The LanguageGuide.org Blog

    When viewing pictorial guide pages on desktop size screen, the images now automatically reposition themselves to best take advantage of the available screen size: (for example L'espace in the French vocabulary guide or Space in the English vocabulary guide) The French vocabulary and French grammar guides went through additional rounds of review by native speakers, as well as the German , Spanish , Italian , and Portuguese vocabulary guides. In most cases two separate native speakers reviewed content which is helpful in identifying regional variants . Some technical issues affecting the Speaking Challenge were fixed as well as issues in which words or images had no audio. The expectation is that the guides be reference quality and everything should have audio. If you notice anything that seems amiss, feel free to write Tom at languageguide.org@gmail.com . The Spanish , Italian , Portuguese and English UK vocabulary guides were expanded.

The 'Speech Challenge' now supports voice recognition on Google Chrome although it's not yet supported on IOS. Go to an interactive picture page such as insects , one of my favorites. (ou  les insects pour les étudiants de français),  After clicking on the 'Speech Challenge' button, click on the microphone toggle on the top bar, and confirm that you wish to use the microphone. Say the name of the selected insect! Upon hearing your voice, the correct word is uttered allowing you to make a quick comparison of pronunciation and word choice. Interacting  with the page this way is a lot more fun than clicking on the page or play button. Please let me know if you experience any issues or see other problems since quite a few changes were made to the scripts.

One of the objectives of the vocabulary guides is to help you become an expert in particular domains. Several years ago when I was living in France, I found that I was totally at ease conversing about certain topics, but really struggled talking about chores and housekeeping with my French roommate.  The housekeeping pages on the French Vocabulary guide were the fruit of these vocabulary struggles:  " la buanderie " (the French version of the Utility Room), Messes , Chores , and the Laundry . If you learn the vocabulary on these pages you'll be able to describe messes, cleaning and chores with sophisticated, precise vocabulary.  There are also versions for people learning English. Go to the English vocabulary guide, select your native language in the upper left hand corner, and go to the Home section.

The interface for the French complimentary vocabulary pages have been updated. Feminine adjectives now appear in a pink rectangle to the right of the masculine adjective.

A new Hindi vocabulary guide is available.

Languageguide.org  has a new more intuitive, mobile friendly interface. The changes have been progressively rolled out over the last 6 months so if you're a regular user of the site you're probably already familiar with it.  The Welcome Page The welcome page of the site has a completely new look. Every hour the background image changes, hopefully giving users wanderlust and more motivation to learn a language.   Visual Vocabulary Guide The image based pages have been refreshed. Now whenever a part of an image is referred to, for example the shell of the turtle in the Reptile & Amphibian Vocabulary , it will appear in a circle or shape that has been shaded in such a way that it appears to be floating over the page. Two red buttons appear at the top of the page - the Speaking Challenge and the Listening Challenge. Rather than trying to simply absorb the vocabulary, I encourage you to attempt each page's challenges. If you have activated game mode , yo...

A version of the pictorial vocabulary guide for learning English is now available as a free IOS and Android app . The app includes a 'game' which will soon be integrated into languageguide.org  and the interface has been revamped to be mobile friendly. More languages will be available as apps in the months to come.

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 .

Recently a new  Italian vocabulary guide was published. One of the v o i c e s y o u h e ar is that of Giovanni, my hostel roommate in Morelia, Mexico. During our discussion of what we do, I gave him a demo of the project and he volunteered! Giovanni is a winemaker and world traveler. When it's harvest time in the southern hemisphere, you'll find him in Chile, Argentina, or Australia. When it's harvest time in the north, you'll find him in a vineyard in California or Europe.

New complementary vocabulary categories have been added to the French guide. I recorded Fabien, Marie-Hélène Rulence, and Claire Alexandre - three friends and volunteers - during my last days in Paris. The new categories are  le temps - suite ,   l'école - suite ,  l' école - suite & fin , l'électronique -suite , les animaux , les animaux de la ferme - suite , les animaux de compagnie - suite ,   les vêtements ,  les vêtements - suite , l'argent - suite , l'argent - suite & fin ,  la santé ,  les maladies & les symptômes ,  les médecins et les hôpitaux , and  la santé mental . Marie-Hélène Fabien

I'm hoping that the new versions of the pictorial vocabulary guides which are being developed through the wiki can be published early next year. You can find the previous versions of the guides here. עברית (hebrew) हिन्दी (Hindi)

Last week languageguide.org's hard drive crashed. I happened to be traveling in central France and when I returned to my apartment in Paris the router was dead. As a result getting the site up again has been a challenge. I've been working from coffee houses, libraries, and " la mairie du 10e ". Unfortunately, I don't have a backup of the sounds files for most of the languages at my current location. They're on a DVD back in the US. Rather than get those old guides running again, I would prefer that we make a push to get the new versions of those guides translated and published. These new versions are in the mode of the French and English guides with additional enhancements coming soon and you can participate in the creation of these guides on the add your language page . P.S. I'm implementing a better backup and recovery strategy to prevent this from occurring again.

I'm going to be Paris for the next three months. In addition to finishing the recordings for the French pictorial guide, I'm going to be recording a series of interactive readings on French history with a focus on the revolution. Whenever someone asks me why I'm in Paris, in addition to talking about enjoying life in France, I give them this 'carte de visite'. Later this fall I'll be traveling to Amsterdam, Milan, Barcelona, Madrid, and London. If someone in those cities would like to contribute their voice, I'll have my recording equipment.

This week I recorded Patrick Rech, a volunteer from France. You can hear his voice h e r e . Patrick is a former Parisian who now lives in the United States. As an American who came close to settling in France, and who has a great appreciation for life in France (the 35 hour work week, long vacations, affordable health-care, shared bicycles, good public transportation, markets in the city square) it was really interesting to talk to someone who chose life in the US. Patrick appreciates the entrepreneurial friendly climate, the can-do attitude, and enjoys the more expansive personal space that the more spread out American cities allow. (Part of this decision to stay might have been influenced by that American women love his french accent) In the end I think that both societies have something to offer. Cette semaine, j'ai enregistré Patrick Rech, un bénévole français. Vous pouvez entendre sa voix ici. Patrick est un ancien parisien qui habite maintenant aux États-Unis. En tant qu’...