A while ago I did an American Sign Language(ASL) course online. While I still cannot sign, it was fun to do and gave me enough basics to understand that sign language is quite complex and interesting. In fact, it seems to have more dimensions simultaneously than a vocal language. If I ever have to work [...]
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A Frenchman studying Russian could not find a good free audio word-list, so he built one himself. Check it out if you studying French or Russian. And if you are fluent in Russian, consider helping him out (I will try to when I have time).
And if the idea of list building for the language learning [...]
About a month ago, Steve Kaufmann (creator of theLinguist service) and I had a disagreement on whether grammar is important in studying language. In summary, he thinks that the grammar should be studied last if at all, while I think grammar allows one to create a mental infrastructure that would make learning easier.
Since Steve is [...]
I am an idealist inside. But I keep that well hidden. So, when I look at something that needs to be done, I search for the low hanging fruit. Grand ambitions are fine, but if they are not backed up by the near term useful solutions, everything will stagnate and die.
With Esperanto, the core [...]
There is a great commercial service out there for those interested in learning English. It is called theLinguist and is run by the polyglot Steve Kaufmann (with 9 languages and more on the way, he more than deserves the label). Steve’s approach is very unconventional, but I think in a good way. It is run [...]
Continue reading about Does the grammar matter when learning a language?
I have read Science Fiction stories based around physics, chemistry, biology and computers. But I have not seen one before based around linguistics. For all I know there are many of them out there and I just wasn’t interested before.
I am interested now, and so I really enjoyed “We Have Always Spoken Panglish” story by [...]
Task based language learning is supposed to give one the focus to learn language faster through general familiarity with the task and limited vocabulary. This approach fails spectacularly for one hard core knitter. Fortunately, internet is there to help. (via LanguageHat)
And if this situation is common for you, NativeText (WayBackMachine archive) is hoping to make [...]
Continue reading about Learning Finnish through knitting patterns
Stingy Scholar has collected a list of links to language study websites for less-popular languages (think Greek, Korean and Icelandic).
Recommended for comparison and (if you language is on the list) for the study.
Continue reading about Less-popular language learning resources links
After Soviet Union stunned the world with the launch of the Sputnik in 1957, USA allocated a lot of money to education, including foreign languages study. That had kick started a lot of research and produced some new methods of language learning.
And now we are repeating that past again.
As a delayed response to September 11, [...]
Continue reading about Back to the ’60s: USA government is ready to pay for language learning again
I have collected many links to help me learn French with computers. But the resource I have just discovered is really the best.
It is a WikiBook on Autonomous Technology-Assisted Language Learning (ATALL) written by Gary Cziko. It has resources organised by work type and acquisition method. There are language neutral as well as language specific [...]
Continue reading about Great WikiBook on Computer Assisted Language Learning