Bibliomaniaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Oh, I’m sure there must be a God!!! No human being can create such a heavenly thing!!! No kidding! Take a look at the best site ever and you’ll see what I’m talking about. If you don’t like it, however, something’s wrong with you or you’re a philistine. Whatsoever, don’t tell me if you don’t admire “Bibliomania” … I won’t like you anymore. ;-) *chuckle*

Bibliomania is divided in 3 main parts: read, study, research!

The reading sector has thousands of e-books, poems, articles, short stories and plays all of which are absolutely free. You can read the world's greatest fiction by authors such as Dickens and Joyce, Sherlock Holmes mysteries, all Shakespeare's plays, or just dip into some short stories by writers such as Mark Twain, Anton Chekov and Edgar Allan Poe. Doesn’t that sound like heaven to you??? That’s the greatest thing ever!

I unfortunately don’t really know about the other two sections – I don’t even really care; after all, there’s this wonderful reading section – but why don’t you discover them yourself…

The studying sector has been especially designed to meet the needs of school and university students. Nevertheless, there’s also a part for teachers.

The researching sector seems to be a cool platform for anything you’re searching for. Bibliomania research is definitely an additionally and equivalent searching tool to Google and Wikipedia. It’s an omnium-gatherum of unbelievably lot of things which covers a great variety of topics with strictly selected sources.

Although this site is great as it is now already they keep adding to the library regularly and welcome book recommendations. If you register you can receive email alerts on new texts.

Online Dictionaries

What would we do without dictionaries? Aren’t they our best friends? Oh, I often “consult my dictionaries”…I know there are dozens of dictionaries in cyberopps but I found out that I have some more to share with y’all … after all, we can’t have enough of them, can we?

Interactive Terminology for Europe:
IATE, originally EURODICAUTOM, is a multilingual dictionary. You can choose between dozens of source and target languages and additionaly you can search within a particular domain. I guess this dictionary will be very helpful for later translating on special topics, for language for special purposes (e.g. medicine, technology, business, etc).

Idioms and Slang:
This site is actually the homepage of Ontario, if I’m not wrong, but it has an ESL corner which, among other things, provides a list of idioms and slang expressions. It’s like the glossaries we usually write ourselves: You can listen to the words, have a definition and an example sentence. Have fun exploring the ESL corner; have fun improving your vocabulary.

The Language Site:
This site is said to be a site for language and translation. I can’t really tell you yet how good it is or whether it meets our needs…I spotted it and we maybe could all together explore it/ put it on test and find out if it’s worth adding to our bookmarks or not. All I discovered so far is its considerable range it provides: From dictionary links, tons of dictionaries to choose from to translator programs in dozens of languages… I tried out the English monolingual dictionary and that one is definitely good. It’s a bit like Longman: you can listen to both, the American and the British, pronunciation; you have an example sentence and a list of other words that relate to it, the category it belongs to, synonyms… So, please tell me, what you think about "The Language Site"?

The Alternative English Dictionary:
That’s a fun one ;-) We’re language students and we also need to know about these things…Okay *blush*…it’s a “beeeeeeep” kind of thing but it’s sometimes nice for a change to do silly stuff. After all, it has to do with English! What’s more, we might have trouble understanding native speakers without these words/ expressions/ phrases and we might have to defend ourselves one day ;-) It provides a nearly endless list of other languages and what’s really cool is that you could learn swearing in Hungarian for example because the definitions are in English. Take “Baszd Meg” for example: Some people in Hungary use it in every sentence; sometimes/ often as a filler word.

Travel Further:
This is a personal website created by an American. What you can find here …? British-American/ American-British dictionaries displaying the authors interpretation of the differences between American and British English; Travel Writing, Fun & Games; and much more. What’s nice is that you can leave a comment in his guestbook. It’s a nice little page…obviously not an educational one but fun to explore.

Okay…that’s it…these are the one’s I thought are worth mentioning. Feel free to tell me if I was wrong or not…

Better @ English

This is what I found out during our blogsession in class:

"The English Blog; For Learners and Teachers of English" seems to be a fantastic ESL learning blog with loads of things to explore! You all have to visit this one!

It's a perfect site created for non-native speakers to help them improve their English. What you can find here are numerous links, tips and advice for English learners.

The first link on this blog is http://www.betteratenglish.com/. Explore this great homepage first cause you can get free English lessons to help you learn English vocabulary, idioms, slang, grammar, and more! It's you who decides about the degree of difficulty (;-) not the teacher), plus you can choose between diverse topics and categories such as: Phrasal Verbs, British vs. American, Business English, Grammar and usage, Idioms and slang, Vocabulary, Listening, Writing skills, General silliness, etc.

I tried out some listening activieties about British vs. American/ Real English Conversations: You can not only understand it very easily, but they give you a view suggestions to think about or maybe write about, plus they provide you with the full transcript and vocabulary list on the website. Doesn't that sound really useful and fun? By the way...the guy has a nice voice ;-)

I enjoy exploring cultural differences most! That's really fun, interseting and educational.

Check it out- betteratenglish.com I mean and since I kind of fell in love with this site I'll keep posting about my further experience with it but will also try to write about the blog I initially started to write about.

Okay, that's enough for now...I have to go get some "accessory" that I need to be able to engage in my hobby/ passion ;-)

BBC

Are you such a big fan of BBC as I am? If so, you have to be friends with "bbc.co.uk" ! I not only love to watch BBC Prime whenever I'm at home in Vienna (especially BBC learning, sitcoms, Eddie Izzard, Three Non Blonds, etc.) but I especially like this link. Apart from having the opportunity to read the news in 33 languages, the bbc homepage provides you with various topics that might tickle your fancy, has a special "learning area" that covers nearly all the topics we need to study (grammar, vocab, listening, watching, fun quizzes) but the best thing I found out recently is the BBC Learning English Blogs! There's a student blog as well as a teacher blog which gives the students advice on what they write and suggestions for improving their writing. The fun thing is that you can also be a student blogger! So give it a try! For me personally, the teacher blog is the better one because it provides the students with really useful advice (e.g. about leraning grammar, study habits, etc). Also the teacher highlights important phrases that are worth remembering. At the end of his entries he usually writes down the highlighted phrases and explains them in English. So, take a look at it, have fun and tell me what you think!