Sprechen Sie Deutsch?
¿Habla Español?
Parli Italiano?
(Photo courtesy of ToastyKen on flickr.com)
Yeah, us neither. But we sure do like traveling, and we’re willing to bet you do, too. Maybe you’re planning a European spring break vacation. Or maybe you’re thinking about studying abroad in Spain next year. Wouldn’t it be nice to learn a bit of the lingo before you go? Have we got the tool for you! Check out the awesome new online resource you can access through the library’s website called Tell Me More. With Tell Me More, you can practice your English, Dutch, Italian, or Spanish, all from the comfort of your own bunk bed. Here’s how you get there:
1. Start at the library website’s Online Journals and Databases tool.
2. Type “Tell me more” into the search box. Two results will pop up. Click the link for the second result, where it says “Databases DATABASES” (the first result is an NPR news publication).
To enter Tell Me More, click the link to “Databases DATABASES”
3. You’ll probably be prompted to enter your NetID and password. Once you do that, you should be taken directly to the Tell Me More homepage.
4. On the homepage, click on the message near the center: “New user, click here.” You will enter your name, email address and set up a username and password.
5. A screen may pop up asking you to to allow the system to access your camera and microphone. Once you check the appropriate boxes, you should be able to start learning your language of choice!
Some things we like about Tell Me More:
- Supplemental Business and Culture specific content: Just trying to learn the business basics so you can impress your German colleagues? Or do you want a more in-depth understanding of how to communicate with people on a daily basis? You get to decide which kind of training you need.
- Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening Workshops
- 37 different types of learning activities/interactions
- Speech Recognition with playback and achievement scale
- Spoken Error Tracking System (SETS®) technology automatically detects and corrects your pronunciation errors: This is pretty cool. If you’ve got a microphone, you can repeat the phrases you hear in Tell Me More, and they’ll chart how your accent/pronunciation compares with a native speaker’s. That way, you learn what words you’re saying right, and what you still need to work on.
Tell Me More seems pretty cool to us, but it’s a new resource for the library, and we’d love to hear about your experiences using it. Send us a comment through this blog to let us know what you think!
