Reviews

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Oxford Essential Polish Dictionary: I Really Like This One!

5 Polish, Books, Dictionaries

The Oxford Essential Polish Dictionary is extremely usable and useful. I am picky about dictionaries. I like the aesthetics of this one: the readability of the print, the weight of the book (light), and its dimensions (small-purse…

Pimsleur Portuguese: Great for Developing Speaking Skills

5 Portuguese, Audio Lessons

I loved Pimsleur Brazilian Portuguese. A Pimsleur lesson is a roughly 30-minute, highly interactive audio experience focusing on the development of oral skills, and there are a total of 90 lessons for Portuguese.  The pacing is good. I mention this…

The Sign Out Front

5 Arabic, Organizations

This mission of this wonderful community resource, notes its website, “is to support and empower the Arab Immigrant and Arab American community by providing services to help them adjust to their new home and become active members of society. Our…

This Is a Great Little Book

5 Arabic, Books

I loved The Arabic Alphabet: How to Read & Write It by Nicholas Awde and Putros Samano. It is hard-core, sincere, and careful. I learned a ton from it. There is much useful vocabulary in there alongside…

Oxford Learner’s Spanish Dictionary: I Like the Heft of This

3 Spanish, Books, Dictionaries, Kids

What makes this a learner’s dictionary as opposed to a regular dictionary is that this one has word tips and examples for the language newcomer. I am sort of a hard-core traditionalist about dictionaries, so I didn’t take…

Pocket Korean Dictionary: A Slim Volume of Words

Korean, Books, Dictionaries

I bought the Pocket Korean Dictionary for my Korean studies. I confess I didn’t use it, but it wasn’t the dictionary’s fault. I was preoccupied trying to make it through my Pimsleur Korean …

I Often Did Pimsleur Arabic on the Floor; It Made It Easier to Focus

5 Arabic, Audio Lessons

I love Pimsleur and have used it for 15 different languages to date. Pimsleur Eastern Arabic consists of a series of exquisitely designed audio lessons, roughly half an hour each, in which you are constantly challenged to speak Arabic in response…

Textbook with Accompanying Exercises and Answer Key (Must Be Purchased Separately)

4 French, Books

This is the textbook from a three-piece set (also including an exercise book and answer key) that I used in a French Institute Alliance Française course here in New York City. Nouvelle Grammaire du Français<…

Block Where Alwan for the Arts Resides

4 Arabic, Museums/Cultural

In downtown Manhattan, you can visit Alwan for the Arts for cultural events in the realms of music, dance, film, books, and more. An event I went to there in 2009 was enticingly called “Leyya Tawil’s Dance Elixir,” with clarinetist…

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