Welcome to this first lesson in our brand new series which will help you learn Mandarin Chinese. Join teacher Crystal and learner Mark for this coffee break lesson and start learning the basics today. In lesson 1, you’ll learn to say “hello” and “goodbye”. You’ll also learn to ask “how are you?” in Mandarin and answer this question in a number of ways. If you’ve never learned Chinese before this lesson is perfect for you.
CBI 2.01 | Ricominciamo! Using Italian -are verbs
In lesson 1 of Coffee Break Italian Season 2 you’ll take the first steps in learning to manipulate the language and say what you want to say! Lesson 1 focuses on regular -are verbs, and you’ll learn to conjugate these verbs in the present tense. Join teacher Mark, native speaker Francesca and learner Isla in this first episode of our new series.
Introducing Coffee Break Chinese
We’re very excited to introduce a brand new show in the Coffee Break family – from Wednesday 8th February you can start learning Mandarin Chinese with Coffee Break Chinese. Watch the video above to find out more about the show and to get to know our teacher Crystal and learner Mark.
To access the free lessons of Coffee Break Chinese, make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast – see the links below. Lessons will be published in batches of ten lessons with short mid-season breaks in between each batch. Lesson 2 will be available on 15th February.
Coffee Break Chinese – Premium Version
If you’d like to take your learning further you can access the premium version of Coffee Break Chinese which features video versions of the lessons showing both Pinyin and Chinese characters for all the words and phrases covered; there are comprehensive lesson notes for each episode; and a bonus audio episode will help you review what you’ve learned. Coffee Break Chinese will be available in the Coffee Break Academy from 8th February and the premium lessons will become available shortly before they are published on our website and released on the podcast.
Subscribe links
Subscribe in iTunes | RSS Feed | Purchase the premium version | Facebook | Twitter
Introducing Coffee Break Italian Season 2
To access the free lessons of Season 2, make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast – see the links below. Lessons will be published fortnightly, so lesson 2 will be available on Monday 20th February. The premium version of Season 2 will be available on the Coffee Break Academy from 6th February. Again, episodes will be published every two weeks, so premium members will be able to access the videos, bonus audio and lesson notes for each lesson as they become available.
Introducing Coffee Break German Season 2
We’re delighted to announce that Coffee Break German Season 2 will launch on Monday 13th February. In this video, join learner Mark and our new teacher Andrea as they discuss what’s coming up in Season 2. Julia, our Cultural Correspondent, also joins us for the new season.
Episode 4 – Coffee Break Conversations
Join Mark and Carmen for this special episode of Coffee Break Conversations, filmed on the occasion of the recording of the final episode of Coffee Break Spanish Season 4.
Coffee Break Italian Season 2 – coming soon!
We’re delighted to report that the Coffee Break Italian team is busy working on the first lessons of Season 2. In Season 2 you’ll be able to take your Italian to the next level by expanding your vocabulary, increasing your understanding of Italian grammar, and building your confidence in using the language. The real focus in Season 2 is on helping you say what you want to say by manipulating the language and understanding the structures of Italian.
Launch date
Lesson 1 of Season 2 goes live on Monday 6th February at 6:00pm UK time. We’ll also be launching the premium version of the course on this date so you’ll be able to take advantage of our video versions, lesson notes and bonus audio materials on the Coffee Break Academy from 30th January. Please note that we are unable to take preorders at this time.
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It’s important to say that Coffee Break Italian is an ongoing production: we’re recording the episodes as we go, so each episode will be released on both the free podcast feed and in the premium Academy course as it becomes available. The episodes will be published every two weeks, allowing you plenty of time in between each lesson to consolidate the language covered before moving on to the next lesson.
Episode 40 – Season 4 – Coffee Break Spanish
In this final episode of the season, María is putting the final touches to her plans for travelling to Argentina with Rory as they start on the next chapter in their life. This episode looks at the sequence of tenses with pedir que + subjunctive among other topics. As usual Mark and Carmen are on hand to discuss the complex aspects of the language featured in this lesson.
Academy Status Update
Incident: Friday 6th January 2017 13:00 UTC
We’re experiencing some technical difficulties on the Coffee Break Academy site today as a result of some updates the hosting company (Teachable) have made. They’re looking into the problems and we’ll be back up and running as soon as possible. You can keep up to date with the status report for the Student View on the Teachable Status page.
As soon as we have an update we’ll post further details here. In the meantime please accept our apologies for any inconvenience.
Friday 6th January 2017 13:28 UTC
It looks like the issue has been fixed. We’ll continue to monitor the site carefully but for now all services are accessible. Once again, apologies for any inconvenience.
A review of 2016
It’s been a busy year for us here at Radio Lingua and we thought we’d take this opportunity to look back through the 2017. We hope you enjoy reliving some of the highlights of the year with us.
Masterclass launch
On 1st January we launched our Coffee Break French and Spanish Masterclass courses. These are 6-month coaching courses which will help intermediate learners build on their existing knowledge and take it further in a number of areas including pronouns, idiomatic expressions, tricky verbs and the famous subjunctive. Learners have been working through the modules of the Masterclass all year. At the moment the Masterclass is being moved over to our new Coffee Break Academy (see below) so it’s not available for enrollment, but as soon as it’s available again we’ll make an announcement on the website and on our social media profiles.
High Five Spanish
Having spent several weeks in the south of Spain during 2015 filming our series for younger learners of Spanish we were delighted to launch our educational version of High Five Spanish for schools in May. The first series of lessons in the family version is also now available in our Coffee Break Academy: click here for more information.
Coffee Break Italian 1 concludes
We spent a few days in northern Italy in April to record the final batch of lessons of Coffee Break Italian Season 1. Highlights included Katie’s cookery lesson with la mamma di Francesca, and recording this perla di saggezza on the shores of Lake Orta:
Website Woes and Unauthorised Apps
We had a challenging time in October when we were locked out of the Radio Lingua website as a result of DNS problems. Our hosting company changed the “address system” for our site without any warning, and this resulted in a stressful 48 hour period when no-one could access our site, including us! Fortunately we were back up and running soon afterwards and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
We’ve also had ongoing challenges with unauthorised apps in the Google Play Store and the iOS App Store. If you’ve downloaded a Coffee Break French, Spanish, German or Italian app to your device, please read this article. We have now been through the same legal process with the App Stores eleven times to remove the apps, but each time the developers simply upload the apps again. Once again, we strongly advise customers not to buy these apps. We hope that 2017 will bring a more permanent solution to this frustrating problem.
Coffee Break Instagram
We launched Instagram accounts for Coffee Break French, German, Spanish and Italian in August. You can now build your vocabulary, practise your verbs and enjoy linguistic inspiration every few days.
Celebrating our 10th birthday
We were delighted to celebrate ten years of delivering language lessons to learners around the world in November and we did so by making no fewer than eleven announcements including new seasons of Coffee Break French, Coffee Break Italian and Coffee Break German, plus a brand new video course, Coffee Break Spanish To Go. We also announced our fifth Coffee Break language: from early 2017 you can start learning Mandarin Chinese with us with the introduction of Coffee Break Chinese. Watch the video below to enjoy a flavour of ten years of Radio Lingua in one minute!
The Coffee Break Academy launches
Our most important development this year has been the launch of the Coffee Break Academy, a new home for our premium courses. Moving forward, all our premium courses will be accessible in the Coffee Break Academy and we’ve been contacting existing members to explain the process of moving your courses to the Academy, should you wish to. There’s more information about that here.
Final episodes of Coffee Break Spanish Season 4
We’re nearing the end of the fourth season of Coffee Break Spanish which has followed the story of María, Rory and Alejandro and their discovery of sunken treasure off the coast of Mallorca. Episode 40 will be published next week, so stay tuned for the final instalment of the story! Premium members should already have access to the extended version of episode 40 in the Academy.
Looking forward to 2017
As we look forward to a new year we’re very excited to be launching our new Coffee Break Italian and German courses, and we’re busy recording the materials and putting together the premium versions of the courses. We’re also hugely excited to be launching Coffee Break Chinese early in 2017 and, of course, Coffee Break French Season 5 will be along later in the year. We plan to continue to develop the Coffee Break Academy, and there are lots more plans afoot for new products and services.
Best wishes for the holiday season!
All that remains is for us to wish you a very happy and peaceful festive season.
Episode 3 – Coffee Break Conversations
Mark was in Germany earlier this month to record some Coffee Break German content with Julia. After the recording session they took a trip to the Christmas Markets in Berlin’s Gendarmenmarkt and Potsdamerplatz where they recorded this episode of Coffee Break Conversations, the video series which takes you behind the scenes of Radio Lingua.
This was, of course, before the tragic events earlier this week. Our thoughts and best wishes are with everyone affected. In a spirit of peace and goodwill, we’ve decided to post the video.
Episode 39 – Season 4 – Coffee Break Spanish
It’s time for the penultimate episode in our series and this week we’re joining Rory as he returns to Scotland ahead of his departure for Argentina with María. Once again the episode is rich in complex language and features a number of interesting idiomatic expressions including hacerse el duro, and much more.
Episode 2 – Coffee Break Conversations
In this second episode of Coffee Break Conversations, the Radio Lingua team is attending the SALT Conference, an annual gathering of language professionals from across Scotland. Find out more about the work of SALT here. In this episode you’ll meet Kristina and Tracy, two of our interns, and you’ll also be introduced to Andrea, our new teacher for Season 2 of Coffee Break German.
Black Friday Sale 2016
This weekend we’re offering a huge 25% discount on all our courses as part of our Black Friday / Cyber Monday sale. This is your chance to sign up for the premium version of our courses and access all the associated bonus materials including transcripts, lesson notes, videos and bonus audio.
We’re also excited to announce that we’ve moved our premium courses over to the new Coffee Break Academy.
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Included in the sale
- Coffee Break French Seasons 1, 2, 3, 4 and Bundles
- Coffee Break Spanish Seasons 1, 2, 3, 4 and Bundles
- Coffee Break Spanish To Go Season 1
- Coffee Break Italian Season 1
- Coffee Break German Season 1
- High Five Spanish Season 1
- All One Minute Languages Courses
Not included in the sale
There are some items which are not included in this year’s Black Friday sale because we’ve not yet moved them over to our new Academy, or because they’re not yet available for pre-order:
- Coffee Break French Masterclass
- Coffee Break Spanish Masterclass
- Coffee Break Italian Season 2
- Coffee Break German Season 2
- Coffee Break Chinese Season 1
- High Five French
Don’t miss out!
Our sale has already started and must finish at midnight UK time on Monday 30th November. Please make sure you purchase in time and get a head start on your language learning for 2017!
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Terms and Conditions
- Please note that the reduction will be applied at checkout.
- Use of the coupon code per customer is unlimited: buy as many courses as you like with the discount.
- EU customers should be aware that the 25% discount will be applied and then VAT at local rate will be added to the total cost.
- The sale only applies to items purchased on the Coffee Break Academy and is not applicable to products currently available in the iBookstore or Kindle store.
- The sale does not apply to School licences purchased through our Radio Lingua Schools website.
- No refunds will be given on any materials purchased at full price during this time if the coupon codes have not been used.
- No refunds will be given on any materials purchased prior to the launch of this sale, or after the closing date as listed below.
- We are publicising this sale on Twitter, Facebook, through our members’ database by email and via our mailing list. If you do not receive this information via one of these channels within the period of the sale we cannot retrospectively apply the discount.
- Our sale ends at midnight UTC / 7pm EST on Tuesday 29th November
Episode 1 – Coffee Break Conversations
In this first episode of Coffee Break Conversations, join Radio Lingua founder Mark Pentleton as he takes you behind the scenes of the company. In this episode the team is preparing for the 10th anniversary of the company and Mark has been putting together a video which looks back at the past 10 years.
Episode 38 – Season 4 – Coffee Break Spanish
In this episode of Coffee Break Spanish we join María for a diary entry in which she reflects on her decision to move to Argentina where she and Rory will start their new life. As usual the episode is rich in idiomatic expressions and complex grammar. One expression which is covered in the episode is salir redondo – find out more by listening now.
Introducing Coffee Break Chinese
We’re over the moon to be announcing that we’ll be launching Coffee Break Chinese in early 2017, adding our fifth language to the Coffee Break series. With Coffee Break Chinese you’ll be learning the basics of Mandarin with an experienced teacher. We can’t say much more about this now, but if you’d like to be kept up to speed with our developments – and maybe even get access to a preview of some of our content, click here.
The Coffee Break App
You may have read recently that we’ve been having some issues with a group of app developers who have published unauthorised apps featuring our Coffee Break lessons. Indeed, you may well have downloaded a Coffee Break app on your phone. You should be aware that these are NOT published by us and that we have been working through the legal process with Apple and the Google Play Store to have these illegal apps removed. The only way to access our content is through our website, and now on the Coffee Break Academy.
To be clear – our free content is currently available through the Podcasts app on iOS, and if you’re a premium member we’ll have provided a way for you to download the premium content through Podcasts too. However, if you’ve downloaded a Coffee Break app which was not published by Radio Lingua, then this is an unauthorised app.
However – here’s the good news! We are working on our own app which will allow our current premium subscribers to access all the content they’ve previously purchased on a handy app. This app will launch early next year, and we’re sure it will be the perfect way to keep your Coffee Break content with you wherever you go. We’ll be updating our website and social media channels in due course as soon as we have a launch date.
Taking you behind the scenes of Radio Lingua
Here at Radio Lingua we are a small team of full-time employees – there are currently just 3 of us working full time bringing you this huge range of content. However, we also work with an extended team of native speakers, assistants and teachers who join us regularly for recording, writing, meetings and so on. Sometimes we work from home, sometimes we’re in the office or the studio, and sometimes we get the opportunity to travel whether it’s for recording or meetings or filming in the countries where the language is spoken.
We’ve decided to take you ‘behind the scenes’ with a new series of short videos. Coffee Break Conversations will let you see what goes into making our courses, and you’ll get to know the people who bring you your Coffee Break lessons. Coffee Break Conversations starts next week.
Radio Lingua merchandise now available
It’s getting to that time of year when you may be looking for a gift for a language learner you love. We’re delighted to introduce to you today the Radio Lingua Merchandise shop!
You can finally buy a Coffee Break Spanish mug, or a Coffee Break French canvas tote bag. Remind yourself about your language learning every time you open the fridge with our Coffee Break German fridge-magnet, or cook up a storm with our Coffee Break Italian apron. There are High Five French and High Five Spanish items for children too including t-shirts, water bottles and more.
Your coffee break will never be the same again once you have your very own Coffee Break mug! (Have mug on camera)
