Learning Ideas for the New Week

This week was a bit scattered, language-wise. But I've run across some interesting ideas in the process. In no particular order...

FrenchPod: I'd looked at this when it got started up out of curiosity, but hadn't got back to see the more advanced lessons. This weekend I listened to an intermediate and an upper-immediate lesson. They were both well-executed and covered the sort of things a good French-speaker trying to start speaking more naturally would benefit from. If you're just learning French, start at the beginning. But if you're in second-year French and want to start sounding like a real French speaker, give the intermediate lessons a look.

The Iverson Method: The other day, Josh mentioned this and I wandered over to find out more. I've made some minor adaptations and am finding the system good for reinforcing vocabulary with textbooks. It's also good to pre-read a passage and learn the vocabulary so that it can be read at one clip.

Michel Thomas Mandarin: I've finished the two-disc set and have found two things: It covers less than I'd like to have learned, but what it's covered it covered well. I'm particularly pleased with the system for learning tones, which I'm also using with outside learning. The set seems to take too long on tones, but if they're learned, they're learned, which is better than what I've found with most systems. If your tones aren't coming together and you've got a few hours to spare, give it a try.

Update: Heard from some of the folks in the ChinesePod family regarding their affiliates program. If you're a fan and run a language blog, be sure to check into it for your site too.