Pimsleur Korean Level 1 Lessons 16-20 by Pimsleur
There is still a lot of "buying stuff", but it feels this is finally branching out into a little more useful Korean. It would be useful to just go through some general counting rather than have random numbers here and there.
Korean in 40 Minutes: Learn to speak Korean in minutes with Collins by Collins
This is a quick intro to Korean with short, useful phrases to repeat. This one actually feels a bit too fast to repeat - even at normal speed.
Pimsleur Korean Level 1 by Pimsleur
Amazon doesn't have a link to the current full level one, so I linked to an old CD. This has 30 30 minute lessons. You are supposed to do one per day. You can check it out for 21 days at the library. This leads to a small math problem. The content seems ok, but I find it better to check out the individual 5 lessons chunks so that they can actually be finished.
Pimsleur Korean Level 1 Lessons 1-5 by Pimsleur
This Korean course was a nice length that can be completed in a library checkout. There are other Pimsleur courses that have 30 lessons. This is a problem if you are supposed to do one a day and can only check out for 21 days. It attempts to use a conversational style of learning. However, there is too much English. It becomes "duolingo phrases" with most of the effort being matching English phrases to Korean phrases. They recommend going to the next level once you can respond appropriately to 80% of the prompts. After repeating lessons a few times, I finally just decided to skip ahead. There is no magic here. Luckily it does build on phrase work in future lessons so things are gradually drilled in.
Korean Folktales for Language Learners: Traditional Stories in English and Korean by Sukyeon Cho, Yeon-Jeong Kim and Andrew Killick
This is a language learning book disguised as a storybook. The Korean folktales are presented in both English and Korean. The book contains additional instruction on the basics of Korean characters and language. There are also definitions of many of the Korean words used. This would be a great text for intermediate Korean language study. Even without knowledge of Korean, the book works as a series of English stories. The folktales are short and include a paragraph of discussion. There are some that have parallels in the west (such as Cinderella). Many of them emphasize traits important to Koreans, such as humility and family loyalty. It would be a great book to revisit after learning more Korean.
Learn Korean: 3000 essential words and phrases by Collins Dictionaries
This audiobook is exactly as described. It went through the 3000 words and phrases, giving the English and then saying the Korean twice with space to repeat. The English words are all British English. I felt I was learning British almost as much as Korean. For modern terms like the "boot" of a car, the Korean word was the American word ("trunk") with a Korean accent. Many of the "older" words (such as months) had some clear Chinese influence. The audiobook does have some logical groups, but doesn't have any progression or context. It may be useful for refreshing vocabulary, but does not really sufficient for learning.
A Guide To Korean Characters: Reading and Writing Hangul and Hanja by Bruce K. Grant
I checked this out intending to learn Korean writing. It does cover the writing systems. However, the Korean characters are only in the inside cover. The rest of the book covers Chinese characters. From what I have heard, these Chinese characters are only rarely used in Korea today. I'd rather find a book that focuses on Korean writing.
In-Flight Korean: Learn Before You Land by Living Language
This is a quick 1 hour course designed to give you some "basics" before going to Korea. It jumps right into some useful phrases. I listened at 1x speed, but still had trouble keeping up. There is a printed section that goes with it that does not seem to be included. I got a little lost when it started jumping to numbers in Chinese - but that didn't quite sound right. Only later was it clear that these are two different flavors of numbers in Korean that are used for different purposes.
Pimsleur Russian Level 1 Lessons 1-30 by Pimsleur
This is available for a 21 day checkout via Libby. Audible has the similar lessons in 5 lesson chunks. You can also purchase a CD from Amazon with 16 lessons. It looks like Libby is the best deal. However, you are supposed to do a lesson a day, and 30 spans more than the 21 day checkout. I started the lessons after it was checked out for a while. I did about a week's worth of lessons, then the loan expired. When the renewed one came, I had lost interest. I really need to listen at 1x speed to grasp it, and it feels like things take much too long at 1x.
As for the course, it seemed reasonable. It starts out with the very practle. A lot of "do you speak Russian?" conversation starters. Each lessons reviews the previous lessons and then builds on it some. It is specifically meant to be audio only. I felt I was learning some. When I didn't focus well, I did not make much progress. It is hard to listen to something for 30 minutes in a way you can stay focussed and speak things out loud.
The Life of Language: The Fascinating Ways Words are Born, Live & Die by Sol Steinmetz and Barbara Ann Kipfer
Though this book is well structured, each chapter could easily be read independently. There are explorations of various ways that works enter the English language. Some words are formed by moving existing words to a new part of speech. Others are coined, come from foreign languages or come from proper names. There are many other sources for words. The book provides details on how words enter the language and provides abundant examples. English is especially flexible. While it has Anglo-Saxon roots, there have been various waves of strong influence, such as Viking and Norman French. The language does not have a governing body, and thus is very flexible in adding new words that are found useful. The global spread of the language helped to allow words get adopted from many sources. Words continue to be added from many sources, such as technology. Some words gradually lose popularity as they have "better" words for their use. (However, retronyms are common to refer to items such as "acoustic guitars" that need modern clarification.)
Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It by Gabriel Wyner
Why can toddlers easily pick up a language, why adults struggle? Partially because we are doing it wrong. Toddlers are exposed to huge amounts of language. They are willing to try to make many mistakes. They try a lot. They learn the most common words and grammatical structures first. They don't have preconceived notions of sounds. As adults (or teens) we are often "too smart" for our own good and don't spend enough time practicing.
How can we resolve this? We have many tools available. Google image search and youtube videos can be helpful for informal exploration. RhinoSpike, Forvo and Foreign Service Institute are all useful free resources. The author also pitched his own Fluent Forever as a pay site. There is abundant media available in multiple languages. (Harry Potter was mentioned as a good example.) TV series are great because you get some familiarity. Music is not as good. (We often sing incorrect version of lyrics in our native language.)
Even with the best tools, we need to devote work and practice. It does take time. Full immersion is the best way to learn. Learning the most frequent vocabulary first is the best way to go. It lets us gradually build on that as we learn more. Speaking without an accent requires some "unlearning". Each language has its own phonemes that may differentiate in ways your mind is not used to. Practice and experience help. The author also encourages flash cards as well as some memory associations. Learning a language takes time and exposure.
Word Workout: Building a Muscular Vocabulary in 10 Easy Steps by Charles Harrington Elster
This book is built as a study guide to help you learn new vocabulary. You could use it that way. However, I found it worked great reading straight through. It presented a variety of words in context with proper pronunciation and a look at their history. Some of these are fairly common words. Others are rarities. The author is strongly opinionated as to the elimination of "redundancy" in speech. While it may be fine if everyone is "in" on the rare word, redundancy does help when you want to drop a rare word and still let those not in the know understand. Being concise can sometimes be the enemy of being understood.
In Other Words: An Illustrated Miscellany of the World's Most Intriguing Words and Phrases by Christopher J. Moore
No two languages are exactly alike. Each language has some words that cannot be directly translated to words in other languages. This short illustrated book explores explores "untranslatable" sayings from other languages. Some are individual words, while others are longer sayings. The words also provide some insight into the nature of the language and people. Some words (like "nirvana") have migrated into usage within English, while others remain obscure in English.
Uncharted: Big Data as a Lens on Human Culture by Jean-Baptiste Michel and Erez Aiden
The Google book-scanning project gives us easy access to a great library of books and can help us understand the evolution of language. The authors were able to analyze how words changed and when they changed. Many irregular verbs have slowly gone out of style. The least used ones are the first to regularize, while the more common ones are slower to change. We can also see how words like babysitter gradually evolve.
The describe their findings as well as the work they have gone through to be able to do the research. There are plenty of great nuggets in the book. However, the writing, while personable comes up lacking.
The mind is good at simulating activity. Athletes can "practice" just by envisioning in their mind what they need to do. (Though they need to do it right - if they practice striking out, it will just help them striking out.) The brain can do just about everything in "dry run" mode before hitting the actual movement.
Another problem with comparing languages is the similarity of most of the languages being compared. The commonly studied Western European language have many elements in common. Much larger differences are found in aboriginal languages (many of which are dying out.)
One example given in the book was that of positioning. Positions are typically given relative to the person (left, right) or absolute (east, west). In English, we will switch between the two based on the situation. However, there are some languages that exclusively use absolute positions. This results in changes in how they view the world. They tend to have better ability to know the positioning wherever they are.
Other examples of differences are with gender. Some languages have strong genders, while others do not. German has gender for everything, but the gender does not necessarily correspond to what we would think of as the sexual gender. This can lead to some rich understanding in poetry that is missed when translated to English. There have also been studies showing impacts in reaction time with gender matching the appropriate gender.
Color is another element that differs from language to language. Some languages have common words for more colors, while others have fewer unique colors. While people can distinguish between the different colors, those without language distinction are more likely to mentally group the colors together.
This book scratches the surface of the impacts of language in thought. While any language could theoretically express any thought, some can do it much easier than other. While this is controversial in the realm of spoken languages, it is a regular argument in computer programming languages. Different languages are better for accomplishing certain tasks. Programs written in languages have different reputations. Languages like C# and VisualBasic tend to attract immature programmers, while C and Assembly are written by masters. Perl is great and text processing, but horrible at reusing. Even though C, Java and JavaScript have a similar base level syntax built on curly braces, they are all very different and used for different programs. Are there significant differences in human languages?
The book is very long and full of examples throughout history. It follows a mostly chronological history of the world through languages. Languages like Sanskrit, Hebrew and Arabic have been tied to religions and have had long histories. Mandarin Chinese is tied to a large empire and has a long history. By using pictographs, many different dialects can easily communicate with each other. English has had a relative short history, yet has become an important language. It had barely come into being when the country was conquered by the Norman French. They attempted to put their language in place for administration, yet left the local language for the commoners. Eventually English came back, and became well used in the colonies. English supplanted the multitude of local indigenous American languages. (In part due to the people dying an due to the many different languages.) The greater number of colonists helped English dominate the other European languages. Spanish and Portuguese had similar fates in their empires (though for somewhat different reasons.) The Dutch had a vast empire, but very little language staying power. They did, however, help give birth to the Malay/Indonesian language.
France became an important tongue in Europe and a large lengua franca. This was due in part to the early unification of France. The country had a standardized language and also had a more unified environment and power in their country. However, in the last century, French has lost the position of the "global language" to Islam.
Arabic became extremely common due to the connection with Islam.
The book focuses only on some of the larger languages. There are occasional generations on reasons for the rise and fall of languages, with analysis of a few common reasons. However, the main focus is on exploring the history.
Often words start out with nouns used to represent a certain thing. Later, these may be adapted to refer to a property of the things. (For instance "orange" refers to both the fruit and the color orange.) Verbs come out of actions related to things. Grammatical constructs arise from different words. These are often simplified as they become more common. ("gonna" is an example today.)
In the past, people would often refer to a rise or decline of language. However, language often changes in more of a loop. Commonly used words may see the sound collapse. Later emphasis may be added bringing back a greater sound. A words may be combined and added, and then later separated. Sounds may change based on patterns of similarity or ease of pronunciation.
This book has an interesting exploration of how language is changing, has changed and may have changed in the past.
He starts with his experience teaching English. He was not a fun of the "boring" way that language is taught as a second language and seeks to make it more interesting. Some of this interesting language is grammatically correct nonsense, but it helps those to learn langauges.
He goes on to look at different languages. There is different meaning that comes out of different languages. There are also languages like Manx that are barely surviving.
There were many interesting bits, but the book seemed to lack a cohesive story.
