Reviews

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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…

The Keys to French?

4 French, Books

This book by Annie Heminway contains lots of grammar drills, offering excellent opportunities for practice to people seeking to refine their skills. I’ve used Practice Makes Perfect: Complete French Grammar twice. Right after I went through it…

This Is Before I Totally Beat It Up

4 Polish, Books

This Basic Polish book from Routledge says at the outset that it assumes no previous knowledge of Polish. Unlike many other language books, it sticks to that commitment. It begins at the beginning. I’m not going to…

I Like This Book

4-5 Japanese, Books, Kids

This book is a lot of fun. It teaches you to write all the characters in the two Japanese syllabaries, hiragana and katakana, which are collectively referred to as kana. The kana, 92 of them in total, are basic elements…

Advance Your Spanish Skills

3-5 Spanish, Books

This diminutive book by Rogelio Alonso Vallecillos offers instruction in “topics that often cause trouble to foreign students, especially to English-speaking ones: topics like the correct use of object pronouns, when to leave out subject pronouns, how to generate sentences…

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