Voice of America Learning English
Voice of America Learning English is a division of Voice of America. VOA is an official United States government organisation, which was set up in 1942. It is politically balanced between the American left-wing and right-wing, but naturally has an American perspective on the world. It is intended mainly for listeners in other countries, and it is produced in about 40 languages, including English.
Voice of America News
VOA News is television news, delivered free on the internet. It's in ordinary English, not in easy English for language students. However, if your English is already good, you can use it to develop your listening skills. There's a wide range of television news, including video articles about wildlife and the natural environment. The videos have subtitles. The camera often looks at the face of the person speaking, which is good. If your English is good, this is an "8 out of 10" website. Click to go to VOA News.
VOA Learning English
VOA Learning English is video English lessons, delivered free on the internet, anywhere in the world. It has a lot of lessons on grammar and vocabulary. It also has feature articles on a lot of different subjects, in clear English. These are like blog articles; there's no video, just one or two photos with the text. However, they have audio so you can listen while you read. Click to go to VOA Learning English.
What's good about VOA Learning English:
Listen as much as you like. You don't have to pay, and there are no advertisements. There is always new material.
There are two multi-week courses that are mainly video with subtitles. "Let's Learn English 1" is a 52-week course for "beginners". It's not really for people with zero English, it's for adult A1/Elementary students. "Let's Learn English 2" is a 30-week course for intermediate students. "Each week, there will be a new lesson with a video showing the lives of young Americans. The lesson includes instruction in speaking, vocabulary, and writing".
The other lessons all seem to be text with audio and a few photographs, so you don't see the person's face as he or she talks.
There's an American Stories section. These are mainly simplified versions of out-of-copyright short stories by popular American writers like O. Henry, so they're about cowboys, outlaws and miners.
What's not so good about VOA Learning English:
That American perspective is very visible. The day I visited the website, two of the ten Learning English feature articles were "Is Burning the American Flag Legal?" and "U.S. Constitution".
And I've never even heard of four of the expressions that the VOA Learning English website was teaching on that day. Apparently "to be snakebit", "to be born under a bad sign" and "to have the yips" all mean that you are unlucky; and "strike zone" means "the area over home plate through which a pitched baseball must pass to be called a strike". Thanks for that, VOA. Great if you're living in Alabama, not so great if you live in Kiev.
American English vs British English
The English of middle-class professionals, academics and businesspeople is almost exactly the same, right across America and on both sides of the Atlantic. So, you don't have to choose whether to study American English or British English. You can study both with no problems at all.
There are big differences within America, between cities and rural areas, and between ethnic and cultural groups, and between north and south, and from state to state, but that's true in Britain as well. Click here to read more about American vs. British English.