Endorsed Resources for Language-Learning
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This article needs reviews! Consider making entries for resources you've studied with; major languages in most need of resources are already included. Remember to attribute yourself at the end.

Please only add reviews for resources that are workable for at least some purposes, even if they are imperfect. Please do not add entries for books or resources that are flat-out useless.


general



Anki, an electronic upgrade of the Leitner system, is an extremely powerful piece of software that allows you to create decks of "flashcards." By keeping track of how well you know each card, it will show you each card when it most needs to be reviewed, so that you review what you don't know much more often than what you've got down, instead of going through an entire deck every time. Thanks to the wonders of the digital age, flashcards need not be two-"sided", and may have more than one "side", which may contain audio, image or video files as well as plain text. Anki is best used for vocabulary practice in conjunction with your regular course; however, if you need to increase your vocabulary, vocab decks for a large range of languages are available to download from Anki's database of decks. Anki is also a great tool for cramming a large number of words into your head just before a test, as this reviewer's many undeserved A's on vocabulary quizzes and tests have shown. There are ports for iOS and Android, though it's recommended you create and edit your decks on your desktop. (dhok)

Duolingo, also available as an app for Android and iOS, is the hottest new thing in language learning: free and friendly-looking, it uses a "skill tree" (using Skinner Box mechanics and other tricks of the modern mobile gaming industry to keep you hooked) to teach you the major grammar of your target language, as well as 2000-3000 words. As of the time of writing (August 2014), French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German and Dutch (the last in beta) are available for English speakers, with Danish and Irish imminent. Although it's leagues ahead of its competition (Rosetta Stone and its ilk), it won't make you fluent, as much as its fans like to insinuate that it would. Nevertheless, 2000-3000 words is a perfectly respectable number for tourists or light readers. More serious language learners often suggest using Duolingo in conjunction with a more traditional course, using the traditional book-course for primary learning and Duolingo for review and reinforcement. (dhok)

FSI Language Courses is a free, but under-utilized and under-cited, resource. It's a collection of Cold War-era crash courses for diplomats and analysts developed by the U.S. State Department and made freely available to use and share. Almost all of the world's major languages, along with a number of minor ones (several African languages in particular) are represented. Since these were developed by the State Department with an eye towards pragmatism instead of profit, they're rather dry and don't have too many bells and whistles, but they're free and, by most accounts, fairly effective. Similar courses for other languages have been developed by the Peace Corps and can be found with some Googling.  (dhok)

Memrise has a large number of vocabulary and grammar review courses for language learners. Like Duolingo (but more so, especially since there's no quality control on courses, which range from excellent to useless), it has its limitations and should be used in conjunction with other resources. That being said, you should be able to find something useful for whatever language you're learning (unless, as is not uncommon around here, you're learning something really obscure...). (dhok)

arabic



dutch



estonian


Teach Yourself Complete Estonian seems to be the most popular resource on the market right now for English speakers. It's not as in-depth or intensive as a more linguistically-minded learner might prefer, but it will give you a solid grounding in the basics of the language for study or travel. A copy of the book can be found very cheaply on Amazon or eBay, and the dialogue mp3s can be found easily with a bit of ingenuity. (dhok)

finnish


The 1954 version of Teach Yourself Finnish, which has gone through several reprints and is easily found used on the sort of sites that sell such volumes, is an interesting animal. Although it does go through the majority of Finnish grammar, it's extremely vocabulary-heavy (over a thousand words are listed by the end of lesson 3) and is perhaps best used in conjunction with a more standard introductory course, either along with the introductory course or afterwards to review grammar and increase vocabulary. It's plain from its format that it's primarily intended for people who want to primarily read and write Finnish, so you'll want to use another resource for speaking. All that said, it is fairly solid and, unlike many modern courses, will give you a large working vocabulary when (perhaps if) you ever complete it. (dhok)

french



german



ancient greek



From Alpha to Omega by Anne H. Groton is the ἄξιος Greek successor to Wheelock's Latin; though long, it presents the complex and sometimes irksome mass of Greek grammar in fifty manageable lessons, with lots of vocabulary, plentiful exercises and a reading for every chapter. (dhok)

Greek: An Intensive Course by Hansen and Quinn was the text I used when I first started Greek at the tender age of twelve. Though relatively comprehensive in scope, it's very paradigm-heavy (though with Greek this is a necessary evil) and quite dry, sometimes at the expense of needed exposition, and could stand to include a bit more vocabulary. Nevertheless, it is a widely-used and operable text. (dhok)

modern greek



hindi



indonesian



italian



japanese



korean



latin


Wheelock's Latin is the classic textbook to which not only all introductory Latin textbooks but indeed all introductory language texts in general must measure up. A model of clarity and precision, it presents Latin grammar and vocabulary in manageable lessons, allowing the student to start reading real Latin quickly without becoming overwhelmed. A star must be knocked off an otherwise perfect rating for the inevitable bloat that all later editions of textbooks suffer; get an earlier edition (my sources recommend the fifth or earlier) if you can manage it. (dhok)

mandarin



persian



portuguese



russian



sanskrit


An Introduction to Sanskrit (two volumes) by Thomas Egenes appears to be the standard recommended introductory course for Sanskrit. Although Sanskrit is dearly lacking the Wheelock's that it so desperately needs and deserves, Egenes appears to have written the closest thing so far. In two volumes of thirty-six chapters, the basic grammar (of which there is a lot) of Sanskrit, along with its infamous system of sandhi and a fair amount of vocabulary, are presented, as well as readings from the Bhagavad-Gita in the second volume. There are also numerous exercises. A caveat: due to space constraints (the amount of morphology that must be memorized in Sanskrit is massive), the pacing is somewhat uneven: the early chapters present grammatical information drip by drip, which increases to a torrent by the end of volume one (two full noun paradigms in one lesson is par for the course by lesson 12 or so). (dhok)

spanish



turkish


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