Difficulty Level: 2
I think I found the Holy Grail for laddering languages.
TUFS Language Modules is an online language lessons site is Japanese, and although some languages have more content than others, I found the site was very comprehensive, with beginner level dialogue videos that include subtitles for both Japanese translation and foreign language transcription which can be switched on and off at will. Most of the dialogues also have English translations, which is nice.
The language is pretty straight forward, although it might help to brush up on grammar terms in Japanese if you don't have much experience in this area. Now, why would you want to learn another language using Japanese as a base language in the first place? I admit I was skeptical when I read the article on laddering in All Japanese All The Time, in which learning a third language through your second (or fourth through your third and so on), dubbed "Laddering" was written about (I'll refer to it as "laddering" as well, since it's as good a term for it as any), but lately it seems like a good way to hit two birds with one stone, so I urge everyone with intermediate+ Japanese skills who want to learn another language to check this site out. They even have rarer languages, like Urdu!
i've just started using this for French, and it really is awesome!!!
ReplyDeletei found it hard to judge before, because i looked at the Japanese section and found it too easy to be useful.
But trying it with French, going through it in the way they've set it up is really helpful!!!
i wasn't particularly bothered about laddering French through Japanese, because it's so much closer to English. And i keep pronouncing the words with a japanese accent when the writings in Japanese underneath lolol. But it really is a very helpful resource for beginners!!!