Looking for a website that helps with pronunciation and listening to words in context? You found it, it’s YouGlish! YouGlish is a free website that functions in 20 languages, offering a search engine connected to YouTube which pulls from thousands of videos based on the word or phrase you choose. You can filter by region for various accents. YouGlish enables students to hear languages spoken with various accents in authentic, professional video contexts.
Videos are shown to users at a point where the speaker uses the selected word in a sentence. Students can hear or see the word articulated by a native speaker, see subtitles with the key word highlighted, and then continue to view the rest of the video. The videos use the selected word or phrase in professional contexts, such as TEDx speeches, news broadcasts, etc. making this website a rich repository of authentic media.
Other features include:
- Increasing or decreasing the speed of a video.
- Viewing a transcript of the entire video, providing even more context.
- Skipping past irrelevant videos.
- Clicking on any words in the sentence from the video to see a definition.
- “My Content,” which allows you to save words and videos for future review.
- Tips for improving target language pronunciation.
Check it out or sign up for a free account at https://youglish.com/.
This website can to supplement listening assignments, semi-autonomous/self-study work, and homework.
Sample Activities Using YouGlish:
- Choose a vocabulary word from today’s lesson that you feel unconfident about and search for it on YouGlish. Scroll through the videos and listen to the word being used in context for five minutes (semi-autonomous/homework).
- Choose a vocabulary word related to a particular topic and find a video on YouGlish with that word. Listen to at least 10 minutes of videos (semi-autonomous/homework).
- After listening to a video on YouGlish, provide a summary of what you listened to, using the target language (speaking, writing, or pair work).
YouGlish search is available in Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Sign Languages.
By Lia Sauder, Language Project Specialist
