Reviews

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New York, en Français

5 French, General, Books

This may have been the first non-fiction book I ever read in French. I loved it. Of course I am partial to histories of New York, though the ones I own are otherwise in English. It is amusing to read…

Essential Portuguese Grammar, at Coffee Shop

3 Portuguese, Books

Essential Portuguese Grammar: A Teach Yourself Guide is a little more lighthearted than some of the heavy Portuguese grammars out there. It focuses on the Portuguese of Portugal, but the author, Sue Tyson-Ward, offers regular comments on…

This New Edition Has a Chapter on Technology Terms

2-5 French, Books, Vocabulary

I like many of the Practice Makes Perfect books (offered for multiple languages), including their vocabulary books, but I’m afraid this was an exception. The exercise design in Practice Makes Perfect: French Vocabulary just…

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…

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…

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