Google's AI experiments for language learning

The Learning Network: free educational resources offered by The New York Times | And you? What digital resource(s) would you recommend?

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Clara Nafría & Ismael Nafría
July 30, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

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Good morning!

Welcome to "On the Net Today". Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we bring you a handpicked selection of three valuable and interesting online resources to help you get the most out of the internet and optimize your browsing time.

This is our last newsletter before the holidays! So, with these new recommendations, we say goodbye until September, although not without asking for your input, as you'll see at the end:

  • Google's AI experiments for language learning

  • The Learning Network: free educational resources offered by The New York Times

  • And you? What digital resource(s) would you recommend?

Google's AI experiments for language learning

One of the projects that Google has recently launched through its Labs is a series of mini experiments for language learning with the help of Gemini, Google's AI.

The project, titled "Little Language Lessons", aims to answer this question that Google posed: "How can AI unlock new ways to learn and practice languages?"

The answer comes in the form of three brief learning experiments:

  • Experiment 1, Tiny Lesson: Learning what you need, when you need it

    You describe a situation—maybe it’s “asking for directions” or “finding a lost passport”—and receive useful vocabulary, phrases, and grammar tips tailored to that context.

  • Experiment 2, Slang Hang: Learning to sound less like a textbook

    There’s a moment in the journey of learning a language when you start feeling comfortable. You can hold conversations, express yourself, and mostly get by. But then you realize, you still sound… off. Too formal. Stiff.

    Slang Hang was built to help address this. The idea is simple: generate a realistic conversation between native speakers and let users learn from it. You can watch the dialogue unfold, revealing one message at a time and unpacking unfamiliar terms as they appear.

  • Experiment 3, Word Cam: Learning from your surroundings

    “Word Cam turns your camera into an instant vocabulary helper. Snap a photo, and Gemini will detect objects, label them in your target language, and give you additional words that you can use to describe them.”

All three experiments have integrated text-to-speech functionality, which allows you to hear pronunciations.

Links:

The Learning Network: free educational resources offered by The New York Times

The newspaper The New York Times has a great free service dedicated to students and teachers called The Learning Network in which it has offered, since 1998, a multitude of educational resources designed to help teach and learn with the newspaper's content.

This space has a great variety of resources and proposals that are constantly updated. The newspaper itself offers a guide to use The Learning Network in the most efficient way:

Each year, the Times publishes hundreds of learning resources that make use of content offered by the newspaper such as articles, essays, images, videos, graphics or podcasts.

The resources are especially designed for students aged 13 to 18 (middle and high school), although they are also used for younger and older students.

All resources are free, so a Times subscription is not necessary to use them.

The resources can be grouped into various categories:

Writing:

Quizzes and Vocabulary:

Photos, graphics and videos

Contests and challenges

Lessons and teaching ideas

Accessible activities

Link: 

And you? What digital resource(s) would you recommend?

As we wrap up this season of On the Net Today, where we've shared hundreds of resources of all kinds, we’re already thinking ahead to our return after the holidays. And we’d love your input!

Send us your favorite digital tools: maybe it’s a website you can’t live without, an app that’s become part of your daily routine, a podcast you never miss, a YouTube channel full of gems, or a newsletter you genuinely enjoy receiving (hopefully like ours!) mail your suggestions to [email protected]. We’ll check them all out and keep them in mind as we plan the next season of On the Net Today, coming this September.

Thanks so much for following along and supporting us, and if you’re heading off on a break, enjoy your holidays!

Clara & Ismael

What resources would you recommend to include in the newsletter? Feel free to email your proposals to [email protected]. We are confident that your input will help make this project even more valuable.

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That's all for today, and for this month. We'll be back in September with new recommendations!