Living Language Review

I've added a review of Living Language Spanish Basic Complete. I've recommended Living Language Basic for a while for a few languages, but I've never included a proper review until now.

Penpals and stuff

I've added a page on the merits of language penpals , linked to from the Language Learning Tips page. I'll probably add more pages on language forums, text chats and live chats just for completeness.

While researching affiliate programs, I discovered that RosettaStone actually has a few projects underway developing software for learning some endangered languages. They have projects with the Mohawks and Seminoles and possibly other endangered Native American tribes. They are open to the idea of more projects, too. I think I might look into the cost of sponsoring a project. There a number of organizations that provide some funding for such projects (RosettaStone had many listed) but it takes someone to get the ball rolling. Stuff like that makes me think that maybe you could actually make a difference sometimes. See http://www.rosettastone.com/languagerescue

FriendsAbroad

A review of FriendsAbroad has been added to the Language Learning Product Reviews page. FriendsAbroad is a website for finding language penpals that I have been using successfully recently. There are so many books, websites and methods to review, I don't know where to begin. So much to do, so little time.

Language Penpals

I'm revamping the language resources page a little. It's getting a little unwieldy so I've decided to just include a few resources in each category and then have a link to a sub-page with a complete listing for each category. I've started with language penpal resources. There are about 12 or so sites for finding language penpals, forums, text chats, voice chats and language exchanges. These are sites open to any language. There are lots more dedicated to a single language, but those are linked to from the individual language pages.

Spanish Cognates

I'm adding some pages for learning Spanish. First up is a page for Learning Spanish Cognates . I'll include common spelling changes between English and Spanish cognates, and as many examples as I can muster, which eventually will be hundreds and thousands! I'll have to add to the page a little at a time just because of the volume of common vocabulary. I'll also add a few other pages on grammar, most common words, phrases etc. I'd also like to do this for French as well, it'll be a good refresher for me.

Sanskrit

Continuing with the resources I've found while searching for Hindi and Urdu, I'm including a page for Sanskrit. I've also made some more updates to Language Resources and the Site Map .

Urdu

Following up on yesterdays post of the Hindi page, is todays post of an Urdu page. Since these are essentially the same language, many of the same resources apply. I've also come across resources for other South Asian languages, like Sanskrit, Bengali, other Indian languages, and languages of Afghanistan. I will put up pages for all of these as I can.

Hindi

I have finally added a Learn Hindi page. I obviously haven't been building this site in any particular order as far as the number of speakers of a language is concerned. I've only now got around to doing a simple page for one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Apparently, I'm not alone. There are very few resources to study Hindi. Pimsleur only has a compact course, RosettaStone only does level 1 (still not too bad, though) and many of the other publishers don't have anything. The online resources are surprisingly few, too. I expect that will change in the next few years, as India grows more and more, and English becomes less important in South Asia.

Adding More Links

I'm adding some very good resources. German-Grammar.de is an excellent resource for learning German with lots of that all-important audio. From the same people in Germany Learn Spanish Online.de is a tutorial for English speakers learning Spanish, but this one is also downloadable. Both resources are free. LearnKoreanLanguage.com is another excellent and free resource for learners of Korean.

Another Review

I'm back from my most recent trip. Nothing exotic, only Florida. I added a review for 101 Languages of the World , a cd-rom by Transparent Language. It's a neat and inexpensive cd-rom with vocabulary, dialogue (with audio) and games for all the most widely spoken languages and a lot of the less commonly spoken ones as well. I've found it to be a very helpful supplemental resource over the years.