Yabla is a new way to learn French, Italian, German, Chinese, and Spanish online! For a very moderate monthly fee you can have access to a lot of videos – news, music videos, funny videos and other, in the language you want to learn – with subtitles in the original language and in English, and in several difficulty levels. But not only this, of course: you can click on each of the words to see them translated. Once you do so, the words will go to your vocabulary trainer. The different languages have different learning tools (yabla also offers grammar lessons for some languages) – even if you didn’t subscribe yet, you can go to the yabla page and explore them!

Language and culture are closely intermingled – and these videos show you how! By using this tool, you can also learn something about the cultures the videos come from – how people talk to each other, about the contexts, and sometimes even about ideas and attitudes. Of course every video, like every person you get to know and what this person tells you, shows you only an aspect – but all of these aspects will enrich your knowledge about the regarding society.

This way to learn a language is very similar to the way you learn it when you are in a foreign country: you listen, eventually manage to understand more and more, and you get used to what is right and wrong. When you finally learn a grammar rule, you will be able to explain why some things always sounded right to you, and others wrong!

When we are sensitive to and respectful for culture differences, in addition to speaking the other’s language, we can further improve our interactions – with host families, exchange program participants, and other AFSers from around the world!