Reviews
Hundreds of resources to help you teach yourself
Pimsleur Dutch
Dutch, Audio Lessons
Pimsleur Dutch builds oral skills. The product consists of a series of roughly 30-minute lessons, highly interactive, prompting you to speak words, phrases, and sentences in Dutch in a way that gives far more practice than I have ever had…
Visual Education Portuguese Vocabulary Cards
Portuguese, Flashcards, Vocabulary
This set of 1,000 vocabulary cards emphasizes Brazilian Portuguese, but their publisher, Visual Education, says they are still good for those studying the Portuguese of Portugal. Visual Education makes their flashcards weirdly small: just 3 1/2” x 1 1/2”. That is much smaller than…
Brazilian Day in New York
Portuguese, Fairs/Festivals/Parades
This massive annual celebration takes place across an area of many blocks around Little Brazil in midtown Manhattan. It is held in late summer, and to get a sense of its frenetic, joyous energy, please see the video in my…
Polonia Bookstore
Polish, Bookstores/Libraries
This Greenpoint bookstore has many books for native and fluent Polish speakers, as well as materials for Polish language learners. I went there looking for language books for beginners, and the employees were very helpful. There were indeed a…
Schaller & Weber
German, Food and Drink
You can find hard-core German food products at this longstanding family-owned Yorkville store, resident on 86th and Second Avenue since 1937. Schaller & Weber’s website says they are “masters of charcuterie.” I had to go look up “charcuterie.”…
Sefer Israel
Hebrew, Bookstores/Libraries
Sefer Israel is a publishing house and a supplier of Hebrew educational materials to schools. Their offerings include books, periodicals, Israeli music, films, and more. This is a wholesaler, not a street-level retail store, but the owner, Orly Farhi-Haley, …
Palombo Bakery Creamery Caffe
Italian, Food and Drink
During my Italian studies, on an expedition to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, I stopped by this establishment for a coffee break, because I thought I might get to speak or at least hear Italian. The place was bustling, extremely…