MPLIC Reference Highway

Useful Sites & Stuff

lexicool.com October 3, 2009

http://www.lexicool.com/

The site offers a directory of the bilingual and multilingual dictionaries and glossaries available on the Internet.   It has links to many helpful resources, including an online translation page.

 

Free Foreign Language Lessons April 14, 2009

www.openculture.com/2006/10/foreign_languag.html

This is a fairly comprehensive list of sources for free language lessons, generally in the form of podcasts.  Most are beginner-level, but some of the more popular languages have much more in-depth lessons.  And, of course, there’s always the “Nightly News in Latin.”

 

Great Books Index February 12, 2009

http://books.mirror.org/gb.titles.html

This site offers links to online English translations of  many of the great books of the world.

 

Global Music Archive February 9, 2009

http://globalmusicarchive.org/

According to the site, “[t]he Global Music Archive is a multi-media reference archive and resource center for traditional and popular song, music, and dance of Africa and the Americas.”  Currently, only East African music is available, but you can read about plans for expanding the database.  Users can search by region, language, instrument, etc.  From Vanderbilt University.

 

Translating while typing January 22, 2009

Filed under: All, Computers, Countries of the World, Foreign Languages — andrea @ 6:27 pm

www.translit.ru

This is a fascinating site that a customer showed my co-worker.  While you are typing in English, and depending on the language setting chosen, your words are translated in Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, or Greek.

 

Name Pronunciation Guide December 2, 2008

www.howtosaythatname.com

This is a wonderful tool for business folk or anyone who has ever stumbled over a foreign name.  How To Say That Name.com allows the user to listen to a quick sound file of a native speaker saying given names and surnames.  Of course, not every name in the world is included, but an impressive number are!

 

CopyPasteCharacter November 24, 2008

www.copypastecharacter.com

These days, most keyboard characters are available in Microsoft Word (Insert>Symbol).  But what if you need to insert a © in an email?  Or write the word español?  That’s where this site becomes helpful.  Click on the symbol you need and it is automatically placed on your clipboard.  Then, just go to where you want to type it, and press Ctrl+V.  Voilà!

 

Multilingual Library Glossary November 11, 2008

Thanks to Kay Due (Public Services) and Wang-Ying Glasgow (Serials) for passing this along!

www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/multicultural/glossary/

This is a wonderful tool that translates frequently used words and phrases from the library world into 49 different languages.  It is also possible to request a phrase that is not currently included.

 

Free Foreign Language Courses May 16, 2008

Filed under: All, Countries of the World, Foreign Languages, Government, Travel — Philip @ 12:41 pm

http://www.fsi-language-courses.com/

This is the home for foreign language courses developed by the United States Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute.  All courses are free and in the public domain.

 

BBC Languages April 20, 2008

Filed under: All, Foreign Languages — Philip @ 4:43 pm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/

“A bit at a time, in your own time,” learn French, Spanish, German, Italian, and other languages here.  Really helpful as a beginner’s guide.

 

U. S. Public Library Websites With Information in Spanish April 9, 2008

Filed under: All, Foreign Languages, Reference Questions — Philip @ 5:32 pm

http://www.reforma.org/spanishwebsites.htm

REFORMA, The National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-speaking, and an affiliate of the American Library Association, provides this list of public libraries that offer their websites in Spanish or offer some information in Spanish on their websites.

 

Wikiwords January 30, 2008

Filed under: All, English, Grammar & Writing, Foreign Languages — Sarah @ 11:34 am

www.wikiwords.org

“Wikiwords is a collaborative project to create a dictionary of all terms in all languages with definitions and example sentences.”  It is still in Beta, but its focus on concepts and subject areas could be helpful.  For example, you can choose a language (Spanish) and then a subject area (Accounting) to view all indexed words in that field (1792 entries as of today.)

 

Resources for New Immigrants January 10, 2008

Filed under: All, Foreign Languages, Government — Sarah @ 12:42 pm

www.uscis.gov/newimmigrants

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offer guides to new immigrants in multiple languages.  From this site, the publication Welcome to the United States: A Guide for New Immigrants is available in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Haitian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Urdu and Vietnamese.

Update: Check out this wonderful guide to Immigration Resources from the folks at the Newark Public Library: www.npl.org/Pages/InternetResources/SubjectGuides/immigrants.html 

 

Biblegateway.com November 6, 2007

www.biblegateway.com

“The Bible Gateway is a tool for reading and researching scripture online- all in the language or translation of your choice.”

 

Get Lost in Translation Sites October 22, 2007

http://lifehacker.com/software/technophilia/get-lost-in-translation-sites-312991.php

Lifehacker has a great guide to language translation sites and other language tools.  Besides common sites already mentioned in this blog, there are links to language dictionaries, slang sites and newspaper translators.  Enjoy!