Reviews

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A Tiny Verb Book, with Pen for Scale

3 Italian, Books

This wee out-of-print book of verb tables was compiled by LEXUS with Andrew Wilkin. If you want a really tiny book with a bunch of verb conjugations to throw in your bag, this might do the job, assuming you…

Wow, 2014 Marks the 129th Convention!

Arabic, Dutch, English, French, General, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Yiddish, Conferences/Lectures

The Modern Language Association holds an annual convention each year in a different city—2013 in Boston, 2014 in Chicago, and 2018 in New York City. You do not need to be a member to attend. I have never gone myself, but when…

This Is the Previous, 1998 Edition; I Need the New One

Polish, Books

I never actually used Polish: An Essential Grammar by Dana Bielec, because a review copy of the book arrived after my Polish unit had already ended, but it looks useful! You can read a bit about it here…

On Small and Often Irksome Words: Italian Pronouns and Prepositions

3 Italian, Books

In general, I don’t mind pronouns, but I don’t groove on prepositions. They are among the hardest things for me to learn when I study foreign languages. Indeed, as author Daniela Gobetti herself notes in Practice Makes…

I Tried to Teach Myself with This, But Couldn't

2 Greek, Books, Multimedia

This Teach Yourself Greek book-CD combination is one of numerous offerings for different languages in the Teach Yourself series from McGraw-Hill. To date I have not found any book-CD combination products in this series that…

Visual Education Vocabulary Cards Have Chinese Characters Plus Pinyin

1-5 Mandarin, Flashcards, Vocabulary

You can buy these Chinese vocabulary cards directly from the publisher, Visual Education, or from other distributors such as Amazon.com. Each card has both Chinese characters and pinyin on one side, and English on the other. When I…

Read & Speak Japanese for Beginners: I Did Not Find This Book Usable

1 Japanese, Books, Multimedia

I found Read & Speak Japanese for Beginners by Helen Bagley just impossible given the challenges of the Japanese writing system. On principle, the books in this Read & Speak series—which are offered across multiple…

A Beverage History: On the Drink That Changed the World

4 Mandarin, Books

While studying Chinese, I decided to read this tea history, as a window into Chinese culture. Five thousand years of culture is a little overwhelming, and I thought picking a small corner might be more manageable. Thus, a tea book,…

Read & Speak Korean for Beginners

2-5 Korean, Books, Multimedia

I barely used Read & Speak Korean for Beginners by Sunjeong Shin, but I am not a fan of this series, which offers similar books for multiple languages. Right on the cover of this Korean edition, it promises…

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