Online media, like a good novel or comic, is an excellent learning tool. Why? Because it undeniably allows you to build on your vocabulary. Whether you are learning basic and recurring words or complex and industry specific ones, by looking at online media regularly, not only does your vocabulary expand, but you also learn about sentence construction, syntax, grammar and conjugation. You get a feel for a language in the written form.

The biggest drawback of learning a language using the press (as with reading in general), is that it does not give you any precision when it comes to pronounciating words. However, we will see later in this article that when used with other methods, it will allow you to master the pronunciation of even the most difficult vocabulary.

Besides the fact that online media is completely free to use, it allows you to practice a specific set of vocabulary, the set that YOU want to learn. By using such websites as Newsman.jp or Newspapermap.com (of which you’ll read more about later on) you will have access to a broad variety of newspapers. Looking at websites like these will help you find articles on topics that are of interest to you. For instance, if you want to expand your sports vocabulary then you simply must visit the sports pages of a newspaper. Same goes for technology, economy, and society; whatever subject you are interested in, an online newspaper will be available to you!

This will allow you to enrich your vocabulary on any given subject, while also enriching yourself on lexical fields. In the written press it is not an uncommon occurrence to come across a word and its multiple synonyms many times, which allows you to learn how to avoid repeating a word through using new synonyms that you learn.

The Sites To Use To Learn a New Language Through Online News Media

Earlier we mentioned the websites Newsmap.jp and Newspapermap.com–both are very different websites.

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• Newsmap.jp is my favorite, as you are offered access to many countries per tab. You will start out by clicking on the country of your choice (by default you’d likely want to choose an American press). On each tab, you’ll be given access to a page of headlines. This means that you do not choose a specific newspaper, but instead a subject that you are interested in. This is what makes Newsmap.jp so interesting. If you do not have have all of the necessary details of a certain newspaper title, then no need to panic, as a pop-up (simply mouse over the title) will give you the article’s summary, date of publication and the number of articles written on the particular subject (to deepen your search if necessary).To access the article you must click on the headline, which will redirect you to the newspaper’s website (and the article in question more specifically).

Note: this site uses a color code for the front pages of the given newspapers. Each color corresponds to a subject, such as economy, technology, and sports…

•  Newspaperman.com is a rather well built website as well. You do not need to choose a specific subject of articles, but instead must know the specific newspaper you want to read. The site gives you a large world map on its homepage, giving you a multitude of geo points (small arrows). Each point represents a specific newspaper. You must simply click on it to be redirected to the newspaper’s website. It is both extremely simple and efficient.

Note: this site also lets you choose a newspaper through picking a certain language instead of finding it on the map.

Now that you know how to access news stories from across the globe, let’s take a look at five tips to learning a new language by reading them on a regular basis!

5 Tips to Learn a New Language Through Online New s Media

1. (Try to) Read Every Day

It’s crucial that you read the newspapers everyday to learn, and especially to memorize new vocabulary. The good news is that the subjects of newspapers change every day, which allows you to learn a new medium each and every day and not have to endlessly read the same type of text (which often occurs when you’re reading a novel.

Reading everyday can also help you assess your learning progress. For instance, if you come across a word you don’t understand on the first day. After several minutes of reflection you can save the word in a new MosaLingua map to go back to on a later date. The following day, when you look at the same article, with the same word, you will have a much easier time remembering it. Even if you do not remember it right now, chances are the next day you’ll have it anchored in your brain.

This example may seem a bit “simple”, but it’s an outstanding way to memorize vocabulary in the long-term through repetition (check out our article on the spaced repetition system here). Each day, take the time to read a few minutes of the news.. in a foreign language, combine this with our MosaLingua’s Desktop App in order to store phrases and words that you want to learn, and you’ll be making progress in no time.

2 – Helps With By Giving Context Clues

As mentioned earlier, before looking for a word you don’t know in the dictionary, it’s recommended that you first reflect on its meaning. This is because one of the main advantages of reading online news, just like any other book, is that it gives you words in context, not just a nonsensical vocabulary list.

Before you jump on the first dictionary you see, it’s recommended that you use the words surrounding it to attempt to find meaning to the unknown word. If you have any luck, you may also find out some of the word’s synonyms, which will allow you to take a guess at the meaning of the word, and thus enrich its lexical field at the same time.

This is quite a clever method when you have a grasp of sentence construction in the language you are trying to learn. It’s a good idea to use this when you already have some grasp of the given language.

3 – Make Use of Online Dictionaries

I remember I once went totally OFF-TOPIC on a high school English paper. Why? Because I was missing the translation of ONE word. There was a single word that I did not understand the meaning of, and there was no context clues to help me understand it. I was blind without this word (today I know it well). Without the word, the text went over my head.

So yes, sometimes even after several minutes of reflection, research, and deduction, it is difficult (if not sometimes impossible) to find a word’s meaning; a word that possibly could change the entire meaning of the text… The good news is that there are tools nowadays to allow you to quickly and easily locate the translation of these words: online dictionaries. To help you find the right definitions, we grouped the best online resources on this page for learning a new language.

4 – Create MosaLingua Flashcards

Once you’ve found a word and its meaning, we recommend that you save it on your MosaLingua maps, which were created specifically for this purpose. This will allow you to repeat the learning of this word on the app, and with repetition, you’ll eventually memorize it thoroughly and permanently.

How Do You Create a MosaLingua Flashcard ?

1. Go to the “Explore” tab
2. Click on “Useful Lists” 
3. Click on “My New Maps” and then the + sign
4. You can then add the word in the given language with its translation and any additional text (for instance, the word used in a sentence)

We wanted to create a comprehensive tool that allows you to create cards on the go when you are reading an online newspaper (or any other text for that matter): This tool is called MosaDiscovery!

It is a tool that can quickly and easily be installed on the browser of your choice, which allows you to:

• look up the meaning of a word quickly from any web page
• add this word very easily to any MosaLingua application to help you retain it in your long term memory through the MOSA Learning method

In this video you will see MosaDiscovery in action:

5 – Learn the Pronunciation

When we learn a new language, pronunciation is key. Unfortunately, the biggest downside of reading is that it does not allow us to learn the right pronunciation of a word, just its written form. How then are you expected to know its pronunciation?

The idea is to couple this learning method of using online newspapers with a different method based on oral language this time. For instance, you may want to listen to audiobooks to help you improve your listening comprehension and pronunciation of words (by repeating them out loud). How is it that you find the right pronunciation of a given word using this method? Google Translate is a great tool to use in order to give you both the translation and pronunciation of the word during your search. Additionally, the MosaLingua app allows you to listen to the pronunciation of words that are available on its lists.

Regularly reading the online newspaper is an effective way to learn any language. It is also an interesting learning method, as it allows you always know the latest stories in the news. Personally, I read the Brazilian newspapers to keep me both informed on the latest news stories in Brazil (a country I particularly cherish) and to memorize new vocabulary (and refresh without ever losing track).

Additionally, once MosaLingu’s Desktop App is released it will give you a wide variety of different newspapers, magazines and other written materials to get you started on reading news stories in a new language. Sign up to find out when MosaLingu’s Desktop App will be released by clicking on the link and filing out your name and email on the bottom!