(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best foreign language dictionaries

Post Genki II Stuff

1. Watch Shirokuma Cafe on this website. Animelon is beautiful because all of its anime have subtitles available in English, romaji (latinized Japanese), hiragana, and normal Japanese -- start with English & normal Japanese for a few episodes to get used to how people talk, then turn off English and begin ganbatte'ing (doing your best). This anime is about a panda bear working in a cafe owned by a polar bear where they make food for guests and go on various adventures. It's great because the vocabulary is almost entirely every day (minus the polar bear's obnoxious puns), and it also has a variety of accents, so you'll begin getting used to Japanese sounds. If you like dry humor, you'll even enjoy the anime. I personally laughed so hard that I cried, twice.
   
   
2. Begin going through the N3 grammar videos from Nihongo no Mori, also feel free to check out their Dangerous Japanese (slang), and move on to N2 and N1 grammar as you feel ready. Their videos are great because they all have subtitles, they circumlocate to simpler Japanese to explain difficult words in the example sentenecs (explaining Japanese with simpler Japanese), and they have fun. These videos were personally the first "all Japanese" content that I consumed, and after I had been watching for a week or so I began with Shirokuma Cafe.
   
   
3. Buy Read Real Japanese Contemporary Fiction and Essays. These books are great: they present 7 short stories or essays that are 100% unaltered (except for adding readings to Kanji that appear for the first time in a given article), as a native speaker would see them. That's on the right page. The left page has a running gloss into English -- it's just enough to help you understand the meanings of parts you didn't quite understand, but not so much that you'd understand what was going on by only reading it. The real gem is that the 2nd half of the book is a running grammatical dictionary, as in the author devotes like ~130 pages to explaining all of the grammar that was contained in every single article that is more advanced than ~Late Genki II stuff. These are the holy grail of Japanese learning content for me; they're literally training wheels for reading read Japanese stuff. I read each one with a notebook: I went one sentence at a time, reading every grammar explanation, and writing down any grammar that I didn't know. Sounds time consuming, but I still went through a story in 1-2 days (2-4 hours? per story on average). After finishing the book I waited 2 weeks then read it again, highlighting the sentences that I still struggled with, double checking that grammar. Then I read it again a month later, not checking the grammar, and added any sentences i still didn't explain into Anki as Clozed Deletion Card.
   
   
4. I say again -- Read Real Japanese is training wheels to Reading Real Japanese. Written Japanese is quite different than Spoken Japanese, and this book really helps to iron out everything that might have not quite gotten through your system yet. When you finish the two books, begin looking for native books you can read on an e-reader/the computer. Just pick whatever you're interested in that has been written in the last 20 years. It's important to do it on a Kindle/computer because this enables you to highlight words to search them in the dictionary, rather than having to draw the characters out to search by hand in your phone dictionary. The Kindle is a pair of stilts that makes reading tolerable at a fluency level where it would normally be unbearable -- and I think this goes for any language, but particularly for languages like Japanese/Chinese where the primary writing system isn't necessarily phonetic.
   
   
5. In addition to reading, listen to lots of stuff. Find something that is interesting to you -- ie, something you find entertaining enough that you're willing to slodge through the beginning phase where it's not-pleasantly-difficult -- and stick to it. I personally liked/like Taigu Channel; a Buddhist monk here in Japan takes in letters from people struggling with life problems (what is happiness? what is freedom? How can I show the people around me that I appreciate them?) and then he answers them from a Buddhist perspective. Objectively speaking I think it's super for a first listening resource because he speaks clearly, somewhat slowly, a lot of the videos have subtitles, and he's talking about everyday-life problems meaning that the vocabulary is limited to practical things. If you're interested in Buddhism, I personally find the videos to be really enlightening. This is the ultimate goal of language learning, in my opinion -- to find a way to make your target language a medium; a gateway to knowledge or entertainment that you want, which just happens to be only in your target language... meaning that just by enjoying yourself and consuming content you want to consume, you naturally improve your language.
   
   
6. Check out Flowverlapping, find some music you like, and work at it to help you (a) learn the sounds of Japanese, (b) work into a more natural sounding rhythm/intonation, and (c) to (hopefully) get something of a feel for Japanese's two pitch accents. This is basically not necessary for being understood, but will definitely help you to sound more pleasant on the ears, and figured I might as well leave the link just in case you happen to be interested in pronunciation. Since it can be difficult to break into music in a new language, I'll also leave a few songs that I like in different genres. Yonedzu Kenshi-AiNekutai (indie), Mucc-Heide (visual kei), King Giddra-Bullet of Truth(uhh, hard? rap), Kohh-Don't Care If I'm Broke(uhh, soft? rap), Perfume-Flash(J-pop),Urashima Tarou - Voice of the Sea(makes me think of Japan) Kobasolo - Far, Far away (a playlist of soft music I gathered). Music is important to me, personally -- so if you enjoy music, I hope there's something you like here somewhere.
   

I learned Japanese for a few years a while back. I 100% agree with the recommendation for Tae Kim's Grammar Guide. It pulls no punches and gets you from nothing to the point where you can have basic conversations.

If you know what Kana and Kanji are keep reading. If not, just go through Tae Kim's Introduction and Guide to Writing quickly and then continue.
____
Now to learn Kana, how experienced are you with language learning? If you're a total beginner, Remembering the Kana is what I used, but just grind out the Hiragana and Katakana. There's like dozens of free guides. If you have prior linguistic experience Fluent Forever's Guide to Japanese Pronunciation is absolutely fantastic and a must-watch but it's pretty technical.

In terms of Kanji, decide if you want to learn it and how committed do you want to be. Are you determined to know all useful Kanji? Are you willing to only learn to read Kanji as you come across them? Do you want to ignore them all together?

If you want to "master" Kanji, Hesig's Remembering the Kanji is insane. In ~90 days I learned to write all 2000 Jouyou Kanji. The goal of the program is to get you to the same point of a Chinese speaker learning Japanese. So you know all the characters, but you know zero Japanese. So I couldn't read. I couldn't speak. All I could do was point to a character and tell you its English meaning. Then I just went through Tae Kim learning Japanese words as I came across them.

If you really want to "master" the Kanji, Hesig's way is imo the best. But it's a huge time commitment (3-4 months) for a payoff that only matters if you're into Japanese for the longhaul. If it's your first time learning a language or you don't wanna put in the time, either try another way to learn the Kanji or skip Hesig and just learn them as you go through Tae Kim. You can always come back to it if you decide later on that Kanji really matter to you. (Don't feel like this is a cop-out! I actively decided to not learn characters while I was learning Chinese because I care far more about speaking than reading).

_____

Best of luck! Japanese is a great language to learn :)

I've recently begun to do the same. I'll list off the resources I've come across, and my thoughts on them.

• Pimsleur French (Audio)
  
  Great for learning proper pronunciation alongside some basic grammar and common phrases. I am currently using this as my primary source of spoken French, while learning written aspects from:
  
  
• Easy French Step-by-Step (Book)
  
  I love this book. I looked through a number of different self-study books, and the pacing/order of this one fits me just right.
  
  
• Rosetta Stone: French (Software)
  
  This was actually my first attempt at learning French. I gave up after a while due mostly to lack of interest and a lack of perceived progress. The combination of the book and audio systems listed above have made me feel more at ease with the language than this ever did.
  
  With that said, I've found while studying now that it actually did help me build up a decent vocabulary, and aided a bit with pronunciation. If its price doesn't deter you, I'd suggest considering it as a secondary or tertiary learning tool.
  
  
• Anki (Software)
  
  This is a free, multi-platform flashcard application. As I've been reading through Easy French Step-by-Step, I've been adding the introduced vocabulary, terms, etc. to "decks" in Anki, which I then study until I have them memorized.
  
  I break up what I study based on the quizzes in the book. I.e., I add everything up until the book provides a quiz about them. Study, take quiz, continue until next quiz adding the newly learned vocab, terms, rules. It has worked well for me so far.
  
• A Frequency Dictionary of Core French Vocabulary (Book)
  
  The authors of this book analyzed a number of written and spoken sources of French to come up with the top 5,000 words used in French. In the book they're listed by order of appearance (e.g., #1 is "le").
  
  As the book is already sorted by order of appearance, you can slowly memorize larger chunks, starting from the top, and know that what you're learning is what you are most statistically likely to encounter.
  
  I program for a living, so I went a bit further and bought the ebook, then wrote a script to pull all the info out for me. I'm now able to practice all sorts of things by filtering the data -- "give me the top 50 verbs that end in -re", for example, to practice conjugation.
  
  
• English Grammar for Students of French (Book)
  
  I haven't read this book, but it's another one that was repeatedly well recommended as I did my self-study research.
  
  
• Rocket French (Audio & Software)
  
  From what I've read, this course is somewhat similar to Pimsleur French. However, unlike Pimsleur, of which I was able to find numerous legitimate reviews online, the majority of those I found for Rocket French were astroturfing. They've registered a ton of domains and set up fake reviews of their product. Whether or not it's any good, I don't know, as their decision to do so turned me off from the course.
  
  
• To save myself some writing, I highly recommend you read this blog post:
  La belle in France: Essential French Language Tools
  
  She covers a number of good resources to aid you in learning French. I'd like to single out http://www.wordreference.com (as well as its forums) though, as it has been a fantastic reference site. Easily the best online English<->French dictionary I have found.
  
  
• Another good roundup post:
  Online Classes.org: The 50 Best Blogs for French Majors & Francophiles
  
  I hope that list is of some help.

I'm gonna assume that you're starting completely from scratch, so just skip over parts that you already know.

Firstly, Japanese consists of three writing systems: Hiragana and Katakana, which correspond to each other/use the same sounds, and are syllable based. It is extremely important that you learn hiragana, and learn it well. Katakana is easy to learn later on as you'll already have the foundation/a basic understanding of Japanese phonology/sounds. Then there're kanji, which you've most likely heard of: Chinese characters. There are roughly 1700 of these used by the average Japanese person*. So:

1. Learn the kana. This can easily be done in very little time through this course. You can also use a course such as this: http://www.memrise.com/course/12/introduction-to-japanese/ , as it teaches some very basic (but very useful) vocabulary with the kana, which might be useful to you if you want to use the knowledge right away. I'd really recommend the first one I linked to though. If you are willing to spend money on learning Japanese, you can get this book but it's not really necessary with all the free resources available on the internet.
   
   1.5. If you have the money (or the means...) you might want to go through an audio course quickly in order to pick up the pronunciation/listening skills and some basic conversational vocab. Michel Thomas is supposedly good, though I favour Assimil myself. Assimil is made for being used over the course of 100 days (1 lesson/day), which can be really nice as it gives you somewhere to start and stop, so to speak.
   
   \2. Get yourself a textbook. Genki I and II are fine, but they can be a bit pricey, and are made for use in a classroom. I use Japanese the Manga Way myself, which is really neat if you're planning on reading manga in Japanese eventually, and isn't all that expensive. there are other alternatives as well, which I'm sure someone will tell you about shortly, haha. Tae Kim and TextFugu are, as far as I know, the only internet-based textbooks worth considering. Tae Kim is 100% free and will teach you about as much grammar as Genki I and II will, while TextFugu is a one-time payment and will teach you a bit more than Genki I, I think.
   
   \3. You might want to start learning kanji/vocabulary while going through your textbook. Wanikani.com is good, as it teaches both, and does it really efficiently. It is subscription-based, however ($10 a month I think).
   
   tl;dr: kana, textbook, kanji/vocab while doing textbook stuffs.
   
   Also, stay away from Rosetta Stone. It's expensive, not very good for non-European languages, and there are free resources that are several times better.
   
   がんばって！
   
   *some people will correct me and say 2000+ because that's what the Jouyou kanji say (don't worry about this for now), but fact is that the last 300-400 are not used a lot.

To add on to legionarykoala's answer, heaven is translated from the word Tian, which has stood to mean a few different things in Taoism. From Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall's translation of the Dao De Jing:

>In the earliest canonical literature, such as the Book of Documents and the Book of Songs, tian is often anthropomorphized, suggesting its intimate relationship with the process of euhemerism—the ascent of historical heroes to the status of gods—that grounds Chinese ancestor reverence. A qualification has to be made with respect to the use of the Greek term “euhemerism” to describe this process as it unfolded in early China. That is, while in Greece “a” became “B,” in China, “a” became “A.” That is, there are good reasons to assume that tian is not an exception to the claim that Chinese gods are, by and large, dead people. Although this claim is not uncontested, at least we can say that, in the absence of some transcendent creator Deity, tian, in this early conceptualization, would seem to stand for a cumulative and continuing cultural legacy that is focused by the spirits and spirituality of those who have come before.

...

>There is also a strong association between tian and the natural environment, as well as with its ongoing operations. Tian does not speak directly, but communicates effectively (although not always clearly) through human-generated oracles, through perturbations in the climate, and through alterations in the natural conditions that contextualize the human world. Tian participates in a nonverbal discourse with the most worthy persons in the human community. Given the interrelatedness and interdependency of the various orders defining the early Chinese cosmology, what affects one, affects all. This interdependence assumes that a failure of order in the human world will be reflected by a sympathetic disintegration of order in the natural environment.

>But with this assumed mutuality, there was a growing sense that proper conduct in the human world can guarantee stability in the natural world. In some of the early texts, the more spiritual dimension of tian continues to be emphasized. But as human beings develop a sense of control over their own natural environment, the emphasis in many texts, including the Daodejing, tends to shift to an increasingly impersonal tian that denotes the regular operations of nature. Although impersonal, this evolving notion of tian retains its sense of spirituality as the object of a kind of natural piety.

Ames and Hall also had the foresight of how Tian could be confused with the Dao, and kindly make a helpful distinction for us:

>How is tian and tiandi so described in chapters 16 and 25 [of the Dao De Jing] to be distinguished from dao—a generic name for the field of experience as construed from each and every perspective? First, it should be noted that these terms are all simply explanatory categories that are organic and reflexive, where one overlaps with and leads into the next. This being said, one distinction between dao and tian lies in the intimate yinyang relationship between tian and ren: between tian and the human world. That is, while daode is a generic category that stipulates a correlative relationship between any particular thing or event and its field of experience, and is thus inclusive of the totality of orders, the correlative tianren is a dimension within daode that tends to highlight more specifically the relationship between human beings and their natural, social, and cultural context.

ALRIGHT. I know this is a huge information dump, but it's all to make sure one doesn't confuse "Heaven" with what it means in Abrahamic Religions. While Tian can be pretty vague, it's distinct from how Heaven may typically be interpreted. If you're not quite sick of reading yet, there's one last excerpt I'd like to leave you with to really drive this distinction home:

>...tianren is a correlative category that entails a symbiotic yet hierarchical relationship: Tian is shaped by the human experience, and what it means to be human is constantly being reshaped by tian. That is to say, tian is not just the natural world, independent of human artifice. Rather, tian is a living, cumulative regularity, inclusive of nature and nurture that is not only inseparable from the human experience, but is in an important degree expressive of it.

Taoism is confusing.

At least for me, I got started by taking some continuing education classes at a local community college. That can be a bit pricey, depending on one's budget - it's about ~$200 per semester for me - but the structure really helps make sure that you start off with a strong footing in the language. The text book series we use during that class is Japanese for Busy People, which is pretty good - I can't give a comparative analysis between it and other text books, since it's the only one I've used, but I imagine that you could get at least a little out of it. Though having a teacher there who speaks the language natively to whom to ask questions is also a big help.

In terms of memorization, I can't recommend flash cards enough. Anki is an excellent free resource for that - it repeats cards depending on how long it takes you to get them correct, so it really helps to reinforce things that you're shaky on while clearing things you find easy off your plate quickly.

jisho.org is the main Japanese-English dictionary that I use. It's not something that you'll find too useful just starting out, but it's an invaluable resource once you've got some basic grammar and vocab under your belt.

I hope that's helpful. :)

I am learning portuguese for almost two years now.
Lots of resources have already been mentioned here. You can also find some great lists here in the sub (e.g. here for Br-Pt or here for european Pt)

As you are already a language learner, I guess it's needless to say that making studying a habit for every day is key.

However, as some users here already reported, it sometimes can get overwhelming by all these resources that are available. So in order to get started I would recommend to find 3 or 4 tools to use on a regular basis and stick to them. I myself made the mistake to try out to many services/apps/tools in the beginning and also switched between them way too often.

That being said, in my opinion you need tools for the following tasks in order to learn portuguese:

1: Sound

Depending what you mother tongue is you might have difficulties to distinguish between "ã" and "ão" or to properly reproduce the "ão" or "nha" sound. Minimal pairs can help here. You can make them yourself for Anki or use some premade deck or a website that provides this functionality. I remember that /u/pedrosantos16 made a minimal pair collection on his website www.european-portuguese.info , but don't know whether he included the audio already. The Podcast Tá falado is great for sound and pronunciation, too. If you find some youtube videos that focus on sounds you can use those as well. After very short time you should be comfortable with the sounds of portuguese you you can simply drop the minimal pair exercises here.

2. Vocabulary

For obvious reasons. Focus on nouns and verbs (some verbs are beasts as they have a trillion different use cases). I use Duolingo and Anki. Note that lots of learners suggest to learn with pictures (at least for simple nouns) instead of translations and I highly recommend that, too.

3. Grammar

Duolingo explanes very little grammar, but has some exercises. So in order to get the basics and as a reference book I use Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar. Learn some irregular verb conjugation in present tense, make yourself familiar with the regular verb conjugation patterns. Learn the gerund and iperativo. After that past tense (preterito perfeito and imperfeito). Don't worry about prepositions too much, they will come over time.

4. Listening Comprehension

In my eyes one of the most important parts, if not the most important. I don't know about you, but I like to actually use my portuguese in order to talk to people. Although you theoretically know the words, it is sometimes difficult to understand people, there are quite a lot of different accents, and some tend to merge words so it becomes a real challenge. I can recommend Semantica-portuguese (video based), portuguesepod101 (mostly audio based) and the podcasts of the texas university (e.g. lingua da gente). Semantica and portuguesepod101 are comple courses for beginners to advanced, so they can easily replace university classes. I started with a beginner course in university, but didn't learn much. It got me more curious about the language though, so I made the semantica course afterwards and was very satisfied with my progress.


5. Speaking

You should start speaking portuguese as soon as possible, even if you are not feeling comfortable about it yet. There are great tools available and people are very helpful. Hellotalk, iTalki.com, mylanguageexchange.com....there are tons


6. Slang

I noticed, that after quite a while I still was not able to follow conversations. That was because in spoken language, at least Brazilians use a lot of slang words, so over time you should make yourself familiar with them. Just add them to you preferred flashcard tool whenever you encounter some new slangs / idioms.


7. Reading and writing

Some people suggest reading childrens books such as the little prince or similar. Or reading along withe song lyrics. Since reading and writing is not my top priority I cannot give you solid recommendations. What I do is following a lot of portuguese twitter accounts (news etc), so I read at least a little portuguese every day. From time to time I head over to the website of a newspaper and try to decipher some articles. There are also reading tools available online such as lingua.ly but I haven't tried them yet.

8. Culture class

It always keeps me motivated, when I dive into Brazilian cultura. Food, music, city reports, history. There are great video podcasts and blogs available, some of them are listed in one of the other threads linked to above.

I guess that's it, your first year of learning portuguese should be covered by that. Boa sorte para aprender português!

tl,dr I use Semantica, Duolingo, Anki, Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar book on a regular basis, and throw in some podcasts, videos or newspaper articles from time to time

I'd highly recommend A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish as a reference book.

I think what has helped me the most with learning Spanish is trying to read - and reading aloud. Below are some various suggestions on what you can do to continue.

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Go to this site and try to record yourself saying all the phonemes and try to mimic them.

I'd say you can ignore the "espirantes" phonemes though - maybe I can't hear them, but I don't think most Spanish speakers use them. And it'll make it a whole lot harder to understand you if you try to use them.

Spanish is a very phonetic language, so once you get the phonemes down - you can practice on pretty much any Spanish text even if you don't have the source audio.

If you don't know how a word is pronounced, you can check: forvo.com/wordreference.com/spanishdict.com.

---

After you have basic pronunciation, I'd suggest start reading. If you can listen to Spanish radio/watch subtitles, you should be able to read.

I'd highly recommend getting a Kindle paperwhite for this. Since you only use it to read, you don't really have to worry about getting distracted. It's very easy to read from and you don't have to worry about reading in the sun/dark.

If you don't know a word, you can easily look it up just by touching the word for a couple seconds. If there's a phrase of interest, it's really easy to save and look at later.

I'd suggest saving phrases that are something you might use yourself, or are things you don't understand grammatically. Go back to those later and figure out the grammar or practice using the phrases.

---

Another useful site is Lang-8.com. I'll admit I haven't learned how to efficiently use this site. But it allows you to write things that are corrected by native speakers.

I'd suggest trying to write in a manner more typical of speech than writing when you use it.

Or you could also play around with sentence structures you got from reading/show/radio to make sure you understand them correctly.

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There are sites/apps you could try to practice speaking with Natives. HelloTalk / wespeke.com /interpals.net / or various chatrooms you can probably find with google.

I couldn't try HelloTalk because I don't have a smartphone and didn't have much luck finding people to talk to in the past.

I'm currently using BaseLang to practice speaking. It's a site for one-on-one tutoring for $129/month. It's a bit on the expensive side if the only reason you want to continue Spanish is so you don't lose what you currently have. (I'm not one to talk though, I'll don't have any reason to learn Spanish.)

I find it much more efficient to try to learn grammar on my own and then use them to practice concepts.

The main reason for using BaseLang in my case is because my free time is during an awkward time (EST morning) and I like being able to schedule practice sessions which would be virtually impossible otherwise (without paying for it).

---

There was another post in /r/languagelearning that would be worth the read for you: [Here](
https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/5ian7q/language_learning_a_howto/).

Wall of text incoming:

Al-Kitaab fii Ta'allum Al-'Arabiyya (al-Kitaab generally) is nearly universal for beginning and intermediate Arabic learning in the States. There are three books, and it teaches fusha, which is media Arabic. All educated Arabs are proficient in this dialect, though it is rarely used outside formal settings.

Only one dictionary you'll need: Hans Wehr is the Arabic student's bible. You won't find much use for it off the bat because it's not strictly alphabetical, it's alphabetical by root. So until you learn to spot the root of a word it'll be hard to look anything up. It's also only Arabic-to-English, but al-Kitaab provides more than enough vocab to get you on your feet and Google Translate can fill in gaps (ONLY use Google Translate for individual words, then Hans Wehr to verify; Google Translate will botch sentences).

The most widely understood dialect would most likely be Egyptian, though oddly it is also one of the weirdest/most divergent from Classical Arabic due to Coptic influence. Fortunately, because it's so popular, there are lots of materials out there. That said, probably best to start with fusha, and branch out into dialects after you have a good handle on it. It'll help you understand where a lot of dialectical words come from. Additionally, al-Kitaab has a small Egyptian lesson at the end of each chapter, so you can get some basic exposure without having to functionally learn two languages at once.

Farther down the line, you can get Media Arabic, which is a collection of short articles by topic, with little exercises and loads of really useful vocab. Not strictly necessary if understanding the news isn't in your wheelhouse, but if you're serious about learning Arabic it's a really good intermediate/advanced step.

If you get serious about Egyptian, Pimsleur's Egyptian course is a good jump start, but also not really necessary and hard to do right because of the time commitment. It gets expensive, too, so make sure you're going to use it.

Some of my favorite books for Egyptian come from the American University in Cairo Press:

the Kallimni Arabi series is basically al-Kitaab for Egyptian Arabic. Very useful place to start.

the Arabi Liblib series
gets really into the weeds of how Egyptian speakers communicate. They're basically dictionaries of dialectical adjectives, idioms, and proverbs.

In addition to books, check out Memrise. It's a great vocab tool, and entirely user-generated, so there's a lot of content.

I also like to listen to BBC Arabic Radio. It's 24/7 so you can just pick it up whenever. Both fusha and various dialects. Exposure is extremely important in language learning, and even moreso when learning a language as alien to English as Arabic is.

On top of all this, just putz around on YouTube and Twitter. Arabs are all over social media and it's not hard to get exposure there.

For learning Ancient Greek (as an autodidact), start by signing up for The Great Courses Plus and take the Ancient Greek course, taught by Hans-Friedrich Meuller:

Greek 101: Learning an Ancient Language | The Great Courses Plus

You can sign up for a free trial on The Great Courses, for just long enough to complete the Greek course. But I think it’s totally worth paying for ALL of the content.

I recommend downloading the guidebook and doing ALL of the homework. Copy and paste the exercises into a Word doc and type out the answers/translations. Take the course as many times as you can for mastery.

I’ve created a couple of free courses on Memrise for Ancient Greek verbs that (I hope) people may find helpful. I use (my best attempt at) Modern Greek pronunciation. Audio can be disabled by anyone who has a problem with that. My Memrise account (Diachronix) has some other Modern Greek courses.

Paradigms of Ancient Greek Verbs

Principal Parts of Ancient Greek verbs

Professor Al Duncan produced an excellent series of Ancient Greek videos (on Youtube: Learn Attic Greek with Al Duncan - YouTube), which follows along the exercises in chapters 1–10 and 30–34 of Cynthia Shelmerdine’s Introduction to Greek.

That textbook is a bit error-prone, but it’s still pretty good for beginners. I recommend using it to follow along in Professor Duncan’s videos, at least until they cut off at chapter 10. But you’re on your own between chapters 11 and 29. Again, I recommend typing out ALL of the exercises.

The Athenaze Book 1 and Athenaze Book 2 are good self-study resources for intermediate learners, with a lot of excellent reading material. I also have a Memrise course for the vocabulary in these texbooks.

Athenaze: Book 1

Athenaze: Book 2

Leonard Muellner (Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies at Brandeis University) has a Youtube series on Ancient Greek: Learn Ancient Greek, with Prof. Leonard Muellner - YouTube

Unfortunately the audio throughout most of this series is terrible. But if you manage to listen closely (and not fall asleep), it’s quite edifying. Meullner is a genius. The course follows along the Greek: An Intensive Course textbook by Hansen & Quinn. You could try getting that textbook and following along, but I would recommend this last. I just can’t imagine most people having the patience for it. And I’ve heard mixed reviews on Hansen & Quinn, which professor Meullner criticizes ad nauseam throughout his videos.

Another resource I really like is the online version of ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΙΚΗ ΤΗΣ ΑΡΧΑΙΑΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗΣ by ΟΙΚΟΝΟΜΟΥ. You can turn the audio in the bottom right and a robot reads it out-loud. It’s helpful to learn the grammatical terminology in Greek and, if you can manage reading demotic Greek, you can experience the way the Greeks approach Ancient Greek (and observe the notable differences). They have interesting grammatical category distinctions that we don’t have in the West, many of which are quite handy. But this textbook doesn’t have any engaging reading material, aside from bland descriptions of the language. So it’s not for everyone.

Most other learning material I could recommend is mentioned in the various links above. But here are some key items for building a collection of self-study material:

*Geoffrey Horrocks’ “Greek - A History of the Language and Its Speakers” (MUST READ)

Plato: A Transitional Reader

Kaegi’s Greek Grammar

Smyth’s Greek Grammar

Plato Apology

Homeric Greek - A Book for Beginners

Rouse’s Greek Boy - A Reader

Basics of Biblical Greek

A Graded Reader of Biblical Greek

Geoffrey Steadman’s Ancient Greek reader SERIES

Congrats on taking on another language. Mandarin is not easy as far as phonetics go, but super easy when it comes to other things like nouns and verbs. To me measure words made far more sense than masculine and feminine and no conjugation tables!

Here are my tips:

• Find a Pinyin video if you don't have access to a native speaker.
  
  
• Memrise has some great courses on the 5000 most common characters.
  
  
• The Chineseskill app will help with sentences. It's pretty much Duolingo for Chinese. Laokang Tone Test is another really handy app.
  
  
• If you need mnemonics skip Chineasy and pick up Tuttle's Learning Chinese Characters and Reading and Writing Chinese
  
  
• CCTV's Growing up with Chinese is a great series.
  
  Good luck and have fun!
  

Honestly, neither of these are great sources, but if you've already invested money I recommend completing both and not worrying to much about the discrepancies, treat them as two dialects of the same language. You'll still learn something and you can revise your understanding later on with more experience. I've listed some better resources below. Hope that helps.

Here's a place to start.

If you don't already have a dictionary I recommend this one if you have a good grasp of English. You can also find it the some libraries.

For Listening you can use BBC as well as many songs, Al Jazeera is great too. I recommend finding a news item in English to familiarize yourself with the topic then reading the same story in Arabic.

I also recommend Duo Linguo for learning the basics.

Hey! Good to see someone interested in East Asian languages! The CJKV writing system normally throws a lot of people off.

CJK Writing System

I wrote a short little rant a while back on how the characters are constructed that you might want to read.

There are methods of learning the characters that make use of their structure. Heisig's RtK and RtH books (Amazon link) are the most well known books I think. Fansites such as Reviewing the Kanji and Reviewing the Hanzi also exist which you might want to take a look at.

Not sure if you like RtK? Here's the sampler. See if you like it after learning 276 characters~

Chinese-Specific

The only thing headache inducing about any Chinese dialect is the writing system and tones.

Note that though we call them "dialects", it is a matter of politics as most of them are mutually unintelligible. A Cantonese or Mandarin speaker is unlikely to understand a Hokkien speaker at all, for example.

Written chinese, on the other hand, is in Mandarin and only in Mandarin -- the other dialects do not have writing systems. Well... the notable exception is Written Cantonese, but that's can be seen as a variant of standard written chinese.

Oh! There are have two variants of the standard writing system: Simplified and Traditional. I had learnt the former in school, and I can read the latter after learning about the simplification process, so just pick one and stick with it.

I personally find Mandarin grammar to quite simple. This might be because it's an isolating language.

• Zhongwen.com -- I love the way he arranges related characters together in a tree.
  
• nciku.cn -- Online Chinese Dictionary
  
• Unfortunately I don't have that many online Chinese resources, and the physical ones I have are hard to obtain here in the UK.
  
• Reviewing the Hanzi has a nice list.
  
  Japanese-Specific
  
  Japanese folk have an easier time with Chinese characters. While 6000 Hanzi is roughly college-level (I think?) in Chinese, 6000 Kanji in Japanese is probably more-than-you-need-to-know-ever. There is a Kanji Aptitude Test which is pretty much the only reason one would learn that many.
  
  However, Japanese also have two syllabaries you'll need to know (~50 syllables each). These are phonetic, so they shouldn't pose much of a challenge; most who learn Japanese learn both of them in one or two weeks.
  
  Essential:
  
  
• Denshi Jisho -- Online Japanese dictionary (Basically WWWJDIC with a pretty interface)
  
  Beginner resources:
  
  
• TextFugu - An Online Textbook
  
• Tae Kim - Another Online Textbook, slightly more well-known. Free, unlike TextFugu.
  
• I would also strongly recommend grabbing Remembering the Kanji as soon as possible.
  
• Genki -- Textbook. Some will say to avoid this completely, but just for starting off I don't think it's /that/ bad. Get rid of it once you're past the beginner stage though.
  
  Books to get:
  
  
• Writing - Remembering the Kanji and Remembering the Kana
  
• Speaking / Listening - Shadowing Book 1, Shadowing Book 2
  
• Grammar - Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar
  
• Grammar - Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication
  
• Yes, I recommend both books.
  
  Mixed collection of Online Resources:
  
  
• Reading material - A list I posted a while back
  
• Listening material - Another list, though Koohii has a better one
  
• On Japanese flashcards
  
• Random learning resources from Koohii

In addition to university-level classes (where I started learning Japanese), I found that the Japan Times Dictionaries of (Basic / Intermediate / Advanced) Japanese Grammar were invaluable resources to get the core aspects of the language all up in my brain-meats.

Basic

Intermediate

Advanced

I can't comment with any degree of certainty about online learning opportunities, but I do know that Skype chats with native Japanese speakers are popular, as well as any number of browser and smartphone-based kanji flashcards that will help with listening / speaking / writing.

I highly recommend getting a Bachelor's Degree in anything (possibly with some study abroad in Japan), then applying for something like the JET Programme, which will give you more of an immersive opportunity to live and work in Japan. Japanese is one of those annoyingly alien languages to the English-language brain where the best study results will come from full immersion--and even then, it's faaaaar from easy. I've been studying the language for 20 years and fluency always seems out of reach. But you might brain better than I do, so don't let that discourage you!

This is going to require some blood, sweat, and tears, but it's honestly the best way.

Alan Hoenig, of "Remember the Kanji" fame, made a book about learning Chinese characters. It starts with the simplest characters (e.g. "one") and components (e.g. "straight vertical line") and build each off of eachother. It's an excellent method, and incredibly comprehensive.

Do this in conjunction with some sort of flashcard system (hoetron recommended anki, which is good) and if you commit yourself for 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 2-3 months you should be able to get a command of those 2,200 characters.

I'd recommend Hoenig, but if you want to start with something simpler Tuttle is also great.

For those that wish to approach this philosophically, I'd recommend the Ames translation of the DaoDeJing.

In dealing with Dao for the western reader you have to eradicate the mysticism angle that was simply a consequence of bad translations, poor scholarship and orientalism. There have been considerable finds excavated since your recommended translation and it's simply no longer good enough.

It is immensely important to eradicate the notion of Dao as 'The Way', and De as 'Virtue'. Ames introduction really does a good service on this.

I strongly agree with your recommendation of the Disputers of the Dao. I would also push for the Thinking through Confucius as it argues for an ontological and epistemological similarity with Daoism.

To the philosphers amongst us, the DaoDeJing mostly keeps the metaphysics in the first half of the 81 chapters.The closest western thinker is Luhmann (for Confucius it is Herbert Mead).

The Zhuangzhi is a gorgeous book.The first 3 chapters are some of the most beautiful, vivid and profound chapters ever written. The anti-realism starts with a story of the ginormous bird slowly rising in the sky. The perspectival moral relativism is drawn out in beautiful stories with a tone of magical realism.

Clearly, Heidegger was deeply influenced by the DaoDeJing. He quotes it 5 times within his materials. And you have to wonder if Cook Ding was the inspiration for his hammer analysis.

Cook Ting was cutting up an ox for Lord Wen-hui. At every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee, zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Ching-shou Music.

"Ah, this is marvelous!" said Lord Wen-hui. "Imagine skill reaching such heights!"

Cook Ting laid down his knife and replied, "What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now I go at it by spirit and don't look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and follow things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint."

"A good cook changes his knife once a year, because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month, because he hacks. I've had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I've cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness. If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there's plenty of room, more than enough for the blade to play about it. That's why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone.

(Chapter 3 - The Secret of Caring for Life)

EDIT: May I recommend this extraordinary effort to deal with the whole range of Chinese thought and to compare it with the weirdest group in human history: the North American undergrad

I recently graduated but took Japanese in my freshman year. I imagine a lot of people in the class have learned hiragana before to some level independently since it's one of the more accessible things you can learn about Japanese without a class. That said, it's not a prerequisite for the class so I wouldn't be too worried about it (if it's the most beginner class)

If it bothers you that you are slower than others then my only advice would be to just do extra practice from a hiragana workbook (linked below) and in Genki. I really would recommend writing them as that would probably help you remember them better and then practice reading dialogues in the book, etc. In the end, all that matters is that you learn them and pass exams and such so I would worry about that more than how others are doing and I think you'll enjoy it more and actually learn more, which is the whole point :). Japanese is really a labor of love if you wanna get good, especially after the first courses. But don't let that scare you because it is also very interesting! Just find your pace and stick with it.

I used this book when learning and found it helpful by the way.

I’m currently teaching myself French for a translation exam as well, and I’ve found this book to be super helpful in teaching me grammar basics, common expressions, and fairly useful vocab. I also like it because it starts giving you reading exercises really early on so it’s good practice for a translation style exam. Once I have a better grasp on the basics I’ll move up to reading like a high-school level book in my research area, and then to academic articles from there.

Also: don’t let German intimidate you!! The hardest thing with German for me was that it was my first language that used cases, but since you know Latin you’ve already got that down. Also if you happen to be a history student once you know some German you should get Deutsche Geschichte by Manfred Mai, it introduces a lot of common history/culture vocab in context and was super useful to me when I was learning. Good luck! :)

I like this version because it allows for some interpretation. It attempts to be more of a literal or rough translation, letting the reader interpret how the phrases are to be put together, rather than a smooth-flowing literary translation, as previous texts usual are. It has the Mandarin text alongside, as well.

My personal favorite text of the Dao is the "Writings of Zhuangzi" (or Chuang Tzu in Wade-Giles). The first seven chapters are most clearly associated with Zhuangzi himself, while the rest are, if not written by the man himself, based on the original themes. What I like about it, is that it professes an overall playful outlook on all things, while elevating the importance of skillful knowledge, and making light of theoretical knowledge. This is especially funny (and should be, at the heart of this philosophy) because philosophy is generally about the theoretical.

In another, somewhat similar thread, I recommended Kupperman's intro to Asian philosophy, which, although brief, might help you get an overall idea of where these ideas are coming from and how they formed. Its a great book for putting the ideas in context.

I don't know of apps as I studied Thai before the invention of smartphones but I really like the youtube channel ThaiwithMod

I also know many foreigners who have done self study with this book and it helped them a lot with writing and reading.

Otherwise just learn some basic phrases about food and directions and try to use it. Thais love it when you try to speak with them in their language. You may get laughs but it is all in good fun.

โชคดี (Chok-dee) Good Luck!

Im just going to post my answer from a different thread. You do not really need a book but I like learning with mnemonics.

Now for the two Kana systems I can recommend Remembering the Kana if you like mnemonics.

Also I highly recommend two Anki (A SRS learning tool that is free) decks.
The first one being for Hiragana. This one has Rōmaji on one side and the Hiragana on the other side. It tests you both ways and also has pronunciation audio files with it.

The second one I recommend is for Katakana. This one has Hiragana on one side and Katakana on the other side. It also tests you both ways and has audio with it. This will cement your Hiragana knowledge and also help you learn Katakana.

Best luck with your learning efforts :D

https://www.amazon.com/Living-Japanese-Diversity-Lifestyles-Conversations/dp/030010958X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1469162331&sr=8-2&keywords=living+japanese

I think that is an amazing recourse. Natural, REAL conversations with people of all ages and topics. Its really good for getting exposure you can learn from easily to native speaking that isn't "dramatized" or too over the top like most anime and Japanese TV acting in general.


LingQ.com (is also a great recourse. and its free if you don't use the in site word marking tools)

https://www.amazon.com/Read-Real-Japanese-Fiction-Contemporary/dp/1568365292/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469162459&sr=8-1&keywords=read+real+japanese

https://www.amazon.com/Read-Real-Japanese-Essays-Contemporary/dp/1568364148/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1469162459&sr=8-2&keywords=read+real+japanese

https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-into-Japanese-Literature-Classics/dp/1568364156/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1469162459&sr=8-3&keywords=read+real+japanese

the last three are good for written japanese, which is more polished and different than real "spoken" japanese (like any language). But they all 3 come with audio, grammar and vocab explanations and are an amazing recourse IMO.

A good starting point is the app LingoDeer and its Japanese practise sessions. The first course is free and has a ton of content. Its practise focuses on teaching kana, grammar and building up vocabulary with a variety of guessing games so it's a very natural and entertaining way of learning. This makes it better than a lot of the language apps out there since their main focus is usually flashcard learning and hard memorisation.

Beyond that, Tae Kim's Japanese grammar is considered by many to be a fantastic way to learn the language. It builds up the necessary fundamentals for learning the language in a rational, intuitive way that makes sense in Japanese. The explanations are focused on how to make sense of the grammar not from English but from a Japanese point of view (which means you think in japanese rather than english).

If you want to get a textbook the Genki guides are considered by many to be the quintessial classroom learning book. Japanese for Busy People is also a good one if you don't have a lot of spare time.

Beyond that, watch Japanese tv without subtitles to get used to them speaking. Japanese Children's tv is a great way to go about it. Try watching something like Chi's Sweet Home without subtitles on. There's also Japanese dramas on Netflix where you can turn the subtitles off.

>I'm not exactly in the best area of the city to meet other people as well

I'm curious, which part of the city are you located? When I lived in Bangkok, my apartment was in the Bangkok Noi area. It was walking distance to my university and to all the famous tourist attractions like the Grand Palace and Khao San Road. There was also free buses which allowed me to go to Sukhumvit, China Town, and Chatuchak market for free

>Can't read or write it to save my life

In my opinion, if you want to learn Thai, you need to know the alphabet first. Knowing the alphabet will enable you to think and pronounce Thai more clearly. Thai romanization systems are not legitimate so a knowledge of the alphabet is a must

This book is a must if you want to have a basic grasp of Thai. It teaches you how to read and write the alphabet and it will enable you to learn some vocabularies and build basic sentences.

I'll list all the stuff I'll be using!

I'm doing Brazilian Portuguese, so I'll be going through the Semantica course which I keep hearing is very good, although subscription-based.

Books that I got were:

1. Muito Prazer - just for learning in general.
   
2. [Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar: A Practical Guide] (https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Brazilian-Portuguese-Grammar-Practical/dp/0415566444/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0415566444&pd_rd_r=ZXSC993J5ZY3NH6K3898&pd_rd_w=cSvFc&pd_rd_wg=tD8Wj&psc=1&refRID=ZXSC993J5ZY3NH6K3898) - which is supposed to be THE Brazilian Portuguese grammar book to have.
   
3. Pois Não - More technical approach for those with a Spanish-speaking background. Not 100% sure on this one yet, but I like a challenge.
   
4. 501 Portuguese Verbs - for all the conjugation tables.
   
   Websites:
   1. Hacking Portuguese
   
   
5. Brazilian Gringo
   
6. WordReference.com - Dictionary
   
7. Lang-8.com - AWESOME resource where you write diary entries for your target language and people will correct you. Did this/currently doing this for French and Spanish. I've gotten corrections in like, 5 minutes.
   
8. italki.com - For conversation practice. There are dirt-cheap community tutors who are patient with you, some for around $3.00 an hour.
   
9. BrazilPod - Free podcasts.
   
   Programs/Apps:
   
10. Anki - To make your own Flashcards. Everyone swears by this thing. I like it 1000% better than Memrise because the UI is super-simple and you don't have to force yourself to go through decks with stuff you already know.
    
    If anyone has more suggestions, let me know!

Good! French is pretty easy since most of the vocab is similar, and the grammar is really easy to comprehend. I just quickly skimmed and found these two, Grammar and Vocab. I also recommend trying to think in the language. Set your phone and computer's basic language as french and try to incorporate it into your daily life. Frenchify everything you can to create an immersion environment.


I also recommend watching french tv shows, and movies. Also try to visit there sometime! Once you have a foundation in the language, visiting the country and using it an immersible setting will greatly improve your grasp of the language. Check youtube as well for some good tutorials. Make sure to practice writing in french once you grasp the grammar, and speak it out loud. This will help you cement the grammar into your head as well as practice pronunciation.

Definitely find a pen pal once you feel you're proficient enough, and write and skype with each other. Random people work as well if you don't feel comfortable with a pen pal. This will give you the opportunity to refine the pronunciation as well as have real life practice with it.

You don't have to apply all of these methods, but the more you use the easier the language will come to you. I hope this helps!

I'm afraid I don't know about The Kite Runner but equivalent books in French would probably push you quite hard. It's normally best with reading not to have to look too much up because it can be a drag. It's also why I'd recommend sticking to shorter works.

You might like to look into some parallel texts (ie French on one page with the corresponding translation on the opposite side). They really help when you come across difficult idioms and mean you can read easily out and about when you don't have a dictionary to hand. Here's a collection of short stories in French. There are more in this series. They will be harder than Le Petit Prince but it seems you might enjoy more literary writing.

If you're worried about difficulty you might like to look at this Easy French Reader which gets progressively harder. In fact, this might be the best stepping stone for you.

To be honest, a lot of the really good resources for etymology and so on are going to be written in Japanese. That said, here are a few things to try:

• Makino and Tsutsui's Dictionary of ~ Japanese Grammar series. They provide a really thorough resource for looking up the usage of various words and phrases. If you only get one of my recommendations, this is it.
  
  
• TSujimura's An Introduction to Japanese Linguistics. I don't know if this is the best linguistics text out there, but I've used it and it's serviceable. The main drawback is that Tsujimura insists on using kunrei-shiki romanization instead of Hepburn, which for me creates a surreal disconnect between the text on the page and the actual sounds represented. On the plus side, this is an introduction, so you're not expected to know anything about linguistics in order to read it.
  
  
• Naoko Chino's All About Particles. You don't get a cookie for guessing what this one's about.
  
  
• Helen McCullough's Bungo Manual - if you're interested in classical Japanese, it's another slim volume that will help out a lot.
  
  
• If you're feeling brave, try the Chibi Maruko Kyoushitsu series. They're in Japanese, but it's aimed at elementary-school kids, so it should be relatively accessible. I have the books on 漢字使い分け, 四字熟語, and 作文, and wouldn't mind picking up others when I get the chance.
  
  
• Beyond this, looking for resources at your local university library should give you lots of leads. Just search the catalog for a textbook name, go to the shelf where it's stored in the stacks, and look around for other resources in the same shelf - or ask a librarian to help you; that's what they're there for! Even if you can't check anything out because you're not affiliated, at many colleges it should be possible to browse a bit and make a note of things to find later on your own.

Gunch is right, Koine is much easier, but it's also much less satisfying and less useful if you want to read anything besides the New Testament. There is actually a sub-reddit devoted to this, /r/IntroAncientGreek, that you might want to check out, and /r/AncientGreek will be a better place to crowd-source an answer for this. If you want hardcore grammar learning, I would suggest Hansen and Quinn but I also recommend Cecilia Luschnig's book Intro to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach which will have you reading actual Ancient Greek texts MUCH sooner than Hansen and Quinn. It's a rather difficult language that will be difficult to learn without supervision and someone to answer your questions, so maybe get an answer key? Best of luck, and Χαῖρε!

I am very slowly learning Japanese! I started doing it because I got into watching anime online and it intrigued me. Even though I haven't gotten dreadfully far due to dipping in and out of study over the years, I mostly still do it because I find it fun. For years I've offically studied topics like History and English where there's lots of interpretation and less hard facts. So it does my mind good to learn something more... solid? It feels like avery different kind of learning regardless and I find it refreshing.

Grammar is by far my weakest area, mostly because I've found less... 'fun' ways of learning and studying it. Therefore a book about particles would be a tremendous help!

Songs! This is Arashi, they were my one and only boyband love. The level of my obsession was a little scary and I watched far more japanese variety shows than was possibly healthy. This is another song I like, which was one of the... ending? songs for Fullmetal Alchemist. I like how many cool songs by proper artists anime has. I've found so many groups via anime! and this is one I found thanks to Youtube ads!

Bad joke I stole but amuses me:

なぜハワイで歯医者がない？ Why are there no dentists in Hawaii?

ハワイで、歯はいい！Because in Hawaii, ha wa ii!

This is funny because the ha wa ii at the end means Teeth(ha 歯) are(wa は- topic marker particle) good(ii いい)

Edit: Forgot to add this, in Pokemon X and Y you have the choice to play it in one of seven languages! English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French, German, or Italian!

I heard Rosetta Stone is quite poor and expensive, but of course, naturally, I am not an expert :)
Here's what I bought on Amazon so far, still waiting for it to all ship to me:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/4805311444/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M3STG9N/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/4789014479/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I am under the impression that it's a good use of time to first learn the Kana (Hiragana + Katakana.) As such, I am currently learning to recognize them by playing https://learnjapanesepod.com/kana-invaders/. Once I learn to recognize them I will move to "Japanase Hiragana and Katakana for Beginners" and drill them so I am able to write them and recognize them more seamlessly, while still continue playing the game to review. I think by the end of next weekend I should be able to recognize the Kana, and hopefully after another 2-4 weeks of drilling I can write them too (I'm not sure if this is realistic at all).

Once I am comfortable with Kana I am going to move to the Genki books, which seem to be highly recommended. I think I will do the workbooks and make Anki decks to memorize Kanji/vocabularly. I think this is approximately 2-3 years of University classes but hopefully this process takes 1-1.5 years of dedicated work? Again, not sure what timelines are reasonable.

I tried Genki as a complete self-learner but wasn't able to stick with it past a few chapters. I think it being classroom oriented was part of the problem. I kept skipping parts that involved practicing with other students. Overall I lost interest for some reason. I may try going back to it someday.

There were a couple books that were really helpful for me learning grammar. One is "Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication":

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1568364202/

It has 142 sentence patterns that cover a lot of practical grammar that I found useful when visiting Japan. I entered all the sentences into Anki, which ended up being 1160 cards. For each card I added notes about the pattern from the book. I found that using flashcards was the most effective way for me to remember the material.

The other book, which other people have mentioned, is Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. This book is awesome and has great explanations that are hard to find elsewhere. I started with the Anki deck but suspended all the cards initially. When I encountered some grammar I didn't understand I would look it up in the dictionary, unsuspend the cards and apply some edits (there are some mistakes in the cards). I would also add useful notes from the book in additional fields.

So- in terms of learning Arabic, Rosetta Stone offers at least one program, of varying levels, but unless you only want to learn enough Arabic to order food and hail a taxi, it's not really sufficient at all. In my personal opinion, Arabic is a very hard language for Westerners to learn, and my biggest struggle throughout the course was the very rigid grammatical structure. Even with teachers in front of me and the availability of a tutor, Arabic grammatical structure has always been difficult for me, especially in reproducing it. And for this, it's definitely important to be learning it in person, I think, to query "Why?" and "How does such and such fit?"

I think it would be very difficult to learn any amount of useful Arabic solely through online learning. That said, it's certainly not impossible. A really useful text would be "All The Arabic You Never Learned the First Time Around" by James Price, but it's no longer in print. The PDF is available online (at that site) but to buy the book is $300 (which KILLS ME! because I had three copies of it from DLI and don't know where any of them are).

But before you can dive into that, it really is necessary for you to understand the script. The script can seem overwhelming, but I learned it in a matter of a couple days. It's really simple once you figure out how to read from right to left instead of left to write. I can't point you to a specific website to use, but Google will yield you a TON of sites, and YouTube has videos that go over the sound and look of each letter. If you treat Arabic writing like cursive (nearly all letters connect to each other in a given word) it's much easier. When I first started I would write the corresponding English letter (when there was one) over each Arabic letter and accustom myself to reading hte English letters backwards, eventually transitioning to just reading the Arabic letters themselves backwords.

Once you have the alphabet down, you'll need to learn diacritics (little marks that indicate what vowel sound something makes), and for this, an in person class is really strongly a plus. Diacritics only exist in the Qu'ran and when you're learning Arabic, afterwards they disappear and just become implied (a native automatically knows where they would go and as a student it sort of becomes second nature as well).

Once you can read simple words and sentences, then you'll be able to replicate them online (I use Arabic Keyboard and copy and paste them into Google Translate to get a (reasonably accurate) translation of a word you do not know.

Similarly, once you can read Arabic words (whether you know their definition or not) you should get two dictionaries. An Arabic to English dictionary, specifically Hans Wehr makes the best Arabic-English dictionary in the world (in my opinion) and an English to Arabic dictionary, I prefer Al-Mawrid and the linked one there is the cheapest Arabic-English dictionary I know (as well as being used by the Defense Language Institute).

From there, I would strongly suggest finding someone who gives Arabic lessons or enrolling in an Arabic course. If you're done with college or can't take it at your school, look into a community college. MANY of them offer at least one or two Arabic classes, and those would be extremely helpful in getting your feet wet at learning Arabic.

I hope some of this helped!

Edit: final note- there are actually several subreddits dedicated to learning Arabic, but I have not used any of them. You might try stopping by /r/learn_arabic/ and see if they have any advice!

I wouldn't go for something like Murakami to practice translation because, as atgm points out, the translators wouldn't be translating 1:1.

Why not try one of the "Breaking into Japanese Literature" or "Read Real Japanese" books (any kind of reader really)? They usually come with a direct translation and a more artistic translation. The texts are shorter which should keep your interest up for longer but there's still enough stories for you to have enough to do.

There's plenty of others but a few examples would be:

Breaking into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text

Exploring Japanese Literature: Read Mishima, Tanizaki, and Kawabata in the Original

Read Real Japanese Fiction: Short Stories by Contemporary Writers

Read Real Japanese: All You Need to Enjoy Eight Contemporary Writers

Read Real Japanese Essays: Contemporary Writings by Popular Authors

I think all of those had the "look inside" enabled so you can decide which style of translation you prefer.

If translation is something that interests you, I recommend heading over to /r/translationstudies to get a few tips on good books on translation studies.

Sent you PM would some extra info.

As for the reading, Some historical context...
http://www.amazon.com/Thailand-Mr-David-K-Wyatt/dp/0300084757/ref=cm_lmf_tit_1

Some cultural guides might be handy too, peace corp. goes into depth about that.

The best thing to do is study some Thai, and get fit, do some biking, as you are not allowed to ride motorbikes, you will be doing a good bit of biking.


To study Thai, I would suggest
http://www.amazon.com/Thai-Beginners-Benjawan-Poomsan-Becker/dp/1887521003/ref=cm_srch_res_rpli_2
and the next book.
Listen to the CDs over and over to get the sound of the language.
Lots more audio here, this is "In at the deep end learning" like you'll get at peace
http://thailanguagewiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
Also I would http://ankisrs.net/ (it is free) and install some Thai "decks".
Spend 30 minutes a day until Jan you'll be student number one!
Good decks :
1000 Most Common Thai Words Thai consonants (name, class) and tone rules

Graded readers are books intended for language learners that use a reduced amount of vocab and grammar to make it easier to start actually reading, even before you have enough language to jump into young adult fiction or other easier native material.

I read McGraw-Hills Spanish reader, it was alright. They've got a french reader it looks like.. You could potentially check the torrent sites to see if there's a collection of graded readers anywhere, there was an awesome pack for German that helped me get started.

Either way, click the amazon link above, click the 'look inside' and scroll down to the start of the material. read a few pages (potentially unknown words and constructions are in the margins). If you like it, you might want to pick up a copy. They're a great way to build speed and comfort with the language without getting hung up on the thousands of rarer words that'll trip you up in real native material.

> I was wondering if anyone has some solid, unbiased sources for serious Bible study?

They don't exist. Everyone has biases. The very best scholars are those who can divulge their biases and give reasons for them and reasons against the biases of others. That's part of the scholarly conversation.

For background stuff, maybe check out:
David Aune's The New Testament in Its Literary Environment

I liked Shaye Cohen's From the Maccabees to the Mishnah when it comes to understanding "Judaism" in the first century AD.

NT Wright's The New Testament and the People of God is very good.

I also really liked Brant Pitre's Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of Exile - a reworking of his Ph.D dissertation at Notre Dame (under David Aune).

Mark Goodacre's work on Q is good. I read it early in my academic career and it has kept me from believing in the Q theory since.

The biggest journal in the field is probably Journal of Biblical Studies. New Testament Studies is another big one (from Cambridge).

Edit: Also, learn Greek. There are grammars specifically for New Testament Greek (Koine) like David Alan Black's Learn to Read New Testament Greek - which is fine for an NT Greek grammar (though he barely covers the optative since it's so little used in the NT). I would just learn Classical Greek using something like Hansen and Quinn. If you can read Classical Greek, nothing in the Bible (either LXX or NT) will give you a problem.

There are lots of decent books out there. I have a pretty decent college textbook that goes over every aspect of Spanish grammar, but I wouldn't recommend its format is not as good as a proper grammar reference. I do, however, recommend this book:

A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish

This one seems to be all-inclusive and well-written, so I'd go with this one.

Pro tip: If you're starting out, a grammar reference will be of little use at the very beginning, but you'll find it invaluable as time goes on and you're trying to compose the language.

If you want to really learn the language, I'm sad to say that probably the best approach is rote memorization of words. Despite what the purveyors of language products would have you believe, there really is no skipping this step. When I initially learned Spanish, my time was divided into 50% vocabulary, 20% spoken conversation, 20% grammar study, and 10% composition, and that worked really well for me. To enhance your vocabulary, there are a ton of awesome interactive exercises here.

Also, if you want to talk to a fluent speaker, just give me a PM, I'll be more than happy to chat or answer any questions you may have.

I would be inclined to say yes. It's not a system without flaws, as a number of people have pointed out in this thread, but it can be tweaked and supplemented with Firefox/Chrome userscripts to customize it to your needs. If you have money to spare, you might also consider a subscription to Satori Reader where you can set unknown kanji to display furigana according to your WK progress.

If money is an issue, however, the Kodansha course is a pretty good alternative. I have been using the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary that the course is based on and it has been a really good supplement.

The best way to learn to read handwritten Chinese is to learn to write handwritten Chinese.

This book is an old but good introduction in English.

If you are comfortable with Chinese only text, then I'd recommend this book, which is far more comprehensive.

You don't actually have to remember how to write the characters long-term, just go through all the exercises in those books and you'll find you'll then be able to read most handwriting without too much difficulty.

Here's a pretty comprehensive list:

1. Mostly Lingodeer
   
2. Google, r/LearnJapanese and Tae Kim's guide when I'm unsure of something
   
3. Genki 1 textbook for listening and just to consolidate what I've learned from Lingodeer
   
4. Steven Kraft's Japanese Projects for Verb Conjugation Practice
   
5. Erin's Japanese is just an amazing comprehensive website for listening, seeing how native people speak, manga onomatopoeia, listening comprehension, native phrases, vocabulary, real life situations in Japan.
   
6. Benjiro's Conversations for listening practice
   
7. Memrise's Japanese counters' course
   
8. My Japanese friend as a sentence checker for sentence composition and speaking (though my crippling social anxiety prevents me so
   
9. jpmarumaru if you can navigate around Chinese/Cantonese (I mostly use it for their number quiz)
   
10. All About Particles Book to help me to understand the uses of particles
    
11. Easy Japanese video series for listening to native japanese people
    
12. Jisho.org and Midori --> Dictionaries on laptop and phone for fast searching.
    
13. Anki + Yomichan with the AnkiConnect extension so I can add terminology I found online
    
14. NHK Easy News to mine for terminology (the app on iOS and online both)
    
15. An N5/N4 workbook that I bought from Japan.
    
16. MLC Japanese for some amazing Japanese resources.
    
17. Duolingo (though I haven't started) for the sake of sentence composition and terminology, as they're more flexible with sentence structure than Lingodeer. Lingodeer's grammar teaching helps consolidate an idea of grammar, but Duolingo helps with developing it faster.
    
    Other resources that I want to use but is too much of a beginner to do so:
    
    
18. Daiweeb for Japanese subtitles for anime
    
19. My volumes of manga sitting on my shelf (Oremonogatari and Yotsubato)
    
20. Ameba on iOS (kind of a japanese social media website)
    
21. My plan to purchase Genki 2 soon (I've been saving)
    
    I'll add more as I think of more!
    Edit: Formatting

Agreed there. For day-to-day use, electronic dictionaries (that is, online dictionaries like Jisho.org, apps, Yomichan, etc. - not just one of these) trump paper dictionaries completely. Looking things up in a paper dictionary is incredibly time-consuming, and can also be frustrating because you will often forget something right after you look it up, especially if you're a beginner.

However! I think paper dictionaries can be great if you just go through them randomly, and for fun. I own a few Japanese dictionaries (namely this and this), and do just that, flipping through them, reading example sentences, making new connections, and occasionally having new vocab randomly stick by accident.

If I used my dictionaries to actually look things up every time I needed to, I'd go crazy pretty quickly, I think. But if I treat them like Wikipedia (ie, hopping all over the damn place because something new catches my interest every 30 seconds), then that's where I think their value is -- and I would argue that that experience with a physical book in your hands is hard to replicate in an electronic dictionary.

Though, to anyone who's new to Japanese, I'd still recommend going 100%-electronic and saving yourself some dosh. I'd only recommend the above if you like the "nostalgic" feeling of flipping through a book in your hands.

Start off reading about linguistics and some things which interest you in language.

Learn the international phonetic alphabet ^optional ^but ^it ^makes ^things ^much ^easier

Super useful videos for learning it

In that playlist there are also videos on how to actually start your language, DON'T DO THEM YET.

First you need to decide what your language will be for

Now use either the artifexian video in the earlier playlist or this video which is a bit more in depth to start making a phonetic inventory for your language.

The next things you need develop are:

• Phonotactic rules
  
• A writing system
  
• A grammar system
  
• A vocabulary
  
  You can find resources for those yourself
  
  I would highly recommend getting a book like the art of language invention or the language construction kit. I can't speak for the latter but the former was an excellent guide for me through parts of linguistics which I was totally unaware of and how to use them in a language ^the ^author's ^youtube ^channel ^is ^not ^a ^substitute ^for ^the ^book ^more ^an ^expansion
  
  I hope that helps

Gift.. MMMMMM. Probably my latest adoption. Mynah. My fluffy ball kitty cat of awesome cuddles and doom. My mom's friend paid for the fee's. She's AWESOME. and did I mention cute? She's HORRIBLY ADORABLE.

I nominate /u/OfMonstersAndSuicide!

one two I like suprises. You get to pick.

Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin by John Collins is what you're looking for. Make sure to grab the answer guide as well to double check yourself. There's also a really great site that has a lot of stuff in Latin to help you pray and what not.

The Lingua Latina series is good to immerse yourself in Latin and teach you the basics, in this sense there is little divergence between Classical and Ecclesiastical Latin when it comes to grammar. Where they diverge is the type of expressions and usage they have. There is also the pronunciation difference as well.

Well first let me tell you how much i appreciate the very thorough and helpful reply! I think i pretty much have it, the textbook i am currently using is this one. http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Hiragana-Katakana-Beginners-Mastering/dp/4805311444/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416891998&sr=8-1&keywords=japanese+book

I think the book mainly focuses on this type of characters 教科書体 which is pretty much impossible for me to imitate lol but you're saying as long as i use this font while writing 明朝体 then i am not doing anything incorrect? As long as i can tell the difference between the characters with serifs or without then ill be fine? i can see those websites being extremely helpful but how can i type in a kana or kanji on an american keyboard? as you can see i am very new and clueless lol sorry!

I also bought this book when I first started to learn, called Chinese Cursive Script: An Introduction to Handwriting in Chinese, by Fred Fang-yu Wang (non-affiliate Amazon link here). It's super old-school--it looks like a mimeograph and was written in 1958. If I remember correctly, it only includes traditional characters because of the date it was published. Regardless, many simplified/trad. characters look the same when written in cursive anyways. But it has great tips, and just helps you learn to read handwriting better anyways. I still have the book at home and I've been learning for 10 years.

Practice translating? Three months into learning a language is way too early to be worried about translating. Your goal should be to immerse yourself in the language as much as possible -- that means avoiding English when you study French. Speak French, listen to French, write French, and read French (and when you read, try to turn off the voice in your head that murmurs a running English translation).

Consider downloading some free French-language podcasts (try the iTunes store). This book might be worthwhile. I haven't used it, but the same publisher's Spanish readers are good. Since you said translating, though, I'm wondering if your primary goal is reading French. Even so, I would still say to speak, listen, and write as much as you can -- it will help your reading. But if your primary goal is reading, this book is fantastic. I started using it after two semesters of college French (which were indispensable for helping me internalize the basic structures of the language) and it took me the rest of the way to doing research and reading literature in French (with a dictionary, of course).

A better question might be how much more expensive it is to learn how to conlanger than pay someone to conlang for you? Good conlanging books never exceed $20 dollars, but to pay an experienced conlanger who knows what they're doing and will deliver something of quality to you will cost no less than $300, per the LCS Job Board pricing guidelines. In a sense, it's like an art commission; something like a sketch will be half as much, but the deliverables will be half as exhaustively written. You get what you pay for, and a full masterpiece might be out of budget for a writer or worldbuilder doing what they love as a hobby rather than as a means of income.

I'm from the US and presently in São Paulo taking engineering classes taught in Portuguese after studying the language for less than 6 months, so I can share a bit from my experience:

Learn basic grammar/vocab from textbooks, read the news in portuguese (globo.com, folha de S.Paulo, etc) and create a vocab list from words you don't know, watch youtube videos from brazilian talk shows (the noite), meet someone who speaks the language (or read articles outloud to yourself if you can't find someone), find some brazilian music you like.. these are some of the thing I did.

Also, BrazilianPodClass is a great podcast to look into. For a grammar text I recommend the following + the complimentary workbook. I find it to be excellent:

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Brazilian-Portuguese-Grammar-Practical/dp/0415566444/ref=pd_sim_b_1/192-2892797-9687731?ie=UTF8&refRID=0YS5KBCGWRDAYP8JE154

I never found a good cohesive vocab book, so just created my own lists.

Hope this helps! Boa sorte!

edit: Also, it's a beautiful language and I find it fun to speak, so I think you made a good choice! It's not easy to learn by any means, but it's worth it IMO

I think psychology and philosophy both have as a central concern the development of the individual. Psychology seems to be more often concerned with individual ego and problems that have ego implications. Philosophy, particularly Eastern philosophies, are concerned about the ego as something that gets in the way of full realization. Daoist philosophy in particular is concerned about developing in the individual a sense of realization of the continuity of existence. This means realizing that the individual is part of the unity of existence and that the relationship between the individual and the totality of existence is a two way street, mutual or symbiotic.

>In psychological sense, it's bad because you assume that the other person sees things like you see.

This psychological case is a special case, contrasting one individual point of view to another's. The philosophical relationship between and individual and existence is much boarder and includes the notion of mutuality.

>But in philosophical sense, there is no difference because viewing you as the same with the world is the same with viewing the world is like you?

The philosophical case does not necessarily have to resolve to no difference between you and the world. It does not mean loss of individuality, uniqueness. It is more a case of realizing that just as you can influence events in the world, the events of the world are also represented in you. All events and unfolding are unique and mutual. It is not you and the world but both. The philosophical problem is seeing the events/unfolding of the world in such a way as to allow the individual to act more in harmony with the unfolding world rather than in contention within. The developmental goal is that in integrally understanding the mutual existence and functioning of the self and the world, one will naturally respond in accord. One still maintains their individuality and the ability to act in the world. The actions are just more fully informed.

Admittedly, the above may be a poor explanation, as my understanding is still developing.

----

Something else you pointed out in the OP was an interest in linguistics. Among the modern day writers, Roger Ames is probably one who is more acutely aware of the role language plays in our individual expression of self. I might suggest the following, if you are interested in daoist philosophy. I think it plays very well from a psychological point of view.

https://www.amazon.com/Dao-Jing-Philosophical-Translation-Mandarin/dp/0345444191

I love languages! Although, I only know two right now (my native English and Esperanto).

1. I am trying to learn German while also improving my Esperanto. In the future, I would like to try to learn French and Japanese. I also want to construct my own language.
   
   
2. I have German Demystified. I am using it along with with Duolingo, Memrise, and Deutsch to help me learn German. If I do win this contest, this book would mean more to me than a book on German. I already have everything I need (textbook-wise) on German right now.
   
3. I live in Germany and I used to hear this song on the radio every morning before work. I really like it, and am a bit disappointed it doesn't come on anymore.
   
4. This one is tough. I'm still not very good at German, so I haven't really read any comics in it before today. I found a website with German comics that looks like it would be a nice daily to read. I could understand some of it, but not enough to understand the joke. :/ Someday, I'll understand...
   
   So what led you to want to learn Russian? It seems like an interesting language, but I've never tried to learn it.

Thanks for the detailed post. I think the textbook-search site'll be especially handy, since I've never heard of it before.

And since you seem to know of a lot of good resources, I have a few questions (if you don't mind).

1. Would you happen to know the difference between these two Kodansha kanji dictionaries?
   
   

• Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary
  
• Kodansha Kanji Dictionary
  
  I'm really not sure what to go for. I'm currently using the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course, and it strongly suggests that Learner's Dictionary as a supplement. But at the same time, the regular Kanji dictionary seems to be the better deal since it has much more Kanji. Is there any point in owning both?
  
  

2. I'm interested in the All About Particles book, and other such supplementary texts, but is there a chance that the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series might make them redundant?
   
   
3. How is Kodansha's Communicative English-Japanese Dictionary? Wouldn't it be redundant to the Furigana dictionary, which lets you do look-up in both JP-EN and EN-JP? Or is it nuanced enough to be worth it on its own?
   
   Thanks!

The workbook, "Japanese for Busy People" (get the romanji version) is good for when you're, well, busy.

I used it to study Japanese when I thought I was going to be teaching English there through the JET program before deciding to enlist instead. It's pretty good for basic stuff, it'll be helpful if you learn your katakana and hiragana on top of that as well. Just learn a few a day and you'll be golden.

issue with sentence order? Sentence order isn't important, as long as the verb is at the end it's correct. The rest is mostly subtle inflections and phrasing. That is the benefit of particles. English is very sentence order focused, Japanese is not. However if you want examples galore to help you garner a better understanding then i can recommend this book

http://www.textfugu.com/menu/ This website is pretty great for beginners. Its got good structure and the first "season" is free which will teach you hiragana and the basics of the language. Katakana used to be free too but I guess he changed it. I own a lifetime membership but I've long since finished whats available there. It will take you to about intermediate level if you finish the whole thing which can take a few months. I still jump back in and go over the things hes changed and the lessons hes added whenever I can.

This book series is also great, but its a little more detatched and really throws you right into the language, the first in the series teaches mostly survival Japanese and the next 2 really get into the meat of the language. I'm about 3/4ths through the second one.

I highly recommend the textbook Easy French Step by Step:

https://www.amazon.com/French-Step-Step-Myrna-Rochester/dp/0071453873

Very affordable, friendly, easy to use, modern and covers pretty much all the essentials.

https://www.amazon.com/Lao-Tzu-Ching-About-Power/dp/1570623953/ref=sr_1_15?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526954456&sr=1-15&keywords=tao+te+ching
https://www.amazon.com/Dao-Jing-Philosophical-Translation-Mandarin/dp/0345444191/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526954555&sr=1-3&keywords=roger+ames
Le Guin's book is of particular interest because she is a master of salt-of-the-earth western metaphors, widely recognized as possibly the greatest master of metaphors in the English language today. She has studied the Tao with the best of us and has her usual distinctive interpretation.
The second book, contains an account of Pragmatic Taoism, which is what pre-dated mainland Chinese Taoism, in the isolated southern mountains. Its not my favorite book, but there is no other book like it on the subject that I know of.
My personal favorite, is the Peter Merel GNL interpolation available for free online.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1444137697/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1527170727&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=a+new+reference+grammar+of+modern+spanish&dpPl=1&dpID=41bTv%2BMiftL&ref=plSrch

This is a dense heavy book, but I'd argue a must have. Advanced level means advanced workouts, so it's not going to hold your hand with exercises to fill out. But it's exhaustive in what it covers. I mainly just use it for reference, but you could try taking it a chapter/subject at a time.

I'd recommend writing/speaking lots of practice sentences for each topic to really internalize them. You could use a site like italki or the like to have a native speaker double check your examples.

I tried a bit of Pimsleur spanish for what it's worth, and I found it to have the same issues. Talking with a native speaker is hardier, more unpredictable, and yes scarier but so much more useful. If you get this reference grammar https://www.amazon.com/New-Reference-Grammar-Modern-Spanish/dp/1444137697 and read it in conjunction with, say, Spanish language meetups, or iTalki chats with a Spanish tutor, or Hellotalk conversations with Spanish speakers from a country of your choice, I can almost guarantee you'll learn more efficiently than via Pimsleur. Granted, people have different learning styles.

Go and buy these three books: The Language Construction Kit, Advanced Language Construction (don't worry, it's not that advanced), and The Conlanger's Lexipedia. And if your conlangs are designed for made-up worlds, then get [The Planet Construction Kit] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Planet-Construction-Kit-Mark-Rosenfelder/dp/0984470034/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=W79ND56BKPK8EKXT2VQZ) too. If you want to make cultures that are not European then I'd also suggest The China Construction Kit!

Of all of these I'd suggest that you definitely buy The Language Construction Kit and see how you get on. I'd also suggest buying some grammar books of languages you're interested in, and even go so far as to learn a second language if you don't speak one. Having knowledge of at least one other language will help you a great deal.

> I don't really care if Hayashi did his homework or if the lady reading the newspaper is Tanaka and neither do the people I want to talk to.

At my undergrad school, I taught the language lab (1 hour per week required intensive practice session where we drilled the students) for three years. I was surprised at how surprised the actual instructors were that the students often wrote very similar criticisms on their course evaluation forms. No one gives a fuck what Hayashi is or is not doing. But, everyone was up on the latest chapter of whatever Shōnen Jump manga was popular at the time.

I'm a huge fan of manga. Even as a first year student I enjoyed plodding along in my favorite story with my trusty denshi jisho, and copies of my Yellow and Blue. (The Red one hadn't come out yet.)

Pick a story and go for it. Even if you have to keep a translated copy nearby to help understand.

Here is one approach to learning handwritten Chinese. And here is another resource, a book in Chinese about how to learn handwritten Chinese, and Amazon has something that appears to be similar. According to another Reddit post, " You can find a "preview" using a clever google search (add .pdf to its name). " One more book that may be helpful is the book from Yale UP on cursive Chinese.

Think of it like English, there are a handful of forms that are more or less standard. But everyone comes up with their own way of writing quickly, some closer to those "standards," others a bit farther away. But if an individual's writing gets too far away fromt the standard, then nobody can read it...it's like that. u/Luomulanren seems to be saying printed fonts and hand-written scripts naturally don't look the same, including variances like the "a" that you pointed out, as well as ornamental loops and how the letters are connected together.

There is a book 501 portuguese verbs. I have the Brazilian version but i believe the author wrote a European one as well. It has the 501 most common verbs that are used/spoken and every conjugation for them.

In the beginning of the book the first couple chapters are grammar rules and sentence structure.

Same author also wrote this book which goes over grammar pretty well with a workbook with exercises. Once again this is Brazilian but I'm sure the Grammar and sentence structure will be the same if not very similar

Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar: A Practical Guide (Modern Grammars) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0415566444/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_qXTADbCEGQ8D5

Boa sorte

There's lots of resources for Hiragana and Katakana, most of them for free so no need to actually buy anything if you don't want to. Here's some material I put together based on one such book:

Remembering the Hiragana in 3 Hours - Memrise Course

Remembering the Katakana in 3 Hours - Memrise Course

Remembering the Kana Video Series - Youtube

Remembering the Kana in 6 Hours by James Heisig - book

For Kanji, there's sources like Kodansha Kanji Learner Course, Kanji in Context and Remembering the Kanji. You should be able to check out PDFs for all to see which work for you.

Here's a Memrise Course I made based on an optimized list of RTK. Includes videos and stories to help. Good skills to you on whatever choice you make.

Yes, I have a copy of Japanese For Busy People (Romanized Edition) to offer up. It is a pretty good intro for beginners. なかむらさん has an amazing voice in the attached CD.

I'm in the same boat. I'm using the book right now and it is very good. Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar: A Practical Guide

What's also good about it (unlike most BP books) is that it tells you what you need to know colloquially. It doesn't dispense with literary and formal usages but it will tell you beforehand which is awesome. I don't want to write a book in portuguese, I just want to understand and speak the bloody language colloquially. This book is perfect for that.

if you are still at the level where you feel like you need English translation, maybe try something like satori reader or the Read Real Japanese books. They will have information on the grammar and explain nuances to you which is a lot better for learning than trying to compare to the English translation. As other have said translation isn't literal, and I don't think it will help you know if you got it right in all cases. That said I do sometimes read stories which I have read in English as at least I know the basic premise and it helps me figure things out in a broader context.

Whoa it's out of print and hard to get a hold of? That's interesting. (edit: I just checked Amazon, it seems to be in stock.) Anyway, I have that book, and it was amazing. It was instrumental in helping me with grammar a few years back when I was actively going to the JLPT. I highly recommend it.

I have another book, 'A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Sentence Patterns,' which is similar. It covers a lot of the same topics as Effective Communication, but it's unnecessarily complicated in its presentation, IMO. Still a good alternative if you can't find Effective Communication.

Your comment—and the general consensus around here—convinced me that I should get that series of grammar books. However, I'm not sure I found the right series. If there's any chance you could confirm it's these (basic, intermediate and advanced, seems to be all for ￥11,130) it would be highly appreciated. :)
Thank you!

Go to nciku.com, they have an application that can show you the correct stroke order.
Something that you need to understand, though, is that even if you make your handwriting look exactly like the printed font, that's going to be considered "bad" by most natives. It'll be kind of equivalent to what a 2nd graders handwriting in English looks like. What you (probably) want to work towards is being able to read/write handwritten characters (which is in fact a totally different skill than being able to read printed font).

http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Cursive-Script-Introduction-Publications/dp/0887100333

This book is generally considered the best for teaching that skill. You'll learn how to make your characters look like an adult wrote them, and you'll learn to read handwritten characters instead of just printed font.

I have a book that I think would help that was on Amazon and DB also recommended it after I had bought it. It's not super expensive and it has a lot of explanation about language that isn't in apps and similar resources.

Introduction to learning Chinese

I hope this is of some help on your journey to cultivate in the Chinese language. :)

This Book

It's not targeting you in particular, but I've seen posts like this before and well, I don't understand why people interpret the Kana as a lengthy step that needs to be supplemented. It's 48 characters with no meaning besides sound -- pure memorization. If one needs to supplement additional readings or lessons with this, you are ignoring the issue at heart, memorize 48 characters.


If you sit down and completely focus, Hiragana is a 3 hour memorization job, naturally, if it takes you a few days, so be it, but the point is to have it internalized first. I bet many can do it in even less if they really applied themselves. Sit down, grab a coffee, pull up a table and just memorize it. Don't do anything else Japanese related until you have this down (Notice I'm not even asking for Katakana here, just Hiragana--think about what namasensei said! "Just effing write it down!!"). If you're really struggling, this book is fantastic.


Once you memorized it in however amount of hours it takes, just test and test yourself over and over again.


Anyways, I think you get my point. To me, learning Hiragana is like learning the alphabet. It's the first thing anybody does before anything else, there's no supplement to it, there's no complimentary grammar lesson that fits nicely with it, it's just a straight up 48 character memorization process we all have to go through to get our foot in the door.

Mine is This Able Veteran which is a service dog organization benefitting United States military veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The service dog program is proven to help veterans with PTSD cope successfully with the symptoms of PTSD, including depression, nightmares and social anxiety. I look at their page all the time to watch new videos and such so I can cry like a baby! 😂

I would like this item please Easy French Step-by-Step https://www.amazon.com/dp/0071453873/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_bVOdBbXH7DPM3 and Thank You for the contest!

The Planet Construction Kit is a great resource for worldbuilding, covering almost all aspects of society and general setting from cosmology to biology, history, culture, religion, technology, map making...

http://www.amazon.com/Planet-Construction-Kit-Mark-Rosenfelder/dp/0984470034/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286906911&sr=1-2

Its companion book, the Language Construction Kit, is an invaluable resource for creating conlangs if that was of any interest to you as well.

http://www.amazon.com/Language-Construction-Kit-Mark-Rosenfelder/dp/098447000X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268637297&sr=1-1

A couple more tips for your upcoming trip:

Learn hiragana & katakana in 3H A quick & dirty way to read the two Japanese phonetic alphabets (you could probably easily offset the cost of the book by betting skeptical friends or acquaintances a pitcher or two of beer):

• http://www.kanjiclinic.com/riverainterview.htm
  
  The book is Remembering the Kana: A Guide to Reading and Writing the Japanese Syllabaries in 3 Hours Each (I'm linking to amazon uk as you indicated you are from there) by James Heisig
  
  The upshoot is that mastering the phonetic alphabet won't make you fluent in Japanese but it could make the difference in you looking up and spotting a sign indicating "capsule hotel" or "sauna" during your trip. Plus, it'll give you an advantage when trying to communicate with locals who don't speak English.
  
  
• Japanese Youth Hostels
  link: http://www.jyh.or.jp/english/index.html
  
  Also, sites like:
  
  
• AirBnB http://www.airbnb.com/
  
  
• Couchsurfing http://www.couchsurfing.org/ and Reddit CouchSurfers http://www.reddit.com/r/couchsurfing/
  
  
• Wimdu http://www.wimdu.com/
  
  
  
• Y100 Stores are your friend.
  Look for the largest Y100 store franchise, DAISO to fill up on travel items especially if you are doing the 'ultra-light travel' method as I previously mentioned; also, you can often score good prices on snacks and colas at prices lower than regular convenience stores (eg. a 350 mL can of cola might cost Y105 in a convenience store but sometimes you can get 500 mL for the same price or 2 colas - often off-brand - for Y105)
  
  Also, when you plan your trip, if possible, try and concentrate the long-haul bullet train (Shinkansen) trips within the same period you activate your Japan Rail Pass. Otherwise you may find the Pass is not as economical as assumed if you end up using it to make short trips on local lines for 3-5 days. Hell, I don't know - not having done the calculations, but if you were not in a rush and looking to travel the country in a month using local buses (eg http://willerexpress.com ), trains and ferries, it might not be worth it to get a Rail Pass. However, if you are pretty certain you'll be doing at least one or two Shinkansen runs - down to Fukuoka or Hiroshima for example - the Pass would probably make sense. Try calculating costs using Hyperdia http://www.hyperdia.com/en/#

I've found the Dictionaries of Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Japanese Grammar to be the one of, if not the most useful thing, I've found to help with learning Japanese.

Sam Martin's Reference Grammar of Japanese is also excellent, but good luck finding a copy.

The most helpful thing for me has been the Pimsleur language tapes. I'm almost finished with all 90 lessons. They're great.

Also good is this site, which has lots of dubbed and subtitled movies.

This book is really good: http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Brazilian-Portuguese-Grammar-Practical/dp/0415566444

I find Duolingo so boring that I struggle to keep at it.

Tuttle has a lot of admirers and if you like the "story" method of remembering glyphs it can be fun and productive. I don't know if it's as effective for someone who already speaks fluetly, though. The drawback is that Tuttle only uses pinyin. You have to work just with the character and english definition, then supplement by looking up on Cantodict.

I have do admit I don't have much experience with Hadamitzky dictionaries besides looking up kanji info in an older one a while a go. But I have to say, if it's jukugo you're interested in, get this one instead, it's hands down the best kanji dic/jukugo list I have ever used. I'd go so far to say, I have never seen such a well made dictionary in any language. Thanks Jack Halpern!

http://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Dictionary-Expanded/dp/1568364075/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414756817&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=The+Learner%27s+Japanese+Kanji+Dictionary+%28Bilingual+Edition%29

As for dictionaries, I'm sure you've heard of Hans Wehr—it's less of a dictionary and more of an encyclopedia of information on Arabic roots and word forms.

Another good dictionary I use on a daily basis is Aratools Arabic-English Dictionary. It's concise enough to be useful, but it gives helpful information like the root of the word, and it's able to detect the inflection of a particular word.

Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication was my favorite grammatical resource when I was an intermediate student. It's a great way to brush up on and get a feel for all the basic grammatical patterns.

Yes, you should definitely learn the different levels of formality if you want to speak like the Brazilians. This one is extremely good:

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Brazilian-Portuguese-Grammar-Practical/dp/0415566444

These books are more geared towards writing, but one of the side benefits of learning to write is it improves your cursive reading skills.

https://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Cursive-Script-Introduction-Publications/dp/0887100333

http://detail.bookuu.com/2528718.html

Download a bunch of handwritten fonts. They are out there. Take a segment you can read in a regular font and see what they look like in the HW fonts.

Try writing in semi cursive w/o lifting off paper and you'll understand why some words are written the way they are.

I don't have an online resource for you, but there's this AWESOME dictionary that I like called the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary and they have all you need to know about kanji, from its base meaning to common compounds to stroke order, etc. I love the way it's structured and how much I've learned from just looking up a single kanji.

/r/conlangs !!!

Here's a good podcast.

Book from the guy that created Dothraki (he's also on the podcast every now and then) about constructing languages

The language construction kit. Gives you a general overview of how languages do things and how you construct languages

Second part of the LCK. Highly optional

After you're done with either the podcast or the fist LCK, you might as well get into the grammar of other languages instead of using language construction things.

Don't do auxlangs, though.

Edit: There's also a planet construction kit in case you want to get straight into world building as well

Anyone ever read the "Read Real Japanese" books?

http://www.amazon.com/Read-Real-Japanese-Fiction-Contemporary/dp/1568365292 Fiction

http://www.amazon.com/Read-Real-Japanese-Essays-Contemporary/dp/1568364148 Essays

I was looking at them in the bookstore, and they seem to have interesting authors. But I couldn't tell if it is really any help in learning, or if it is something you need to be pretty advanced to get anything out of.

I purchased the Genki I textbook, workbook, and answer key. However, reviews seemed to indicate I'd be better off knowing how to read Kana going in..so I purchased Japanese Hiragana & Katakana for Beginners, which has been really helpful thus far.

Just studying in my free time at work I've quickly familiarized myself with reading and writing Hiragana; about to move on to Katakana. Pronunciation may be a little spotty, but I've yet to use the CD included.

Yet to embark on Genki I (waiting until I finish the aforementioned Beginners book), though I've read nothing but good things about it..so I'd imagine it's a good resource as well.

Welcome fellow Canadian!

Learning Thai is definitely worth the effort. The hardest part about it is the pronunciation; there are a lot of 'ng' sounds at the beginning and middle of words and that can be difficult to speak correctly.

There are some books that help with learning Thai: Thai for Beginngers is the first. It is authored by Benjawan Poomsan Becker. You can find it in any Asia Books store here in Bangkok.

I used this book as well as the intermediate version and, though I don't speak fluently, I definitely have a working knowledge of the language and I can read it. The book teaches you both reading and vocabulary, if learning to read it doesn't interest you, then skip it. However, knowing how to read it (which is not that difficult once you understand how the vowels and a few consonants work) improves your pronunciation quite a lot. Thai has no official transliteration like Mandarin does (pinyin) so every book has a different method and it can get confusing.

Is it the read real japanese series? I remember someone mentioning it to me a while back but i forgot about it until your post.

WRT grammar i don't know what it is but I always end up overcomplicating what should be a basic sentence. Especially when i'm not actively trying to think of the most efficient way to say something. It's something I do in English too but since I'm not a native Japanese speaker it just comes off as super awkward, rather than me being relatively long-winded.

I do need to brush up on certain rules that I understand when heard, but tend to fuck up when i'm trying to use though...(causative form comes to mind)

also ty

I can understand where you're coming from if you have a full time job and a family.

Back when I learned the kana I was 19 years old in college. I had all the free time in the world so I think I practiced for close to 16 hours spread over the first few days so I could get it all down. I used this book which worked very well for me.

Then after my initial memorization I had opportunities to practice by doing work in my textbook for class. That was 2009.

After the class was over I didn't try to learn Japanese further for nearly 5 years. I had a friend back then who would give me his Jump manga and I would read the stories in them even though I couldn't understand a single sentence. All for the sake of kana reading practice.

Once I started going through a textbook again and taking it seriously back in 2014 I still remembered how to read kana because of my effort.

Books are good too. I think the organization of this one is excellent
Collin's Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin
https://www.amazon.com/Primer-Ecclesiastical-Latin-Collins/dp/0813206677/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487218100&sr=8-1&keywords=collins+ecclesiastical+latin

Granted, this is church Latin. It may be the flavor for you, or not depending on your interests

My coworker is getting me the genki books in Japan since he’s going there this week. More than happy to work with you when I get it.

I don’t know your level of Japanese but I’ve been using the below guide to get me through self studying. Not to the T because I discovered it after I started studying.


https://www.tofugu.com/learn-japanese/

I used the below book for hiragana and katakana, although you could use free charts online


https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Hiragana-Katakana-Beginners-Mastering/dp/4805311444/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?keywords=learn+hiragana+and+katakana&qid=1570587326&sprefix=learn+hi&sr=8-5

Right now I’m using WaniKani.com to learn kanji. I’m on level 4. That guide says not to touch a text book till I’m on level 10, but I’m going to start early cause I’m hard headed and love to suffer...

I just dumped all this info lol And you probably don’t need it or already know

i torrented a copy years ago when i first learned. Its no better than any other electronic resource, including free ones.

Rosetta were one of the earlier decent language softwares around in the 90s. that justified a high price at the time. its really not worth it nowadays. I think the only way they are still making money is by historical reputation.

Start with Duolingo, listen to lists of french music, and get a text book like this one which excellent and save your money.

​

This one is pretty good:

https://www.amazon.com/All-About-Particles-Handbook-Japanese/dp/1568364199/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1475182255&sr=8-2&keywords=japanese+particles

But I found the information in this book more helpful:

https://www.amazon.com/Kanzen-Grammar-Japanese-Language-Proficiency/dp/4883196941/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1475182306&sr=8-5&keywords=jlpt+grammar

With good mnemonics you can learn each in a day. Buy this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kana-Reading-Japanese-Syllabaries/dp/0824831640

...it's full of great imagery like け="cape and dagger" and の="no parking sign".

​

Free glossed readers: http://www.faenumpublishing.com/available-texts.html

Ancient Greek Alive: https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Greek-Alive-Paula-Saffire/dp/080784800X

Teach Yourself Ancient Greek: https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Greek-Teach-Yourself-Publishing/dp/0844237868

Intensive Course: https://www.amazon.com/Greek-Intensive-Course-2nd-Revised/dp/0823216632

Athenaze (as metioned by others):http://en.bookfi.net/book/710288

AND FOR INSTANT MOTIVATION: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5fA6dTnyrE and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX_MSrE9WtE

If you're looking for a philosophical (in the western sense) take on it, you should try Dao De Jing: A Philosophical Translation: http://www.amazon.com/Dao-De-Jing-Philosophical-Translation/dp/0345444191

I think it'd be right for you, since it A) is intended for people who've studied western philosophy, and therefor has commentary focused towards that type of understanding, and is translated with an eye for clarity of the text to the original meaning as opposed to poetic 'flow'; and B) because it includes the original Chinese text (with helpful glossary) alongside the translation. It's a very rigorous approach.

If you're gonna go live in Thailand you're probably better off dropping Chinese and focusing on one language. Learning two at the same time from scratch is difficult.

Have you already done the Benjawan Becker books? Get those, you'll learn some basic Thai, and since you already know the alphabet it should be easy. Add Thai friends on Facebook and start chatting with them every day. What are you doing, what did you eat etc every day. Use google translate (but only for individual words, it cant do sentences very well) to help. Eventually you will be reading and writing on your own. If you can read you can probably pronounce basic words closely enough that people will understand, try to getting your girlfriend to use Thai with you. Download an app called Hellotalk and find people to do language exchanges with.

Dao is not only a noun, it's a verb, in the form of "way-making". That's a big one. "Universe" is a term from the western understanding, which is object-oriented, whereas the Daoist sees things in terms of an event-based ontology. Dao is more the guiding principle that describes how the particulars of wanwu operate, than the whole set of everything.

If you're really interested, this is (in my opinion) a really good translation. It's by two western philosophers, and they give a lot of clarity in an area that's often hard to really get a solid hold on.

If you don't have one already, I would recommend one in English to begin with. I swear by the one below. I had the 4th Edition for many years but it was getting a bit tatty and coffee-stained, so I've just bought the 5th Editiion.

A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish
https://www.amazon.com/New-Reference-Grammar-Modern-Spanish/dp/1444137697/

If you ever hear anyone mentioning "Butt and Benjamin" when discussing Spanish grammar, this is the book they're talking about.

Edit: It's worth pointing out that I would call this a descriptive rather than a prescriptive grammar book. In other words, it tells you how things are rather than how people would like them to be :-)

Chase and Phillips is pretty decent (though definitely reflects the period when it was written):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0674616006/ref=mw_dp_olp?ie=UTF8&condition=all

Hansen and Quinn is also good:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0823216632/ref=mw_dp_olp?ie=UTF8&condition=all

I’ve taught with H&Q and used C&P as a supplement when I started to learn Greek.

Duolingo hope to release a Latin course on September the 15th. I hope the beginning of your Latin studies won't prove too sorrowful. >!(Sept. 15th is the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. Not funny if you have to explain it I guess...)!<

What are your reasons for wanting to learn Latin? If it's mainly for Christian texts, the best textbook is Collins's Primer.

Translating generally hinders language learning. Reading books and articles written in Spanish is a great way to gain familiarity, increase understanding, and develop fluency. However, it is best to rely on cues when confronted with a new word or phrase.

When children learn to read, they are not taught to reference a dictionary or grammar book for every unknown word. Instead, they are taught to rely on the cues given by the text, along with their life experience and the knowledge they have about how the language works, to make sense of what they read. It's okay if you don't know with certainty what every word's equivalent would be in English. As you read more, you will naturally learn conjugations and your vocabulary will build. In time, a book that once seemed difficult will be an easy read.

If you simply want to learn and practice grammar, I recommend Practising Spanish Grammar and A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish. The books are written primarily for Europen Spanish, but do note the American Spanish rules when they differ.

I used Greek: an Intensive Course as my last textbook (of 4) in college and found it very useful. It’s not specifically biblical Greek, however. If you’re just trying to get a head start or just want to focus on biblical Greek, another option like Mounce may be good.

https://www.amazon.com/Greek-Intensive-Course-2nd-Revised/dp/0823216632/ref=asc_df_0823216632/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312242453238&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=9067174210130564718&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9011805&hvtargid=aud-799728744414:pla-449076143506&psc=1

I've found this book to be pretty helpful http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0887100333/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1411917173&sr=8-1&pi=SL75

It's intended for western students of Chinese who want to learn to write like an adult, and was originally written for the army.

A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish by John Butt and Carmen Benjamin is amazing. It has everything in it in excruciating detail. Well researched with examples from Spanish press and literature throughout the world. There is some slang in there, but not because they want you to learn slang; it's simply incidental to how grammar constructions are used in the real world. I imagine the new fifth edition has even more documentation and clarity.

edit: clarity

> I do a lot of business with Chinese companies

Simplified (if you mean companies in Mainland China / PRC)

> Guangzhou

Simplified

> studying the basics

Simplified

> eventually taking the HSK

Simplified

> Which one is most widely used in society?

Simplified

See, I have made it simple for you! ;-)

But seriously, the overwhelming majority of Chinese people use Simplified, and because of that even people who use Traditional will be able to read Simplified. Unless you have an almost exclusive focus on Hong Kong, Taiwan and expat communities in the West, it is much more useful to study Simplified.

By the way, I recommend Matthews & Matthews' Learning Chinese Characters. It is based on the famous Heisig method, but adds memorization hints for pronunciation.

Also read this: http://www.thechinaexpat.com/mistakes-when-learning-chinese/

Good luck!

The bible was translated from Greek!

If you're still interested here's an awesome book:

http://www.amazon.com/Primer-Ecclesiastical-Latin-John-Collins/dp/0813206677

The late great John F. "Jack" Collins, an adjunct at the Brooklyn College Classics Department who taught at the Latin/Greek Institute, wrote A Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin, which might be a good way to re-introduce yourself to Latin from a different period.

Not a "course book" but it's one of the best books for learners of brazilian portugues "Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar". It's not the typical grammar book and the author is incredible. https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Brazilian-Portuguese-Grammar-Practical/dp/0415566444/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1503251046&sr=8-3&keywords=portuguese+grammar

I found it easier for a physical book for the kanas as well. This book was good for me and cheap enough to justify the purchase.

Suh-too-waat

Tell-lee

Learning a little Thai will make your trip here more fun and enjoyable. Pick up this book, and practice before you arrive.

If you're interested enough to shell out some dough for it, I reccomend getting this book and this book (the second is a bit more of an interesting read imo because David J Peterson has actual relevant anecdotes about conlanging professionally to tell.) Neither one will answer all the questions you'll have, but they will help show you different things to consider you may not have thought of.

If you find that you remember better with a physical component, like writing, you can try a book (I'm using this one and my handwriting is terrible but I get a better memory result if I am writing it and saying it at the same time. There is not enough room in the book to copy a character enough times to memorize it, so use notebook paper once you have the idea, and do them in groups of five.

The Anki (or AnkiApp for iOS if you can't afford to donate $25) is also a very useful and important tool. SRS is a magical thing.

The third thing to try is drag & drop hiragana or real kana which you can also use for Katakana (and learn different font recognition, which is very difficult at first, but very important!!)

I highly recommend this book , it is my go-to for particles and it is amazing.

Despite what many people will tell you, books like Le Petit Prince and L'Etranger are in no way easy to read if you are a true beginner. You are probably nowhere near ready to read authentic French novels if all you've done is a third of Duolingo, but if you want to try reading something anyway, I would suggest starting with something that was written specifically for beginning French students. Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Easy-French-Reader-Roussy-Sales/dp/0071428488

For listening, subscribe to Yabla.com and also listen to Francais Authentique (search for it on Youtube or a podcast app).

What u/everthing-narrative said. I'm a REALLY inexperienced conlang maker, but I think even a super crude language like Watership Down's lapine immensely improves a story.

​

Some resources:

Artifexian youtube channel

Langauge Construction Kit

r/conlangs

​

There are a bunch of conlang subs, actually. I'm too shy about my efforts to visit any of them yet, but... they're there! used the other two links extensively.

​

The textbook everyone seems to use is http://www.amazon.ca/Greek-Intensive-Course-Hardy-Hansen/dp/0823216632 -- my friend the classics professor and my friend the classical philosophy professor both learned ancient Greek from the Hansen and Quinn.

Thank you everyone for your feedback. After reading through everyone's comments, I think I'll be buying Tobira after finishing Genki II and KKLC for Kanji. Out of curiosity though, what book do people normally buy after completing Tobira?

Edit: However, I did want to ask though, is there a workbook and answer key for the Tobira textbook? Is this the Tobira workbook, it doesn't specify? https://www.amazon.com/Tsuku-Bumpo-ryoku-Grammar-Japanese-English/dp/4874245706/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=4874245706&pd_rd_r=VEM2VE5J676CC8QW2S4M&pd_rd_w=gshdr&pd_rd_wg=AqZNA&psc=1&refRID=VEM2VE5J676CC8QW2S4M

Also would anyone recommend these books with KKLC?

1. https://www.amazon.com/Kanji-Learners-Course-Green-Book/dp/069272799X/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=069272799X&pd_rd_r=JGW26SZJNHW2VM6FCV81&pd_rd_w=UTrpG&pd_rd_wg=jhxlf&psc=1&refRID=JGW26SZJNHW2VM6FCV81
   
   
2. https://www.amazon.com/Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Dictionary-Expanded/dp/1568364075/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1568364075&pd_rd_r=P8VTKK1GKNJK4Y7HHW7R&pd_rd_w=30P1X&pd_rd_wg=ElvBB&psc=1&refRID=P8VTKK1GKNJK4Y7HHW7R

look on amazon, i'm pretty sure they have kindle versions for languages besides french

http://www.amazon.com/Easy-French-Reader-Roussy-Sales/dp/0071428488

-dftm

There won't be anything specific. This is because language learning depends on multiple factors that vary greatly between learners:

• language goals
  
• time available to study
  
• materials [being] used
  
• fluency in related languages
  
• target areas of difficulty (i.e., some people memorize words easier than they learn grammar, some people understand grammar faster than they learn vocab, etc)
  
  Essentially, though, any amount of time you spend productively learning your language will be beneficial. So with French, you can try:
  
  
• spend 30 minutes a day going through an online course, such as OLI
  
• spend 15 minutes reviewing vocabulary you learned the day before
  
• spend 15 minutes listening to French music, videos, etc or reading easy French passages
  
  Then after a month or so, adjust according to how far you've progressed. Or you could try Duolingo in the beginning and then moving onto different methods. Just try to be fluid and don't stress out :)

For a real "nuts and bolts" approach, I would use Hanson and Quinn's "Greek: An Intensive Course". It's intense indeed, but it shows you everything behind the curtains since it is a grammar based approach. The are a lot of other books. Some like Athenaze try to use a more intuitive (and slower) approach, with a lot more vocab. I'm sure people here will have other suggestions, but I don't have experience with Reading Greek.

I would very much like for the three Dictionaries of Japanese Grammar (Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced) to be digitized to make searching easier.

Forget the Mangaland books, Japanese the Manga Way is much better, well-structured, covers a great amount of grammar, and deals with the politeness levels.

You should get a reference book (A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar) with it, and The Kodansha Kanji Learners Dictionary.

I used [NihongoMaster] (https://www.nihongomaster.com/14-1-1-5.html), as it taught the kana, simple vocab and then quizzed you on it all. The Introductory part where it teaches all this is free. I kept up with this to continue learning grammar and kanji.

For books I used Japanese Hiragana & Katakana for Beginners for mnemonics and writing practice.

To perfect my knowledge, I used http://iknow.jp/home. I'll be continuing with this to learn more kanji/vocab.

I read the Heisig book last month, just out of curiosity, by this time I knew my kana very well.

There's three great books out there that I can think of off the top of my head.

[Read Real Japanese: Short Stories by Contemporary Writers] (http://www.amazon.co.jp/Read-Real-Japanese-Fiction-Contemporary/dp/1568365292)

and

[Read Real Japanese Essays: Contemporary Writings by Popular Authors] (http://www.amazon.co.jp/Read-Real-Japanese-Essays-Contemporary/dp/1568364148)

and

[Breaking into Japanese literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text] (http://www.amazon.co.jp/Breaking-into-Japanese-Literature-Classics/dp/1568364156)

PS: if you are "fresh out of Genki 2" level, I'd say these books may be fairly advanced for you, but to each their own. Some people don't mind. There are english translations after all.

What about this grammar dictionary?

I feel it's level is above N2, so it should be interesting for him.

Read Real Japanese is also very good. (2 books actually)

Not exactly...there's the al-mawrid app for iPhone/Android that at least will sometimes link to words from the same jithr. I know you're looking for a website, but I can't recommend Hans Wehr dictionary enough. It has exactly that function, excellent organization of words via jithr and wizn. I've found it to be an invaluable resource!

I have some but depends on what you want

About planets:
http://www.amazon.com/Planet-Construction-Kit-Mark-Rosenfelder/dp/0984470034/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286906911&sr=1-2

About languages:
http://www.amazon.com/Language-Construction-Kit-Mark-Rosenfelder/dp/098447000X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268637297&sr=1-1

i dont know about it too much but heard its good:
http://www.amazon.com/Maps-Imagination-The-Writer-Cartographer/dp/1595340416

This is THE deal:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Science-Fiction-Fantasy/dp/158297103X

Another helpfull thingy:

http://www.amazon.com/Strata-Terry-Pratchett-ebook/dp/B003NX6Y6U/

My Greek professor strongly recommends against using Athenaze, and I'm not a fan of the "Reading ____" series myself. (I'm currently using the "Reading Latin" books.) I would recommend Introduction to Greek by Cynthia Shelmerdine.

Edit: Here it is if you're interested: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Greek-Cynthia-W-Shelmerdine/dp/1585101842

There is also this book: http://www.amazon.com/Greek-Intensive-Course-Hardy-Hansen/dp/0823216632. I haven't personally used this one, but a couple professors have recommended it.

A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish Grammar

It isn't tailored to any exams, nor it is it a textbook, but it has EVERYTHING you could possibly need to know about Spanish grammar.

I also agree with /u/ImovedtoEurope's suggestion of Repase y Escriba. You can get the older versions for about $10 on Amazon.

• “A Mathematician's Lament: How School Cheats Us Out of Our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form,” by Paul Lockhart.
  
• “The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education,” by Grace Llewellyn.
  
• “The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition,” by Don Norman.
  
• “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder,” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
  
• “The Language Construction Kit,” by Mark Rosenfelder.

Sure. If you don't particularly need the older 3rd editon, this version is a bit cheaper: http://www.amazon.com/Arabic-English-Dictionary-Modern-Written-Arabic/dp/0879500034/

Although, I have the paper version, and end up leaving that one on the shelf and using the online version instead. It is both easier to look up words (type in the root and voila), and also more portable assuming you have a smartphone.

http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Cursive-Script-Introduction-Publications/dp/0887100333/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370364920&sr=8-1&keywords=cursive+chinese

for calligraphy I strongly learning 楷書 or 篆書 first, then getting good at 楷書, to master the principles behind calligraphy correctly, only then will your 草書 reach its full potential...

I reccomend this book to learn to read and write the kana. It is pretty cheap and worth it.

Thai for Beginners by Benjawan Poomsan Becker

Does a great job explaining tones and pronunciation.

Collin's Ecclesiastical Latin will probably be an excellent start for you, along with its accompanying answer key.

Even though the grammar will be mostly review, the vocabulary is geared toward ecclesiastical readings.

Aside from that, also consider Sidwell's Medieval Latin. The back of the book contains a guide to the most common idiosyncracies of medieval and later church latin.

First, you need to decide whether you want to learn European Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese as they have different resources (there are more for Brazilian). Probably it will be decided by which one your university course teaches.

I've been learning Brazilian Portuguese for about 6 weeks now using a combination of methods:

Duolingo and Memrise for apps
Lingua da Gente podcast
Semantica video series

If you want a book, this seems to be the one to get:
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Brazilian-Portuguese-Grammar-Practical/dp/0415566444?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_sfl_title_2&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Of course there are many more resources and it's worth browsing around to see what you like.

Except if you're writing by hand, you shouldn't be writing the print version of the characters with all those strokes. You might want to learn handwriting. It'll save you some time on all of that nonsense.

Not "in" Spanish, but my personal favorite is Butt & Benjamin.

I read this one so many times I could practically recite it word for word. It's pretty good - starts out at a fairly simple level and gradually gets harder as you go. My only complaint is that it's a bit short.

In other words you're illiterate. :-)

I like this book.

I believe the symbol was adopted by the Chinese. My information for that comes from this book:

Matthews, A. Matthews, L. Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters: A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters. Tuttle Publishing. (2007)

I used to know all hiragana and most of the kana because of this book. (Reviews are right, btw: hiragana section is excellent, katakana section is meh.)

Now I can only remember a few of the mnemonics, so it's back to "short two character A+ ranked" and "really long name with stars and that nose-looking thing intended to be a nose."

These 118 lectures are free, and if you want to also have a book, the lectures follow the structure of this one.

You could start with Japanese for Busy People. There are two versions one that has romanized letters and the other with Kana (I have both versions). Also, Genki.

These are the textbooks and workbooks that I've had for classes. They are pretty thorough and they come with CDs so you can hear things properly pronounced..

I am a beginner as well and I am probably not as far along as I should be, I am teaching myself in my spare time of working 2 jobs and full time student so I only get like 40 mins a day to work on stuff. But here are some methods I used, I started on duolingo, but I also have these books from amazon that really helped. ( I left the link below). If the library dosnt have them the first 3 are on Youtube.

https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Hiragana-Katakana-Beginners-Mastering/dp/4805311444/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2/131-1360910-3742552?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=4805311444&pd_rd_r=f9db01fd-7454-4f44-9c2c-36fe50c1f395&pd_rd_w=9TX8q&pd_rd_wg=QOKOy&pf_rd_p=a2006322-0bc0-4db9-a08e-d168c18ce6f0&pf_rd_r=E8KBA7WMS9EF5YD9BJAS&psc=1&refRID=E8KBA7WMS9EF5YD9BJAS

Here is a good example for learning French. The first chapters barely assume any knowledge of French, and by the end of the book you're reading (simplified) stories about French history.

Another example would be the Lingua Latina series for learning Latin. Starts off super simple, but by the end of the third book, you're reading unedited classics.

For forming sentences, you need to start with some basic sentence patterns. This is a good book: https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Sentence-Patterns-Effective-Communication/dp/1568364202.

Reading, writing, speaking, or a combination of the above? Why are you studying Japanese? How advanced do you want to be?

I'm currently learning some Japanese through self-study because of overseas work. Here's where I started:

• Hiragana: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/
  
• Katakana: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/
  
• Basic Conversational Japanese: GENKI | Japanese for Busy People
  
• Other tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfCc00zmPZI

I take a philosophical daoist and indirect realist approach to my studies. Check out Roger Ame's translation of The Dao De Jing for a very philosophically sound approach to Daoism.

Essentially I believe that there is an ultimate reality which is Dao. Dao can be described as the "way in the making." It is an ontology of becoming through the endless reconfiguration of opposites (yin and yang). We cannot fully comprehend this metaphysical reality, as "the Dao that can be named is not the true Dao."

The best we can do is to experiment and systematically explore nature which is a manifestation of the ultimate reality. However, our attempts to understand nature cannot be the true Dao. As soon as we name Dao, it becomes something else (Dao is always changing).

> 病院はどこですか,どこが病院ですか？ one sentence uses the は, the other が

https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/55657/difference-between-x%E3%81%AF%E3%81%A9%E3%81%93-and-%E3%81%A9%E3%81%93%E3%81%8Cx

は is usually used for general information, and が is usually used for more specific information. That's not to say that's the only difference between は and が, there are lots of other subtleties and exceptions when to use one or the other.

I recommend https://www.amazon.com/All-About-Particles-Handbook-Japanese/dp/1568364199 if you want a book to explain it.

Not free, but a friend of mine taught herself using this book. Used copies are pretty cheap. I've been meaning to get one myself once I have the time to actually use it.

To all those who are struggling to read the cursive script, try this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chinese-Cursive-Script-Introduction-Publications/dp/0887100333/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266575220&sr=8-1 It's a little dated but still useful.

A New Reference of Modern Spanish Grammar

Suuuuuper good.

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I would recommend purchasing the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series (Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced), and then entering the plethora of example sentences into Anki.

In my opinion it's harmful to directly memorize grammatical explanations, as it's contrary to the way that a native's cognition works when producing sentences. Instead, one should use grammatical explanations to gain intuition for how the moving parts of the example sentences add together to produce the meaning (as illustrated by the translation), and then forget the specific grammatical explanations while reviewing only the sentences (looking at the translation if necessary but otherwise just trying to visualize the meaning).

I like the following book for handwriting.

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https://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Cursive-Script-Introduction-Publications/dp/0887100333/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=chinese+handwriting&qid=1563310119&s=gateway&sr=8-6