Why You Need a Foreign Language & How to Learn One

Chapter 19 (Excerpt)

The Language Student's Buying Guide

When you visit an online bookstore such as Amazon.com, plug in the words "French language" and click the search button, you might be presented with thousands of choices. A trip to your neighborhood Barnes & Noble is similarly bewildering; there are audio programs, self-teaching texts, and dictionaries, but which ones should you buy?

            As someone who has been actively studying languages for about fifteen years, I have had a chance to try all the major language learning products at one time or another. I am happy to report that there are a lot of good materials out there. Language texts and audio programs are usually prepared by dedicated specialists who approach their task conscientiously. (No one figures to make a fast buck off a shoddily prepared language text—the market just isn't that big.) As a result, most items on the market are good investments. Only rarely have I been thoroughly disappointed by a purchase.

            Nonetheless, it is a good idea to head to the bookstore (whether online or in the neighborhood) with a familiarity of the items that are available. Many language products are designed to fill a particular niche, such as vocabulary acquisition, or aural comprehension skills development. In addition, each product approaches the language from a slightly different angle.

            Although I discuss the pros and cons of each book, audio course or other resource in the list below, I recommend all of these items. Each one represents a solid investment, in terms of effectiveness and value....

(End of Chapter Excerpt)

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