Radio Lingua News, December 2010

12/26/10 • 6 min

It’s been a busy term for Radio Lingua: in the past three months we’ve published over 90 language lessons, we’ve introduced ebook versions of our courses in our premium memberships and on the iBookstore and we’ve had three of our podcasts listed in the iTunes Rewind best of 2010. We thought we’d take this opportunity to update you on a few important news items.

Festive greetings

Firstly, we’d like to take this opportunity to wish all our listeners a very happy festive season. We have listeners all around the world and wherever you are, whatever celebrations you’re having as we head towards 2011, we hope that you have a peaceful, restful and happy holiday. All through December we’ve been running our Festive Phrases podcast which has featured daily festive phrases from around the world with the hosts of our various shows. This series has been particularly aimed at schools and we’ve been delighted that so many young language learners around the world have used our daily podcasts to learn some festive greetings in 24 languages. Each day we’ve added the number of speakers of the language featured to a map and by the end of the series listeners were able to send festive greetings to over 2.6 billion people around the world. If you’re a teacher and you’ve been using Festive Phrases with your classes, please send us your feedback.

Coffee Break French Season 3 news

We introduced season 3 of Coffee Break French in October and this week we’ll release episode 10. Since we began season 3 we’ve offered a special introductory price for the premium version of the course which provided 3A (lessons 301-320) and 3B (lessons 321-340) together for a one-off payment of £47 GBP. As of 10th January 2011, season 3A and 3B will cost £37 each, or the complete season 3 will cost £64. This is therefore your last chance to purchase season 3 at the introductory price. Please note that all existing customers who have bought season 3 complete will receive the premium materials for the full season.

UK VAT charges

On 4th January 2011, the UK VAT rate increases from 17.5% to 20%. As a result our prices for EU customers will increase. For example, the current price of Coffee Break French Seasons 1 and 2 complete is £89 + VAT. This equates to £104.57. From 4th January 2011 the price will be £106.80 for EU customers. For Coffee Break Spanish Season 1 the current price is £47 + VAT. This equates to £55.23, but from 4th January the price will be £56.40 for EU customers. These changes do not affect the base prices of our products, so non-EU customers will not be affected. We’ve decided to extend our winter sale until 10th January to help make this transition. This means our sale will now end at midnight GMT on 10th January: continue to use coupon code WINTER2010 until 10th January.

Plans for 2011

We’re looking forward to a new year of language learning with Radio Lingua, and we hope you are too! We’ve been working on lots of new content and we’ll be adding to our range of materials in Spanish, French, German and Italian with new materials for learners. We’ll be extending our One Minute Languages series with Arabic, Dutch, Galician and Hungarian to name but a few, and we’ll be introducing more video content in the coming year. Make sure you visit our site regularly, that you’re a friend of Radio Lingua on Facebook, and that you follow us on Twitter to be the first to hear of all our new content. There’s some very exciting news coming in the next couple of months, so stay tuned!

Finally, we’d like to wish you once again a very happy holiday season, and best wishes for 2011.

Festive greetings

Coffee Break French Season 3 news

UK VAT charges

Plans for 2011

Finally, we’d like to wish you once again a very happy holiday season, and best wishes for 2011.

Previous Episode

Lesson 10 – One Minute Spanish

In lesson 10 of One Minute Spanish you will learn a few useful phrases which all learners want to learn.

If you can’t wait ten weeks for our entire course you can access the premium version of the entire course immediately. This features a lesson guide, video versions of each lesson featuring the words and phrases on the screen of your computer or mobile device as you listen, and an enhanced ebook which features the text and the video content and can be played on iPodTouch, iPhone and iPad through the iBooks app. Click on ‘purchase membership’ below to access all these resources for a one-off payment of £7.99.

Purchase Membership | Members’ Materials | iTunes | RSS

Next Episode

Radio Lingua is 5 years old – and we’re celebrating!

It’s five years since we launched the first lesson of Coffee Break Spanish, and since then we’ve served up millions of language lessons to learners around the world through our podcasts, our enhanced lessons and our ebooks. We’re delighted today to announce five new courses, and we’ll also be letting you know about a few exciting projects which are due to be launched early in 2012.

Spanish

¡Empecemos con el español! On the 18th October 2006 we began with Spanish, and we’re doing the same today. Today we’re delighted to launch a brand new Spanish show. When you’re learning a language on your own, or if you don’t have access to a teacher or a native speaker, it’s difficult to get the answers you need to help you make progress. We receive questions almost every day from learners through posts on the website, emails, voicemails, tweets and Facebook, and we decided that the best way to deal with all of these questions would be to launch Q&A Spanish: you ask the questions and we provide the answers. Q&A Spanish will be hosted by teacher and languages expert JP Villanueva and native Spanish speaker Nahyeli Mendivil, so you have the best of both worlds! Each week they’ll help you develop your confidence in Spanish further by providing tips and examples of Spanish vocabulary, usage and grammar. Q&A Spanish starts today, so you can already subscribe to the podcast. Click here to find out more about how you can take part in the show.

French

We’re also delighted to be announcing a brand new French video show. In On Location French you can join Sophie who is a UK student currently studying in Paris. She’s there for a year and she’s agreed to be our “correspondent”, bringing us weekly reports on interesting expressions she learns as she interacts with native speakers every day. Sophie will also be providing some cultural input as she gets to know the city, and we’re really looking forward to finding out more about her experiences in Paris in her weekly videoblog. Find out more and watch the episodes at the On Location French page.

Dutch, Flemish and Arabic

We’re delighted to be launching three new courses in our ever-popular One Minute Languages series. One of the most requested languages over the past few years has been Dutch, and we’ve decided to produce a Dutch and Flemish version of the course. Both languages are very similar – Flemish is the variety of Dutch spoken in Belgium, and of course Dutch is spoken in the Netherlands and in other countries around the world such as Suriname and Aruba. One Minute Dutch launches on Thursday 20th October and One Minute Flemish will be published on Fridays from 21st October. We’ve also been asked many times to produce an Arabic version of our One Minute Languages course. One Minute Arabic will run for ten weeks from tomorrow, Wednesday 19th October. We’re concentrating on Modern Standard Arabic which will ensure that as a learner you’ll be understood across the Arab world, from Casablanca to Kuwait. With these latest additions to the One Minute Languages series, we now cover 26 languages, from Arabic to Zulu making Radio Lingua your first stop for language-learning on the go, literally from A to Z!

What’s coming down the line?

There may be some of you who are looking forward to a third season of Coffee Break Spanish. We’re working on this at the moment and by the time the reruns of Show Time Spanish end in January we should be ready to go with Coffee Break Spanish Season 3. French learners will be very pleased to know that Pierre-Benoît has been wandering about in the streets of Paris again and a second series of Walk, Talk and Learn French is in production. We’re also very excited about the January launch of our new children’s French video course, High Five French. We’ll be releasing more information about all of these projects over the next few months, so stay tuned!

And finally...

Finally, a personal note. Five years ago today, as I uploaded the first lesson of Coffee Break Spanish to the internet I had no idea how things would develop. At the time it was really just a personal project – something to keep me involved in Spanish as my “day job” had changed and I was no longer as closely involved in languages. Since then we’ve seen Radio Lingua grow into a successful company, delivering language lessons to millions of learners from all corners of the globe. I’d like to say a personal thank you to all of the brilliant people involved in the production of our courses, and to everyone involved in the day-to-da...