learning

Here are some of the sites I'm visiting the most this month:

Kwiziq Spanish and Kwiziq French

I don't do a lot of the quizzes (although I could be doing more than I am, I should do that), but I find the grammar explanations and the example sentences really helpful. Some sites have example sentences that seem like things that no one would ever say, or that don't really illustrate the grammar point very well; Kwiziq does a really good job here.

Someone over on Ask MetaFilter asked about paid search engines, and the hive mind, being the helpful hive mind that they are, also suggested various free alternatives to Google Search.

One of the recommendations was for Lycos:

I was reading Engineering Managers do Triage work. Do we know this? , and it contained this assertion:

All people learn by exposure to diverse examples. 

I found that intriguing, and did a quick search to try to learn more.

Background: "Nature Publishing Group told the University of California that next year subscription prices would increase 400 percent, with the average annual cost of a journal increasing to $17,479. UC Libraries fought back with a combative letter to UC faculty suggesting that faculty should consider boycotting the journals, and cease submitting or reviewing articles for these journals." via Metafilter

936 pages.

Somebody recommended A History of the Modern World over on Ask Metafilter and I leapt over to the San Francisco library's website and requested it.

It's 936 pages. Not counting the (excellent-looking) appendices and bibliography.

I don't know what I was thinking.

I love cheap books. I go to thrift stores and library book sales and come home with boxes full of books I have no room for. Half my books (honestly, well over half my books) are in storage, waiting for me to bring them back home where I can read them.

And yet, I'm surrounded by books.

I daydream about reading all these wonderful books. I take small paperbacks to the bus stop with me - Teach Yourself French, A Brief History of Japan, The Portable Greek Historians.

My current approach to studying French is to make my way through some popular literature, picking up vocabulary words along the way.

I've found a number of Jules Verne works at Project Gutenberg, many available in both French and English. (I've seen several posts on one of the learning language forums reporting good results from reading a book in English and then in the original language. So far, I'm starting with the French, but I may change my mind.)

I decided to start with Around the World in 80 Days.