Would you like to be able to read documents written in your ancestors native tongues? The Foreign Service Institute is the US Government’s primary training institution for officers and support personal of the US Foreign affairs community. Through the use of language programs and studies, the FSI prepares future diplomats and other professionals who are advancing US foreign interests overseas and around Washington, via communication and whatever else those people do. These foreign language courses are published using federal money, which basically means they are public domain, and thus, available to any citizen who’s interested in learning a new language.
FSI Language Courses.com is a community-driven site that collects, scans and distributes the Foreign Service language program documentation and audio-tapes to anyone interested in learning Cantonese, Spanish, German, French and Portuguese, among many other languages, all free of charge. The audio tapes have been digitized and now you can listen to these audio files on your computer.
The web site will not make you fluent in any of these languages. However, it will give you a good introduction to each language and will teach you to read documents written in the language.
The site is not affiliated in any way with any government entity; it is an independent, non-profit effort to foster the learning of worldwide languages. Courses are made available through the private efforts of individuals who are donating their time and resources to provide quality materials for language learning.
Available languages include: Amharic, Arabic, Bulgarian, Cambodian, Cantonese, Chinese, Chinyanja, Finnish, French, Fula, German, Greek, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Igbo, Italian, Japanese, Kituba, Korean, Lao, Lingala, Luganda, Moré, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Shona, Sinhala, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Twi, Vietnamese, and Yoruba.
For more information, look at http://fsi-language-courses.org.
