Wikipedia: An interesting and free resource for language learning

learn a new language with the help of Wikipedia

We would like to introduce to you an interesting and free resource for language learning:
Wikipedia, the free Encyclopaedia

The mission of the website is to create an cyclopaedia with all the knowledge of the world, which would be available, free of charge to all knowledge seekers.
The developers of Wikipedia wish to translate this site into as many languages of the world as possible.
 
Today it is possible to read on Wikipedia hundreds of thousands of articles in more than 280 languages.
The number of articles for each language varies.
For example English has 4,5 million articles.
Tibetan however has a smaller selection of articles with 6000 entries.

How do I find Wikipedia?

With such a wide ranging and free resource you can improve your language skills immensely.
Simply go to the List of Wikipedias and select the language you wish to read an article in.

How do I most effectively use Wikipedia for language learning?

A good starting point are the articles designated as “Excellent”:
Wikipedia: Featured articles
 
Also the free travel guides on "Wikivoyage" offer many study opportunities:
Wikivoyage

Our recommendation

learn a new language with the help of Wikipedia

We recommend to you that in particular you read the subjects of Geography, Art, Culture, History and Society.
These are the easiest to understand and will increase your general knowledge and knowledge of the country whose language you are learning.
Those interested in Science and Technology will be confronted with many specialist terms.
If you don’t understand such articles immediately then don’t worry.
If you find an article about Atomic Physics difficult in your native language, then naturally it will also be difficult in Finnish.
Don’t be daunted by this.

Simply find an article that you can understand better.
The more you work with articles on Wikipedia, the quicker and better you will understand.
Articles about Medicine, Physics and Chemistry are generally harder to understand, whereas articles about Biology and technical equipment tend to be easier.

How can I look up unknown words online?

Naturally you will not want to look up every unknown word.
There are now programs that with a simple click you will automatically receive a translation of the word.
If you use Firefox as a browser, you have a built in translator.
gTranslate for example can translate up to 30 languages.
With this translation program you can get a translation of a word in 2 seconds and can read through an article quickly even if it contains many unknown words.
 
With Google Translate you can enter a whole text or single words and translate into many other languages.
And now we would like to wish you every success at language learning!

You would like to get more tips on learning a new language?

Learning a foreign language in 12 months- Part 1:
Our tips and tricks for learning a foreign language fluently in 12 months
 
Learning a foreign language in 12 months-Part 2:
How to apply the new language in order to speak it fluently