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Codecademy, the startup offering online lessons and tools to help people learn how to code, is adding Python to its lesson line-up starting today.

Until now, co-founder Zach Sims says Codecademy has “been focused on client-side languages and markup – javascript, HTML, and CSS.” Starting today, you’ll be able to find user-generated Python lessons on the site, and Sims adds, “This is the beginning of new language support on Codecademy – Python is only the first server side language you’ll see.”

He isn’t specifically identifying what other languages Codecademy plans to add, but you can see a list of other server-side languages here. The company points to the Codecademy Labs feature announced in December as its first step in its direction, since the Labs browser console allowed users to program in Python and Ruby (but there were no lessons until today).

Python has been in high demand from Codecademy users from the start, Sims says. This is something that teachers are asking for, too, both at the high school and college level. At the same time, Sims says the company’s on-boarding process tries not to overwhelm non-techie users with all the languages they might learn — users start with a JavaScript terminal, and there’s the Code Year program, which mixes training in JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and jQuery.

After a long, hard day at work, the last thing many of us want to do is go home, buckle down, and go to work on something else. It can be tempting to just fall down on the couch, order a pizza, and then stumble off to bed, but doing that means you never use your free time to learn a new language, read a good book, start your own blog, or work on any of the personal projects that you’re passionate about. So how do you resist the temptation to do nothing when you’re not working? Here are some tips. More »

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  I get the sense that this is way too complicated but I’ll check it out: Group videochat with family and friends while shopping for top brands from the world’s leading retailers.

Duolingo is a fantastic new way to learn a new language for free—while also helping to translate the world wide web. The interactive lessons teach you the fundamentals of the language and motivate you with points and community features. Currently Spanish, German, French (in beta) and English (for Spanish speakers) are offered. More »

Chrome: Surrounding yourself as much as possible with a new language you want to learn is one of the keys to learning a new language quickly and fully. Language Immersion for Chrome gets you one step closer by switching select words on web pages into your target language. More »

This week on the podcast, we’re prepping for the next Gmail outage, learning a new language in a matter of months, and wondering if an all-in-one home theater is a good idea. We’ll also figure out the best time to upgrade to an iPhone, the best format for your music, and how to fix one of Flash’s biggest annoyances. More »

This week we poured some awesome sauce on our old, dust-gathering gadgets, learned to speak a new language, started measuring our mood, and more. Here’s a look back.

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Learning a new language as an adult is no easy task, but new research highlighted in Time suggests that one way to speed up the process might be to stop trying to get the accent perfect. Instead, concentrate on the volume, stress, and rhythm of words instead. More »

Most people would already describe someone who knows multiple languages as a smart person, but there’s new research that shows learning and knowing more than one language can have a deeper impact on the way your brain works than previously believed. In reality, people who know multiple languages are able to monitor their surroundings better and switch between mental tasks faster, and those benefits extend from the early years to old age—and you can harness them even later in life by picking up a new language. More »

We first reviewed online workspace startup Podio on its launch in March last year, and it looked pretty promising. A little like Box.net or 37Signals, Podio is closer to a more sophisticated Yammer, with lots of customising possible via its own internal ‘app’ store. Today it launches in two new language, Brazilian Portuguese and Italian, adding to its existing English, German, French, Danish and Spanish translations. Spilt between San Francisco and Copenhagen offices, Podio is now in use in 170 countries so, as CEO Tommy Ahlers says, the translations now make a lot of sense. Though you would think Chinese might also be a good addition?