Free resources

Free General learning resources

6 free resources, checked and categorised.

100% free

No trials, no paywalls, no sign-up required.

Everything below is free to use — no trial periods and no paywalls. The list covers the main ways people study General: structured courses to build a foundation, dictionaries to look things up, and listening and reading material to spend real time in the language. Start with one course and one dictionary, then add listening once you can follow simple sentences.

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Wikibooks Languages(opens in a new tab)

A virtual library with books related to foreign language learning. Includes some courses directly on the site.

Reading
BBC(opens in a new tab)

Videos with subtitles. The languages are many and to change from one to another you just need to add the forward slash and the language you want to learn (e.g. /arabic).

Reading
All levels
Lyricstranslate(opens in a new tab)

More than 1 million translations and transcriptions of song lyrics.

Reading
All levels
Newspaper Map(opens in a new tab)

You can spin the Earth around and choose news sites from all over the world here!

Reading
Advanced
TED Talks(opens in a new tab)

TED Talks available with subtitles in many languages.

Reading
All levels
lonweb(opens in a new tab)

Website full of short parallel (bilingual) stories.

Reading
All levels

This directory began from a community-built list of free language resources — a year of collecting and checking by Joanna (u/chlebka) and dozens of contributors who suggested links, shared freely. See the original list. We have since expanded, re-checked and re-categorised it, and we keep the per-resource credits where the original list recorded them.