BBC's Learning English

May 28, 2008 4:50 AM

Did you know the BBC has extensive pages on learning English?
posted by Wolfdog (17 comments total)

Yes
posted by jontyjago at 4:54 AM on May 28, 2008

No I didn't.

Did you know that the BBC also has pages on learning Spanish, French, German and Italian?
posted by taojones at 4:56 AM on May 28, 2008

I'm pretty surprised at all the extensive subject pages the BBC has, they're pretty impressive. I love browsing through the history sections on my downtime. It's fun, educational, and thanks to a nice man named George Washington, I don't even have to pay a license fee!
posted by Science! at 4:59 AM on May 28, 2008

Pft. Who need English, Spanish, French, German, or Italian, when you can learn the world's awesomest language: Welsh. You, too, can ymunwch.
posted by whatzit at 5:09 AM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

BBC speaks finance. Their equity market coverage is fairly solid, and is a good single page overview of what's happening in several important global markets.

For a free web site they've also got surprisingly good market commentary (actually, I'm probably paying for this somehow out of my license fee ...)
posted by Mutant at 5:19 AM on May 28, 2008

Now if only the English would use them.
posted by srboisvert at 5:23 AM on May 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Nothing for learning Arabic?
posted by Vindaloo at 5:57 AM on May 28, 2008

Am I bovvered?
posted by MuffinMan at 6:07 AM on May 28, 2008

They also have news in 33 languages (which, incidentally, is not paid for from the licence fee, but by the UK Foreign Office).
posted by fcw at 6:23 AM on May 28, 2008

The BBC taught me how to do a proper front crawl.
posted by teg at 7:32 AM on May 28, 2008

The BBC taught me how to cook.

This is fun.

Mutant, 49p a month of your licence fee went on the web pages. Cheap as chips!

The BBC's policy on learning.
posted by Helga-woo at 7:58 AM on May 28, 2008

I'd love to see the US news edutainment organizations' equivalent of these pages. They'd be full of useful American English phrases like:

Twelve miles per gallon? The new Chevy® Tahoe™ really is environmentally friendly! I must purchase one immediately with credit from GMAC® financing and fill it with reasonably-priced gasoline products from Exxon-Mobil®!

What time is American Idol™ broadcast on Fox™? I will watch it on my Westinghouse® TV while eating delicious Doritos®-brand snack chips and drinking a delicious Coca-Cola®-brand product!
posted by kcds at 8:19 AM on May 28, 2008

Do you want your children to say con-TROV-ersy?
posted by Cranberry at 11:58 AM on May 28, 2008

Do you want your children to say con-TROV-ersy?

If they didn't I'd stir up one.

Also: I wish I could read English so I could benefit from this post. Seriously, I've seen trams riding through Amsterdam with a huge "N E D E R L A N D S   L E R E N ?" on the side. What good does that do if you can't already read that?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:00 PM on May 28, 2008

That said, "Singer and the song" was pretty goddamn cool. I mean, seriously, learn English through "Born Slippy"? Awesome.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 1:03 PM on May 28, 2008

Do you want your children to say con-TROV-ersy?

Yes!
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:44 PM on May 28, 2008

The BBC provides excellent, in-depth coverage of the world, both online and in televised broadcasts. If you pay attention to the BBC, you learn things that you'd be hard-pressed to find in U.S. media.
posted by davinciuno at 1:28 PM on May 29, 2008