I came across a very interesting blog a few days ago.

All Japanese All the Time.com is most definitely worth checking out, even if you are not learning Japanese. Why? Well, it's a practical application of the 10,000 Sentence Method of learning languages, which you can apply to learning any language.

What's the 10,000 Sentence Method you say? It's based on input. If you have lots of input, and good quality input, you will eventually be able to produce good quality output. This is compared to most classroom learning situations which put pressures on the learner to produce output too quickly, thus instilling bad habits.

You spend your initial learning efforts memorizing good, grammatically correct sentences. Hundreds of them, even thousands. In this way, you are consciously (and unconsciously) learning and recognizing the patterns of the language. Without ever producing your own output, you will eventually recognize that "He goed yesterday" is incorrect because you've never seen it before. You just know that "He went yesterday" is correct because you've seen it 100 times and memorized it.

The only disadvantage I can see offhand is that it will be slow going at first. It will take a lot of work and time before it all begins to gel. It may seem (to some) that you are going nowhere fast. Clearly not a method for everybody, but I'd sure like to test it.

There's more to it, of course, but it's a very interesting idea. Do check out the blog. He gives a great explanation of the hows and whys.

Latest Additions

A review of Ultimate Language Secrets by Owen Lee is the newest addition to the site. I like reading books on learning languages because it gives you a different perspective. Everyone has their own system that works for them and it helps to see what works and what doesn't work for others. Eventually, many of the same techniques appear, but occasionally you can see a different technique, or at least a diferent spin on something that might give you some inspiration.

Issue #007 of the newsletter is out, and I am working on the next. Issue#008 should be out before the end of the year.

I've been trending toward shorter newsletters. I'd like to put tons of stuff in each one, but time constraints keep me from doing that. At least with more compact issues I can be more consistent!

One of the new additions to the site is the Share This Site page. If you like the site, or think it would benefit others, please use the suggestions on that page to contribute to or help promote the site. I appreciate every little bit of help to keep the site growing.

The Gift of Language

I know it's hard finding the right gift for someone during the holiday shopping season. Sometimes, finding any gift is hard. Have you ever thought about giving a language course for a holiday gift, or as a gift for any occasion for that matter?

We, as language enthusiasts, of course would love to get an additional course or some supplemental learning materials as a gift. But, have you ever thought about giving that same kind of gift to someone else? For some people this might be an excellent gift. You might even get a learning partner out of it!

Pimsleur Russian and Pimsleur Norwegian

Pimsleur is probably the language learning method with the best name recognition. Whether its price tag is worth it is entirely up to the individual, but the vast majority of people who use it, love it. Even those who don't like it generally give it a very fair review.

I am a fan of Pimsleur, but in order to be fair, I thought I would go out of my way to point out when a visitor leaves a review of Pimsleur that isn't so positive. One person wrote a review of Pimsleur Russian that wasn't a recommendation to buy it, like most are. This wasn't the first time that I have heard the Pimsleur cds didn't work as well for Russian as it did for some other languages.

However, the reviewer mentioned that Pimsleur was very effective at teaching pronunciation and conversation ability. That is Pimsleurs greatest strength. The reviewer also noted some things that are consistently brought up as question marks for Pimsleur. Overall, a very fair review.

Simon and Schuster have also recently released a Pimsleur Norwegian Comprehensive set for Level 1. This is another good step forward. I like that they are adding to the Pimsleur collection, but I wish they would do it faster and be more complete. Do they have a Norwegian 2 and 3 right on the heels? Probably not. Maybe I'm just bitter because I want a Swedish Comprehensive.

Donate to Help Young Language Learners!

The Language Learning Challenge is my first foray into fundraising! I built a page on the site for such philanthropy efforts. It includes a link to http://www.donorschoose.org/, an organization which helps teachers fund projects for public schools. Naturally, I chose a few language projects to fund for my challenge!

I, Xenoglossophobe

I'm obviously not a xenoglossophobe (someone afraid of foreign languages). But I recently wrote an article called How to be a Xenoglossophobe at ezinearticles.com. It's a joke, but it highlights how some people actually do think in this world.

The most recent newsletter is out and about. If you missed it, sign up for the newsletter and you'll receive it automatically - you won't miss it again! Read Issue #005 here.

Vietnamese

Vietnamese is the latest language page added to the site. Since I have pages for most of the major European languages, I have been concentrating on adding more minority languages and languages of Asia. Eventually I will have some for more African languages as well.

A while ago I added a review for Living Language Spanish Basic Complete. After perusing a few others from this series (French and Russian), I added a review for the series in general. They are mostly laid out the same way and follow the same general method. Living Language Basic Complete Review. I think this is one of the best value published products for learning a language. I wish they would add more languages to their catalog (like the Teach Yourself series).

Visitors Center

In my previous post I mentioned that I would be adding visitor contribution pages to the site. In addition to the one mentioned, I've since added pages on language learning experiences, visitor Pimsleur reviews and foreign language experiences. These pages (and many more to follow) can all be found at the Visitors Center on the site.

Your contributions will become a web page on the site for other language learners to read, learn from and comment on. This will be very exciting as contributions begin to come in and we can all learn from each others experiences!

Byki and Visitor Contributions

In an effort to allow visitors to contribute to the site, I have added a Visitors Learning Tips page. This is just the first of many pages where visitors to the site can add their language learning experiences, reviews etc.

Many visitors in the past have asked me for more information on why and how I built the site. I have included an About Language Learning Advisor page which explains a little about it. I will add more info on this in the future. (Note: there are affiliate links on that page to my site host -I include those because I really do believe in their business. Without them, my site never exists!)

Again, Transparent Language has added languages to their list of BYKIs. Their latest additions are : Bengali, Bosnian, Haitian Creole, Hausa, Icelandic, and Thai. They are really expanding their languages at a great pace. If you don't have BYKI Lite yet, get it.

Farsi and Living Language

Farsi is a significant and influential language. It has taken me far too long to include a page on the site. I've said it before and I'll say it again - so many languages, so little time.

I've also added a review of Living Language Basic Complete coursebook/audio/dictionary set. It's available for Spanish, French, Italian, German, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, Arabic and Chinese. It's a neat and inexpensive little set that is widely available. For the money, it's probably the best value language learning product on the market.

Even More Byki Languages

Transparent Language has added 6 more languages to the list available for BYKI. Chechen, Estonian, Luxembourgish, Mongolian, Pashto, and Urdu. It's long overdue for Urdu, I say.

The most recent Newsletter has gone out. It's been a long time since the last issue, but I'll send them out more regularly now. My apologies to all who have waited on it!

Occitan and other new pages

Occitan, the language of the Troubadours, now has a page on the site - Learn Occitan. This is my White Elephant of languages. I'd love to learn it some day (particularly the Provencal dialect), but I don't have the time right now.

I've also added an About This Site page. There is some background on why I built the site, and also how I built it with affiliate links to SBI, the glorious website solution that makes my site possible.

More BYKI Languages

Transparent Language has added more languages to their list of languages available for BYKI. Recent additions include : Afrikaans, Finnish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Slovak, Swahili, Tuvan and Zulu.

BYKI (Before You Know It) is a great little flashcard program with audio that you can use to supplement your main language course. Use it to help learn and memorize new vocabulary or key phrases, practice pronunciation or just as a review. You can download a limited version for free, or you can add extra features if you upgrade to BYKI Deluxe.

Free Giveaway

I will be announcing the winner of the free giveaway at the end of July. Some lucky winner will receive a free language learning product for the language of their choice. I am still not 100% sure of what that product will be, but I am leaning toward Byki Deluxe or perhaps a choice of similarly priced products.

If you want a free shot at it just fill out any Language Survey or any other feedback or contact form on my site or sign up for the newsletter, and be sure to include your email address so that I can contact you.

Good Luck to all!

Survey Update and Free Giveaways

I've updated the Easiest Language to Learn Survey results. I'll be doing the same for all of the surveys periodically.

I've also added a name and email entry for all the surveys. I'm going to be adding a Free Giveaway feature to the site. Periodically, I will choose a newsletter subscriber or a survey entry and giveaway a free language learning product. I'm not sure yet how often or what products I'll be giving away, but I wanted to give my regular visitors a heads up that this was happening. If you've already filled out surveys, then try the new Most Beautiful Language Survey . You can quickly fill out that one and add your email, or you can just send me some comments from the Contact page and include your name and email.

Of course, if you are a newsletter subscriber, then you will automatically be entered to win something.

Most Beautiful Language in the World

I'm adding another survey to the site. I was just wondering what other people thought was the Most Beautiful Language . I have my own opinions, but I thought it would be neat to collect as many other opinions as possible. I included space for the most beautiful spoken language and the most beautiful written language.

Lots of other changes and additions coming to the site as well.

Polish and Spanish

Julio Foppoli wrote a great little article a while ago on using the prepositions 'por' and 'para'in Spanish. I found it very useful and added it to the site.

I've finally added a page on Polish. I will be adding many more pages in the days to come.

The Speak Any Language forum appears to be finished. I know there had been a few hacks disrupting the site in the past. I felt the site never really had a fair chance to get off the ground. It's too bad, but luckily there are lot of alternative language forums.

Pimsleur Swedish

I've written a review for Pimsleur Swedish . I've decided to begin to add language-specific reviews of Pimsleur products that I've actually used. Although the format of each Pimsleur product is pretty much the same, I thought at least I could highlight some of the differences that come up with some languages. And, of course, I could explain with some examples why I don't like their shorter products but do like the Comprehensive courses. I'll be adding others for Spanish Comprehensive, Japanese Instant Conversation, French Comprehensive and Italian Comprehensive. Other examples of shorter courses will probably follow.