Are you planning to visit a foreign country? Would you like to make yourself more marketable to an employer by being bilingual? Do you want to have an advantage on an international business trip by speaking the language of the country? Learning another language can have many benefits, and Fort Bend County Libraries’ “Transparent Language® Online” database makes learning a new language easier than ever – and it’s free!

The Transparent Languages database offers online courses for people who would like to learn a new language. The database includes more than 80 languages – from Afrikaans to Zulu – as well as ESL (English as a Second Language) classes for non-English speaking people who would like to learn English.

The English-language-assistance courses are available for people who speak Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Farsi, Hindi, Czech, Indonesian, Malay, Norwegian, Romanian, Swahili, Tagalog, Thai, Urdu, Russian, German, French, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Greek, Arabic, or Italian.

This online resource is self-paced and designed for practicality and simplicity. An audio feature enables the student to hear how words are pronounced. The “Learn” section is packed full of pronunciation, speech, grammar, writing and vocabulary-building lessons, while the “Explore” section helps the student expand the language-learning experience through blogs, a “Word of the Day” application, and more.

This resource can be accessed from any computer – whether at home, school, or at the library – by going to the library’s website. Click on the “Online Resources” link on the main webpage, and then enter the “Databases” area. The “Language Learning” link takes the student directly to the Transparent Languages database. Creating an account in the database enables the student to log in and out of the course, and to pick up where he or she left off at the last log-in session. Language students will need their Fort Bend County Libraries barcode number from their library card to sign in. When prompted to choose a library, select “Fort Bend County” from the drop-down menu.

By using the libraries’ subscription to the service, library patrons are able to have free access to a resource for which they would otherwise have to pay.