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You Can Watch Video Clips of Endangered Languages Here

General, Websites, Organizations

Founded in 2010, the Endangered Language Alliance, or ELA, is an “urban initiative for endangered language research and conservation.”  Out of a small office on West 18th Street, in what is known as the Urban Fieldstation, dedicated ELA linguists…

Visit Their Website for Information on Upcoming Events!

Irish, Museums/Cultural, Organizations, Classes/Conversation, Kids

The Irish Arts Center has been around for more than 40 years. This cultural organization is “dedicated to projecting a dynamic image of Ireland and Irish America for the 21st century, building community with artists and audiences of all backgrounds,…

A Slim and Elegant Volume of Irish Information

3 Irish, Books

This book, written by a teacher in Dublin and published in 2002, is described on its jacket as “a solid guide and starting point designed to help even those who as yet have little or no Irish find ways to learn…

For All Your Pinyin Needs

3-5 Mandarin, Audio Lessons, Websites

I read about this pronunciation table in Yong Ho’s book Beginner’s Chinese. Mandarin has amazingly few sound combinations—only around 400 different syllables, versus many multiples of that in English—so they can all be stuck in…

Beginner's Chinese: A Friendly Introduction

4 Mandarin, Books, Multimedia

This book by Yong Ho is for beginners, but I decided I needed to do a bunch of Pimsleur Chinese audio lessons first, before starting it, and I’m glad I did. Despite its inviting name, Beginner’s…

The Official Syntaxis Grammar Quiz

5 English, General, Tests, Websites

Okay, so right up front, I will confess, yes, I wrote this Syntaxis grammar quiz, and yes, I am shamelessly putting it in my own language directory of reviews with a five-star rating. I happen to be very fond…

iTunes: for the Latest Hits, and Chinese Nouns, Too!

3 Mandarin, Audio Lessons, Vocabulary

VocabuLearn Mandarin Chinese comes in three different levels, for a total of nine hours of vocabulary instruction. I tried only the first level for Mandarin, but I have logged many VocabuLearn hours across a number of languages and would say…

Schoenhof's Website Is a Window to the World

5 Arabic, Dutch, English, French, General, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Yiddish, Websites, Bookstores/Libraries, Kids

Founded in 1856, Schoenhof’s claims to have the “largest collection of foreign books in North America.” As a student at Harvard, I used to shop at their main store in Harvard Square for my language and literature course materials. I…

Dirty Portuguese: For Explicit-Language-Friendly People

3 Portuguese, Books

Okay, I will be honest: I didn’t do much with this irreverent little book except giggle over it. Dirty Portuguese is what I consider to be more of a gag gift, like for a college student…

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