Welcome to this festive edition of Radio Lingua News. In this update we’ll be telling you about the fantastic milestone we reached this week, and explaining how you can save 25% on our premium memberships until the end of the year.

100 million downloads

Early on Friday morning we clocked up our 100 millionth download. Over the past five years learners from around the world have downloaded our free language lessons and we’re delighted to have reached this amazing milestone. We’d like to thank all our listeners for continuing to enjoy our language lessons, and a special thank you to all our members who help to support all of our developments.

Winter sale now on

To celebrate this milestone we’ve launched our winter sale, so you can now get 25% off our memberships and premium versions of the courses. In most cases these premium versions include lesson guides in pdf or ebook format and extra audio or video content. All the courses available on our website can be purchased at this special reduced rate by using the coupon code winter2011 at checkout. The sale will continue until midnight on New Year’s Eve – or Hogmanay as we say in Scotland, so you still have almost two weeks to take advantage of these special prices, and get a head start on your language learning for 2012.

Update on current shows

The reaction to our new show for Spanish learners, Q&A Spanish, has been fantastic. We’re delighted that lots of you are now emailing us with your questions, or leaving voicemails so that we can include your questions in the show. JP and Nahyeli are enjoying answering your questions – even the difficult ones! If you’re learning Spanish and you’ve not yet listened to Q&A Spanish, you can find out more about the show, download the episodes, and find out how to contact us to ask your question at qandaspanish.com. We’re also really pleased with On Location French, our new video blog produced by Sophie in Paris. Sophie records her regular videos with a small camera and microphone all on her own in Paris and although we had some teething problems with sound, things are settling down now. She’s been including some really interesting phrases – and this week’s expression is a fantastic construction to add to your vocabulary! You can access On Location French on iTunes, Blip.TV or of course at onlocationfrench.com. Turning to our other courses, although we’ve had a delay with our new One Minute Languages series, we’re getting back on track and there will be new episodes out this week of our Dutch, Flemish and Arabic courses. As far as Coffee Break French is concerned, we’re now into the final eight lessons of Season 3 and in these episodes we’ll be going back through the texts used in this season and picking out some of the most important grammar points, then helping learners practise these constructions with a series of translation and dictation exercises. There will be lots of extra members-only content, so with our winter sale currently on, perhaps now is the time to take advantage of our special pricing.

Happy holidays!

Finally, we’d like to wish you all a very happy holiday season and hope that you get the chance to relax, spend time with your friends and family, enjoying everything that the festive season brings, and get the chance to work on your language – or put it into practice if you happen to be travelling! Don’t forget that you can join us in our Festive Phrases video series each day of December until the 25th to learn a festive greeting in a different language. Use the link on the home page of the Radio Lingua site to open each day of our linguistic Advent Calendar.

It’s five years since we launched the first lesson of Coffee Break Spanish, and since then we’ve served up millions of language lessons to learners around the world through our podcasts, our enhanced lessons and our ebooks. We’re delighted today to announce five new courses, and we’ll also be letting you know about a few exciting projects which are due to be launched early in 2012.

Spanish

¡Empecemos con el español! On the 18th October 2006 we began with Spanish, and we’re doing the same today. Today we’re delighted to launch a brand new Spanish show. When you’re learning a language on your own, or if you don’t have access to a teacher or a native speaker, it’s difficult to get the answers you need to help you make progress. We receive questions almost every day from learners through posts on the website, emails, voicemails, tweets and Facebook, and we decided that the best way to deal with all of these questions would be to launch Q&A Spanish: you ask the questions and we provide the answers. Q&A Spanish will be hosted by teacher and languages expert JP Villanueva and native Spanish speaker Nahyeli Mendivil, so you have the best of both worlds! Each week they’ll help you develop your confidence in Spanish further by providing tips and examples of Spanish vocabulary, usage and grammar. Q&A Spanish starts today, so you can already subscribe to the podcast. Click here to find out more about how you can take part in the show.

French

We’re also delighted to be announcing a brand new French video show. In On Location French you can join Sophie who is a UK student currently studying in Paris. She’s there for a year and she’s agreed to be our “correspondent”, bringing us weekly reports on interesting expressions she learns as she interacts with native speakers every day. Sophie will also be providing some cultural input as she gets to know the city, and we’re really looking forward to finding out more about her experiences in Paris in her weekly videoblog. Find out more and watch the episodes at the On Location French page.

Dutch, Flemish and Arabic

We’re delighted to be launching three new courses in our ever-popular One Minute Languages series. One of the most requested languages over the past few years has been Dutch, and we’ve decided to produce a Dutch and Flemish version of the course. Both languages are very similar – Flemish is the variety of Dutch spoken in Belgium, and of course Dutch is spoken in the Netherlands and in other countries around the world such as Suriname and Aruba. One Minute Dutch launches on Thursday 20th October and One Minute Flemish will be published on Fridays from 21st October. We’ve also been asked many times to produce an Arabic version of our One Minute Languages course. One Minute Arabic will run for ten weeks from tomorrow, Wednesday 19th October. We’re concentrating on Modern Standard Arabic which will ensure that as a learner you’ll be understood across the Arab world, from Casablanca to Kuwait. With these latest additions to the One Minute Languages series, we now cover 26 languages, from Arabic to Zulu making Radio Lingua your first stop for language-learning on the go, literally from A to Z!

What’s coming down the line?

There may be some of you who are looking forward to a third season of Coffee Break Spanish. We’re working on this at the moment and by the time the reruns of Show Time Spanish end in January we should be ready to go with Coffee Break Spanish Season 3...

It’s been a busy term for Radio Lingua: in the past three months we’ve published over 90 language lessons, we’ve introduced ebook versions of our courses in our premium memberships and on the iBookstore and we’ve had three of our podcasts listed in the iTunes Rewind best of 2010. We thought we’d take this opportunity to update you on a few important news items.

Festive greetings

Firstly, we’d like to take this opportunity to wish all our listeners a very happy festive season. We have listeners all around the world and wherever you are, whatever celebrations you’re having as we head towards 2011, we hope that you have a peaceful, restful and happy holiday. All through December we’ve been running our Festive Phrases podcast which has featured daily festive phrases from around the world with the hosts of our various shows. This series has been particularly aimed at schools and we’ve been delighted that so many young language learners around the world have used our daily podcasts to learn some festive greetings in 24 languages. Each day we’ve added the number of speakers of the language featured to a map and by the end of the series listeners were able to send festive greetings to over 2.6 billion people around the world. If you’re a teacher and you’ve been using Festive Phrases with your classes, please send us your feedback.

Coffee Break French Season 3 news

We introduced season 3 of Coffee Break French in October and this week we’ll release episode 10. Since we began season 3 we’ve offered a special introductory price for the premium version of the course which provided 3A (lessons 301-320) and 3B (lessons 321-340) together for a one-off payment of £47 GBP. As of 10th January 2011, season 3A and 3B will cost £37 each, or the complete season 3 will cost £64. This is therefore your last chance to purchase season 3 at the introductory price. Please note that all existing customers who have bought season 3 complete will receive the premium materials for the full season.

UK VAT charges

On 4th January 2011, the UK VAT rate increases from 17.5% to 20%. As a result our prices for EU customers will increase. For example, the current price of Coffee Break French Seasons 1 and 2 complete is £89 + VAT. This equates to £104.57. From 4th January 2011 the price will be £106.80 for EU customers. For Coffee Break Spanish Season 1 the current price is £47 + VAT. This equates to £55.23, but from 4th January the price will be £56.40 for EU customers. These changes do not affect the base prices of our products, so non-EU customers will not be affected. We’ve decided to extend our winter sale until 10th January to help make this transition. This means our sale will now end at midnight GMT on 10th January: continue to use coupon code WINTER2010 until 10th January.

Plans for 2011

We’re looking forward to a new year of language learning with Radio Lingua, and we hope you are too! We’ve been working on lots of new content and we’ll be adding to our range of materials in Spanish, French, German and Italian with new materials for learners. We’ll be extending our One Minute Languages series with Arabic, Dutch, Galician and Hungarian to name but a few, and we’ll be introducing more video content in the coming year. Make sure you visit our site regularly, that you’re a friend of Radio Lingua on Facebook, and that you follow us on Twitter to be the first to hear of all our ...

So, you’ve been learning Spanish with Coffee Break Spanish, and perhaps you’ve been extending your knowledge with Show Time Spanish. Today we’re delighted to introduce a new show to help you build your vocabulary and develop your listening skills even further.

News Time Spanish is a new weekly show from the Radio Lingua Network aimed at intermediate to advanced learners of Spanish. Each week we’ll be bringing you stories from around the world in short reports, written especially for learners. We’ll be reporting on current affairs, sport, culture, technology and lots more, so News Time Spanish will be an excellent way to increase your Spanish vocabulary and build your range of expression.

The first season of News Time Spanish begins today, 17th May 2010 and you can listen to episode one on our site, or subscribe in iTunes, as usual. Each episode comes with a full transcript of the report, vocabulary and exercises, and there’s even a second version of the audio file which has been digitally slowed-down to help you understand the episode.

Find out more about News Time Spanish on the product page for the show.

2009 has been a fantastic year for Radio Lingua and we’d like to thank all our listeners for your support and enthusiasm over the past twelve months. To celebrate the end of 2009 and a new year of language-learning just around the corner, we’re delighted to announce our Holidays sale and give you some exciting advance notice of our plans for 2010. Read on!

No festive period is complete without a sale, and we’re offering you 25% off all our courses right through until 31 December, midnight GMT. If you’ve been thinking about taking your language-learning more seriously next year, perhaps now is the time to jump on board and purchase one of our Season Passes. We’re delighted to be able to offer free language-learning materials to hundreds of thousands of listeners around the world, but you can take your learning to a new level with our premium materials which include lesson guides, extra listening materials and exericses for each of our courses.

To receive your 25% discount, simply use the coupon code holidays09 (lower case) at checkout when you’re buying one of our courses. If you’ve not purchased an item from us before, you can view our full range of products here, or visit the appropriate store front for Coffee Break French, Coffee Break Spanish, Show Time Spanish, One Minute Languages, or School Run French. When you complete the form, make sure you enter holidays09 in the coupon code area at the bottom of the signup page.

Please note that the 25% reduction will be applied at checkout. EU customers should be aware that the prices quoted on our signup pages do not include VAT. If you use the coupon code then the 25% discount will be applied and then 17.5% VAT will be added to the total cost. It’s worth also pointing out that as of 1st January 2010, the VAT charges will have to increase to 17.5% in line with the Inland Revenue arrangements in the UK.

Please remember to use the coupon code as you’re purchasing: no refunds will be given on any materials purchased at full price if the coupon codes have not been used.

Would you like to purchase a gift membership? If so, please contact us at [email protected] and we’ll get things set up for you. Let us know what product you wish to buy and the email address of the recipient. We’ll process your payment and send the gift membership invitation in time for Christmas. Please note that the deadline for any Christmas gifts is 17 December.

New for 2010: the Radio Lingua Club. We’ve been listening to comments from our existing premium customers and one of the most common requests is for more help and advice for learning languages. We’ve decided therefore to create a ‘club’ around this. Membership to the club will last 12 months and during this time members will receive the following benefits:

* Weekly podcasts in a brand new “how to learn a language” series featuring tips, tricks and advice on learning language. We’ll also be including interviews with language learners from all walks of life who will share their learning tips. The course will feature tips for beginners and for experienced learners and we’re sure that everyone will be able to benefit from this course, regardless of the language they are learning.

* Reduced prices on all our content. Members will have access to a special discount rate for any purchases made within the membership period.

We’re delighted to be joined once more by Alba in this special episode of Show Time Spanish. It’s the last ‘normal’ episode in the series: next week we’ll have the eighth and final instalment of Verano Español, so lesson 39 is the final ‘normal’ episode in the series. We find out what Alba has been doing since before the summer and Mark takes the opportunity to test listeners on some of the phrases learned earlier in the series.

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In this episode Mark is joined by Sofía from Argentina and Ana Isabel from Ecuador. Language points discussed include the difference between si no and sino, using hace with a time phrase, and voseo, the use of vos in Rioplatense Spanish.

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On 18th October 2006, episode one of a new language-learning podcast called Coffee Break Spanish was released to the world. This show was a bit different from the other Spanish learning shows out there: it was a gradual introduction to basic Spanish presented by teacher Mark, teaching student Kara. At this stage no-one really knew if the idea would work, but Coffee Break Spanish grew to become one of the most popular ways to learn Spanish online. The show quickly climbed the charts on iTunes UK and US, and began to feature in the top podcasts at Podcast Alley and on Libsyn.

Three years down the line and the Radio Lingua Network now produces twenty-seven language courses in eighteen languages and this week saw the sixty millionth download of our language lessons! That means – on average – around 55,000 downloads per day, every day for the last three years.

It’s time to celebrate!

To celebrate this milestone in our company’s development, we’re reducing everything to 60% of the normal prices, ie. 40% off, for one week only, from noon GMT on 18th October through to midnight GMT on 25th October. There has never been a better time to purchase our lesson guides, enhanced podcasts and extra listening materials. Simply use coupon code sixty when you sign up for any of our shows. You can choose between Coffee Break Spanish, Coffee Break French and Show Time Spanish, or indeed one of our shorter One Minute or TwitterLearn courses. By purchasing a membership you can access a range of materials including pdf lesson guides featuring the words and phrases included in each lesson, enhanced podcasts which are perfect for listening on the iPod Touch or iPhone where you can see the flashcards synchronised to the audio, and bonus listening materials to help you improve your language skills even more.

Please note that the coupon code can’t be used in conjunction with any other offer and is limited to one purchase per member. Please note too that in order to qualify for the discount, the coupon code must be used at checkout time. We can’t offer retrospective discounts if the coupon code was not used.

Announcing a new development

We’ve been reading your comments regarding discussion boards and building a community around our lessons. Our previous discussion boards were created before we developed our membership system, so were unfortunately not linked to the system. Today we’re launching our new Community area where listeners can interact with each other, share their language-learning experiences and benefit from collaborative learning with fellow listeners. Accessing the Community is free, but you’ll need to sign up for an account in our system, so we’ll hopefully avoid the spam problems we’ve had in the past.

If you’re already a member of our system then you’ll be able to access My Courses in the community, where we’ll lead activities and generate discussions in which you can practise what you’ve learned in each lesson. My Courses is restricted to our premium members, so if you’ve purchased a Season Pass to Coffee Break French Level 2, you’ll see this course in My Courses, allowing you to interact with your fellow learners in the activities and discussions there. And if you’re not yet a premium member, you can join this week at a hugely discounted price! We’re looking forward to interacting with...

¡Estamos de vuelta! It’s been a few weeks since our last episode of Show Time Spanish, and this has been the result of major server problems. We’ve completed a migration of all our content to new servers today, and we’re delighted to be back with a new episode of Show Time Spanish in which Mark is joined by Loreto, from Chile. In this first of two episodes with Loreto, we learn about the geography and culture of Chile.

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In this week’s show we’re returning to our telenovela, Verano Español. It’s the morning after the night before when Ángel arrived drunk at Iona’s party. Needless to say Laura’s dad isn’t very impressed with Ángel! Laura’s friend Fiona arrives from Scotland and the love triangle threatens to become a square! As usual, in Act II, Mark will help listeners understand the story by working through a series of questions and answers about what happens in this episode.

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