Reviews
Hundreds of resources to help you teach yourself
Pimsleur Greek
Greek, Audio Lessons
I love Pimsleur with all my heart. My main regret with Pimsleur Greek is that there are only 60 lessons available for this language. More commonly studied languages have 90-120 Pimsleur lessons available. Oh, well. Each Pimsleur Greek lesson is a…
Chinese Language Meetup Groups
Mandarin, Classes/Conversation, Social
To find a Chinese Meetup group in your area, type in your zip code on the far right of this page. If the results are overwhelming (Chinese includes a lot of dialects, after all!), then try starting at the page…
Craigslist
General, Websites, Classes/Conversation
I used Craigslist for language purposes just once, to find an Italian conversation partner in late 2009. He was a very nice guy, and the exchange, while short-lived, was pleasant and productive. While writing this review about three years later, in…
Atlantico Books
Portuguese, Websites, Bookstores/Libraries, Kids
The tagline for Atlantico Books is “Brazil and Portugal Delivered.” I have never met the owner, Elena Como, but she has been pleasant and responsive in my e-mail communications with her, and she is clearly very passionate about Portuguese. …
Rosetta Stone Hindi
Hindi, Multimedia
Rosetta Stone is a multimedia computer-based language-learning application. For Hindi, the publisher offers three levels. Among other things, you can get online coaching from a native speaker in what they refer to as “Studio sessions.” I used Rosetta Stone…
Aroma Espresso Bar
Hebrew, Food and Drink
This West 72nd Street café is a fabulous language lab—one of the best free local resources I have found for any language I’ve studied so far during this project. I went there a lot
VocabuLearn Korean
Korean, Audio Lessons, Vocabulary
VocabuLearn is a pretty plain product. It consists of simple audio vocabulary lessons, where you are quizzed on your ability to translate English words and phrases into a foreign language and vice versa. You hear an English word, you…
NY Portuguese Short Film Festival
Portuguese, Radio/TV/Video/Film, Fairs/Festivals/Parades
At the first annual NY Portuguese Short Film Festival—which took place in June 2011, in both New York and Lisbon—20 short films were screened. The sponsor of this now-annual event is the Arte Institute, which supports cross-cultural dialogue among artists.