Best products from r/languagelearning

Yes, but it takes a long time, so I'll copy paste all my past comments here for you to trawl through yourself.

>/r/russian and /r/LANL_Russian are both good subreddits. Someone recommended http://learnrussian.rt.com/ which is great for beginners. http://www.russianlessons.net is good for lots of information, but is kind of incomplete. Definitely worth using regardless. Memrise is really good for vocab, but the courses are user-made and not perfect.

Note: LANL_Russian in particular has some great links in the sidebar.

Memrise:

>Interesting, there seems to be an influx of Russian learners lately. Take note, because I'm writing a lot, and I wouldn't do it if I didn't think that every bit was extremely important.

>Stop just trying to memorise by reading. Long story short, you're using a pretty ineffective technique. The good news is there are far better ways of doing it. Studies show that recollection, not repetition is a far effective teacher.

>As I've said to many, I can fully recommend Memrise (www.memrise.com) and the top rated Russian course there. It's great at using recollection to get you memorising a lot of words fast using mnemonics. Other than that, Anki is a useful flashcard program that does a similar thing.

>some tips for Memrise: don't use it passively; really try and think about and focus on the word you're learning. Secondly, make sure you've got a mem (their term for mnemonic) that works for you. Getting a word without a mem is harder. Memrise will really solidify your Russian-English, but if you are worried about the English-Russian part, just go though each level with a strip of paper covering the Russian words on the screen and work your way down. You will find it's really easy anyway, because Memrise has solidified the connection in your mind.

>Make use you check the course page and water all your plants EVERY DAY.

>Take note of how Memrise get's you recollecting as soon as possible after giving you a word, and then gradually spreads out the intervals at which you are prompted to recall a word, and in groups of 5 words at a time. Take this technique and use it to make yourself some flash cards. Write the English on one side and Russian on the other (you might like to include the pronunciation too). Now you can take these around with you day by day (I have some on my desk by me right now), memorising other words you've read whenever you have a spare moment. You can even have your own personal mems for them. I'd recommend buying some cards to use, because just cutting up printing paper is pretty flimsy and easy to mess up.

>I personally find I memorise better when focusing at my desk, because I'm a lot less distracted. If Memrise is done then feel free to use your flash cards at your desk. It is still more effective.

>If you ever do go back to word lists, don't just look at them, cover one side up and do a few at a time, really relying on recollection.

An extract from what I'd consider my best writeup:

>What galaxyrocker said is just as true for me. My interest in the language led me to try learning it, as opposed to wanting to learn a language and then finding one. I always thought the Cyrillic alphabet looked awesome and the Russian language sounded awesome, so I decided to try it and I've been going ever since. I was always interested in the history of eastern Europe and socialism so I guess that in some way led to it. Along the way I've discovered a completely different and interesting culture and now I am learning a way to interact with it.

>One bit of advice would be to find a buddy who is a native of your target language and get in regular contact. If you're doing this online, there are plenty of resources, but I found mine on the Skype forum. The time spent teaching him the more precise aspects of English and in turn getting a more interactive source of knowledge has been invaluable to both of us, and at the same time I've been prompted to think a little about my own language, especially regarding grammar. It helps only a small bit if you share interests, because the two languages provide such a huge range of topics and conversation. Since you're going to be a beginner, look for someone experienced but looking for regular practice, to them, teaching you WILL be the practice, and any insight into English you can offer a bonus.

>Secondly, relate your studies to subjects that interest you. No doubt you'll be different, but DotA 2 has a large scene in eastern Europe, so I often tune in there just to immerse myself. Find resources to attempt to read that are about a topic of your interest. If you don't enjoy the benefits somewhere, you'll lose interest. If you surround yourself with media relating to your language, you'll always be motivated to go back to the books and continue learning.

>Also, always go back and go over words you learned, otherwise you forget them fast. Recollection is a far better teacher than repetition, so make flash cards or use Memrise (it's amazing).

Now especially for you; Resources:

Pimsleur has an audio only course that teaches you basic conversational Russian using spaced repetition and simulated conversations. It's good for getting you speaking and pronouncing Russian, but I got bored pretty fast and didn't really have the opportunities to use it. The course itself is huge, split up into many lessons. This one does cost a lot of money, you you should PM me for a "sample" first.

Penguin Russian is like a giant grammar book. It will teach you the basics as well as the advanced. While not interesting or engaging, it does have everything you could ever need to know, and so is a good resource if you have the patience. This is another one you'll have to buy, but I have the PDF form if you'd like to "sample" that too.

Lastly, trying to read Russian books is a good way to learn once you have some words down. A heads up though, unless you have more than 1000 you'll be running into a lot of words you will be unfamiliar with, at least to begin with. One staple of language learners is Harry Potter, since its been translated to pretty much every language there is. That's the last "sample" you'll be needing to PM me about.

If you want to speak, the best way is to find a Skype (or real life) buddy who speaks both. There are huge amounts of Russians online who speak passable English who could help in return for some English help.
If you're not doing it that way, you'll need to practice speech to yourself while studying.

If I were you, I would approach this in a practical way. I'm assuming that you are a monoglot English speaker with maybe the equivalent of a US High School introduction to Spanish or French. You number one problem right now is that you don't know how to learn a language on your own. It doesn't matter if it's Spanish or Mandarin, it is most likely that what you will do is what you know: get some books, sit down an hour each day studying like you did in school, maybe use an app and after 6 weeks you'll start to question the process you are making. At first the voice will be small and in the back of your mind. And then one day, you'll come home form a bad day at work or school and you won't feel like studying so you'll skip a day. And your downward spiral to giving up will have started. By your 12th week you might still make token efforts to study, maybe you'll use an app (Duolingo, Memrise) for 15 minutes or reread one of the chapters in the book you bought (a chapter you've already read, so you should review it). At this point you are all but done as a language learner. Plug in your Chrome Cast and fire up Netflix because you aren't making the progress you thought that you would. You'll conclude that learning a language is hard, or Arabic was too hard, or that you are not good at languages, and you'll start binging on Supernatural because if you start now, you might be done with seasons 1 - 9 just in time for season 10 to be released on Netflix.

>A poor craftsman blames the tool for what his hand cannot do.

If you don't want to follow the cycle I described above, you should take some time out to learn how to learn and to understand that there are certain tricks and traps that your mind is going to use in an attempt to get you to put in minimal effort while making you think you are making maximum progress. Before I go on, I want you to understand that there is a reason why the first paragraph seems strangely specific. It was my story with a number of languages (Russian, Welsh, etc). I think the best advice that I can give you is to get Make it Stick and read it before you pick a language. Then buy Fluent Forever and read it. Then pick your language and start studying and remember this: value people over process, process over goals, and goals over material. What I mean is that the course or books that you use are the least important factor in your success and that people with whom you surround yourself are the most important factor. Too many people emphasize finding the "right course". It just doesn't exist. Find some decent material and be done.

1. Spend more time forming relationships with native speakers of your target language and do this from the beginning. If you feel reluctant to do that or you immediately start making excuses about wanting to learn the basics before you do this, stop beeing a whiny little brat and do it any way. ;-) Look at the people who are the most successful language learners. They all have relationships with people that they pursue through the target language.
   
2. Develop a study process and integrate it into your day. For example, do the parts of learning that you like least in the morning so that you won't be too tired or stressed at the end of the day. Make friends and pursue interests in your target language. This way learning is not so subject to your emotions. Always keep in mind that your learning process is far more important to your success than the material that you use. Use techniques like spaced repetition, interleaving, and -most importantly- remember that you have to practice what you learn in a real way. Meaning you need to increase your output. Write summaries of grammatical rules in the target language and get feedback. These things are hard and frustrating but you will get far more out of learning this way (see 3rd link at the bottom of this post).
   
3. Set SMART goals and use quizzes and testing to help measure and evaluate your goals. Use services like iTalki to chat with random tutors or exchange partners to put yourself in uncomfortable situations that mimic real world conversations. If you can, and it's OK with the other person, record the sessions and give them to a friend or your primary tutor to help evaluate your progress.
   
4. Get some good material to use but don't allow this to take up too much of your time. It's just not as important as many people seem to make it out to be.
   
   And now for the science so you know I'm not just making this all up:
   Learning Painting Styles: Spacing is Advantageous when it Promotes Discriminative Contrast
   LEARNING VERSUS PERFORMANCE
   Learning Concepts and Categories from Examples: How Learner's Beliefs Match and Mismatch the Empirical Evidence
   HOW STIMULUS SIMILARITY IMPACTS SPACING AND INTERLEAVING EFFECTS IN LONG-TERM MEMORY
   Spacing enhances the learning of natural concepts: an investigation of mechanisms, metacognition, and aging

In order to get anywhere with Russian, you need a invest in a good grammar book. For complete beginners, I always recommend Nicholas Brown's New Penguin Russian Course which is dirt cheap on amazon.

To help you get comfortable with the language in terms of reading, listening, and pronunciation, I'm a big fan of the Assimil series. If you're not familiar with Assimil, you can read up on their method. The Assimil Russian is a nice complement to the Penguin course and I'm actually half-way through it myself (for review purposes).

You can find lots of good learning materials on ilearnrussian.com. I've found that some of the best learning materials are made by Russians for foreigners, but those are generally more advanced.

Immerse yourself in the language as much as you can outside of your formal lessons (i.e. Penguin, Assimil, whatever). You can find tons of Russian music on youtube. If you prefer to stream music online, check out moskva.fm. Many of the Russian stations play English music, so if you just want Russian-language music, try the Russian Radio station.

You can watch tons of old Russian movies with English subtitles on Mosfilm's website for free. If you know where to look online, you can find all the latest movies for free (pretty easy to find with google). One of my favorite things to do is find a Hollywood movie that I know really well, and then watch it dubbed in Russian. The quality of Russian dubbing is generally pretty high, and the advantage to watching a movie you're already familiar with is that you can focus on the language. Once you get to a higher level, it's interesting to compare the English dialogue to the Russian translation.

Do you have an ipod? One way to tune your ear to a language is to listen to the rapid-fire delivery on news broadcasts or opinion programs. I like to listen to podcasts from the Echo of Moscow radio station. Here's an example program you could subscribe to Culture Shock with rss link.

As difficult as the alphabet and grammar seem at first, I can assure you that it's nothing compared to acquiring a good vocabulary. Everyone has their own method for learning vocabulary, but my advice is to make some flash cards and carry a stack around with you wherever you go. In any odd, spare moment that you have, review them. You should aim to get to 1000 words as quickly as possible. As others have said, that's a key threshold. If you do the Penguin Course and/or Assimil, be diligent about learning the vocabulary for each lesson.

Anyway, good luck! Удачи!

Honestly; the best method is learn vocab as you go instead of forcing yourself to use rote memorization

Mnemonics are a better way to learn vocabulary, and you will have fun creating mnemonics for each word.
http://www.buildyourmemory.com/foreignlanguage.php

Don't force yourself to study vocab lists if they burn you out.

My guide for help learning Japanese:

I recommend Textfugu which is on sale for $50 dollars right now!
Also, Human Japanese is another great choice and it is also available on iPhone/iPad.

Make sure you learn the Hiragana and the Katakana first though with the help of Kanachart
OR Tofugu OR Dr. Moku. Personally, I recommend Dr. Moku.

For learning the Kanji, I recommend Heisig's Remembering the Kanji Series
and/or Crazy for Kanji

Out of all of these, Textfugu is the most important resource and I have heard many good things from my fellow students. Good luck!

Tae Kim's Guide is free and check out this google search for more free web resources

Best Sites to Use:

• http://www.textfugu.com/
  
• http://www.humanjapanese.com/home.html
  
• http://www.wanikani.com/
  
• http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/
  
  Resource List: http://www.tofugu.com/japanese-resources/
  
  Other Good Websites:
  
  
• http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?id=5322
  
• http://gakuran.com/about/
  
• http://gakuu.com/
  
• http://japanese-lesson.com/index.html
  
• http://jgram.org/
  
• http://kanjialive.com/
  
• http://kanjiplusapp.com/
  
• http://nihongo-e-na.com/eng/
  
• http://nihongoichiban.com/
  
• http://nihongoshark.com/
  
• http://nihongoup.com/
  
• http://thejapanesepage.com/grammar.htm
  
• http://whiterabbitpress.com/
  
• http://www.hiraganatimes.com/hiragana_blog/
  
• http://www.maggiesensei.com/
  
• http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/english/index.html
  
• http://www.skritter.com/
  
• http://www.tofugu.com/downloads/conjugation-cheatsheet.pdf
  
• http://www.tofugu.com/downloads/japanese-particles-cheatsheet.pdf
  
• https://www.readthekanji.com/
  
  My Norwegian guide:
  
  
• http://www.hf.ntnu.no/now/hardcopies/ShortGrammar.pdf
  
• http://www.norwegianclass101.com/
  
• http://norwegianlanguage.info/resource/links/index.html [HUGE NORWEGIAN LIST]
  
• http://mylittlenorway.com/learn-norwegian/
  
• http://www.sofn.com/norwegian_culture/languagelessons_index.jsp
  
• http://learn101.org/norwegian_grammar.php
  
• http://www.norwords.com/
  
• http://www.ntnu.edu/now/chapter1
  
• http://radiolingua.com/shows/other-languages/one-minute-norwegian/
  
  Grammar Books:
  
  
• Norwegian: An Essential Grammar (Routledge Essential Grammars) by Åse-Berit Strandskogen and Rolf Strandskogen
  
• Norwegian Verbs And Essentials of Grammar by Louis Janus
  
• Practical Norwegian Grammar (English and Norwegian Edition)
  
  My French guide:
  
  Duolingo is highly suggested for French
  
  Best:
  
  
• http://www.bonjourdefrance.co.uk/learn-french-online/
  
• http://www.tresbienfrench.com/
  
• http://www.frenchbyfrench.com/index.php
  
• http://www.laits.utexas.edu/fi/home
  
• http://radiolingua.com/cbf-step-1/
  
• http://www.thefrenchexperiment.com/
  
• NewsInSlowFrench.com
  
  Rest:
  
  
• http://www.frenchtutorial.com/en/learn-french/toc
  
• www.frenchpod101.com/‎
  
• http://www.frenchspanishonline.com/beginnersfrench/freefrench.html
  
• http://www.education.vic.gov.au/languagesonline/french/french.htm
  
• http://empiredesfous.wordpress.com/
  
• http://lexiquefle.free.fr/learn-french.htm
  
• http://www.langmaster.com/comen/FrenchTest/test1/home.htm
  
• http://www.thefrenchexperiment.com/
  
• http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php?page=French
  
• http://www.clickonfrench.com/

I started German about 6 weeks ago, and I've made some great headway... don't know what level I'm at or whatever obviously, but it's exciting to be able to pick up real novels and actually be able to start to tell what's going on.

I mainly learned by starting with Duolingo, and reading through this. The Graded reader was actually the most helpful thing I did... it makes it really, really painless and easy to pick up new vocab, and you can literally start on page one with zero knowledge of German, read a few (or 10 or whatever) pages every day, and hit the end with a really comfortable full overview of basic German Grammar and maybe 1,000 vocab words. It went along really well with Duolingo, but for me personally, learning by reading in that format was more fun and easier over-all. The only catch is the book is like $35 used (I managed to find a copy for $20) but you might be able to find a pdf of it somewhere if you hunt.

For what it's worth... Duolingo was really helpful up until about halfway through the tree. I'll probably finish it just for shits and giggles, but there's an increasingly huge amount of words I don't expect will be useful, given what I actually like talking and reading about. (I hear over the next year Duolingo is going to start making custom trees given what you're actually interested in, but for now you're stuck with a lot of business vocab and verbs whose use isn't immediately apparent just from Duolingo's sample sentences). Also... Duolingo has an interesting philosophy on introducing more complicated grammar... basically they expose you to it a number of times, and then decide it's time to explain it. That's not how I work, so I had to use a number of outside resources. Adjectives for example (first encountered with the colors section) it makes no fucking sense, so just go read the wikipedia article and save yourself some trouble.

Beyond that, make a lang-8 account after the first week or two and start writing using what you know. You'll feel really limited at first of course, but half the trick starting out I think is figuring out how to express what you're looking to say using the tools you have available. Plus it gives you a chance to practice new grammar and vocab in a setting that's a little more natural than duolingo's canned sentences.

viel glück!

I'm just starting to learn Russian myself. I'm using this website and this book which supposedly gets you up to an A-Level grade. I think it's a great book but found it a little tough for an absolute beginner so I also got this book which is just basic phrases really, doesn't go into grammar in any real detail but it gives you a lot more confidence to be able to speak something rather than getting completely bogged down in grammar as soon as you've learnt the alphabet imo. As soon as a got a couple of chapters into the phrase book, I started using the Russian course book I linked above to understand the grammar and handwriting better. Can't recommend the penguin one highly enough and I'm sure it will be a great help that you will have a teacher to help you with the grammar.

You're correct in thinking that the alphabet is the most important beginning. DON'T try learning a language using English phonetics, that'll just confuse you (which i can confirm) and give you a weird accent (according to my Russian speaking ex-girlfriend). Next up is where the stress goes on words, how changing stress can change the meaning of a sentence, and how some letters can change sound depending on where they are (called [un-]voicing) but this will come after you have the alphabet and some phrases under your belt.

I also found it good to listen to a few songs to pick up how words flow together, and music helps me think anyway, personal favourites of mine are traditional songs such as Kalinka, Ochi Chernye and Katyusha. Just look on youtube and you will find plenty of them even some with the lyrics in English and Russian.

This is the alphabet, the kids version for when you're more confident and want to learn it in order, and this video has some starter words and phrases.

I hope some of that helps you out, but I'm just a beginner myself so hoping to pick up some more advice myself by watching this thread closely!

>And how on earth do you think that saves you time?

It would save me time because I would be learning only comprehension, while not spending any time focusing on developing the ability to speak. You disagree that ignoring the speaking component of language acquisition would be an effective way to save time, but that's of course the fundamental issue that we're talking about here. It doesn't help to repeat your position without any support, as if it's a new point you're making.

Iterating the process I mentioned for several years sounds like a large time investment, but there's no getting around that when trying to learn a language to a standard that I personally would find useful in my life. If not learning how to speak would cut the nevertheless lengthy process to about half of what it would have otherwise been, that would be useful to me. I'm basically trying to solve the problem of, "How could I learn French to a decently high standard for the specific objectives I have, namely gaining a reasonably deep understanding of the politics, science, and literature of the modern and historical French-speaking world, while cutting every other corner as much as possible, since my time is limited?" Learning to comprehend without practicing speaking seemed like a possibility, since I've heard of plenty of people who can understand a language without being able to speak it.

>If you spent the very small amount of time time just learning how to speak French - the FSI Phonology Course is a very good base, takes 10 hours - you'd understand what I'm talking about. You can finish that in 2 weeks rather than spending years of iteration.

I don't think you understand what my goals are here. It will take years of iteration no matter what to learn what I want to learn. I'm trying to be efficient, not spend a small amount of time as if it's going to just be a hobby that I play around with here and there.

>In German you half the time you have spaces between words in writing and the other half you don't, and whether you get a space in speech will depend on whether the word starts with a vowel or not. That's not particularly straightforward either, it's just different.

Why did you say that learning to understand without learning how to speak would possibly be doable in German, and that French in particular is the issue here? The only way I'm able to make sense of that claim is to assume that it's easier to take knowledge of the written language in German and translate it into listening comprehension, than it is in French.

When you were having trouble with listening comprehension in French, were you at a level where you could understand a lot more in writing than in speech? If so, was that because you spent a while memorizing vocabulary and grammar in writing? The main difficulty I'm having with your claims is that everything you're saying could be explained by something I've seen an almost endless supply of: language learners picking up a lot of vocabulary and grammar in writing, and then having trouble translating it into listening comprehension. Methods like what's explained in this book solve that problem entirely, and I can't tell why French couldn't be addressed with similar methods, though tailored to its peculiarities.

I see that you're native in English and Swiss German, and that you're C1 in German. That sounds like a result of your upbringing. It also seems that you're A2 in French, which I imagine is a language you've intentionally decided to study as an adult. Are there any other languages that you've studied as an adult to a decent level?

>No. There aren't a huge number of speakers who are literally native in more than one language regardless of the pair. It's fairly uncommon. Especially so with French - you won't even find it that often in Quebec.

It's incredible the degree to which you just seem to want to quibble. Look, there's not going to be an issue finding people who know about French politics who would be happy to speak in English. Some of them will be individuals who are native in both languages (since such people surely exist in high enough numbers that I could readily meet them), and some of them will be people from other backgrounds.

I don't have as much first-hand data on this topic as you, so it's easy for you to quibble with my relatively imprecise statements. But my goal here isn't to see who's able to be more technically correct within the realm of interpretation strained for the purpose of tribal argumentation. My goal is to figure out what may or may not be a good idea to pursue, and you're giving me little confidence that your statements are optimized for that purpose; you seem above all concerned with winning arguments.

I wouldn't waste my time with Duolingo's Spanish. There are better courses for than that.

Assimil Spanish will get you there. It teaches you Castilian Spanish, but does tell you at times if there is a word better for use in Latin America or not. Honestly there is not a better program out there for Spanish, imho. I have the vocabulary list for this book, if you buy it. Don't use the one you find on bittorrent. It's not that great. The latest version is the best one.

Lingvist is another good program, but it doesn't really explain the grammar, but I think it tries to teach you the desktop 5000 common words (I might be wrong). Right now it has taught me 3,864 words. The words are taught in context, and a lot of useful sentences at that.

Practice Makes Perfect Is a nice cheap grammar book. You can see the others on Amazon they offer (cheap, too)

Gramática de uso del Español Is another grammar book that's really detailed. They have it with A1-B2, and C1-C2. I have only the A1-B2 book and love it. Beware, it's all in Spanish, no English whatsoever.

SpanishDict Amazing Spanish dictionary site. I use it daily.

Spanish Grammar Another good grammar site.

Of course you are not hopeless. Do you think everyone learning a language jumps into it with full understanding of all the terms involved? You learn as you go, just as in any discipline.

When I was an English major in college, I decided to enroll in Old English. I was unaware, somehow, that I had chosen "Old English II." The very first day of class, I show up and we are given photocopies of the first 50 lines or so of Beowulf and asked to translate to modern English with the help of the glossary in our textbook. I stared at this incomprehensible text, confounded as to how my other classmates could be busily working away. I looked up one of the words in the first line in the glossary and it had the modern English equivalent, and "Nom." next to it. I went up to the professor and told her that I had never even seen Old English before, and how was I supposed to do this? She pointed at the "Nom." and said, "This means it's nominative, see?" As if the light was supposed to dawn, and it would all be clear to me now. But for me, this just explained an incomprehensible OE word in terms of an equally incomprehensible piece of linguistic jargon, as I then saw it. Needless to say, I went straight to the registrar after that class and withdrew from it.

This was about 13 years ago. Subsequently I took some Latin and French in college, which gradually introduced me to grammatical terminology. Today, I can read Spanish and French virtually without a dictionary, have reached an upper intermediate level in Polish (grammatically similar to Russian) with the intention of becoming a translator, and am happily beginning with Japanese. But if I had judged myself linguistically hopeless after that ill-fated Old English class, I would have done none of this.

"Cases" simply describe different ways in which nouns change form based on their function in a sentence. You already know cases in English. Consider the first-person pronoun "I."

"I like dogs" - "I" is the nominative case, because it is the subject of the sentence, it is 'doing the liking.'

"He likes my dog." - "My" is the genitive case. We wouldn't say, "He likes I dog." This would be a case error. The genitive usually indicates possession. In Russian, it has more functions, but they can be learned in context.

"Dogs like me." - "Me" is the accusative, or direct object case. It indicates the receiver of the action (the 'liking'). In English, this is also the prepositional case. Prepositions are words indicating position or direction, e.g. to, for, by, of, behind, etc. All these words take "me": behind me, for me, to me, etc.
Think of cases like this: where meaning in English sentences is usually determined by word order, languages with more cases (Latin, Polish, Russian) can have a more free word order, because the way the noun changes, and not its position, determines the meaning.

Articles are easy - "a" (indefinite object) and "the" (definite object). Good news, Russian has no articles!

Conjugations are to verbs what cases are to nouns. They simply involve the verb changing form based on person, tense and/or aspect. In English, verbs in the present tense only conjugate in third person singular: "I walk, you walk" but 'he walkS". Likewise, verbs conjugate for past, "I walked." Russian verb behave quite differently from English, so learning how they work will give you greater insight into conjugations as a whole.

Lastly, gender is a feature many languages (including Russian) have. It is simplya means of classifying nouns based on how they because grammatically. Often people (usually native English speakers who are not used to it, though English used to have gender) complain about gender, but this is pointless. It simply exists. The good news is, there are rules defining which words have which gender, and you can simply learn as you go along.

I would recommend that you buy Nicholas J. Brown's New Penguin Russian Course. I found this book helpful during the ~3 months or so I dove into Russian, and plan to return to it when I resume studying Russian (it conflicted with my Polish!). It will introduce you to these concepts gently while also teaching you Russian.

Here are some things that have been helpful for me while learning new languages:

• Anki: There a lot behind how it works, but it's a flashcard program/App that uses an algorithm that is very good for retaining new information (I originally read about it while reading Fluent Forever, by Gabriel Wyner.
  
• Duolingo: You've probably already heard of this one, it's a quasi-Rosetta Stone (but free).
  
• Rosetta Stone: Opinions may differ, but imo I learned and retained more with Rosetta Stone than using Duolingo (there's also Memrise but I haven't used that one much, so I can't offer a good opinion on it). Maybe the pictures or more natural audio, not sure. I used the free trial.
  
• Labels: Putting labels on everything around your house. This is good for learning nouns [unfortunately, we can't put labels on verbs :( ]. Different nouns have different genders (female/male/neutral) and it's important to know which one is which gender.
  
• Keeping a daily journal/diary in the specific language (Greek, in your case): This is really helpful if you do it carefully and go over what you've written correcting your mistakes or clearing-up doubts. It forces you to use the language and think.
  
• Traveling: this is obviously not as accessible as the previous ones, but full immersion is by far the best approach. If you have the time/resources, get on a plane and spend some time in Greece :)
  
  Edit: Also, this sub's wiki has a bunch of resources.
  

Former employee, linguist, and guy-who-is-pretty-ok-at-russian checking in:

It is decent, but you'll want to make sure you actually understand the concept of grammatical case, and how it works and is marked in Russian.

I would highly recommend pairing it with the New Penguin Russian Course.

Definitely use studio as much as possible, and take notes case endings. RS will show you something like на невысоком мужчине черный костюм, and it will help to know that невысоком is declined for the prepositional/locative case. Well, really, it will help to know that that form is not the "default," and how to 1)figure out what the default is and 2)transform the word as you need to when speaking.

A friend of mine did just RS, and she has a problem with basically just saying a word in whatever case she first heard it in...so she might say невысоком when trying to say невысокый, or what have you.

Finally, evaluate after 5 months, and if you're not using it, it's not working, or whatever, send it back and get a refund. Mark it on your calendar, and decide before you miss the deadline.

Beginner:

1. Use this with Anki to learn Hangeul/Pronuncation: http://fluent-forever.com/pronunciation-trainers/korean/#.Vn_f1_l96Ul
   
2. Do TTMIK Levels 1-3 with this Memrise course: http://www.memrise.com/course/534607/every-ttmik-lesson-levels-1-9/
   
3. Learn 1000 high frequency words. Use this book to make a word list: https://www.amazon.com/Korean-Essential-Vocabulary-6000-Foreigners/dp/8955184891/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485063386&sr=8-1&keywords=6000+korean, and then look up example sentences on Naver Translate: http://endic.naver.com/search_example.nhn?sLn=en&query=%EA%B0%80%EB%8B%A4&preQuery=&searchOption=example&forceRedirect=N, and then learn the words in Anki, using the methodology described in this book: https://www.amazon.com/Fluent-Forever-Learn-Language-Forget/dp/0385348118/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485065753&sr=8-1&keywords=fluent+forever
   
4. Do TTMIK's Korean Verbs Books: http://mykoreanstore.com/collections/featured-items/products/the-korean-verbs-book
   
5. Do KGIU Beginner: https://www.amazon.com/Korean-Grammar-Use-Beginning-Intermediate/dp/8959951986/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485063504&sr=8-1&keywords=korean+grammar+in+use
   
6. Use this Youtube channel to start developing fluency: https://www.youtube.com/user/11newcon/videos
   
7. Sprinkle in other TTMIK products that you might be interested in. "My Daily Routine In Korean", "Korean In Action", and "Real Life Conversations" are all pretty good options.
   
8. Sprinkle in other Youtube channels that you might be interested in. GoBillyKorean: https://www.youtube.com/user/GoBillyKorean/videos, SweetAndTastyTV: https://www.youtube.com/user/sweetandtasty/videos, Margarita: https://www.youtube.com/user/DAenvgiell6/videos, FnE Korean: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3VVK5qeHT1DbzqYlzo64iQ/videos and PinkPong: https://www.youtube.com/user/pinkfongko/videos are all good.
   
   Intermediate:
   
   
9. Do TTMIK Levels 4-6 (links above)
   
10. Learn 2000 high frequency words (total of 3000 words) (links above)
    
11. Do Glossika: https://glossika.com/courses/?target=kr
    
12. Do TTMIK's "My Weekly Korean Vocabulary" set: http://mykoreanstore.com/collections/e-books/products/48-weeks
    
13. Do KGIU Intermediate: https://www.amazon.com/Korean-Grammar-Use-Intermediate/dp/892773078X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1485063504&sr=8-2&keywords=korean+grammar+in+use
    
14. Start getting corrections from native speakers. Italki for speaking: https://www.italki.com/home, Lang8 for writing: http://lang-8.com/, and HelloTalk for casual speech: https://www.hellotalk.com/
    
15. Sprinkle in other TTMIK products that you might be interested in. "IYAGI Translations", "Situational Dialogs In Korean", "Korean Slang Expressions", and "Everyday Korean Idiomatic Expressions" are all pretty good options.
    
16. Sprinkle in other Youtube channels that you might be interested in. SKCouple: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoUDrzyCl1IwU602xdTsM-g, EveSojin: https://www.youtube.com/user/evesojin/videos, DeevaJessica: https://www.youtube.com/user/deevajessica/videos, Yumcast: https://www.youtube.com/user/yumcast11/videos HoneyTV: https://www.youtube.com/user/honeyTV2/videos, HeoSam: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnCeDIkExSpULGqmpj5oafg/videos Sadly there's a lack of male Korean youtubers that use Korean subs.

If what you want to achieve is A1 and nothing beyond, you best bet would be getting one of the many course books:

• Schritte (http://www.amazon.com/dp/3190018510/). You may simply ignore the 1 stars review as they're irrelevant.
  
• Lagune (http://www.amazon.de/dp/3190016240/) and a lot more others. Actually it doesn't really matter which one you pick. Any one of them is sufficient.
  
  A arguably better alternative would be the free online course offered by Deutsche Welle (http://deutschkurse.dw.de/KursPlattform/WebObjects/KursPlattform.woa/wo/6.1). Do register and try it. Really valuable resource. Together with Deutsch – warum nicht? (http://www.dw.de/deutsch-lernen/deutsch-warum-nicht/s-2163) you can go far. (In case you didn't realise already, both the sound files and pdf notes can be found on the right, featuring four series.)
  
  Maybe the only problem you would encounter is speaking. The speaking test is actually like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGNd-6pDkEI), and you may panic if you don't already speak in German for a several hours. Try to find someone who speaks German and wants to do a language exchange with you. (http://www.language-exchanges.org/) is one of them. You may as well find one on Reddit.
  
  By the way, if you really want to have a strong command of German sooner or later, there are some good, though popular (popular doesn't always mean bad) books for foundation, apart from your already awesome German for Reading:
  
  
• German: How to Speak and Write It (http://www.amazon.com/dp/9650060359/)
  
• The Everything Learning German Book (http://www.amazon.com/dp/159869989X/)
  
  If you insist on getting a grammar book, a nice start would be:
  
  
• Essential German Grammar (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0340741899/)
  
• English Grammar for Students of German (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0934034389/)
  
  And eventually you may want to take down the boss:
  
  
• Hammer's German Grammar and Usage (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1444120166/)
  
• Duden 04. Die Grammatik (http://www.amazon.de/dp/product/3411040483/)
  
  Finally I recommend you to take a look at my favourite reading material when I started, Studien und Plaudereien (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22160), freely offered by Project Gutenberg.

Why do you want to learn French? The answer can have an effect on what kind of course materials you should look for.

If you're main focus is conversation, than Language Hacking French would probably be the best fit for you in conjunction with italki lessons and videos on youtube.

If you're main focus is reading (to read literature and that sort of thing) than something like French for Reading would be a better fit, in conjunction with something like Duolingo stories.

Language learning, as I once heard, is like travelling. There are planes, trains, cars, and boats, and whatever you pick is based on what you want to experience/personal preference.

• Master the alphabet as soon as possible. Just hammer it in.
  
  
• Starting with numbers after that is a great way to get the alphabet solidified.
  
  
• Try Memrise for vocabulary, and this book for grammar.
  
  
• General language tip: Go hardcore until you know around 1000 words. That's the number I've found is what you need to have your grasp be stable.
  
  
• Another General tip: Discipline is everything. You need to study every single day (until the 1000 word mark) in order to get anywhere. Do not flounder.
  
  
• If you have Stalker: Clear Skies and/or Call of Pripyat on Steam, then play them in Russian. Same with Metro 2033 and The Witcher 2. You can usually change the language setting under properties in your game library.
  
  Good luck. I've definitely got a bunch more tricks, so just send me a message if you want them. These are just some good beginning ones.

I don't like these novelty-approaches to language learning like duolingo, they seem like a waste of time.

I think the most efficient way is to study the basic grammar structure, acquire a good vocabulary, and get as soon as possible to a point where you can read written text. If you decide for German, I suggest the book "German for reading" by Sandberg or "German quickly", combined with the daily use of Anki to acquire a basic vocabulary (say, the most commonly used 3000 words).

If you choose French, French for reading + Anki.

Even if you want to speak or listen, I still suggest your first move must be to reach reading competency as soon as possible. It can be done in 2-3 months (read the reviews of those books), and after that it will be very easy and enjoyable to work from there toward your other goals. And if you lose your enthusiasm, you can keep on practicing by just reading books or sites you enjoy, instead of just quitting and forgetting what you have learned.

In my opinion, apps and software don't tend to be of much use; they don't let you advance quickly enough and don't expose you to enough material. If you're serious about learning Russian, grab a good book and study each text or dialogue until you understand it both in reading and aurally. There's Teach Yourself Russian, Routledge's Colloquial Russian, the FSI FAST (Familiarization and Short-Term Training) Russian, Assimil Russian (if you speak French), and I've heard good things about the New Penguin Russian Course. In all cases, be sure you get audio along with the book, or have a native speaker who is willing to help you learn. Good luck!

I've heard good things about The New Penguin Russian Course. I also like to have plenty of reading material, like readers and parallel texts to help build my vocabulary and work on comprehension.

As others have said, there's plenty of free and usually legal stuff out there, so give those a shot too. While materials can help or hurt your motivation, the specific brand or program isn't as important as doing something every day to improve your Russian.

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).

Your choices as a foreigner to get going are between titles that contain either "Croatian" or "Serbian" (if you find older material, it'll be likely advertised as "Serbo-Croatian"). "Bosnian" stuff is still pretty much restricted to this book which might actually be overkill as a total beginner learning independently.

The most important thing is to get started with a decent course. Teach Yourself Serbian, Beginner's Croatian and Beginner's Serbian are good starting points if you're really motivated (FWIW, I've used all three). You could also get a taste of the language(s) in everyday life by watching short videos involving Croats and Serbs.

If you learn the basics of any of Bosnian, Croatian or Serbian, you'll be able to start communicating with him. If he plays along and speaks to you in his native tongue, he might adjust somewhat by using fewer features/words characteristic of Montenegrin or speaking more slowly or clearly and using a slightly more formal register than he would when he's with his friends or family.

Copied from U/whatisthesun:

"For anybody living outside of the States:

Spanish:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B073Z2YJFT

DE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B073Z2YJFT

FR: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B073Z2YJFT

ES: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B073Z2YJFT

IT: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B073Z2YJFT

NL: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B073Z2YJFT

JP: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B073Z2YJFT

BR: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B073Z2YJFT

CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B073Z2YJFT

MX: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B073Z2YJFT

AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B073Z2YJFT

IN: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B073Z2YJFT

French:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B074HDZP3L

DE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B074HDZP3L

FR: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B074HDZP3L

ES: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B074HDZP3L

IT: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B074HDZP3L

NL: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B074HDZP3L

JP: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B074HDZP3L

BR: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B074HDZP3L

CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B074HDZP3L

MX: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B074HDZP3L

AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B074HDZP3L

IN: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B074HDZP3L

Italian:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07C1692CG

DE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07C1692CG

FR: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B07C1692CG

ES: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B07C1692CG

IT: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B07C1692CG

NL: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B07C1692CG

JP: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07C1692CG

BR: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B07C1692CG

CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07C1692CG

MX: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B07C1692CG

AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07C1692CG

IN: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B07C1692CG

German:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07JKG2S5J

DE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07JKG2S5J

FR: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B07JKG2S5J

ES: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B07JKG2S5J

IT: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B07JKG2S5J

NL: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B07JKG2S5J

JP: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07JKG2S5J

BR: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B07JKG2S5J

CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07JKG2S5J

MX: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B07JKG2S5J

AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07JKG2S5J

IN: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B07JKG2S5J

Portuguese:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07MGNXN3Y

DE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07MGNXN3Y

FR: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B07MGNXN3Y

ES: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B07MGNXN3Y

IT: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B07MGNXN3Y

NL: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B07MGNXN3Y

JP: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07MGNXN3Y

BR: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B07MGNXN3Y

CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07MGNXN3Y

MX: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B07MGNXN3Y

AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07MGNXN3Y

IN: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B07MGNXN3Y

Russian:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07MRM7NLM

DE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07MRM7NLM

FR: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B07MRM7NLM

ES: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B07MRM7NLM

IT: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B07MRM7NLM

NL: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B07MRM7NLM

JP: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07MRM7NLM

BR: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B07MRM7NLM

CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07MRM7NLM

MX: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B07MRM7NLM

AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07MRM7NLM

IN: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B07MRM7NLM

English:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07MJ88SDZ

DE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07MJ88SDZ

FR: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B07MJ88SDZ

ES: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B07MJ88SDZ

IT: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B07MJ88SDZ

NL: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B07MJ88SDZ

JP: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07MJ88SDZ

BR: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B07MJ88SDZ

CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07MJ88SDZ

MX: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B07MJ88SDZ

AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07MJ88SDZ

IN: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B07MJ88SDZ. "

Anki/memrise.

Also, there is a very good croatian textbook on amazon that is only like 40 bucks used: https://www.amazon.com/Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian-Textbook-Exercises/dp/0299236544


Memrise on laptop/phone is free and pretty efficient just for vocab.

Do you have any advice for learning croatian for someone who is in diaspora and didn't grow up speaking it in the home.

Don't Use That Link! Use This Link HERE.

Name: The New Penguin Russian Course: A Complete Course for Beginners (Penguin Handbooks).

Price: $17.38

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You'll need a solid grammar, and I wholeheartedly recommend Hammer's. Very comprehensive, easy to use, clearly written, tons of examples, great at pointing out differences between formal, colloquial, and regional uses.

The list of verb principal parts could be a little longer, that's what Wiktionary or "500 German Verbs" are for. Otherwise, it's a very solid resource for you. Find grammar points that are tricky for you and work on those.

I had fun reading through this BCS textbook. I keep meaning to go back through and do the exercises and use the workbook, but I've been tied up. It's fun seeing all three presented side-by-side-by-side, though, and you could certainly focus on one (I was particularly interested in Croatian).

For those outside the US...

SPANISH:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07SPWJR41

DE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07SPWJR41

FR: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B07SPWJR41

ES: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B07SPWJR41

IT: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B07SPWJR41

NL: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B07SPWJR41

JP: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07SPWJR41

BR: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B07SPWJR41

CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07SPWJR41

MX: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B07SPWJR41

AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07SPWJR41

IN: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B07SPWJR41

FRENCH:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07SZFD9V3

DE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07SZFD9V3

FR: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B07SZFD9V3

ES: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B07SZFD9V3

IT: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B07SZFD9V3

NL: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B07SZFD9V3

JP: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07SZFD9V3

BR: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B07SZFD9V3

CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07SZFD9V3

MX: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B07SZFD9V3

AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07SZFD9V3

IN: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B07SZFD9V3

GERMAN:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07TRGYNY7

DE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07TRGYNY7

FR: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B07TRGYNY7

ES: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B07TRGYNY7

IT: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B07TRGYNY7

NL: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B07TRGYNY7

JP: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07TRGYNY7

BR: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B07TRGYNY7

CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07TRGYNY7

MX: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B07TRGYNY7

AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07TRGYNY7

IN: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B07TRGYNY7

ITALIAN:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07TDSH88K

DE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07TDSH88K

FR: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B07TDSH88K

ES: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B07TDSH88K

IT: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B07TDSH88K

NL: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B07TDSH88K

JP: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07TDSH88K

BR: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B07TDSH88K

CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07TDSH88K

MX: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B07TDSH88K

AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07TDSH88K

IN: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B07TDSH88K

ENGLISH:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07S2KV261

DE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07S2KV261

FR: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B07S2KV261

ES: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B07S2KV261

IT: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B07S2KV261

NL: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B07S2KV261

JP: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B07S2KV261

BR: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B07S2KV261

CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07S2KV261

MX: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B07S2KV261

AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07S2KV261

IN: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B07S2KV261

Check out a book called Fluent Forever. The author goes into detail about various techniques to make the language learning process more efficient.

If you don't want to read the whole book I guess you could just note down the key points at the end of each chapter and then skip to the practical techniques part at the end. However, I found it an easy and informative read and highly recommend it to any beginner or improving language learners.

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Amazon Smile Link: Crazy for Kanji


|Country|Link|Charity Links|
|:-----------|:------------|:------------|
|USA|smile.amazon.com|EFF|
|UK|www.amazon.co.uk|Macmillan|
|Spain|www.amazon.es||
|France|www.amazon.fr||
|Germany|www.amazon.de||
|Japan|www.amazon.co.jp||
|Canada|www.amazon.ca||
|Italy|www.amazon.it||
|India|www.amazon.in||
|China|www.amazon.cn||




To help donate money to charity, please have a look at this thread.

This bot is currently in testing so let me know what you think by voting (or commenting). The thread for feature requests can be found here.

This textbook, combined with the accompanying grammar, provides a pretty comprehensive introduction to the language and with enough study should get you to a satisfactory level. Plus it includes examples of not only Serbian, but Bosnian and Croatian as well, which are pretty much the same with some slight differences in vocabulary and grammar that you'll start to pick up on as you study.

Definitely helps! But my Spanish is quite Catalan influenced, which is not a big deal, but it means it's not so 'pure'. There have been a few things I've picked up from Catalan and said with Spanish words, if you know what I mean.
As I said I also let my Spanish sit at Intermediate, a high B1, for quite a long time because I was getting by easily and wanted to learn Catalan, improve my German and look at Italian too. But last year I came back to Spanish because I decided to prepare myself for the B2 exam.

Getting to a high A2, close to B1, took me a year. I had six months of intense self-study and then three months of daily immersion. But even then there were a lot of set expressions that I didn't know. Now I have all the resources that I would have used had I known about them, but I learned alone - I've never had a Spanish class in my life.

Here, this isn't for everybody, but I've been going through the Cervantes Institute syllabus to fill in gaps in my knowledge. This... is a little intimidating, but if you look at sections 8. Nociones Generales and 9. Nociones Especificas, you have lists of words and phrases set by topics and levels.
https://cvc.cervantes.es/ensenanza/biblioteca_ele/plan_curricular/indice.htm

I also HIGHLY recommend this series of grammar books
https://www.amazon.es/Gram%C3%A1tica-uso-del-espa%C3%B1ol-pr%C3%A1ctica/dp/8434893517

Link to free serbian flash cards
https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/serbian
Link to android app for these flash cards (iOS also exists): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ichi2.anki

Probably the best book for learning the language: http://www.amazon.com/Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian-Textbook-Exercises/dp/0299236544/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417903285&sr=8-1&keywords=bosnian+croatian+serbian+a+textbook+with+exercises+and+basic+grammar

But if you're really serious I'm sure you can find a local school or culture center that has classes.

If you need a grammar book, I highly recommend Hammer's German Grammar and Usage, along with Practising German Grammar if you want a workbook.

I was totally blown away by the quality of these books, it's super complete and easy to use.

In addition, there's the much more recent Graded German Reader: Erste Stufe. Out of print but still in copyright, but there's a PDF floating around.

Studien und Plaudereien is very cute but obviously pretty outdated / old fashioned.

Here's my list,

free online courses incl audio
----

• http://learnrussian.rt.com/lessons/
  
• http://www.russianlessons.net/
  
• http://www.russianlessons.net/articles/index.php (articles with audio)
  
• http://www.russianlessons.net/ebooks/show/1/1/1/both (crime and punishment dual book)
  
  free srs / vocab practice
  ----
  
• https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/russian
  
• http://www.memrise.com/courses/english/russian/
  
  speaking practice
  ----
  
• http://www.italki.com/?ref=1170492 - if you sign up with this link I get extra credits :)
  
  books and audio courses (library / search online)
  ----
  
• http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Penguin-Russian-Course/dp/0140120416
  
• http://fr.assimil.com/methodes?base_language=1&learn_language=8&level=
  
• http://www.pimsleur.com/Learn-Russian
  
• http://www.michelthomas.com/learn-russian.php
  
  etc.
  ----
  
• http://learnrussianstepbystep.com/about/russian-lessons-list/
  
• http://www.learnrussianweb.com/
  
• http://www.russianforfree.com/
  
• http://www.yesrussian.com/learn-russian/lesson-1-russian-alphabet-and-pronunciation-2/
  
• http://www.reddit.com/r/russian
  
• http://www.reddit.com/r/russian/wiki/full_course
  
• http://russianmadeeasy.com/

Definitely stick with only the Cyrillic alphabet. The transliterations used on Duolingo don't really convey the sounds very accurately. To practice Cyrillic reading I used to go on a Wikipedia page with lots of celebrities' names (e.g. Best Actor Winners ) and change it to Russian and go through reading the names.

I had a look at the Duolingo course when it came out and I found that it was really lacking in explanation of grammar (cases in particular). I would strongly recommend getting a decent book to follow along with to teach you the grammar. I have found that this has quite a nice progression and explanation. YMMV but, for Russian, I have only found Duolingo helpful for practicing putting sentences together, nothing else.

> Sometimes the words end in one way and then another, but make the same sound

I'm not sure what this is referring to, could you give an example?

I would highly recommend the Penguin Russian Course book. It's really useful for beginners, it goes through each case and other grammar points with plenty of examples and exercises. It's very reasonably priced and I find it much easier to refer to a book than trawling through web pages.

Thanks. I've found a New Penguin one from Amazon that I am ready to order.

​

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0140120416/ref=ox_sc_act_title_5?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1

[shoutout for /r/VeganForCircleJerkers]

um i'm unfortunately not sure what to say that could help. so it's really to make your application more appealing?

if you didn't hate it more than French, i'd just say you should skip learning french to help with latin...and just dive into latin instead. i wish i could lend you some of my feverish adoration of/passion for french.

you could also maybe just take a French-for-reading approach, which would be faster and easier. There's a book with that title, but i also just mean studying in such a way that you're only going for reading comprehension.

book

>Best book on language learning?

>Are there any books about how languages are learned for adults?

Yeah, plenty. I think /u/gwyner has the best book on language learning, but I'm a bit biased, since:

• I learned about it from Reddit when he posted about his book here.
  
  
• The techniques he proposed are very similar to the ones that my teachers in school have used in the past to teach me a language successfully.
  
  >How much do scientists even know about it? Do people know how we learn languages on a technical level? Or is it all unconfirmed hypotheses?
  
  Linguists do know quite a bit about it. They've applied psychology, neuroscience and a whole bunch of other disciplines to try to understand language learning. The book that I've mentioned above has cited many studies to justify the techniques described in it.

/r/German might be a better place to ask. The community there is excellent, I've found. But I'm going to second the recommendation of the guy who said Hammer's. It's a tome with all the Grammar you'll ever need. It's great for looking up individual rules and situations, but is probably too in-depth for a beginner student.

There's a review for the French one on Amazon that's fantastic. I've grabbed a quick excerpt of it that I've found particularly amusing.

"I should mention some caveats. First, this book is not a booty call. It is a fairly intense study of written French. You can't just say to yourself, "Well, I haven't looked at this book for two weeks but now I'm horny for a little French so I'll crack it open." No, you must romance this book, pay attention to it each and every day, make it feel like it's the only book you're reading. If you leave it alone for a week or two, you will forget what you have learned and the book will find someone else who is serious about learning a language. It's that French."

https://www.amazon.com/French-Reading-Karl-C-Sandberg/dp/0133316033

Hey there. I'm learning Croatian/Serbian currently, and have spent a bit of time over there. Being back home it's been tough to get solid content that seems "official" has been hard to come by.

I've picked this series up: http://www.amazon.com/Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian-Textbook-Exercises/dp/0299236544/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458618148&sr=8-1&keywords=bosnian+croatian+serbian+a+textbook+with+exercises+and+basic+grammar

There's a "grammar" and "audio" series available as well, and I have found them to be incredibly helpful! It is one of the only official language series that covers Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian and compares/contrasts them all for their differences.

Let me know if you have any questions...I'm not very far into it myself!

If you are planning of getting Hammer's Grammar, be sure you also get Practicing German Grammar. You can get it as a bundle just like i did, and i believe the price was around 50-60 euro range.

Hammer's German

Practicing German Grammar

These languages form a dialect continuum and are largely intelligible. This is a case of "the same language" being called different languages due to language ideologies more than linguistic structures.

There is one book I see all the time which (supposedly) teaches all three: Bosnian, Croation, and Serbian, a Textbook: With Exercises and Basic Grammar and its accompanying CD. There is also a grammar.

Logically speaking, there should not be any difference in the "one" you choose to learn, and there may be advantages to learning them simultaneously and considering any variation as possible outputs for a given situation depending on the social context (e.g., the same as considering "I'm gonna" == "I will").

Note: I have not used any of these books nor do I speak any of these languages. Just a linguist with ties to multiple language departments at my university. Do additional research to choose your resource.

www.babbel.com is a great paid service.

"The New Penguin Russian Course" is a little older and not the best order for learning imo but it's a solid book - https://www.amazon.com/dp/0140120416/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_RuoFDbMQ0YFF5

LiveLingua also has a ton of materials, including some produced by the government.

I'm finding the book Fluent Forever to be a goldmine of useful techniques. The companion website also has language-specific resources, e.g. Chinese.