Learn Any Language

Gabriel Wyner

April 6, 2013
4:34 pm

Linguistics

Specific Language Resources for other Languages

In general, you’re looking for a way to learn the correct pronunciation of the language, its alphabet (if necessary), a good grammar book, and a good vocabulary book. Once you’re further along, you’ll need another grammar book and some reading material for fun. I’m using this page to store resources for other languages as I get them. I’ll be expanding this page on a semi-regular basis and moving languages to their own pages as I research more resources.

Remember, I’ve made a base vocabulary list of 625 words to start you off! As I talk about in that article, I find it easiest to translate those words using the short dictionaries at the end of a Lonely Planet Phrasebook; they’re cheap, short and give you good, standard translations for your words (just ignore the ridiculous pronunciation guides). Later, when you’re ready for sentences, you can go back to your phrasebook and grab some.

Anki language learners community on Reddit. You can even check out this Anki language learning blog for other Anki tips and tricks for learning any foreign language.

After that, try some of these resources:

Learn Czech

Routledge Frequency Dictionary: Reviewers note that there’s no phonetic information in this dictionary, which means you’ll have to get it elsewhere.

Pronunciation

If you’re serious about perfecting your Czech pronunciation, Timothy Cheek’s book, Singing in Czech (with CD) is wonderful. I don’t know why it’s so expensive nowadays!

Learn Dutch

A wonderful pronunciation guide for Dutch

A reader suggested Frequency Dictionary, and another told us about this free frequency list with 2000 words and this one with 2000 to 5000 words.

You can also access ready-made Dutch Anki decks to boost up your Dutch vocabulary which is recommended, as it could save you time and get you started faster.

There are also other places where you can find a neat set of sentences, which are ranked based upon how frequently the words within those sentences show up within the language, then created Anki decks to store them, with Text-to-Speech recordings of each sentence and translations. They’re a nice resource to mine for useful content; I’d suggest finishing the 625, then looking through them in order for new words or new grammatical constructions, and then learning those new chunks via New Word cards, New Word Form cards and Word Order cards.

Learn Greek

A great resource where you can type in English, using your keyboard, and it will translate into Greek

Learn Hindi

A reader recommended the book for Hindi by Living Language, especially for grammar. Another reader spoke highly of this site, particularly for ear training and writing the Devanagari script.

Another reader shared these Hindi minimal pairs with us, as well as the link to the Anki deck she made for them. Thank you, Rachel!

Learn Bosnian

This wonderful word list was created by Wilm, one of our readers.

Learn Mongolian

A reader suggested that anyone interested in learning Mongolian could make minimal pair audio flashcards from the material in this collection of videos posted on The Mongolist.

Learn Mandarin

A reader suggested the following two resources: The Chairman’s Bao, a simplified Chinese newspaper for those learning Mandarin, and Mandarin Companion, which provides easy-to-read novels in Chinese.

You can also access ready-made Mandarin Chinese Anki decks to boost up your Chinese (Mandarin) vocabulary which is recommended, as it could save you time and get you started faster.

Learn Tamil

One of our wonderful readers got the base word list translated into Tamil. Check it out here. He was also able to get a list of the verbs conjugated for first person singular in past, present, and future tense; take a look. And, to top it off, he made a Tamil pronunciation trainer!

Learn Latin

A reader recommended Practice Makes Perfect Basic Latin (McGraw/Hill) and Wheelock’s Latin 7th Edition, by Frederic Wheelock and Richard LaFleur. She said the latter gives a great history of the language at the beginning.

Learn Swedish

There are some useful Anki flashcards for Swedish to improve your pronunciation, such as the Swedish alphabet, Swedish IPA Pronunciation flashcards and other useful goodies.

There are also places online where you can find a neat set of sentences which are ranked based upon how frequently the words within those sentences show up within the language, then created Anki decks to store them, with Text-to-Speech recordings of each sentence and translations. They’re a nice resource to mine for useful content; I’d suggest finishing the 625, then looking through them in order for new words or new grammatical constructions, and then learning those new chunks via New Word cards, New Word Form cards and Word Order cards.

You can also access ready-made Swedish Anki decks to boost up your Swedish vocabulary which is recommended, as it could save you time and get you started faster.

Learn Turkish

There are places online where you can find a neat set of sentences which are ranked based upon how frequently the words within those sentences show up within the language, then created Anki decks to store them, with Text-to-Speech recordings of each sentence and translations. They’re a nice resource to mine for useful content; I’d suggest finishing the 625, then looking through them in order for new words or new grammatical constructions, and then learning those new chunks via New Word cards, New Word Form cards and Word Order cards.