The LanguageGuide.org Blog

The Pictorial Hungarian vocabulary guide is now available.  Hungarian is a very unique language and according to linguists isn't related to any other European language. You certainly get that idea when you hear it spoken. I had the pleasure of recording two Hungarian volunteers in Austin, Texas. Beata and Levi Peto here pictured with their pets Pupák (buddy in Hungarian) and Tök (pumpkin). Please visit the Hungarian vegetables page to hear the proper pronunciation of Tök and learn other veggies. Beata first came to the USA to meet Cesar Millan, the "Dog Whisperer" . She was invited to his dog dog psychology center where she ended up helping train two of  Cesar's dogs: Blizzard & Junior. While Cesar's specialty is making dogs psychologically normal, Beata teaches them advanced tricks and behaviors. During her stay in Los Angeles she met her husband Levi who had come years earlier as an aspiring Rock musician. ...

The Dutch guide   has been published. Translated by volunteers, the voices are all of volunteers as well. Anne-Marie Ozaki is a teacher at NTC Houston. NTC Houston stands for “Nederlandse Taal en Cultuur Houston” or Dutch Language and Culture Houston. You can hear her voice on Het Lichaam (The Body) , Het Lichaam II (The Body II) , Herenkleding (Men's Clothing) , Groenten (Vegetables) , Boerderijdieren (Farm Animals) , and Kleuren (Colors)  Her voice was recorded by her husband, Michio Ozaki, in their home recording studio.  Anne-Marie Ozaki and Michio Ozaki You can hear the voice of Cees van der Linden on Getallen (Numbers), Het Gezicht (The Face) , Fruit (Fruit) , Huisdieren (Pets) , Vogels (Birds) , Reptielen & Amfibieën (Reptiles & Amphibians) , and Zeedieren (Sea Animals) . You can hear the voice of Marion van Dijk on Zoogdieren (Mammals) , Afrikaanse Dieren (African Animals), and Insecten (Insects) . Cees van der Linden is a resident of Los Angeles...

The English UK guide has been published. I'm visiting Morelia, Mexico again and had the good fortune of sharing a room at Hostal Allende with Jonny Gannon, who recently spent a year studying and teaching in Aguascalientes. When I first arrived at the hostel I heard Jonny speaking to a friend in Spanish and his accent was so good, I asked myself whether he was Mexican. It turns out he has a knack and in turn did an amazing French, Scottish, and then an American  accent. When doing the American accent, he pretended to be Steven, a Boston red-sox fan from Massachusetts, and to my American ears it was flawless. Perhaps to make me feel better about my inferior Spanish accent, he acknowledged that it is his forte and that he's less strong in audio comprehension. (My strength is audio comprehension due to my watching telenovelas  and series .)  Jonny studies Modern Languages at the University of South Hampton and speaks fluent French, Spanish, and German. After a demo he vol...

Some new categories have been added to the Mandarin Guide -  数字 (Numbers) ,   面部 (The Face) ,   身体 2 (The Body II) , and 农畜 (Farm Animals) . The voice you hear is that of Julie Zhu,  director of director of the Los Angeles Chinese Cultural Center . Julie is orginally from Beijing but has been a longtime resident of Los Angeles. In addition to teaching at the Los Angeles Chinese Cultural Center she teaches at local high schools. There are some other recordings I made with Julie that I hope to publish soon.

The board of directors of Language Guide has decided to run ads on portions of the English and French guides to try to fill a budget hole. If you're using these pages in a school environment, send me an email and I'll send you a link that disables the ads. We weren't able to reach our fundraising goal earlier this year which has required the ads. After the budget hole is filled, there are some ideals we're going to try to encourage donations, and we're gong to pursue other funding sources. Our goal is to fund the project through the npr / pbs model - a combination of donations and perhaps underwriters.

If you're using a browser that supports SVG  ( IE 9 ,  chrome , firefox, safari), you'll notice new features on the body page ( English body , French body , Russian body , Mandarin body , Japanese body ) and face page ( English face , French face , Russian face , German face , Italian face ). When you place your cursor over a red circle, the portion of the body that is being referred to is outlined. (The effect is most visually appealing in google chrome due to it's great support for SVG filters.)  You can choose the level of difficulty that you prefer using a drop down menu that's next to the options menu. On the body page if you choose an intermediate difficulty, the red circles that refer to the names of individual fingers, the hamstring and shoulder blade disappear. If you choose the beginning difficulty level, you can focus on words like arm, leg, hand, and head. When doing a quiz, you'll only be quizzed on the words tha...

A portion of the new Spanish of Mexico vocabulary guide is now available. This past winter I travelled to Morelia, Mexico and did most of the recordings there. (Thankfully the  narco siege  was over.) Paula One of the voices you hear is that of Paula, a teacher at the Baden Powel Institute , a Spanish school in Morelia. You can hear her voice h e r e . You can also hear my good friend Romelia Núñez Juárez h e r e. Romy is a doctor that works for la cruz roja. Katia Finally there is Kathia Jemal who is originally from Morelia but currently works in an art gallery in San Antonio. You can hear her voice h e r e .