2014 Language Books Reading List Part 1
My problem is that I have too many things that I like to do and not enough time for them all. I constantly seek ways to find a way to balance all of my hobbies, but it also means that I’m never bored. There’s always something to do.
Along with traveling, photography, language learning, music, writing, and cooking, I love to read. When I say I love to read, I mean I really love to read. If you check out my Goodreads profile, you’ll see what I mean.
For 2014, I don’t have any set plan for the books I want to read, but I do have a few on my shelf that I want to tackle the over next month or two, so that’s where I plan to start.
2014 Language Books Reading List
First, I have a few books that I want to read just because:
1. Found in Translation: How Language Shapes Our Lives and Transforms the World – This looks like a great book. I haven’t started it yet, but I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve finished it.
2. The Story of French – I actually just finished this one last night. I had been looking for books about languages (and not just how to learn them) and I stumbled upon this one in a bookstore. It started out really great and I found the information within it absolutely fascinating until I began to lose interest just over halfway through the book. I’ll write more about this soon, so for now, unfortunately, I’ll leave you with that. Either way, it was definitely an interesting read – even in the hard-to-get-through sections.
3. How to Taste – I know, I know. It was a gift from my mom, but I’ve found it quite informative thus far. Don’t judge.
Next, I have several language learning books I want to finish.
Continuing Croatian
As many of you know, I started to learn Croatian last year. For Christmas, I received a couple of great Croatian learning resources, so I’m going to start there before I really dive into Mandarin.
1. Introduction to the Croatian and Serbian Language by Magner – So far I’ve found this book to be pretty difficult, but there are not a whole lot of resources available to help one learn Croatian, so I’ll take what I can get. Hopefully it will get easier once I feel more comfortable with the language.
2. Le Croate by Assimil – Assimil is highly recommended by a number of language learners and this is my first resource from them. I can’t wait to try it out.
3. Lonely Planet Croatian Phrasebook – another highly recommended resource.
Learning Mandarin
Finally, I’m going to start working on Mandarin with:
1. Lonely Planet Mandarin Phrasebook – I’m already using Pimsleur, and I have a friend who offered to help me with Mandarin in exchange for helping her with English, but we don’t start for another week or so. I’m hoping to do a bit more preparation until then using this book and Pimsleur Mandarin because all I can do at this point is ask for directions to “Long Peace Street,” ask what time it is, and order two beers.
Upcoming Reviews
I also have a few resources I’d like to review here on Eurolinguiste
1. Themen Aktuell Workbook and Coursebook
(German) – these are the books I used to earn my German certificate at university. I want to give them another look so that I can review them here.
2. German Made Simple – not sure if that’s possible (imho), but I’ll definitely give it a go!
3. CHINESE in 10 minutes a day – I can appreciate lessons in small chunks that make the material easier to digest, especially with a language that is so different from anything else I’ve studied in the past. I’ve started learning to speak and understand Chinese, but I have yet to start reading and writing. To be honest, it’s just a bit intimidating.
4. Culinaria France – a French cookbook with tons of regional recipes I picked up when Borders when out of business but have yet to really delve into. It has a really fascinating section on cheese and another on wine in France. It’s a great read and a recipe book. Win-win.
6. The Everything Italian Practice Book
7. Learn Italian the Fast and Fun Way – I had seen the French version of this book and it looked like a fun way to study a language with the dialogues and exercises at the beginning of each chapter. The vocabulary is based on travel, like most foreign language books, so it’s not the most practical, but it also has beginning grammar (and my Italian needs a bit of a refresh).
8. Italian Now!
What are you reading this year?
PS. The links included in this post are Amazon affiliate links. These are books that I am actually reading, so you can choose to do whatever you wish with this information. If you decide to purchase any of the books, I make a small commission and you help me continue to fund my language learning habit as well as the continuation of this blog. Any purchases you make through these links are at no additional cost to you.
