are shown together.
!!!! https://www.wordreference.com/
It is really completed.
It is completed, with example sentences of high quality. You can even find uncommon words with meanings of common words.
!!!! https://bab.la/
It is completed for several languages.
!!!! https://github.com/meetDeveloper/Dictionary-Anywhere
Add-on for Firefox, powered by Google's partner Oxford Languages. You can download history in TSV format (with “txt” as file extension). It is open-source.
Terminology dictionary of European Union. That is to say, what you search should be a term.
It supports a lot of languages, citing results from several corpora. It is somehow messy and in many cases inaccurate, but if the dictionaries listed above have no result about a word, this one may help.
It supports several dictionaries in the free version, and also Lingoes in the paid Android version. No one would want to pay after knowing a link below. It is open-source.
You can search the word by selecting it and listen to Forvo pronunciation. You can also add dictionary websites.
!!!! https://github.com/pnlpal/dictionaries
Browser add-on with clear results and can export to Anki decks. It is open-source.
!!!! http://aarddict.org/
Offline dictionaries. It is open-source.
Translator
!!!! https://translate.google.com/
The best translator by now. It also supports optical character recognition on mobile.
Use Privacy Redirect to be redirected to a SimplyTranslate instance, a private front-end.
There is an article on how to save its text-to-speech files
There is a video about how machine translation works.
There is a video about why machine translation makes mistakes.
!! https://www.bing.com/translator
It supports several languages that Google Translation doesn't support, but its quality is not so good as Google's.
!! https://translate.yandex.com/
Another translator. It is sometimes better than Google's.
!! https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/traduzir-paginas-web/
Webpage translation for Firefox. It is open-source.
https://simple-translate.sienori.com/
Browser add-on for Google Translate. Not the best for Firefox. It is open-source.
!! https://translatr.varunmalhotra.xyz/
Translate to multiple languages at one time. It is open-source.
Similar to Translatr, but it is powered by Microsoft.
https://www.soimort.org/translate-shell/
Command-line translator from different sources. It is open-source.
It is open-source. Promising.
Conjugation
Conjugation and some declension.
Conjugation.
Gender
!! http://www.passion4teq.com/apps/
Apps for practising genders in 4 languages. You can also estimate how long you can practice until your battery goes empty.
Number
https://codeberg.org/GrimPixel/Numeration
Program to practise reading numbers. Python is required It is open-source.
In progress. It can see major progresses during school holidays. Introduction: Language/Multiple-languages/Vocabulary/Numeration-Tutorial.
!! https://www.languagesandnumbers.com/numbering-systems/
Rules of writing numbers, more concise than Wikipedia's entries.
Grammar Checker
It supports several languages but works well on the few. It is open-source.
A video about the rule editor.
!! https://audacious-media-player.org/
Lightweight audio player for desktops. It is open-source.
!! https://github.com/enricocid/Music-Player-GO
Lightweight audio player for Android with comfortable UI design. It is open-source.
!!!! http://www.listeningpractice.org/
To practice listening. Voices are from volunteers and their qualities vary. It also has conjugation exercises.
If your browser doesn't play the audio automatically, then you need to grant the website the autoplay permission (next to the URL in Firefox).
Stories in a lot of languages and are under a public license, translated from African Storybook.
!! https://www.easy-languages.org/
Street interview videos with embedded subtitles. Real and fun.
The first time I watch a video, I was busy picking up the unknown words; the second time, I understood the sentences; the third time, I got an impression what kind of person the interviewee is.
Books read by volunteers.
!! https://lyricstraining.com/
Listen to songs and fill in the blanks of lyrics.
Listen to recordings.
!! https://www.languagepod101.com/
Materials can become non-free after a period of time.
It doesn't mean that you can't see an archived lesson forever if you don't pay. They offer a random lesson each Thursday for free.
Just too much English.
Listening materials under public licenses with CEFRL levels. It doesn't have transcripts so speech-recognition is required.
!! https://www.audacityteam.org/
This is for editing audio files, but it can also do something else: record the playback from your computer, which means that you can record online stream radios.
There are a video about labeling, a video about pronunciation checking and a video about automatically splitting words from a vocabulary recording.
A video about tips for using Audacity.
It is open-source.
When you are playing games in the languages you are learning, it is often hard to focus on the voices and subtitles without failing your goals in the games. You can solve this problem by recording your gameplay with this program. It is open-source.
https://greatlanguagegame.com/
Listen and identify the language. It has been shut down, but it has links to other sites in the same type.
Text-to-Speech
If you don't know how to get the voices on Windows, you can see Language/Multiple-languages/Culture/How-to-use-SR-and-TTS-on-Windows.
!!!! https://www.cwu.edu/central-access/reader
A TTS program. Supported platforms are limited. It is open-source.
!!!! http://www.cross-plus-a.com/balabolka.htm
A TTS program.
!!!! https://github.com/Danesprite/tts-util-app
Text-to-Speech For Android. It is open-source.
It is the highest rated platform on Android.
Browser add-on. It is open-source.
https://pypi.org/project/pyttsx3/
Offline Text-to-Speech with Python. It is open-source.
https://pypi.org/project/gTTS/
Online Google Text-to-Speech with Python. It is open-source.
Speech Recognition
!!!! https://www.speechtexter.com/
Turn audios into texts, powered by Google.
!!!! https://speech-to-text-demo.ng.bluemix.net/
Turn audios into texts, powered by IBM Watson.
https://pypi.org/project/SpeechRecognition/
Speech recognition with Python.
Example Sentence
!!!! https://tatoeba.org/
Example sentences in many languages. It is open-source.
Don't forget to try searching in both directions. You can not only see the meaning of a sentence, but also try to translate a sentence into the language you are learning and see how you did.
If you want to translate, please translate sentences with audio first, because the translations may appear on sites which provide translations of audio.
!!!! https://www.dictionarist.com/
Search for example sentences of a word, with the Lingoes dictionary inserted. Many results are from Tatoeba.
!! https://deskell.sketchengine.co.uk/run.cgi/skell
Sketch from a large of text corpus.
!!!! https://weblate.org/
Website for localisation. You can easily find parallel texts. It is open-source.
Search for parallel texts in subtitles.
Parse Tree
!! https://www.mapsofspeech.com/2017/10/02/treeform/
A tool to draw parse trees and have a better understanding of sentence structures. It is open-source.
!! https://ltc.sourceforge.io/
A different one to draw parse trees. It is open-source.
Text Memorization
!! https://github.com/zg/text-memorize
For memorizing text. Python is required.
For Chinese, Japanese, Lao, Thai, Vietnamese and some other languages, word segmentation is required.
!! https://rememberthetext.com/
Memorization with hints. It has some libraries of text samples. You can add your texts.
It is also useful for building the impressions of sentence structures.
Unfortunately, there are problems:
- It does not recognize the punctuation of many scripts such as Arabic;
- For Chinese, Japanese, Lao, Thai, Vietnamese and some other languages, word segmentation is required.
Image Memorization
!! https://lgames.sourceforge.io/LPairs/
Match the pairs. You can create your own “themes” i.e. sets of images. It is open-source.
You may need open-source screen capture tools like ShareX or Flameshot.
Phrasebook
!!!! https://www.funeasylearn.com/
It provides apps for both phrase and vocabulary, but I have categorized it in this one because it provides IPA in the apps of phrases.
It supports many languages, and it is detailed.
!! https://www.50languages.com/
Actually a few more than 50 languages. You can also have a test there.
World Clock, Calendar & Weather
!! https://www.timeanddate.com/
It has not only the world clock for every city but also many other features, such as calendars with festivals of most countries.
A lot of things about meteology.
!! https://earth.nullschool.net/
Wind, weather, ocean conditions.
Air condition around the world.
Community
The most popular language learning community by now. It also pushes helpful articles written by teachers.
!! https://www.tolearnfree.com/free-educational-sites.php
The design of the webpages is old-fashioned but it has a lot of content, including little tests.
Its French version has something more.
There are some rare features of it, such as Wiki lessons, Events. It adopts ISO 639-3, almost every language is included here.
Use Privacy Redirect to be redirected to a Libreddit instance, a private front-end.
Go to r/languagelearning or r/linguistics to enjoy.
Voxel game, with endless possibility for creation, ultimate immersive language learning tool. There are some bilingual servers and bilingual people. It is open-source.
If you know some language learning partners, you can go there and practice language exchange.
For singleplayer, Minetest is just a tool for development. You will need a “game” to play, like the default “Minetest Game”. There is a game called “Tutorial” that helps beginners. There are also cool mods like “technic”, “digiline”, where you can program with Lua.
To look for a good server, see if people there welcome you warmly, if signs are properly written for guidance, if the public infrastructure is complete and easy to access.
There is a server with rules banning controversial names like Hitler, where I saw a Stalin.
When you are looking at the scene, you are also a part of the scene.
Virtual environment with Jitsi. It is open-source.
Ask and answer with people around the world. Unfortunately, don't expect them to be effective in dealing with spamming and abusing. But I'm not encouraging you to do so.
Search before you ask.
Do not feed the trolls.
Do not answer blanked homework questions, because the questioner is too lazy to deserve an answer.
Do not answer the meaning of a single word. The questioners should consult a dictionary on their own. Exceptions are newbies, because they may be just following the tutorial and have a try, not lazy.
Do not ask questions in English channels, because the questions are too many, the answer rate is extremely low. Try asking at Polyglot Club.
Ask in parallel text. Then the respondent won't need to ask you about the real meaning if the sentence is not understood.
https://stackexchange.com/sites#culturerecreation
One of the most popular Q&A site.
Language Exchange
!! https://conversationexchange.com/
Find language exchange partners online.
An app for talking with people.
!! https://mylanguageexchange.com/
Free users can be contacted by those who have paid. Since they have paid, they are more likely to be serious learners.
Things about language learning. It is active.
https://blogs.transparent.com/
There are periodically good contents being presented.
https://www.thoughtco.com/languages-4133094
Languages are fewer than Transparent's, and so do the update frequency. But its quality is still high.
https://blog.feedspot.com/culture_blogs/
Blogs about cultures. There are also magazines.
Lyrics
!! https://www.musixmatch.com/
See lyrics and translations.
!! https://lyricstranslate.com/
Lyrics and translations.
Subtitle
!! https://www.opensubtitles.org/
One of the most popular subtitle sites. Subtitles in European languages are easier to find.
One of the most popular subtitle sites. Subtitles in English, Arabic, Persian, Indonesian are easier to find.
For downloading subtitles on desktop. You can add websites on your own. It is open-source.w
!! https://github.com/FunkyMuse/SubHub
For downloading subtitles on Android. It is open-source.
!! https://bonigarcia.github.io/dualsub/index.html
It can help to merge two subtitles. It may crash at the second time. It is open-source.
This player can display two subtitles. It is open-source.
What a good name of this program.
!! http://subs2srs.sourceforge.net/
Turn subtitles into flashcards. It is open-source.
News
!! http://www.abyznewslinks.com/
Links to news websites.
Some TV have shows for free, some of which even with subtitles.
Instant news about hot spots from social media.
Radio & Podcast
!! https://www.radio-browser.info/
A list of internet radio stations. You can find clients in “Apps”, some of which are open-source.
I prefer two stations: Public Domain Classical, Public Domain Jazz. Pleasing names.
!! https://www.listennotes.com/
Search Engine of podcasts.
Podcast player with search engine for Android. It is open-source.
!! https://github.com/z-------------/CPod
Podcast player with search engine. It is open-source.
Electron.js is used, which means a lot of bloat.
Live & Video
Video player with fast response. It is open-source.
The most complete list of worldwide online TV channels.
Many links are dead, but the live stream is still available somewhere else in many of these sites.
Another list of TV channels, has fewer channels but contains details.
There are players speaking different languages. Its “IRL” section is people in real life. You can interact with them in their languages. Lots of slang to learn.
No one can be richer in content than this. Heavy censorship, demonetization, weird copyright terms.
Use Privacy Redirect to be redirected to an Invidious instance, a private front-end.
There are some open-source alternatives to it such as PeerTube.
There are many channels teaching languages and introducing cultures, which people may forget. However, YouTube is not the only source of such channels.
It can find similar channels.
!! https://newpipe.schabi.org/
Watch YouTube videos without being watched by YouTube on Android. It is open-source.
Downloading YouTube videos violates YouTube's terms of service. What a great move of grabbing your videos and claiming them as their properties.
Watch YouTube videos privately on desktop. It is open-source.
There is a redirect plug-in, so you can always open the YouTube links with FreeTube. It is open-source.
https://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/
Download videos with command line. It is open-source.
Language Information
It provides information about basic knowledge of many languages. Many “Alphabet and Pronunciation” lessons on this site are from there.
Information of languages of the world. Not only languages, but also many varieties. It is open-soruce.
Information of scripts.
https://www.muturzikin.com/countries.htm
Linguistic maps.
General knowledge about European languages.
Codes for every language and is still being updated. You can find the whole table.
General Knowledge
A comprehensive encyclopedia.
Educational Resources
https://libguides.humboldt.edu/openedu/
Educational resources including geography, history and sociology. When you have learned such subjects, you will have insights on a culture or civilisation.
Map
!! https://www.google.com/maps/
It resolves the exotic sense. If you are careful enough, you can find trivia about a place.
From the maps you can only see the appearance, not inside the societies. Actually, people in somewhere looks rich maybe not so happy as people in somewhere looks poor.
!! https://www.openstreetmap.org/
Another map site. You can even download them. It is open-source.
There is a video about its modification with Inkscape.
Alternative to Google Earth. It is open-source.
Offline maps for mobile with OpenStreetMap data. It is open-source.
Downloadable maps. It even includes cities. I don't expect them to be up-to-date.
Culture & Travel
https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/
Introductions to cultures.
Introduction of the city and many details of countries. It is open-source.
The most important page for travelers is this.
Its information is old. There are details of peoples and countries.
Encyclopedia for Sid Meier's Civilization VI. It even has multiple languages so it's great for reading as well.
https://culturalatlas.sbs.com.au/
It is about countries and in progress.
https://www.commisceo-global.com/country-guides/
It is mainly about some details about manners.
https://guide.culturecrossing.net/index.php
It is mainly about some details about manners.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_subcultures
Subcultures, modern things.
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/
Cultural heritages. There is also an interactive map.
https://ich.unesco.org/en/lists/
Intangible cultural heritages.
https://rammworldcultures.org.uk/home/objects/
Cultural Objects.
Guide of traveling cities.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/
A formal publication of basic information about countries.
https://worldcultures.webs.com/
Links to other sites about cultures.
History
An encyclopedia. Articles, images, videos, 3D images, podcasts and more.
Detailed articles about history.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.timleg.historytimeline
An app about major events of history.
https://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/History_n2/a.html
Basic knowledge of the world history. Looks old-fashioned, but it is not bad if you get used to it.
Historical events in dots.
It shows you some old news with detailed maps.
Maps of history.
Map of every year.
https://www.oldmapsonline.org/
Old maps around the world.
The site has trouble with the mobile site. You need to set to view the desktop site on mobile.
http://www.kingsandgenerals.net/
Videos and podcasts about the history of how nations reason each other with truth. Animations are abundant and the art is familiar to some game players. The comments of its videos provide more information such as corrections.
Philosophy & Religion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religions_and_spiritual_traditions
List of religions and spiritual traditions.
Not believing a religion itself is also religious.
https://www.philosophybasics.com/
The basics of philosophy, “by a layman for the layman”.
Facts about religions.
Geography
Videos about world geography.
Short articles.
!! https://gedevapps.com/flags/
Flags, capitals, currencies, some landmarks, in multiple languages. Dependencies included are not many.
!! http://worldmapquiz.qbisstudio.com/index.html
An app for practising world map in several languages. Dependencies are not all included. The form of address in Chinese version is a mixture of PRC's and ROC's, which is not good. For Chinese names of countries, there is a list: Language/Mandarin-chinese/Vocabulary/Countries-and-Nationalities.
https://userbase.kde.org/KGeography
Learn Geography on Linux. Information is incredibly outdated, though it's still being maintained. This is where I don't like KDE: no issues can be opened on their repositories. It is open-source.
For Linux users, maps and flags are at /usr/share/kgeography/
I am thinking about creating my own version.
Flag identifier.
Music
!! https://www.youtube.com/user/pupsibaerle1
All about traditional music.
Many tools about music including similar song finder.
!! https://www.soundhound.com/
Recognize music with recording or your humming. It has some advantages over Shazam.
Recognize music with recording. It has some advantages over Soundhound.
Art
All kinds of artwork around the world.
Dance
!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic,_regional,_and_folk_dances_by_origin
Dances by origin. You can search for them on video sites.
Cuisine
!! https://www.allrecipes.com/
A little bit of recipes around the world.
!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cuisines
List of cuisines.
Board Game
!! https://www.gnu.org/software/xboard/
Traditional board games. Its user interface is more cruel than AI opponents. It is open-source.
There are pre-installed engines, but they are somehow old. The most versatile engine is Fairy Stockfish.
Cute Chess looks good but Xiangqi and Janggi are missing.
Folk Costume
!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_costume
List of folk costume.
Folktale
Some faire tales.
Some fairy tale books.
Festival
!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_festivals_by_country
Not complete, but still good.
https://www.world-festivals.net/
It includes more countries than the one above. I wonder if it is so difficult to gather information about festivals.
Martial Art
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_martial_arts
List of martial arts.
Introduction to many martial arts.
Name
!! https://www.behindthename.com/
Find the meanings of a given name.
Don't expect you can understand every Chinese name.
Astronomy
You can see the sky in different locations and times. There are starlores in different cultures. Some even have constellation art.
Living Standard
Living information. It's also on GTA IV.
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/
Prices from the world. Sometimes inaccurate.
https://www.globalbrandprices.com/
The prices of the same products in different regions.
Statistics
All kinds of statistical data. Some are free.
It has detailed explanation on each data.
Trivia Quiz
Trivia quizzes of the world. It is available in multiple languages.
Prepaid SIM Card
https://prepaid-data-sim-card.fandom.com/wiki/Prepaid_SIM_with_data
Details about SIM cards.
License Plate
!! http://www.worldlicenseplates.com/
Take a look if you are interested. It's so completed.
National Anthem
!! http://www.nationalanthems.info/
National anthems with lyrics.
I can only appreciate an unheard one by listening to it more times. It's not only me, i guess.
Model
https://castle-engine.io/view3dscene.php
3D model viewer with support of walking and flying. It is open-source.
3D models, some are under public licenses. Make sure your computer's memory is large enough to view them.
You can also use 3D printers to print them if you like.
Font
!! https://www.google.com/get/noto/
It presents a lot of fonts in one art style. It is open-source.
!! https://unifoundry.com/unifont/index.html
No one covers more of the Unicode map than GNU Unifont. It is open-source.
Its function is limited, such as bad support for South and Southeast Asian characters.
You can go to its “stuff” and search by Unicode characters.
Optical Character Recognition
https://github.com/manisandro/gImageReader
It recognizes characters on the screen with Tesseract. It is open-source.
https://github.com/SubhamTyagi/android-ocr
It uses Tesseract 4 data on Android. It is open-source.
Language Identifier
!! http://www.polyglot3000.com/
It identifies languages.
Resource Links
Unlike this page, those are for some specific languages, and I am not responsible for their qualities.
https://www.lexilogos.com/english/index.htm
This one is in a great quantity that even GrimPixel's resource pages can hardly match.
https://www.ats-group.net/language-resources.html
This one has a lot of languages.
A comprehensive resource database.
This one has various references.
This one has more languages with fewer links for each one.
This one focuses on ancient languages.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Free_media_resources
Free media resources.
https://www.alllanguageresources.com/
This one includes recommendations that are not free-of-charge without notice.
Repository for language researching.
https://nlp.stanford.edu/links/statnlp.html
Academic software. You may wonder why academicians are so dumb at design. That is because they are not so good at front-end and they don't have to learn much of it.
Internet Archive
Archive of the Internet since 1996 and other things. Really cool!
Virtual Private Network and others
Those who are hindered from accessing the world Internet, send an e-mail to it.
Official site: https://psiphon3.com/en/index.html
!! https://www.torproject.org/
For visiting Project Gutenburg and other sites, if some books are still not in public domain in your country. It is open-source.
It won't lead you to the dark web, if you don't know any such address.
It doesn't allow torrenting on the free plan, but there's no volume limit.
They provide 10GB each month with high speed and multiple locations for free. Great for “immersive language learning”.
Endangered Language Protection
If you are capable and responsible, please consider to protect endangered languages.
https://www.endangeredlanguages.com/
-- AUTHOR --
Contributors
GrimPixel, Vincent, Maintenance script, 116.206.245.151 and 2a02:908:1266:ede0:6965:afc5:a137:765e