There are several aids to help you find your way to the content you want:

i) Navigation bar
This is found towards the top of every page on the site and will allow you to jump between the main content areas of the site such as News, You Me Us, Sport, Music and Work. This navigation is also available on the left hand side of the pages in the grey shaded area.

ii) Crumb trail eg. Learning English > in the News
A clear path is shown at the top of each page. You can go to any point along that path and link through to the page above in the hierarchy. This is useful if the current page is not what you want but you want something similar or if you just want to know where you are in the site structure.

iii) Search
This can be found in the top right hand corner of every page of the site. It allows you to type in any key words. The returned page lists all the pages on the BBC World Service site that contain those words.

Please read our handy tips below to help solve any of your audio problems or use the following links to help you.

Installing a RealPlayer is advisable (see downloading the free Real player). The BBC World Service audio is mainly encoded for Real Audio version 4 which should be accessible using either a Windows Media Player or RealPlayer Version 4 and above.

TIPS:

i) How to listen to BBC World Service audio
ii) Having problems with your audio?
iii) "I can't hear the audio clip"
iv) "I can hear other audio but not this clip"
v) "I can't download BBC World Service audio"
vi) Read The BBC audio guidelines



How to listen to BBC World Service audio

Getting the audio player

For optimum listening BBC World Service recommends that you download a RealPlayer. You can download the basic player for free. Follow our simple 3 step instructions for downloading the free RealOne Player.

1) Clicking on the link above will see you arrive at a form. Choose your nearest country location. Click on the new pop up window to download the player.

2) When prompted choose save/or save to disk and specify the directory where you want the installation programme to be saved.

3) When the programme has finished downloading onto your hard drive you will be asked if you want to install the programme.
Click Yes and the programme will install on your machine.

Once installed, click on any speaker on the BBC World Service site and you will be able to listen to any of our programmes or audio content. If you are still encountering difficulty listening to web site audio contact help@real.com to solve any technical problems with the players themselves.

Having problems with your audio?

i) "I can't hear the audio clip"

Has the file definitely loaded or is it still waiting to load?
Is your player displaying the title of the clip?
If not the file probably hasn't loaded.

If the title of the clip is displayed and the numbers in the bottom right hand corner of the player appear to be counting upwards then check that your speakers or headphones are plugged in.

Check the volume control on your speakers and your computer to see that they are not turned down or muted.

Still no joy? E-mail us and tell us which piece of audio you are having trouble with. Try to include information about the content and the URL of the page you found it on.

ii) "I can hear other audio but not this clip"

Is the audio you can hear on the BBC World Service site or another site? Check the other site to see what audio format they are providing. It may be that the audio format on their site is different.

If the audio format is the same, are you using a RealOne player or another player? At present BBC World Service is only able to encode audio for RealOne players. Microsoft's windows media player is also capable of playing Real Audio files. If you are using a player other than these we cannot guarantee that you will be able to listen to BBC World Service content.

iii) "I can't download BBC World Service audio"

Due to copyright issues BBC World Service audio can only be streamed over the internet and is not available in a downloadable form.