If you want to learn a foreign language on your own schedule,  we've discovered a site that lists 37 languages that you can learn for free.  From Arabic to Yiddish, you can find everything from survival phrases in Vietnamese to lessons in Mandarin Chinese from the Peace Corps.

No more excuses.

http://www.oculture.com/2006/10/foreign_languag.html

http://www.pandltranslations.com

Facebook is set to take off in the Arabic-speaking world now that it is available in Arabic.  More than 900,000 Egyptians were members of the site before the new version was introduced and that number is expected to grow.  Fifty million Arabic speakers are online, although only 5% of global web content is Arabic.

Because Arabic is written from right to left, Facebook also had to change page layouts, labels, buttons, etc.  To see what your Facebook page looks like in Arabic, scroll down to the bottom of your home page and change your language option.

Young Egyptians have used Facebook to organize political groups and mobilize, often against a government that restricts freedom of speech and the right to assemble.   Facebook was already the third most popular website in Egypt before the Arabic version was developed.   It will be interesting to see if  young Arabs will use social networks to create political movements.

Photo by Ross Day. Licensed under Creative Commons.

http://www.pandltranslations.com

"Everyone in Europe speaks English."   If I had a dollar - or a euro - for every time I've heard that, I'd be sitting in a cafe somewhere in Europe right now.  The truth is, 44% of Europeans can speak only one language.

In six member states, more than half of the population does not speak a second language: Ireland (66%), United Kingdom (62%), Italy (59%), Hungary (58%), Portugal (58%), and Spain (56%). 

Only 28% of Europeans polled by the European Commission's Eurobarometer survey speak two foreign languages.  These "multilingual" Europeans tend to be young and well-educated. They also have multilingual backgrounds, meaning they were born in another EU country, or their parents are from different EU countries than where they currently live.

If you're betting that English-only user manuals and websites will work for the European market,  I'll take your bet.

http://www.pandltranslations.com

Radio Lingua Network's Coffee Break series provides audio language courses in French and Spanish for beginners.  The 15-20 minute lessons can be downloaded or heard online.

If you're planning a trip abroad and you want to learn a few key words and phrases of a language, Radio Lingua offers One Minute courses in twelve different languages including Catalan, French, Japanese, Mandarin, and Russian.

Take a break, make yourself a cup of coffee, and start learning at http://www.radiolingua.com/ourpodcasts/index.html. 

Photo by Roberto Muñoz. Licensed under Creative Commons.

http://www.pandltranslations.com

Thanks to @benintn on Twitter for alerting us to this wonderful post by Jay Vorhees today(http://bit.ly/TYhY).

Here is Jay's post in its entirety: