It's useful to distinguish strata when talking about phonology in Japanese and Korean. You'll find that one set of rules is useful for describing native Japanese vocabulary. You'll find another that is useful for describing Sino-Japanese vocabulary. And you'll find that yet another set work when talking about onomatopoeic vocabulary.

Here, we're talking about Sino-Japanese words, and it gets a little complicated. Japanese borrowed in Chinese words and coined pseudo-Chinese words at several different time periods. It's one of the reasons you often find more than one Chinese reading for a given character (like how 赤 'red' can be read as seki in 赤外 sekigai 'infrared' but as shaku in 赤銅 shakudou 'an alloy of copper and bronze'.

So originally in Japanese, here was no sound /h/. Instead, linguists have reconstructed, based on internal evidence from Japanese and related languages like Okinawan, and from external evidence like reconstructions of how Chinese characters were supposed to sound in Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese historically, that what is today /h/ was originally /p/. So 'flower', which is modern Japanese [hana], would have been Old Japanese (around 800 CE) [pana].

Over time, initial p- became f-. We have really good written evidence for this, because it was still the case when the Jesuit missionaries got to Japan (we can call this Late Middle Japanese or Early Modern Japanese, depending on who you ask). It has since gone from initial f- to initial h-. So fully, 'flower' would have gone from OJ pana to MJ fana to ModJ hana.

Medial -p- has a much more complicated history. It tended to also follow a similar path of -p- > -w- > -∅- (that is, nothing), but there are a number of wrinkles. To give an example of the first, we could look at the Japanese word for 'big'. In OJ, we have opo-. In MJ, we have owo-. This finally deleted the consonant, so we have the modern form of oo-, like in ookii.

There are a number of environments where this is blocked. We only really need to talk about two to deal with the examples OP gives above. First is where we have a geminate consonant (that is, a sequence of /pp/), such as in modern appare 'splendid'. /p/ was also retained after /n/. For instance, in 門派 monpa 'a religious sect'.

It's a little more complicated still, as sometimes Chinese characters like 百 or 表 are treated as ending with a final vowel, like when it appears by itself or at the end of a word (hyaku, hatsu, etc.), but other times, they are treated as having a final consonant, like when they are in the middle of a compound (hyak-, hat-). There's then an additional rule that a consonant cluster in Japanese cannot have consonants which are made at different places of articulation, so that while pp and nt are fine, tp and nk don't work. These are "fixed" by the first consonant taking on the place of articulation of the second one.

And there's yet one more rule where if a compound is easily identifable as a compound, like 朝日 asahi 'morning sun', each word is treated independently, so that the h in 'sun' doesn't act like it is between vowels, even though it really is.

Bjarke Frellesvig's book A History of the Japanese Language covers this in a lot more depth.

The Power of Babel by John McWhorter is a good standby

i’m not sure about everyone, especially by march of next year, but i do think that there’s a good chance the community may increase to 3mil-4mil (from its current ~2mil) speakers by 2025-2035. the introduction of the internet is doing esperanto well. duolingo including esperanto and the introduction of that book that came out in february 2019 is a great push forward for the language. i do have faith that this language will continue to grow, if not to a global level, than to maybe an official status in europe.

Google Translate is notoriously unreliable -- using it to "check" your writing is going to be more trouble than help.

​

Lernu.net is probably your best bet for organized, online learning.

Duolingo is a useful, game-ified supplement.

​

There's some actual books worth checking out. Richardson's

Esperanto: Learning and Using the International Language

is highly recommended.

Availability of the hard-copy can be inconsistent, but it's also available as a free PDF download from Esperanto-USA, as is an 12-lesson audio-course by William Auld.

A quite recent, but already well-recommend, book from Britain is supposed to be available in North America in early January (can be pre-ordered from Amazon, now):

Complete Esperanto: Learn to read, write, speak and understand Esperanto

​

My time has come!!

Websites:

YiddishPop - http://yiddishpop.com Requires Flash. This is a great resource. You should use it.

Yiddish Word of the Week Tumblr Archive http://yiddishwordoftheweek.tumblr.com/archive

Both Der Arbeterring and YIVO offer (paid) online classes.

Yiddish online dictionary lookup: http://www.cs.uky.edu/~raphael/yiddish/dictionary.cgi

1000 Most Common Yiddish Words (haven't checked this list, can't vouch for its full accuracy) https://1000mostcommonwords.com/1000-most-common-yiddish-words/

Yiddish.biz http://yiddish.biz/ - This is a decent beginner resources but the learning material does have a few errors in it, so be careful.

http://www.yiddishculture.org/basiclesson/html1.htm

Another online Yiddish dictionary: http://www.yiddishdictionaryonline.com/

Mango Languages has a Yiddish course that should be free to access through your local library.

Books:

The (Updated) Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary https://www.amazon.com/Comprehensive-English-Yiddish-Dictionary-Gitl-Schaechter-Viswanath/dp/0253022827/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=yiddish+dictionary&qid=1557276655&s=gateway&sr=8-4 Ever wonder how to say "e-mail" in Yiddish? How about "transgender"? It's all in here.

Born to Kvetch - Michael Wex https://www.amazon.com/Born-Kvetch-Yiddish-Language-Culture-ebook/dp/B003J4VE0O/ref=sr_1_1?crid=MI2RSWY63K7S&keywords=born+to+kvetch+by+michael+wex&qid=1557275929&s=gateway&sprefix=born+to+kvet%2Caps%2C129&sr=8-1 Wex is one of the greats in the field

Yiddish: An Introduction - Sheva Zucker https://www.amazon.com/Yiddish-Introduction-Language-Literature-Culture/dp/1877909661/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=sheva+zucker+yiddish&qid=1557275966&s=gateway&sr=8-1-spell

College Yiddish - Uriel Weinrich https://www.amazon.com/College-Yiddish-Introduction-Language-Culture/dp/0914512269/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=college+yiddish&qid=1557275955&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Podcasts:

Vaybertaytsh - a feminist Yiddish podcast http://www.vaybertaytsh.com/

The Yiddish Book Center's The Schmooze https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/language-literature-culture/the-shmooze

Music:

Yiddish Princess https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thlOVsY-2TM&list=PL2CqZe779Hv8HDTb9633P9d9Q7qPXGwr1

Daniel Kahn (has a huge collection of songs both solo and with his band, including this Yiddish cover of Hallelujah: https://youtu.be/XH1fERC_504 )

Amalia Rubin's performance of Der Rebbe Elimelech on a Mongolian TV talent show: https://youtu.be/ANVa-Jh1dMg

More if I think of any later.

EDIT BECAUSE I SOMEHOW FORGOT the online comedy duo YidLife Crisis, including the Greatest Episode Ever guest starring Mayim Bialik: https://youtu.be/A2QlWFSakaM

I strongly suggest you take this time to learn how to search your library/use your inter-library loan system for introductory books, and to speak with your professors for references. I don't say this to be patronizing; finding resources on your own and getting in touch with professors are valuable skills to develop in college.

Wiley and Oxford each have "handbooks," collections of overviews by researchers, on Japanese linguistics. They should be readable as an undergraduate if you've already taken some linguistics courses. Routledge has a three-volume compilation of seminal research articles on Japanese linguistics, but this may be too advanced and narrow in scope. There's an introductory book by Tsujimura and a recent book on historical Japanese linguistics by Frellesvig. Each will consistently reference a handful of researchers (e.g., Ito & Mester and Kawahara for the phonetics/phonology of Japanese) whose websites you can search for more.

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.

Duolingo is pretty bad at explaining things unfortunately. If you are on the desktop website, you can get a bit more information if you click the little light-bulb symbol that appears next to some of the lessons.

However I’d recommend doing another course alongside or instead of Duolingo. For example, you can try the course at Lernu.net or buy the book Complete Esperanto.

The -n ending marks the accusative. You add it to the thing that is being acted on by a verb. In English this is the thing that usually appears after the verb. For example “mi manĝas la pomon” (I am eating the apple). The apple is being eaten, ie, it is the thing being acted upon by the verb, so it needs the -n ending.

>increase my likelihood of getting hired abroad

Getting hired doing what? Where abroad?

Why do you want a minor in French? There are at least a few million other Haitians who are bilingual in French, so how are you bringing extra value to the marketplace with that minor? Wouldn't a Spanish/German/Russian/Chinese/etc. - Haitian bilingual be a rarer commodity?

This all really depends on where you want to go and what you want to do.

As for books:
My intro to ling. class used the book Language Files.
The Language Instinct is pretty good.
I really liked The Unfolding of Language.
The Power of Babel doesn't get too technical, but is an introduction to language change.

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.

'Complete Esperanto' is an excellent, modern textbook:

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Esperanto-Learn-write-understand/dp/1473669189

If you want a free PDF of an older textbook, 'Esperanto: Learning and Using the International Language' is available from Esperanto USA:

https://retbutiko.esperanto-usa.org/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1029_1033&products_id=19232

You'll see PDFs of Ivy Kellerman's textbook floating around, but it's from 1915, and not the best for learning modern Esperanto.

How exciting that you are planning to learn Russian! I'm a four-year student: my high school offered the language (we had a sister city exchange program with Russia), and I took an additional two years in college. I think the biggest roadblocks in learning the language for myself and fellow students were the alphabet and pronunciation. So, here are my recommendations to remedy those hurdles:

1. Alphabet: make flashcards for the alphabet with English phonetic spellings on the back. Instead of trying to learn them in their entire series, break them up into your own categories (vowels, soft sounds, hard sounds, consonants). You'll learn them much faster when you have them in groups, and it will be easier to begin spelling correctly when you have them categorized this way.
   
   
2. Pronunciation: a lot of students in my classes (including myself at first!) were quite shy to participate considering that Russian language, if you are a native English speaker, is WEIRD. One of the very first things my high school Russian instructor did was teach us a song in Russian to get past this obstacle: Понимаешь We sang this every day for a few weeks, and soon, we all were dancing in our chairs and feeling like we had already mastered the language.
   
   ---------------
   While you are mastering your pronunciation, start learning basic phrases and vocabulary. And most importantly, think as much as possible in Russian! Talk to yourself out loud in the language. Your parents may think you are mad, but you will absorb the language so much faster that way. Incorporate it in your daily life in addition to the time you spend studying.
   
   I think the biggest catalyst in learning the language was having the opportunity to spend a month over in Russia helping our sister city with their English summer school program. I had to use Russian every day, little old ladies would talk to me on the bus knowing that I didn't speak a ton of Russian, but that experience brought me back to the US with a wealth of knowledge. I'm not sure what your intentions are for learning the language (whether it be a career interest, future academic pursuit, or just general interest), but you could look into exchange student programs (these are pricey!) and volunteer abroad opportunities for your summers. Of course, there are also study abroad programs that you can look forward to in college as well!
   
   Quite honestly, I don't have a lot of recommendations for online resources as most of my learning took place in the classroom. Try to look for places where you can practice your Russian speaking skills with native speakers. LiveMocha is supposedly a great resource, as you can practice language with native speakers and they will give you feedback after a session. As far as learning materials, this is the textbook and workbook that we had back in high school--I highly recommend them as they are easy-going and a good way to get into the basics of the language: Textbook and Workbook
   
   I'm not sure how large the area is that you live in, but check the library or look into community resources. A lot of places (especially college towns) will have Russian speaking communities or story time for kids. This is another great way to connect with native speakers.
   
   ----------
   
   Here are some final tips:
   
   When you get deep into the dark well of grammar and special cases in Russian, don't fret. My professor in college always reminded us that oftentimes even native speakers were confused by all the special rules. This little guy helped me out a ton in the beginning. Keep in mind that there is much more to Russian grammar than these rules, though, but it is a good general outline.
   
   Contrary to a few of the suggestions here, I think it wise not to overwhelm yourself with everything. Take Russian in steps: 1) Alphabet 2) Pronunciation/sounding out words 3) Basic phrases and vocabulary 4) Then you can get as intense as you would like. Make learning Russian fun for yourself in the beginning! Not to bring in a big foreboding cloud, but Russian grammar can be rather confusing once you get into the more advanced material. Generate a passion for the language now and it will carry you through the more challenging portions you will encounter.
   
   I will reiterate again, incorporate Russian in your daily life! Put vocabulary flashcards all over your house. Get crazy!
   
   Watch plenty of Чебурашка and Ну, погоди!. They are kid shows, but, they helped us learn new vocab and phrases quite a bit.
   
   *You will definitely need this when you begin to write: http://russian.typeit.org/
   
   If you have any questions or need help with anything, feel free to send me a pm.
   
   Russian is a beautiful language. I hope you find enjoyment in it! Удачи в учебе (good luck in your studies)!

I don't have to be a linguist to read books written by linguists, like the one i linked in that argument. Or see the evolution of English in common words such as "goodbye". Contractions, contractions, contractions, gotta love em.

i like these ones:

Beginners’ Complete Guide

Beginners’ Bangla (with CD)

Both are quite pricey but I really liked the second one the most.

From what I understand, I think you're going to need to start with Sanskrit proper before diving into BHS particularly.

http://learnsanskrit.org

This is a very recent textbook, and is supposed to be a very good one. It's not too pricey.

There are some other resources linked to on the official site.

These primers also come recommended to me:

https://www.amazon.com/Devavanipravesika-Introduction-Sanskrit-Robert-Goldman/dp/0944613403

https://www.amazon.com/Samskrta-Subodhini-Sanskrit-Primer-Michigan-Southeast/dp/089148079X

Your best option is to start with a textbook like Uriel Weinreich's College Yiddish and a dictionary . Also another good dictionary . and then move on to simple books which you can find here . Eventually you'll get to some speakers, local groups, or Yugntruf or find some local Chasidim. There are a lot of people speaking Yiddish, you just gotta know where to look!

EDIT: there's also good places online to hear Yiddish being spoken, like the Yiddish Forward Youtube channel (they have a nice series of someone literally sitting in a chair and reading Sholom Aleykhem stories to the camera if you dig in the uploads) or the myriad recordings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe speaking in his distinctive Litvish dialect.

I would start with a beginner Spanish book that explains basic grammar and pronunciation. Maybe something like this

Learn what sounds certain letters make. e.g.

• 'll' sounds like a 'y' so llama sounds like yama
  
  
• ñ sounds like a "ny" so Español sounds like Espanyol
  
  
• etc.
  
  Then keep slowly adding new vocab/translating through Duolingo, while discovering new stuff like ser vs. estar and how to conjugate verbs
  
  Other resources I've been using include
  
  
• Pimsleur (expensive but your library might have or sail the seven seas) It's all audio so I listen to it in the car, doing dishes or at the gym
  
  
• Coffee Break Spanish - Audio only podcasts
  
  
• Memrise - attaining new vocab
  
  
• Some work books from Amazon like Spanish Conversation & Spanish Verb Tenses.
  
  After this you enter the intermediate category
  
  
• read some easy Spanish books
  
  
• start writing 100 words a day like random thoughts, what you're going to do today, etc. don't be afraid to make mistakes
  
  
• start watching shows or movies in spanish, first with subtitles and then without. I've been really liking Extr@ Spanish. It's like a 2002 Friends style sitcom aimed at high school students. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pggZV0ETjI&list=PL-wlhjBlJMB9Hlva6V5Fd_1NWUeJ3IkCX
  
  
  
  
  
  

I have read over 350 books on language learning.

That having been said, this very short book is definitely the best (even after 40 years of reading and learning about languages, I still learned a lot from this short book):
How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately
https://www.amazon.com/Improve-Your-Foreign-Language-Immediately/dp/0989387003

The second "must-read" is The Third Ear: https://www.amazon.com/Third-Ear-Chris-Lonsdale/dp/988988870X

These books are also terrific:
Art and Science of Learning Languages
https://www.amazon.com/Science-Learning-Languages-Amorey-Gethin/dp/187151648X

Language Logic: Practical and Effective Techniques to Learn Any Foreign Language
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0978064100

A. M. Ruppel's The Cambridge Introduction to Sanskrit.

https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Introduction-Sanskrit-M-Ruppel/dp/1107459060/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=cambridge+sanskrit&qid=1561999489&s=gateway&sr=8-1

​

Unlike Zoë Slatoff, who charges $141 USD for her course, Ruppel offers her course on YouTube and in a Yahoo Group for free, with free .pdf handouts. You just have to buy the book! ;-)

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!

Duolingo is good but I still think you'd need additional resources to rank reasonably well on the CEFR scale. It's my understanding that Complete Esperanto is intended to get a student somewhere near B2 / upper intermediate.

Right now I'm using Easy Spanish Step by Step and Pimsleur mostly. I will sometimes listen to Language transfer or watch youtube teachers and lastly I will use duolingo during my train ride in the morning or when I just want a short break from work.

So far Pimsleur helps a ton with actually listening to and speaking the language, while the book gives me a more robust understanding of the actual grammar and empowers me to form my own thoughts. All the sources help expose me to common grammar.

The last thing I do is when I think things I'll often try to see if I can figure out how to say it in spanish just in my head.

One tip for using duolingo though that's helped my learning, for the statements in spanish, try not to look at the phone and listen first and try to understand in your head before you look at the phone at all. If you can't make out the words with just listening (or when a new word is introduced) look only at the statement, not the answer portion and try understanding again. Generally try to avoid looking at the answer portion because usually I've found the answer to be obvious which is unhelpful. Translate in your head first, then select an answer. But always remember that it's not a primary resource. I try to get at least a half hour of spanish every day and I don't include duolingo time in that.

Teach yourself Nepali & Practical Nepali: Learning Nepali the Easy Way

minna no nihongo

http://www.amazon.com/Minna-Nihongo-Honyaku-Translation-Grammatical/dp/4883191079/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1418687322&sr=8-3&keywords=minna+no+nihongo&pebp=1418687327078

About 20 years ago learning Russian I bought something similar to this (I can't find the one I bought), and boy, I did not regret it.

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 grammar book, I would suggest either the Practice Makes Perfect Spanish series, since they have a lot of different workbooks on different subjects. They have one called Basic Spanish which targets beginners: link

Also, there's the Easy Spanish Step by Step series: link

Both have exercises, vocabulary and answer keys to everything so for written practice, they can be pretty helpful!

Just a correction to the title: אני רוצה ללמוד את השפה העברית. Direct objects that are definite should be preceded by the preposition את (et).

This is a good beginner's textbook. You could study it on your own. That combined with the Duolingo you are doing should be a great starting point and last you a little while.

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.

you can check this book- https://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Bengali-Bangla-Audio-CD/dp/0781813522
I found this from a quora discussion (https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-learn-the-Bengali-language).

How much study time do you have available per day? Have you ever learned a foreign language successfully before? Do you speak any other Romance languages fluently?

Assuming you can study at least two hours per day, I would recommend:

1. Get Assimil's New French with Ease with the CD, and do two lessons per day. Spend 30 minutes on each lesson, following whatever variation of the Assimil Dutch instructions pleases you. In 25 days, this will give you a good, basic intuition for how French works, and teach you some useful vocabulary. The nice thing about Assimil is that if you follow the instructions, it works well for almost everybody, and it produces solid results. If you want a grammar overview to go with Assimil, get Essential French Grammar, which is dirt cheap, focused only on the essentials, and an excellent complement to Assimil.
   
2. Since you need to speak very soon, get Benny Lewis's book, which has some good advice on efficiently mastering survival stuff and polite conversation starting very early on.
   
3. A week or two before you leave, skim How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately, which is the bible of dirty tricks for faking a better level than you have. Definitely do his "islands" exercise, and prepare 10 or so islands, getting them corrected on lang-8.
   
   If you think of yourself as a hardcore geek, and you're generally good with languages, there are also a couple of ways to boost your listening comprehension substantially in 30–100 hours.
   
   Total cost: Less than $100, plus some money for iTalki tutors if you follow Benny's advice. But expect to work really, really hard—faking intermediate French after 30 days is a bit like sprinting straight up a steep mountain with a heavy pack. You're trying to compress 350 classroom hours into a month, which means working very hard and efficiently.
   
   Anyway, if you can spend an hour a day on Assimil, and an hour a day on Benny's speaking advice, then you'll get some pretty useful survival French under your belt by the end of the month. Going further than that will probably require studying obsessively.

Is this the book Easy French Reader?

Yes, this book specifically is a fantastic resource for grammar and linguistics. My only warning is that while it says it's written for instructors with minimal understanding of linguistics, it's also written for people with a pretty good understanding of ASL. Having a strong understanding of the fundamentals will really help make this book as effective as possible.

Have you read this book yet?

https://www.amazon.com/American-Language-Teachers-Resource-Grammar/dp/093032384X

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!

ASL is a visual language that has no written form. It can be described in written notation (transcribed), but it needs to be understood that it does not have a written form.

That said there ARE accepted methods in use by linguists who have studied ASL. The following books contain this information.

You might be interested in “The Green Books” and Linguistics of American Sign Language

The Green Books (a teachers resource) goes over the traditional method of transcription of ASL. The second (Linguistics of American Sign Language) goes over a few different methods. The Stokoe method, glossing (which most students will use), and finally the Liddell and Johnson system (movement-hold model).

Why you need to write down what is being signed will determine what the best method for you is. For most cases, glossing is enough. If you need a written transcript of what was said that you can use for more formal linguistic/educational reasons (like research), the Liddell and Johnson system is your go to.

Im currently going through Easy Spanish Step-by Step by Barbara Bregstein. It has pretty decent explanations with exercises that follow. They are decently priced on amazon.

I would also suggest the library. Mine has a lot of audio books including pimsleur, subscription to Mango languages free for members and tons of other resources.

This is the first one:
https://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Step-Step-Barbara-Bregstein/dp/0071463380/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1524764568&sr=8-3&keywords=easy+spanish

I also bought the second book but have not started it:
https://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Spanish-Step-Step-Accelerated/dp/0071768734/ref=pd_sim_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0071768734&pd_rd_r=QHCHPW7S4D9WRY7E7J42&pd_rd_w=lSsan&pd_rd_wg=HDnwj&psc=1&refRID=QHCHPW7S4D9WRY7E7J42

I also bought this book to help with verbs because verbs are a huge part of spanish
https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Spanish-Review-Practice-Second/dp/0071797831/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524764647&sr=1-1&keywords=The+ultimate+spanish+verb

www.duolingo.com to get started on some structured Spanish lessons (free)

www.fluentin3months.com for general guidelines and tips on how to gain oral communication skills quickly (free, and the book is worth it if you become genuinely interested in learning languages)

I am in the exact same boat. Except I still live in the states.

Here are some things my german gf and I have been working on:

• If I want to learn more vocab in a certain area we find news articles about these things and discuss them. I memorize new vocabulary in the news article.
  
  
• I keep a free account on dict.leo.org and try to add 30-50 new vocab words every week. It is a couples-activity for my gf and I to go over the word list together a few times a week.
  
  
• Make yourself read. It sounds like reading is hard for you so far, but push through! Read childrens' books like The Neverending Story (Die Unendliche Geschichte) or a translation of Harry Potter, or whatever you are into. If you like more serious things, there is a lot German literature from the 30's and 40's that is written in a very simple style - I'm thinking of stuff by Wolfgang Borchert or Remarque and it is possible to find readers that have a bunch of german stories together with vocab. Something maybe like this. A good online resource for simple news article material is bild.de, if you can wade through the silly, insipid news articles. Hell, they even bold-text the important parts of news articles because they assume their readership doesn't want to read the whole thing... ;) You can pick up some good vocab, though.
  
  
• Learn to ask your wife about what you want to say. If you don't know the word for "transmission" ask her about "The part that makes the wheels go" or something similar and let her tell you what the word is...and try to remember it!
  
  Hope that helps and that I didn't write too much... Good luck!

For those of you interested in regional dialects and colloquialisms (and also for those of you who get irritated by such things) I highly recommend The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language by John McWhorter

• Teach Yourself Spanish (Latin or España)
  
• Colloquial Spanish (Latin or España)
  
• Easy Spanish Step by Step (I think it's Latin American only)
  
• Assimil Spanish with Ease (España only)

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.

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! :)

Germany Easy Reader and the rest of the series progressively adds new vocabulary, grammar, and complexity as you move on. This first book starts out very simple - you might know everything in the first couple of chapters. But you'll definitely increase your vocabulary and get exposed to more grammar as you progress.

Graded German Reader has more interesting stories, and moves a little quicker. But it does start out with some vocabulary you probably won't use often, IIRC. I'd say the content I've encountered in Germany Easy Reader and German Pre-Intermediate reader feels like it's more applicable to conversations you might have.

go for it if you really want. I took it in undergrad cause I had previously learned german. Know that it is a dying language, and outside of wooing some grandparents it really hasn't been all that useful. This book is gonna be your best bet: https://www.amazon.com/College-Yiddish-Introduction-Language-Culture/dp/0914512269

I recommend the step by step series.

https://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Step-Step-Barbara-Bregstein/dp/0071463380

There's an easy and advanced one. Both really cheap. I finished the easy one right before I went to a language school and it gave me a really good base.

They might generalize some things, but still give a good run down of grammar topics and any need-to-know exceptions. The book also introduces the subjunctive relatively early, which I think helped with my understanding of it.

Man... props on your dedication, I started (sort of) that way in Japanese. I made radically faster progress when I switched to learning phrases instead of words with my anki cards though. It's especially useless to have adverb and other grammar related words on a card with a meaning on the other side (einschließlich, sobald, während... words like that are fucking impossible to learn unless you learn them in context I think) not to mention the trouble that'll come when you hit phrases that don't make a ton of sense on their own, either due to an idiom at play or whatever else (mir ist nicht danach, mir reicht es, etc).

If you can afford it, buy a copy of this. I managed to get a copy for around $20 used... and I love old well-used books, so hey. You might be able to 'find' a pdf copy though if you look around. It won't teach you all the grammar step-by-step, but it's at least really, really accessible and brilliantly put together. I wish all graded readers were this good.

Other than that... start practicing writing using Lang-8. Even if it's simple stuff, just jump in and start writing a few times a week. You'll get corrections from native speakers, identify areas of grammar you don't understand or tend to mess up, and as an added bonus, you'll likely make some friends you can IM with or skype with. Either way though, the sooner you actually start using the real language instead of memorizing word lists, the faster you'll make progress. Good luck!

Oh yeah... it's obviously not perfect, but Duolingo's not a terrible choice for a crash course in Grammar. It's at least pretty well organized, as opposed to blogs like you linked to... those can be great, but can be easy to get lost in if you don't have a plan of which grammar points you're learning and in what order. As a side note... it was pretty uncomfortable for me when I started switching away from raw memorization. That's safe, and it's a pain in the ass to actually start writing or speaking, especially since it's harder to measure progress. (I learned my 20 words today... how do I measure my writing/speaking practice in terms of progress?) but if you just put some time in there every day, it'll pay off in a big way.

https://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Step--Step-Barbara-Bregstein/dp/0071463380/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8


you can get this used on amazon

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).

My life would be amazing if I wasn't a huge pedant, but I'm going to go another round on this. Hopefully we can close this discussion afterwards.

Let's start at the beginning. You say:

>The present day surfice forms are actually identical in Slavic and proto- Dravidian/Tamil 'kur-u' and 'kur-va' "voice" resp. "voice-less".

Right. But the other examples you've cited aren't at all identical, and so my previous description of your phonetic basis for these relationships is more or less correct, right? Or are we down to just these Slavic examples now?

If so, you should realize that most languages share at least a few sounds (the /k/ and /u/ sound being present in the vast majority of the world's languages, and some sort of rhotic r-like sound in a fair share as well). Given the enormous number of words needed in most languages, and the limited set of phonetically possible words in most languages, there's going to be many unrelated languages that have a few similar or identical words. I believe it's John McWhorter, in some recent editions of his book The Power of Babel, who provides a lengthy list of words which have similar form and meaning but which come from demonstrably unrelated languages, or which can be shown to have formed recently, by coincidence. He does this specifically to explain why this isn't a reliable way of showing that languages are related.

>I don't have a theory, it's a sound and meaning comparison with some analogies.

Then what have we been discussing for the past few days? You've been fairly intensely debating with me (and now a few other people, it seems) to prove that there's a relationship between a very specific set of languages, based on a very specific set of words which appear similar. You started this thread by saying that people should more commonly acknowledge that Tamil influenced PIE. Both of these would be theories. That's why we're having this discussion. If you have no opinion on this matter, why have you been defending it?

For what it's worth, my understanding of your most recent theory is that it's this:

• You believe that Indo-European languages, some Uralic languages, and the Dravidian languages share a relatively recent common ancestor. This ancestor is recent enough that the relationship can be demonstrated by a number of words in European languages and Sanskrit which resemble the Tamil word kuru in meaning and shape. Across these languages, this root has been realized in numerous different ways, often with meanings relating to bird, voice or a derogatory term.
  
  If I'm wrong on the details, correct me, but regardless, that's a theory, and a big one. This discussion has been going on for quite a while and it's all here on this thread if you want to review. It really doesn't look like you're just presenting a collection of comparisons, but that you're trying to argue for a specific thesis about the reason for these comparisons.
  
  On the other hand, if you're trying to say that you don't support those points I've listed above anymore, that's fine. But if you've backed away from your hypothesis in light of what's been said here, it would behoove you to graciously admit your evidence isn't as strong as you'd initially assumed. Pretending that you've not actually been promoting this theory is a pretty weak way out.
  
  Now, let's get back to the discussion.
  
  >The historical reconstruction of 'guru' to PIE heavy is a formal reconstruction and there is no meaningful semantic link behind it while this is not the case if we accept there was a common shared Eurasian ancestor between IE and Dravidian languages claimed by the study.
  
  I believe I've provided evidence here that guru was understood to be an ordinary word for "heavy" in Sanskrit, even at the time in which its other, better-known, meaning was coined.
  
  >However the study does not by default acknowledge linguistic historical reconstruction (often contradictory and highly hypothetical for a variety of reasons) to be 100% precise but does provide for and give green light for searching cross-family references no matter what some linguists think.
  
  First of all, no one thinks that we shouldn't be searching for cross-family references. Linguists are constantly trying to prove that languages are related in larger and larger families. The proposed Dene-Yeniseian family is one of the more interesting larger families to be well-received recently, though it's not yet consistently regarded as having been proven. The problem is that linguists require really, really solid scientific proof. And since you're on /r/linguistics, it might suit you to get less defensive when people ask for it from you (though I apologize about the people who are just acting like assholes instead of contributing actual points - they weren't my doing).
  
  Second, even if we do accept the study as valid (which I don't) it makes very specific claims about what sort of words are habitually "ultraconserved" and should be used as evidence for "deep language ancestry". It doesn't even remotely suggest that any pair of similar sounding words would constitute this kind of evidence. Frankly, your examples don't seem to fall within the scope of its very narrow claims.
  
  I do want to acknowledge that it is absolutely true that we "might as well explore the hypothesis of [a] Eurasian common linguistic superfamily". Linguists have been debating many hypotheses for what this - or other, non-Eurasian superfamilies - could look like for years. That's not an issue. The issue is that I don't think that the evidence you're presenting demonstrates any linguistic superfamily. I think it's better explained by the current etymologies we already have, not the ones your propose. I also think there's no Tamil influence on PIE, and that Proto-Dravidian and PIE, if related, are removed by too much time and history to demonstrate a linkage by pointing to a tiny set of similar words. Those are points that I've been trying to make for some time now, and it seems like I'm getting a lot of agreement on them from others - no surprise, as they're what pretty much any linguist would think.
  
  As for the "contradictory and highly hypothetical" nature of linguistic reconstruction, that's not really the case either. While there's debate about the validity of certain proposed families (e.g. Altaic), the debate stems from issues around insufficient data, or proposals that suggest relationships across very long periods of time, to a degree in which we can no longer accurately trace the sound changes which must have occurred. No one doubts the accuracy of reconstruction as a method, just its applicability to certain cases.
  
  Over appropriate periods of time, and with enough data, linguistic reconstruction is remarkably accurate. I've referenced this briefly before, but the PIE laryngeals are a great example. Saussure, one of the fathers of modern linguistics, suggested in 1879 that PIE had a certain set of sounds which hadn't survived into any descendant language, based on evidence from sound correspondences across modern Indo-European languages (this is the kind of data standard reconstruction methods use). Sure enough, when we discovered a previously unknown ancient Indo-European language, Hittite, decades later, we found direct evidence that PIE had sounds in the positions predicted by Saussure based on evidence from one of the oldest Indo-European languages we'd ever seen. Essentially, rather than being "hypothetical" or "speculative", the present understanding is that linguistic reconstruction is demonstrably accurate enough to predict how data from languages we've never seen will look.
  
  Unfortunately for your theory, it's your evidence that's "highly speculative". The only third party evidence is a forum posting which even you have discredited now, and a study which doesn't really have all that much to do with your theory. Basically, you have no real scientific evidence to support your point. The current reconstructions for these words have a much greater weight of real, scientific evidence behind them.
  
  This is a forum about a science called linguistics. I certainly don't think anyone needs to be interested in linguistics. But if you're posting on this forum, there's a reasonable expectation that everyone else is interested in linguistics and knowledgeable of the field. Getting annoyed because people with knowledge of the field disagree with you based on this science is basically the definition of "butt hurt".
  
  TL;DR No tl;dr. Read it.

It's available online https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Esperanto-Learn-write-understand/dp/1473669189

I read it in The Power of Babel.

https://www.amazon.com/Power-Babel-Natural-History-Language/dp/006052085X

Note that trying to speak in a new language for the first time can feel like you are trying to juggle, ride a unicycle and sing an opera all at the same time. Very little of skills you need are yet automatic, so you have to consciously think about each of them.
As everyone has said directly or indirectly, to get good at speaking, you must practice speaking. But there are sub-skills to it that you can try to practice on their own:

1. Pronunciation
   
2. Grammar (e.g. conjugations in many languages)
   
3. Word choice / collocations / idioms / stock phrases
   
   Initially just the physical act of moving your mouth differently to pronounce the language takes concentration. Depending on the distance of your TL from your L1, this can be VERY significant on its own.
   
   When someone says they can't speak well, my response: how many full sentences have you spoken in your TL? Even just reading out loud?
   
   One way to easy your way into speaking:
   Find a list of non-trivial, but not too long sentences (say 4-7 words each) and say them out loud. Make sure a) you know what they mean and b) you know how to pronounce them... even better if you can get a native to help you early on with pronunciation.
   
   Say each one over and over until you are satisfied with your "fluency" with each sentence. Practice the flow of speaking the language for a bit without worrying about "remembering" the content. (Actually, just speaking canned sentences a bunch of times will likely cause you to remember words and phrases from them.)
   
   Once you have some comfort speaking material provided for you, you can work on altering it or just generating your own sentences. You will find a lot of sentences can be usefully reused with simple noun/adjective swaps, e.g. "Where is the ?", "Can I have more ?" This is the beginning of simple conversations.
   
   A very effective way to start this is to create your own language islands (with the help of a native or lang-8), see:
   https://www.amazon.com/Improve-Your-Foreign-Language-Immediately/dp/0989387003
   (No affiliation, I'm just a fan of this book.)

I purchased this book and a sanskrit dictionary. I work through every exercise in every chapter. After chapter 5 it takes me around 5-8 hours of work to complete a chapter. I can read devanagari pretty easily, there are a few symbols that I need to look up but mostly comfortable sounding out words. In the book I linked sandhi rules get really introduced in ch.11 (there are a couple common rules introduced and used earlier.) There are no answers for the exercises so I mostly use my dictionary + this site to check my work.

I've been told there are better books out there but until I finish this I'll keep using it. I'm finished with chapter 11, and I estimate I've put around 60 hours of dedicated study to sanskrit. My fluency is next to nil, but I can suss out simple sentences and word forms. I have an understanding of passive past and present for class I,II,IV,X verbs, and eight or so nominal cases.

Laŭ la video, oni povas aĉeti ĝin ĉi-tie, ĉe Amazon. Ankaŭ, ŝajne, ĉe Esperanto-USA.

I really like Easy Spanish: Step by Step. There's a lot of great vocabulary and exercises (if you're into that), and short stories to read that if you're following along you should be able to comprehend entirely. Oh! and it's cheap!

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.

Ok, sorry for the delay, I checked Amazon and found what I was thinking about.

1. Introduction level 1
   1.1 Standard Minna no nihongo textbook
   1.2 Translation and grammar explanation
   1.3 Write, practice and learn
   
2. Introduction level 2
   2.1 Standard textbook
   2.2 Translation and grammar notes
   2.3 Writing excercices

I've read a bunch of sci-fi/fantasy that have made me think deeply, but I don't think they've enlightened me in any specific way, so the three here are the ones that have had the most effect on how I think.

• The Discoverers, The Creators, and [The Seekers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seekers_(book) by Daniel Boorstin. A Western viewpoint on the development of society, ideas, and technology (but not too Western-centric as to be ignorant). My dad turned me onto these when I was 10 or so (and I've read them more recently too), and to this day they remain the most personally influential academic works I've ever read.
  
  
• Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies and what I consider to be its companion (although slightly drier), Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, both by Jared Diamond. A lot of people have already mentioned/talked about GG&S, but Collapse is an analysis of how societies have failed and the main reasons for those failures from cultural ans geographical perspectives.
  
  
• The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. I have no idea why I read this, and parts of this book are exceedingly dry, but (especially with the annotated version) ideas are laid out clearly, and it is important as essentially the foundation work in the study of economics.
  
  Along with these, I could mention A Short History of Nearly Everything, [The Mother Tongue](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_Tongue_(book), and [Made in America](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_America_(book), all by Bill Bryson, The Power of Babel by John McWhorter, The Prince by Machiavelli, The Art of War by Sun Tzu and a dozen classical discourses and histories. A Short History should really be grouped with the top three, but I feel like I chose the most enlightening ones for me, at least (my family is filled with scientists, so a lot of A Short History of Nearly Everything was more of a well written piece containing a lot of facts I already had some idea about, rather than truly enlightening).
  
  As an aside, if you really enjoyed learning about the eccentricities of many scientists from A Short History of Nearly Everything (along with some of the facts), I would really recommend buying The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors by John Gribbin. It's a fantastic anthology of a bunch of biographies of scientists, from the Enlightenment in Europe almost up to modern times, containing some of the wierdest bits of information about well-known and less well-known (but very important) scientists, mathematicians, and engineers and their most famous and not-so-famous work.
  
  Edit: Formatting. Sorry if some of the links don't work (just add a closed paranthesis to the end of the link in the address bar to make it work). Check out the Amazon pages for the books that I've given Wikipedia links for to get reader reviews (and not analysis) if you plan on buying them.

Fluent in 3 months is another way of basically doing what /u/ixian_probe is suggesting.

Thank you for such a detailed response!

http://myanimelist.net/animelist/nrkid9

Manga is actually what got me into the whole thing, and during my junior year of high school a friend convinced me to watch Angel Beats. Everything on that MAL is what happened afterwards. I must say that anime did change my life and it's probably the driving factor in why I want to learn Japanese.

I have been reading this book on language learning to pick up some tips and it has been an interesting read so far.

Living in the states, immersion isn't easy to achieve. I'm currently taking my first semester of Japanese at a community college I'm attending and the teacher has made the whole experience fun and exciting.

This is great too later down the road.
https://www.amazon.com/Comprehensive-Russian-Grammar-Terence-Wade/dp/1405136391/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Russian+Grammar&qid=1564251948&s=gateway&sr=8-1

As is this.

https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Grammar-Quickstudy-Academic-Outline/dp/1572226986/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=New+penguin+russian+course&qid=1564251934&s=gateway&sr=8-2

Go Billy's book "Korean Made Simple" is a lot better. http://www.amazon.com/Korean-Made-Simple-beginners-learning-ebook/dp/B00JHT4PCE

IMO most books made by Korean people aren't good for beginners because they lack a native English speakers clear explanation of things. A lot of the ones I've seen just jump in using Korean even for the directions. Counter-intuitive if you ask me.

Be sure to get the textbooks. You WILL be using them. Especially the workbooks.
These are what you'll need:
https://www.amazon.com/GENKI-Integrated-Course-Elementary-Japanese/dp/4789014401/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501126453&sr=8-1&keywords=genki

https://www.amazon.com/Genki-Integrated-Elementary-Japanese-Workbook/dp/478901441X/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=478901441X&pd_rd_r=9T6QJ16NYXTG8SS140AV&pd_rd_w=Rs3eV&pd_rd_wg=AzzaO&psc=1&refRID=9T6QJ16NYXTG8SS140AV
https://www.amazon.com/Kanji-Look-Learn-Eri-Banno/dp/4789013499/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501126506&sr=1-1&keywords=kanji+look+and+learn
https://www.amazon.com/Title-KANJI-LOOK-LEARN-WORKBOOK/dp/4789013502/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501126506&sr=1-2&keywords=kanji+look+and+learn

I also suggest getting little things like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Vocabulary-Quickstudy-Inc-BarCharts/dp/1572229195/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1572229195&pd_rd_r=9T6QJ16NYXTG8SS140AV&pd_rd_w=Rs3eV&pd_rd_wg=AzzaO&psc=1&refRID=9T6QJ16NYXTG8SS140AV
https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Grammar-Quickstudy-Inc-BarCharts/dp/1572229128/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1572229128&pd_rd_r=1R88XNVSTEQ0BSSQ6J78&pd_rd_w=lbplP&pd_rd_wg=hbKyk&psc=1&refRID=1R88XNVSTEQ0BSSQ6J78

I only have the TTMIK Level 1 workbook and use it with their free PDF's and audio recordings (not sure about their grammar books). I would recommend that you take advantage of their free resources first before buying the workbook. It's a bit sparse compared to what you would find in, say, traditional school textbooks like the Sogang Korean or Ehwa.

Also if you live in a city that has an online e-book library, you can probably borrow some TTMIK e-books online through Overdrive. I was able to request a few of them at my own library.

Recently I switched over to this book and it covers a lot more than TTMIK. Be sure to read the reviews and click the "look inside" link on Amazon to see if you'll like it.

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.

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

I taught myself French mainly with Duolingo, but I also found Easy French Step-by-Step helpful. Also, Fluent in 3 Months has lots of great tips for general language learning.

If you practice daily, becoming conversational in French by summer end is perfectly doable. What I did is, learn a few new words on weekdays (around 5-10), and then review them all on weekends. Focus on the more common words and phrases, basically what you'd need to know if you were going on a short trip to France. Listen to radio/music too, so your brain gets used to the language.

​

Good luck on your endeavor!

Yes! As for books these one's have really helped me:

• Everything Learning German This one is super great for grammar. It has exercises at the end of each lesson so you can practice too :)
  
• Collins Complete German This one is probbbbably my favorite. I love it, it has a guide for pretty much everything you need to know in the grammar, it explains everything well, and it has verb tables so you can study the conjugation. It has some vocabulary in the back too.
  
• Graded German Reader This one is also really awesome. You can find a used one for 10 bucks on amazon, just the new ones are really expensive because I don't think they are made anymore. This starts with simple reading passages and gradually gets more difficult while adding new words- but it's at a perfect pace so you don't get overwhelmed, and you will probably be able to completely understand.
  
• Cafe in Berlin Another german short story book. This one is great too.
  
• German Pre-Intermediate Reader Another reader- this one incorporates the top 1000 words in German.
  
  I know I have more but these are my favorites! As for movies/shows.. when I watch like youtube videos (try 'easy german') or kids shows I tend to watch them without subtitles. If I'm watching an adult movie/show I pretty much have to use subtitles otherwise I can't pick up anything. I usually put the subtitles in German though, because I read better than I listen!
  
  Let me know if I can help you with anything else :)

Regarding learning bangla, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Bengali-Bangla-Audio-CD/dp/0781813522&ved=2ahUKEwiJ4uSQyc3gAhXwTN8KHR3GA8QQFjAAegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw2UBkRzpuQxLqCuyM3S7k5_

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.

​

Not to de-necro an old thread, but some here might be interested in the book "A History of the Japanese Language" by Bjarke Frellesvig, where he goes into a big section on old Japanese. Among a few highlights are eight vowels, no vowel length, and many words beginning with "h" began with "p". So many homonyms today were not in OJ. Interesting reading, a bit thick though, and not cheap.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Japanese-Language-Bjarke-Frellesvig/dp/1107404096/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419784277&sr=8-1&keywords=Frellesvig

I'm skeptical that it's "almost the same as when the island was settled."

I'm no expert, but in reading The Power of Babel The author notes that even in isolated cultures, the language still changes to the point that 2 or 3 generations later natives can tell the difference. That is, they'll say things like "That's Old Tangier, like my grandma used to speak."

I would combine Duolingo with Lernu: https://lernu.net/en

You don't have to spend money, but if you want to, I've heard good things about the Teach Yourself Esperanto book (it's a pricey though): https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Esperanto-Learn-write-understand/dp/1473669189/ref=sr_1_1?crid=L17CYNEAZJ1E&keywords=teach+yourself+esperanto&qid=1573258720&sprefix=teach+yourself+esper%2Caps%2C213&sr=8-1

There's also the textbook by David Richardson, which is available as a very inexpensive ebook; the reader near the end of the book is valuable: https://www.amazon.com/Esperanto-Learning-Using-International-Language-ebook/dp/B06X96ZDZ1/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3C83DAZAWX3V1&keywords=esperanto+richardson&qid=1573258790&sprefix=esperanto+rich%2Caps%2C217&sr=8-1#customerReviews

After you've made it to the end of a course and have a bit of a grasp of the language, you can do ekparolu, which is a program that matches learners up with fluent Esperanto speakers for 10 free skype sessions: https://edukado.net/ekparolu/prezento

If you live in or close to a city with an Esperanto club I would go to that too; they're usually pretty easy to find online with a bit of googling and it's important to start trying to speak the language out loud as soon as you can even if it's hard or you can only really say "saluton" and "ĝis".

Amuziĝu :)

There's also one for french.

One thing you can try is googling "intro modern hebrew syllabus" and see what texts those introductory courses are using (I know the UofA only has courses on biblical hebrew, but many other institutions teach modern hebrew). Here's a few books on Amazon that I found off of those syllabi .

Text 1 and Text 2

The UofA libraries also gives you free access to some ebooks like this one if you want to save costs.

If you look around I'm sure you can find a text that suits you.

Here’s one:

Japanese Grammar (Quick Study Academic) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1572229128/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_xh3SDbJA5H3QC

There are a few of them!

I'm using "hebrew from scratch" and I'm very satisfied. I started with no knowledge about the language and it worked well. https://www.amazon.com/Hebrew-Scratch-Part-1/dp/9653501127

FYI advanced gloss is far more detailed than you may realize. For example, see http://theinterpretersfriend.org/tech/cl.html and http://www.start-american-sign-language.com/sign-language-symbols.html

It can get more complicated. For more information, also see the American Sign Language "Green Books" Teacher's Resource Text on Grammar and Culture http://www.amazon.com/American-Language-Teachers-Resource-Grammar/dp/093032384X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420357361&sr=1-1&keywords=American+Sign+Language+teacher+cokely#reader_093032384X

This - I love the supernatural aspect of the story, the anime is good but now I want to get started on the books! (though If I'm going to get that, I should find a dictionary and/or learn some more)

As far as why I love Japan, that's because of the food, art (in all it's clean forms), and history.

Lots of people won't pay, that's true. But it's also true that many will. Learning a language involves a huge time commitment and for many people accelerating that has a lot of value. Benny Lewis talks about ways to learn for free, but people can and do pay him for some of his products:

• "Fluent in 3 Months" book on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062282697/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0062282697&linkCode=as2&tag=fluein3mont-20
  
  
• $97 "Plus" package: http://fi3mplus.com/premium/
  
  So it's tough but not impossible.

I'm hearing this too.
Additionally, such was pointed out to me in the first few pages of this textbook

I assume "no one speaks Esperanto" is hyperbole - there are thousands of fluent speakers, and over 2 million "active learners" on Duolingo. There are many languages in the world that don't have as active a speaker base.

"There is no Esperanto culture" is also an invalid criticism - there are thousands of Esperanto books as well as translations of popular books like The Hobbit or Alice in Wonderland. There is plenty of music and videos to be found on YouTube. There are several subreddits in Esperanto. You can learn it for free on lernu.net and duolingo, or go further with any of a number of courses available in book form or in person.

The valid criticism that people make is that "no one speaks it as a first language" and therefore there is nowhere in the world where you can "go" to use the language the same way you would French, Chinese, or Russian. Many people think it's not worth learning because of that. But here's the thing... THAT WAS THE POINT. Esperanto was designed to be the world's second language. It was never meant to supplant anyone's mother tongue. It was meant to be everyone's second language, so that no matter what your first language was, you could speak to anyone in the world. To me, that's pretty cool.

Unfortunately, because there was no native speaker base to spread its use, it never attained its goal. It would require a push from a large group of world governments to make that happen. And because of that, it probably will never become a world second language the way it was intended. For now, speakers of Esperanto will have to be content with Pasporta Servo

If you're not very advanced https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071463380/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_image_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I use this, it's ok, has helped me so far.

This should help if you are willing to spend a bit: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1444101978/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522138637&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=complete+nepali

>I want to learn how to write grammatically correct Japanese sentences with the help of Google Translate
>I don't need to actually learn Japanese, I hope I can get good enough by only knowing the sentence structure. Maybe there are some books which can help me?

You want to learn to write Japanese without learning Japanese? I don't know how to resolve those two. But i guess you could start with:

• Dictionary of Japanese Grammar Dictionary of Japanese Grammar (3 book bundle) or just the first book or that and the second book
  
• Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Grammar or online
  
• Japanese Grammar (Quick Study Academic)
  
• Japanese For Dummies
  
  

I would recommend you start by buying this book. It's been of great help to me! Give it a try! It'll change the way you think about learning a language.
https://www.amazon.es/Fluent-Months-Anyone-Language-Anywhere-ebook/dp/B00DB3D352