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New Alphabet Courses in Transparent Language Online Posted by on Apr 29, 2013 in For Educators, For Learners, For Libraries, Learning Material Updates

If you need to memorize just a few words or phrases quickly, using transliteration may be the way to go.  But in the long term, learning the native script is a huge advantage.

Learn the native alphabet in Russian, Japanese, or Arabic, for example, and you’ll see and feel the language more authentically. As a beginner, you’ll be able to dive right in, sounding out road and store signs. Later, the native script will serve as your membership card to the world of native literature, texting, and email.

russian alphabet course

Master the alphabet in our new and improved alphabet courses!

To support this idea, we’ve added full-length alphabet courses to Transparent Language Online.  These alphabet courses include a suite of activities designed to help users achieve basic familiarization with the alphabet, including letter shapes, sounds, and names. So far, we’ve created alphabet courses for Arabic, Armenian, Chechen, Dari, Farsi, Hebrew, Hindi, Iraqi, Japanese, Korean, Pashto, Thai, Russian, Mongolian, Hungarian, Punjabi, Georgian, Urdu, and Greek.  More are on the way.

When these courses were first being developed, we turned to members of our Facebook community to take our Russian course for a spin. Facebook fans not already learning Russian spent an average of just over an hour learning the Russian alphabet using the alphabet course. Their feedback was helpful in shaping the final product, and we really enjoyed reading their comments:

“At first it seemed really fast to just go from one activity to the other without stopping to repeat (which you can do, but I just didn’t), but it is actually amazing how you learn the alphabet without even noticing it… I never thought I’d get it all correct in the assessment!” (Note: the average score by our tester group on the final assessment was 95%)

“Very, very good!  I now know the Russian alphabet and now have an interest in learning Russian, thank you!  Something completely different from English, French, and German, which I speak all to fluency or near-fluency.”

“[The Alphabet Explorer activity] is a great idea because some letters in the Russian alphabet did not have the same sound as the letter in English.  I appreciated seeing both upper- and lowercase letters.  I found the pronunciations to be very helpful and played them multiple times to familiarize myself with the slightly different pronunciations of each letter.”

“I felt that [the Alphabet Learner activity] was the first that really challenged my retrieval skills.  I liked how it drilled me more on the letters I got wrong.”

“[The Recognize and Say It activity] was the best exercise for me, as I can usually choose correctly when given a multiple choice, but when I have to come up with the answer from scratch is when I truly know I have learned something.”

Many thanks to our fans for participating in our Alphabet course testing!

Find a library near you who offers Transparent Language Online.

None close by? Print this info card and bring it to your local librarians to let them know you’re interested, or sign up for the free trial!

Keep learning a language with us!

Build vocabulary, practice pronunciation, and more with Transparent Language Online. Available anytime, anywhere, on any device.

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About the Author: Transparent Language

Transparent Language is a leading provider of best-practice language learning software for consumers, government agencies, educational institutions, and businesses. We want everyone to love learning language as much as we do, so we provide a large offering of free resources and social media communities to help you do just that!


Comments:

  1. Michael H:

    汉字怎么样?How about Chinese (either simplified or traditional)?

    • Transparent Language:

      @Michael H Hi Michael! We don’t have an alphabet course for Mandarin, since it is not an alphabet in the traditional sense. It is made up of tens of thousands of characters! We do have pinyin support, though, in the form of an alphabet course and the explorer tool. You can check out both of those features in the free trial!

  2. Bern:

    Croatian?

    • Transparent Language:

      @Bern Hi Bern! Unfortunately we don’t have an alphabet course for Croatian yet, but we do offer Croatian in Transparent Language Online. A subscription includes the Essentials course (10 units intended to teach the basics needed for surviving a trip to Croatia), 60+ topical vocabulary lists (covering everything from colors, foods, and weather to common verbs and adjectives), a grammar reference section, and a suite of interactive learning activities that force you to practice speaking, listening, reading, and typing in Croatian.

      If you’re in the US you can try to find it free in a library near you: https://www.transparent.com/libraries/find-transparent-language-online.html

      If you’re not, you can also learn online directly with us. You can sign up for a free trial here: https://www.transparent.com/personal/transparent-language-online.html

  3. Bern:

    Are there any v fast learn croatian courses? Have been learning for 14 years and still can’t speak. I souls give up.

  4. Joe and Carrie:

    You have Spanish real life conversations on video. How about posting Russian real life conversations on video?

  5. Lilian:

    I would love to learn Italian, the most beautiful language of all. Do you offer Italian?


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