Advantage Language

There is a nice alternative to other, more popular, published language methods. Advantage Language makes a software program to study Spanish, French, Italian or German. It comes with all the bells and whistles of other programs - audio and text, a variety of exercises to test your knowledge, dialogues, cultural information, etc. It even comes with additional audio CDs, dictionary software, a microphone (for use with the voice recognition parts of the program) and lots of other extras.

I like the content of the program, it's the kind you can begin to use right away as you learn it. There is another feature that I like that I haven't seen any other publisher doing. If you order the full 4-level program, you will receive 1 level each month. This seems very simple but it's a powerful motivator to complete and master each level in time for the next level to arrive. They will work with you if you want to put off receiving the next one, but I think it's great foresight to design a method with a specific time-frame to shoot for.

Look for my upcoming full-page review on the site, or for more information, go to
AdvantageLanguage.com

Learn Hungarian

Hungarian is a another recent language page addition to the site. If you want to learn Hungarian, there are a few great resources that you can use to get started learning on your own. The Learn Hungarian page has some links to outstanding FREE resources for learning Hungarian. Get BYKI Lite Hungarian, FSI Hungarian and listen to the first lesson of Pimsleur Hungarian all for free

More Pimsleur Samples

There are more Pimsleur samples on the site. Listen to a free first lesson of Pimsleur in any of these languages - Farsi (Persian), Russian, Hebrew, Dutch, Greek, Hindi and Polish. If you are learning or interested in learning any of these languages, it's a great way to see if you like the Pimsleur method or think it would be a good fit for you. I highly recommend trying out any method or program before you buy it whenever possible.

Learn Portuguese

Portuguese is a language rising in influence. Recent research has shown that the use of Portuguese on the internet is growing much faster than other languages. And it is increasing in popularity as a second or third language. Portuguese is often overlooked and a little overshadowed by Spanish, but is an interesting and widely spoken international language.

On my Learn Portuguese page you can listen to the first lesson of Pimsleur Portuguese Comprehensive, download BYKI Lite for Portuguese, or even try a demo for Rosetta Stone Portuguese all for free!

Not looking to spend any money on a full course? How about the full FSI Portuguese course with text and audio - there is a link there to a site with that course (and many others) that you can use to get a comprehensive knowledge of Portuguese for free!

Learn Swahili

Learn Swahili is a recent language addition to the site. I must admit I have neglected African languages. There are many and they are far removed from what I am familiar with. Many African languages have few or no resources to learn with, but since Swahili is a lingua franca in east Africa, it has some significant influence and therefore some resources to work with. If you are interested in Swahili take a look!

Asian Pacific American Heritage

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. If you have some Asian ancestry and you've been thinking about learning the language of your family or ancestors, maybe now is the time to start! There are lots of free resources to get started learning Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, even Hawaiian!

Listen to a free first lesson of Pimsleur or try the Rosetta Stone demo in any of these languages -Chinese (Mandarin), Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese or Thai at Language Learning Advisor.com. Or download BYKI Lite for free to get started learning vocabulary or phrases in any of those languages plus many others! - Free BYKI™ Lite download by Transparent Language

Stop thinking about it and start learning now! Or, if you've already started, get motivated and really focus on it - redouble your efforts toward learning your target language and work toward that long-term goal of fluency!

First Lesson of Pimsleur Japanese Free

You can listen to the first lesson of Pimsleur Japanese free here!

Because Japanese is such a difficult language to learn how to read and write, many people have used Pimsleur to get a handle on spoken Japanese and just avoided that reading/writing obstacle altogether. Evaluate your goals - if you don't need to read and write (at least not at first) then why study that at all? Use the greatest strength of Pimsleur to your advantage, and nullify its greatest weakness!

FSI French

FSI French is one of those great but out-dated language methods that you can still see being sold around the internet. Don't be fooled! You can download the same courses (and many others) for free at http://fsi-language-courses.com/ I updated the link on the http://www.language-learning-advisor.com/learning-french.html page to this excellent resource. For the price, you just can't beat it!

Pimsleur First Lesson Free

I've been adding links to product demos a lot lately. I find that people can get a much better feel for a language method if they can try it. Unfortunately, not all publishers offer a demo of their products.

Transparent Language offers a Lite version of their BYKI software and I've included a link for every language page that I have on the site. Rosetta Stone offers a demo of their software, and all language pages on the site (for which Rosetta Stone has a product) now have a link to their demo.

Pimsleur is a little different. They do offer the first lesson of their audio programs for free. Finding them is a little tricky. I am adding an audio player and link to the first lesson for all of the languages that Pimsleur has a product for. This will take a little time, however. I've added Chinese, French, Spanish, Italian, German and Arabic. Others will be coming along, but if you can't wait for a language that you are interested in, contact me and I'll make that language a priority.

Surveys Update

I have recently updated the Hardest Language to Learn and the Easiest Language to Learn surveys. The Thank You page (after you fill out the survey) displays the ongoing results in a graph form. It doesn't show the results of the write-in portion of the survey, only the first part. So many people wanted to actually see the results that I made that addition for them.

I was pleased to see in the Clinton/Obama debate a few weeks ago (I believe it was on Feb 21st - International Mother Language Day!) that they raised questions of bilingualism, language, and English as an official language in the US. Both candidates gave a good response - that they would promote the teaching of foreign languages in school and that it was critical for the US to do so. They also both promoted English as the unifying language of the US, but both backed down from the idea of it as an official language.