It's All About Vocab

I ask my students, what would they think if they heard someone who didn't know English come up to them as ask "Me Water Drink Want!"

Well? What is this person trying to say? They always assume, correctly, that the answer is "I want to drink water."

And that's why I stress vocabulary over grammar as the primary place to direct your efforts when trying to learn a new language.

The free word lists I give away on my websites are a tool I've used, but there are some other really nice collections I've found that you may find useful.

Arabic
http://arabic.desert-sky.net/vocab.html
http://iteslj.org/v/a/
http://www.madinaharabic.com/Vocabulary/General/html/

Spanish
http://iteslj.org/v/s/
http://www.lingolex.com/spanish.htm

Romanian
I'll be honest, since not many people study Romanian, I think my word list is one of the best free products available. But these people have put together a very nice product:
http://www.happychild.org.uk/freeway/romanian/index.htm

Next Stop: Spanish

I wrote Next Stop: Spanish to provide a learner with a way to begin exploring a new language in a relaxed and exciting fashion--reading an adventure novel.

The story follows a young man who needs to learn some Spanish and accompanies his linguist uncle on a trip to Spain. The reader has the chance to see and study the words the young man studies, and then see the learner add more and more Spanish into his dialogue as the story progresses.

In the dramatic conclusion, he will need to put together everything he has learned to save his uncle!

Getting Back to Basics

No matter how long I have been studying a language, I have found value is sometimes starting all over and going back to basic vocabulary and confirming that I have the most essential words utterly mastered.

For anyone interested in them, I'm making my own personal list of basic vocabulary items available for free.

You can download PDF files of my materials for Spanish, Arabic, and Romanian and free MP3 files of the words at my website.