Items of Interest

Spring 2026 SDLC 105 Syllabus

Spring 2026 SDLC 105 Calendar of Activities, Assignments, and Deadlines

Spring 2026 SDLC 110, 111, 112, 113 General Syllabus

Weekly log for language partners

Global Studio Catalog of Learning Materials and Resources

 

Self-Directed Language Acquisition Program

Sept. 3- Recorded Presentation by Derek Miller, UR Bonner Center for Civic Engagement, Guidelines and Resources for Community-Based Language Learning

Sept. 3- Bonner Guidelines for Community-Based Language Learning, PPT.

 

Benny Lewis: TEDx Talk on Rapid Language Hacking

https://youtu.be/HZqUeWshwMs

 

ACTFL Inverted Pyramid Proficiency Scale

 

New Electronic Catalog of Global Studio Language-Learning Materials

Over the last few weeks, our fantastic team of Global Studio Fellows have been creating an electronic catalog of language learning materials on reserve in INTC 226. There are interesting resources for Korean, Turkish, Hindi, Hebrew, and Portuguese See the ongoing collection, here. Use the tag list to focus your search.

 

Vocaroo for sharing audio files with language partners

Vocaroo is a great free tool to share audio recording files with your language partners. Check it out! https://vocaroo.com/

 

Open-Source Repository of Grammar Reference Textbooks

In internet searches, I came across an open-source repository of grammar reference books pertaining to a wide variety of different languages. Feel free to peruse the collection, here

 

Lang-8 and HiNative Communities for Native Speaker Feedback

This is a great free resource to get free feedback from native speakers of your target language. On the site, you can receive commentary on submit writing samples, or address questions of grammar and usage to an active online community. You can access the site, here. **Note: Lang-8 stopped accepting new members, but you can still access similar networking resources for writing feedback on their new site, HiNative

 

WikiTongues

Library of recordings from endangered languages.

https://www.youtube.com/user/WikiTongues

https://wikitongues.org/

 

International News Resources

Check out this curated list on interesting foreign-language news resources!

 

World Atlas of Language Structures

http://wals.info/

 

Endangered Languages Project

http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/

 

Which languages are the hardest to learn?

Here's a chart! What is difficult about the language you're learning?

 

Try Mango Languages 

Just starting a language?  The University now provides Mango Languages, which offers beginning or 'survival' language lessons in many languages.  To try Mango, go the Boatwright Library web, click Research Databases > M, and look for Mango Languages.  Once you have created an account through the Library site, you can download the Mango Languages app and use it on your mobile device.

 

Infographic on word etymologies and historical trade routes

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapping-words-along-trade-routes/?fbclid=IwAR2IQRiSW3KqaFGi_kjkrSbkjXUri_PZI7tAMEB4iKH5W0DPrp_yQj1OzuE

 

 

Articulatory Phonetics Memes

https://goo.gl/bzVfCL

 

Preserving Regional German Dialects

This article from Deutsche Welle discusses what is lost when regional variants of a language are lost. It also discusses the difference between a language and a dialect and why 'dialects' are losing ground in Germany.

 

Radio Segment on North Koreans on South Korean TV

On Sunday, January 31, 2016, NPR had a radio feature on the appearance of North Koreans on South Korean reality TV.  You can listen to the segment here: http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/01/31/464798910/south-koreas-newest-tv-stars-are-north-korean-defectors .

 

An Interview with Linguist K. David Harrison on When Languages Die

 

 

Slate article:  Photos of Women Who Could Go to Prison for Singing for Men


A series of photographs and a very brief discussion of things women in Iran are forbidden to do, including singing for me and studying English literature.

 

The 'Halal Internet'


A Deutsche Welle article about the 'Halal Internet' coming to Iran has been posted as a discussion item in the Persian group.  Join the discussion!

 

The Free Dictionaries Project


Looking for a free dictionary?  Check out the Free Dictionaries Project!  Especially interesting are the picture dictionaries.

  

Alphabet Blocks for Hebrew, Korean, and Arabic

The Global Studio now has alphabet blocks for Hebrew, Korean, and Arabic.  (The Arabic may be useful for the Persian learners.)  There are also magnetic letters for Hebrew.

What can you do with alphabet blocks and magnetic letters?  Quiz yourself on the letters, put them together to form words, and learn the names of the animals pictured on one side of the blocks.  The Korean blocks seem to have a puzzle, too.  Want to try?  Ask at the Global Studio desk!

 

Visit the Conflict Kitchen, a take-out restaurant that serves food from countries with which the US is in conflict.

 

__________________________________________________________________

 

Finding Books in Your Language


A number of people have asked about finding children's books, 'easy readers', and popular fiction in the SDLAP languages.  The Global Studio has children's books in Swahili and Turkish (thanks to Professor Grove), and I'm willing to buy more.  However, I prefer to buy books that are culturally authentic, i.e., not translated from English.

 

I have found the following online bookstores that seem to have a good selection.  Please send me (Prof. Scinicariello) a list of things you…

Read more…

What is Social Bookmarking? (That's Diigo)

Wikipedia: A Short Explanation

YouTube: Social Bookmarking in Plain English--This is about Delicious, but the theory is the same.

YouTube: Diigo V.3--This video has information about Diigo groups.

Latest Activity

Kaylee Wyrick posted a discussion
Bahasa Indonesia has a rich phonetic inventory that is very similar to that of English. Both Bahasa Indonesia and English have twenty-six letters, but most Indonesian letters have only one pronunciation. Most consonants (except most notably C and R) sound the same in Bahasa Indonesia and English. In Indonesian, the letter C sounds like a “ch” or [t͡ʃ] sound in English. For example, “cepat” (fast) is pronounced  [t͡ʃ], [ɛ], [p], [a], [t]. The letter R in Bahasa Indonesia has no equivalent in…
4 hours ago
Lila Taylor posted a discussion
There are both sounds in Spanish that don’t exist in American English and letters that sound differently in Spanish than they do in English. An example of a word that uses a sound that exists in English, however, uses a letter formation we do not have, is the word “lleno” (full). In the word “lleno” the double ll is pronounced the same way the y is in English (in words like “yes”), and the double ll does not exist at the beginning of words in this way in English. Examples of sounds that exist…
14 hours ago
Grayson Charlton posted a discussion
Looking at the Mandarin phonetic inventory, I can see pretty quickly that the sound system is organized differently from American English. One big difference is that Mandarin focuses a lot on aspiration instead of voicing, so sounds like p / pʰ, t / tʰ, k / kʰ are treated as separate categories. The chart also shows several alveolopalatal sounds that English doesn’t really have, like x, q, and j. These are the ones i have run into the most in my early studies, hearing them you hear in words…
15 hours ago
Lila Taylor posted a discussion
The main structures of language that are discussed in How to Investigate Language Structure such as the medium of linguistic transmission, grammar, phonetics, vocabulary, and semantics are present in Spanish as they are in every language. However, there are specific structures that are unique to the Spanish language that I find interesting. For example, there is a common omission of subject pronouns (due to conjugated verbs), simple negation with “no” before verbs, and formal and informal ways…
yesterday
Julie Strickland replied to Emma Butcher's discussion Discussion Post #4
"Your process to learning to differentiate different sounds really resonates with me. I am also strugling to hear the difference in Russian sounds that do not have an English translation or sounds where in English there is no subtle pronunciation difference that changes the meaning. 
I am also prioitizing practicing above all else. Similarly, I am working on the intensity of certain sounds since that also makes a difference in what I am saying in Russian. 
I love that you shared this. Sometimes…"
yesterday
Julie Strickland posted a discussion
Russian consists of both soft and hard vowels and consonants which are used in different instances and when combined in different ways (as in, with different surrounding sounds in Russian). Many of these phonetic sounds have an English equivalent. However, sounds such as Ы, Щ (soft) and P (hard and soft), do not. The Ы sound is used in the following Russian words: мы [m-uh-ee]; English translation: my Cыр [syr]; English translation: cheese It sounds like a mixture between the ‘oo’ in book and…
yesterday
Emma Butcher posted a discussion
Korean has 14 consonants and 10 vowels that make up its basic sounds. All these sounds are simple ones that we can make a direct translation from into English. When I work with Emily, she gives me the Korean sound but with English letters or relates it to an English word to help me understand it better. Some sounds sound similar, so we had to do extra work on them. For example, euh, and oh were two sounds I had a hard time differentiating. I learned that the position of my mouth and even my jaw…
yesterday
Emma Butcher posted a discussion
Over spring break last year, I went to South Korea and decided to get each of my family members a gift from there. My dad has always been interested in masks and skulls, and these are two things I have seen in a lot of different cultures. When I went on a class trip to Puerto Rico, we did a cultural immersion activity where we learned about coconut masks, so I decided to look into masks in South Korea. I came across hahoe masks, which come from the Hahoe village in South Korea.The hahoe masks…
yesterday
More…

A network of participants in and friends of Richmond's Self-Directed Language Acquisition Program.

Diigo: Modern Hebrew

Diigo: Persian Learners

Diigo: Turkish Learners

Diigo: Asian Language Learners