Listening to languages

Spanish

http://www.cope.es/paginas/home3.asp

(click in "escucha en directo")

I'm glad you think so Deborah :)

Persons who have trouble understanding the spoken language may wish to try sites that provide written scripts along with the audio. Also special broadcasts in which the speakers speak more slowly can be helpful as an intermediate step. Here's an example of an English-language site that provides both of these features:

VOA Feature in Special English on New Orleans jazz:
http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/2005-05-22-voa1.cfm

Special English is grammatically correct, but the vocabulary has been restricted as much as possible to a basic vocabulary of 1500 words (with some more difficult ones added for the particular topic). Also the words are spoken at a speed that's about two-thirds the speed of standard English.

Besides the current programs there are archives going back for several years:
http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/archive/index.cfm?month=5/22/2005

If people know of sites for other languages besides English that contain scripts of the audio (or broadcasts, besides language lessons, in which speakers speak more slowly than usual), I'd appreciate their mentioning them.

Tip for persons with slow internet connections: The VOA and other sites provide mp3 and ra files for persons whose computers have audio, but who don't have fast enough internet connections to keep up with live broadcasts (and for those who just wish to store a copy of the broadcast on their disk -- this is useful for repeating difficult sections without having to download the whole broadcast again). Of course, first you need to have programs that will play mp3 or ra files (they're available for free on the internet).

Downloading the whole broadcast will take a long time, but you don't have to finish the download of an mp3 file before you start listening. By using the method I'm about to explain, you can start after only a minute or two, and yet still store a complete copy of the broadcast on your disk.

1. To begin the download of an audio file in Windows, right-click the audio link, and select 'Save link as' (put the file in a location where you can easily find it).

On your disk, Windows falsely lists the downloading file as having zero kilobytes (0KB), and if you try to play that file, it will give you a 'File in Use' error. You can get around this, though, by coping and pasting it. Then you'll see its true size (try this after a minute or so, and it will probably have reached a few hundred kilobytes).

2. Copy and paste the downloading file.
3. Double-click the copy of the partial file and see how it sounds.

In the meantime your computer continues to download the complete file. As the downloading file grows larger and larger, you can continue to make copies, and by moving the slider on the mp3 player, go to the part of the program that you haven't heard yet. When you finish the download, you'll have a copy of the complete program, which you can listen to as many times as you please (deleting it and the partial copies when you no longer need them).

"...by coping and pasting it" should be "...by copying and pasting it".

You guys 'n' girls are fantastico!...thanks for all those sites...I will log into them all more fully when I have more time......I pop in and out of Antimoon like a demented yo-yo. No wonder I'm prone to chronic typoitis.

www.everytongue.com - all languages

http://www.vor.ru/ - Voice of Russia is international radio, it can be listened in MANY languages, you ll see them at the left side, if you want to listen it in Russian, click on "pryamoi efir" it has special sign near by and it s written by red letters.

http://www.vor.ru/index_eng.phtml - english version of the site

The BBC website has links to BBC news in lots of languages, both written and spoken. They have a quite good Polish section, for example.

So is that Geramn surf music site really dedicated to surf-music ? As in twang-twang instrumental reverby guitars. If so then RE-Spect to it.

Thanks so far everyone! You're great!

Stefaniel P Spaniel, I didn't explore the music on the German surf music website, but I did notice some surf music playing at some point.

Speaking of surf music, I came across this interesting site once when I was looking for samples of Bulgarian folk music, in particular a rhythm called a kopanitsa. The composition I found is called "Black Sea Surf":
http://www.lanphier.net/music.html

I came across this site while looking for pictures of North Carolina's Outer Banks. I didn't find them here, but I found some good examples of North Carolina accents, which are not the most commonly known Southern US accents.

http://www.estuarylive.org/

It’s the website for an educational program called "Estuary Live," which presents live streaming video "field trips" for school classrooms (elementary and middle schools, I think). It's centered in the Rachel Carson Estuarine Research Reserve in eastern North Carolina:

http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/northcarolina/preserves/art5623.html

I recommend “Albemarle Pamlico NEP” because the host has a moderate accent, typical of what I frequently heard when I was in college in NC, and the expert (the second man to speak) has a more pronounced, eastern NC accent. In about the last 3 minutes of the program, one of the male students demonstrates the use of “y’all” several times, as well as the possessive, “y’all’s”. “Boating / Boating Safety” also features a couple of people who have eastern NC accents. One feature of all the NC accents I’ve heard is the pronunciation of the vowel in, for example, “boat.”

(There’s a pretty embarrassing rap at the beginning of one of the programs; with luck, you won’t find it.)

My post above isn't well-organized. The suggested listening refers to the first link, to estuarylive.org. There's nothing to listen to at the second link; it's just there for reference.

Today is the First of June: in UK meteorological terms it is "officially" the start of Summer.

Here is a song to celebrate it...it is one of the oldest medieval songs dating from the 12th Century...and was written by monks at the Abbey at Reading, Berkshire, England:

"Summer is icumen in"

http://www.toptempo.com/song/song_0000116.html

The city of Reading is on the River Thames, 40 miles west of London. The ruins of the Abbey are still to be see and now protected by English Heritage. King Henry VIII in his infinite "wisdom" and pique split the established Roman Catholic Church in England away from Rome because of his "personal problems" and the Church of England replaced it. He then had all the abbeys and monasteries in England destroyed (nice guy that he was) so that all those fantastic edifices are now ruins.

Reading (the city) is pronounced "Redding". It's funny, but above the front entrance to the former old building of the public library is the sign "Reading Library". It can be read both ways.

This link will allow you to hear the tune for free:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~msmiller/sumercanon.html