Reviews

Hundreds of resources to help you teach yourself

CIDLeS Home Page

General, Websites, Organizations

Founded in 2010 and based in Minde, Portugal, the Interdisciplinary Centre for Social and Language Documentation (CIDLeS) is “dedicated to the documentation and preservation of the linguistic and cultural heritage in Europe.”

You Can Speak the Word You Want Translated...

5 Arabic, Dutch, English, French, General, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Yiddish, Apps, Dictionaries

I have a tendency not to get around to downloading iPhone apps onto my iPhone, but fortunately I have a husband who will take my phone and do it for me. I’m very glad he stuck this app on…

Global Language List!

4 General, Websites

This Wikipedia entry has a table listing the world’s languages in descending order by number of speakers. Besides the quantitative information, the table also displays the countries in which the languages are spoken and provides some helpful notes. For…

Craigslist for Language Exchange

3 General, Websites, Classes/Conversation

I used Craigslist for language purposes just once, to find an Italian conversation partner in late 2009. He was a very nice guy, and the exchange, while short-lived, was pleasant and productive. While writing this review about three years later, in…

New York Has a Lot Going On!

General, Websites, Fairs/Festivals/Parades

This website includes listings of events around town, to enable you (according to its tagline) “see the city like a native ‘New Yawkah.’” I am including it here primarily because of its extensive list of fairs, festivals, and parades, which…

Dictionary.com Can Tell You the Origins of Words Like Schadenfreude and Aardvark

5 English, General, Dictionaries, Websites

I love this free resource. When I need absolute certainty about what I am looking up, I will go to my beautiful and totally current hardcover American Heritage dictionary, but for a quick check of a word’s…

Great Works at University of Rochester!

General, Websites

The goal of Three Percent is to be “a destination for readers, editors, and translators interested in finding out about modern and contemporary international literature.” Originating at the University of Rochester, the website got its name through the sad fact…

Live Lingua: Keeping the Free FSI Language Courses Alive

Arabic, Dutch, French, General, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Audio Lessons, Websites

These Foreign Service Institute language courses were recommended by a reader. I haven’t tried them, but the holdings are extensive and consist of older courses that are now in the public domain. They are also free, so the main…

There Are 15 of These!

General, Websites, Organizations, Conferences/Lectures

As of this writing, there are 15 Language Resource Centers (LRCs) across the U.S. at various universities. The first was established by the Department of Education in 1990, according to the website for the centers, “in response to the growing national…

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