I suggested using the web - for very basic language lessons, there are good ones on the BBC site (go to "education"). There are also lessons under a group of websites called "about.com". (about French, about Spanish etc). And of course, read the press on line, even if you don't understand everything the content - especially these days - won't be too difficult to comprehend.

If you are studying French, get into the habit of listening to Radio-Canada.

I'm trying to pick up some German now and beyond the BBC German Steps course (basic, but good for acquiring automatisms and listening to speech) the Radio Deutsche Welle site has a good series of lessons and other resources.

As for lessons that cost little or nothing, here in Montreal the city provides classes at a nominal fee - French, English, Spanish, and in some places Italian.

Visual dictionaries are useful, but more so for everyday objects and verbs of motion than for abstract concepts.

i think that there are a number of factors we need to take into consideration, especially 1)the specific language, 2)what you want to be able to do with it, and 3)what "kind of learner" you are. there must be others, but i can't think of any right now, and i feel guilty about not being at work on my paper....*sigh* there's also a degree of overlap between all three.

i think that different methods are called for in learning different kinds of languages. "dead" languages (Latin, Sanskrit), "living" languages (French, Urdu, Punjabi), languages on the "standard" end of a diglossia (classical Arabic, standard Tamil), languages that are more or less on the standard end (modern standard Persian), "colloquial" languages (Palestinian Arabic, colloquial Persian), etc. my case is complicated by the fact that i was exposed to three languages (English, Urdu, Punjabi) at home, but i feel in the case of each category, a different mix works, with less emphasis on book-learning and more on oral practice the "lower" you go on the scale (of course, the very idea of a "scale" seems to smack of linguistic elitism.)

for instance, it's taken me three years to get a good rigorous grasp of standard Arabic grammar, all in-class, whereas in the case of Persian, i studied the textbook on my own during the summer, went straight to the intermediate course, and got top marks. at this point, my Arabic and Persian are both good, but whereas i have learned and continue to learn every nook and cranny of Arabic grammar, i couldn't tell you the first thing about Persian grammar. with Persian you can marginalise the grammar, with Arabic you can't. big difference between these languages.

in my Arabic class there are differences between students as well. for instance, between "Rachel," my Jewish classmate, and "Yusuf," whose father is Algerian. this year we switched to a format with a stronger emphasis things like oral practice, English to Arabic translation (which i hate!), reading newspaper-ish texts, and the like. Rachel is relieved, while Yusuf and i prefer the method used by our previous prof, who drilled the grammar into our heads and then had us go right to classical texts. the reason is that Rachel wants to be able to speak when she goes to Palestine and other places in the Arab world, and to be able to read and listen to the Arabic news. on the other hand, Yusuf and i want to be able to read Arabic poetry, history, philosophical and theological tracts, etc. different aims, different methods.

and there are some people who just learn better through oral practise.

Which reminds me of a great way to stay motivated to learn: associate your new language with something you're interested in. In the case of Arabic, it was my love of calligraphy. Learning to read led to learning about Arabic history and culture, and later writing (which was my goal) led to exploring the Quran, which I now find much easier to read and understand than modern Arabic.

I find picking up reading and writing first to be easier. Gives me a feel for the language and the "rules". Since I haven't gone much past beginner level in any other language, I can't tell you if that's the best way, but it's the way that works really well for me, if I would just stick to it.

There's a series of "Teach Yourself" books that I find really great. I have a Persian and French one - haven't gotten around to doing the French one yet, and while I was making great headway in the Persian one for a while, I got busy, it fell by the wayside, and lack of use of the language made me lose what vocabulary I managed to gain. But if you're serious about learning a language, and you're like me and learn well with reading and writing, I find those books really great. I was doing quite well with it up until I just stopped doing it.

I still know the alphabet though. Hey, another cool thing is kids' videos in the language of your choosing, even babyish ones - the language is slow and precise and you pick up the basics that way. We ordered a Persian alphabet video for our son. It was made in Iran - it's really a pretty cool video. For each letter, there's a segment where a classroom full of girls and their wonderful teacher sing songs about the letter and things that start with the letter, and at the beginning and end of each segment (there are 32 of them, there being 32 characters in the alphabet - the video is, like 2 hours long or something) they sing the alphabet song to the tune of "Ode to Joy".

P.S. I thought it was interesting, Mohamad, that you found Persian easy to learn. I found it pretty easy too once I had the alphabet mastered. A lot of the grammar rules are absolute, which makes it a lot easier than crazy old English with its "this is the rule except for 40% of the time when the exact opposite is the rule and of course for these few exceptions which don't follow any rule," etc. I love Persian plurals. Just add "ha" onto anything and there you go.

[ 24 March 2003: Message edited by: Michelle ]

Was funny being in Brussels where everything is written out bilingually, after stays in Amsterdam. Although I don't really speak Dutch (I'd certainly like to learn it but I'd been studying German and the two languages are a bit too similar to begin on simultaneously) I learned to read it a bit and was pleased that I could understand the signs in Dutch in Brussels without having to look at the French.

http://www.diccionarios.com/
Spanish monolingual, Spanish/English, Spanish/French and Spanish -Catalan!

http://www.olf.gouv.qc.ca/ressources/gdt_bdl2.html
French - from Québec - Grand dictionnaire terminologique and other resources. Some free, some for subscribers

http://europa.eu.int/eurodicautom/Controller
A multilingual lexicon between the languages of the European union - more for bureaucratic and technical stuff. You can look up phrases.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/languages/ BBC languages homepage!

http://dict.leo.org/
excellent English/German - German/English on-line dictionary with lots of phrases, links, forums. By Münich Technical University IT!

http://www.german.about.com/library/blvoc_avoidA.htm

http://www.notam02.no/~hcholm/altlang/ht/German.html

An Introduction to Persian by William Thackston, published by Iranbooks, is a very good guide to that language.

I haven't studied a modern European language since high school. I'm comfortable enough with European languages that I tend to just pick up a grammar and give it a read, and then start dabbling.

Vicky, I glanced at Teach Yourself Irish and it seems to be quite good. But I don't really know.

If you're interested in classical languages, there are lots of choices.

Latin:

Wheelock's Latin is still serviceable. If you have an aptitude for grammar and don't mind a book that is full-bore grammar, then the University of California's Latin: An Intensive Course (I think that's the title) is very good. Cambridge has a set called "Reading Latin" modeled on their successful "Reading Greek" books. These contain readings in a continuous narrative, grammar explanations, exercises, and vocabulary.

Greek:

The book "Alpha to Omega", I don't remember the author's name, is quite a good introduction. Psychologically, I find the idea of 50 chapters a bit daunting but they are all short, one or two day affairs. The more serious linguist will probably want to just use Mastronarde's Attic Greek, and then there is the Cambridge "Reading Greek" set which is where I started.

Sanskrit:

Goldman's DevavaaNiipraveshikaa from UC Press is good but not for self-learning. Coulson's Teach Yourself Sanskrit is excellent, but it doesn't use native Sanskrit grammatical concepts, and it comes on thick towards the end, so you should be comfortable with grammar.

Arabic:

I dabbled in Arabic and I found Thackston's "Introduction to Koranic and Classical Arabic" to be quite good. I didn't finish it though, because I really only needed a basic knowledge of Arabic for Persian and Urdu.

Chinese:

I've just picked up "Introduction to Literary Chinese" by Michael Fuller and it seems excellent. It presumes you already are familiar with the Chinese writing system, however.

Tamil

As far as I know, George and Kausalya Hart's book is still the only one available

Hebrew & Aramaic

I looked for a good book a few years ago. The best one I saw seemed to be in German but there was a fairly good one in English. I haven't gotten around to studying Hebrew yet, though. Advice?

Tibetan

The best book to start reading classical Tibetan is a short little book from England and damned if I know the author's name now. It's short and to the point. Joe Wilson's massive "Translating Buddhism from Tibetan" is a hypermethodical bore if you ask me, but you will know at least the language of Tibetan Buddhist scholarship quite well by the end of it.

[ 23 May 2003: Message edited by: rasmus_raven ]

For a language like Irish - with its wacky combinations of consonants and vowels - you really need to hear it as well as see it. That is, if you're going to learn the language so you can have a conversation. I used to be able to read Old Irish fairly well, with the assistance of a good dictionary, but never really got the pronunciation down. I took some basic conversational classes when I was doing my MA in Dublin, which helped a lot.

Reading Latin may also be good. I have used Reading Greek and it is quite amusing (based partly on characters from Aristophanes), but the narrative dies off after the seventh chapter. Having separate reading and grammar books can be a bit of a nuisance, though, since you have to have both books open at the same time. However, I have not tried Athanaze yet (one of Reading Greek's competitors), only Reading Greek, and Reading Greek is quite good.

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If you have an aptitude for grammar and don't mind a book that is full-bore grammar, then the University of California's Latin: An Intensive Course (I think that's the title) is very good.

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My small Latin comes from a year with this book, and a brilliant teacher. The edition we used was actually an experimental one: the editors were still looking for reactions and comments from the (selected, I think) teachers who used it. Above all, it gave my English grammar the best work-out it has ever had, and given the work I do, that was a real benefit for me.

Our teacher was a TA at U of T at the time. She was a good six to eight years younger than I was, and wonderfully explosive, I thought. A few years ago I was shattered to turn to the "Lives Lived" column at the back of the front section of the G&M to find her lovingly profiled there by colleagues at York U., where she had tenure. Even if I hadn't remembered her name, I would have known at once that this was my teacher. Obviously, she had set things alight at York as well. Damn, but I was sorry to read that obit. She was still in her forties. Breast cancer. Damn.

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For learning Spanish, I recommend Guatemala.

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And vice-versa.

I should mention Hindi. Hindi is the third-most widely spoken language in the world (Bengali is the fifth). As I said, I don't think Rupert Snell & Simon Weightman's book is very good. Rupert knows Hindi quite well but didn't manage to write a good textbook. Simon's Hindi I'm not so sure about. He is a dear, and a character -- I think he was a British spy in Iran in the early 1950s -- but not the person to write a Hindi text.

There is no one good text. Michael Shapiro's book is excellent in parts. MacGregor's Outline of Hindi Grammar is excellent throughout, but not pedagogically brilliant. He covers the main points, especially the most glaring weakness in Teach Yourself Hindi -- its coverage of compound verbs, one of THE central features of the language which foreigners should encounter and master ASAP. The best Hindi grammar is actually a short, flimsy little thing put out by the Central Government. It costs only 9 rupees but it is impossible to order or find, unless you happen to get lucky. (I bought 10 copies of it when I saw it.)

There is a series from Oxford University Press India of very colloquial dialogues in Hindi. This is an excellent resource for learning the language.

It's too bad there isn't a one-stop resource, but there you have it.

[ 23 May 2003: Message edited by: rasmus_raven ]

Actually, a very good grammar of Hindi, unfortunatley written in Hindi, was produced by the Foreign Languages Institute in Moscow in Soviet times. Good luck finding it. They did a lot of good work. Also their translations of Russian literature into Hindi were often very good. Progress Publishers' books are still available in some commie stores in large Indian cities.

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Originally posted by vickyinottawa:
cool....the BBC site has basic Irish lessons as well

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sweet. I've been bored with english, french, and basic dutch for years now. I tried to learn albanian over the internet but the sources are too scarce apart from a grammar archive at some italian university and a collection of travel-related sound bites on travlang.org

For some reason, I have an irish fetish. Welsh as well. Maybe its from being in Ireland and seeing a roadside sign, the english reading "such-and-such town, 30 km", the irish reading something incredibly long like "jasdouhsafklj sadfoirf oihrelhea, 30 km". I think that's so freakin rad.

i'm thinking of taking the introductory Hindi course...obviously it will be way too easy, but it might be beneficial for me to get a good grasp of the grammar, and i'd pick up some vocab. having learned Urdu solely by reading, writing and speaking it, i have very little notion of the grammar...but then i learned Persian grammar through Thackston and then promptly forgot all of it because i just didn't need to think about it much in order to read, whereas with Arabic i habitually parse. perhaps learning the grammar should not be a priority in this case?

i realise also that there are other ways of learning the grammar, but my other concern is that i need to become familiar with the Devanagari script. i'm afraid my Gurmukhi is on and off because i don't practise and because no one ever taught me how to write properly. no one taught me how to write in Urdu either...but i practised incessantly by writing down shi`rs; my handwriting is far more legible now than that of many Urdu speakers because of the care that i invest in the act of writing (not invested in my English handwriting). practise with a reed qalam helps a great deal. also i'm hoping that taking the class will a) teach me the correct way to form the letters, and b) force me to write and read them enough to get them stuck in my head.

at present i cannot read Devanagari; i just haven't had the time or the willpower to assimilate it.

[ 29 May 2003: Message edited by: Mohamad Khan ]

As for grammars, it is a mix of this and that. Macdonnell's student grammar is fine as far as it goes, and his student's Vedic grammar and Vedic reader are quite useful. MR Kale's little grammar is plagued (as usual) by misprints but it is highly useful, and present native grammatical concepts. Louis Renou's Grammar (in French; forgot the title) is excellent. The English benchmark, sadly, remains Whitney. But if you threw Whitney in the garbage and only used Coulson you probably wouldn't regret it very often.

The old standard for Westerners learning was Lanman's Sanskrit Reader, Whitney, and Monier Williams. No primer, no nothing. Start by using the dictionary and the grammar. Luckily, this approach is rarely perpetrated on anyone these days.

The traditional way of learning in India was to read the laghusiddhaantakaumudii and memorize the amarakosha (the world's first thesaurus). It was boring but it worked.

I suggest that you and I read the Panchatantra or something similar (Hitopadesha, for example).

I still crack up remembering the Amar Chitra Katha version of the Panchatantra. In one tiny story, a cocky little bird is pecking at some seeds in the road, and a cart is coming. The other animals warn him to fly away, but he is cocksure and mocks their concern. Within a moment, he is crushed by the cart's wheel. "He did not know it was the express cart." is the penultimate panel's caption. "The express cart" -- only in India!

Devanagari would be easy enough if it weren't for them. in any case, i'm not sure how to get them all into my head; despite the rules it's not happening so far. i imagine that it's something i'll pick up along rather than something i'll be able to learn straight away. i'm getting into the bad habit of writing things out in Roman when taking notes.

i've been trying to practise by writing out Urdu poems in Devanagari; this approach always worked well when i was learning to write in Urdu, because i already have the words in my head, so i can practise while sitting bored in class, or on the subway, etc. but writing out Urdu words doesn't give me practise with some of Sanskrit's consonant clusters. and i don't know any Hindi poetry. maybe it would be wiser to write out lines from the Gita; my copy has the text in both Devanagari and transliteration.

Coulson is really good. but when i reached the section on Sandhi i had to reach for the devavaaNiipraveshikaa. i don't like the idea of a Sandhi table much. i can't flip to the damn thing everytime i write a sentence. and the rules are really interesting, albeit numerous. i copied down about half of them today. really neat, though i'm sure they'll give me trouble later on.

didn't take long to get a handle on the present indicative. likhati, likhatah, likhanti, likhasi, likhathah, likhatha, likhaami, likhaavah, likhaamah. i hope....