Learn World Languages!

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Learn World Languages!

Learn ALL languages here!

Spurred by my in-depth interest in linguistics, until now I've been studying up to 41 languages from the world's different continents. I always have fun studying these languages' every aspect, starting from their histories of emergence, vocabulary formations, to their grammar systems, which enable me to compare the system of thought of one language to another.

To be able to study these languages, I always try my best to gather all availabe learning materials around me. I find many of them from the Internet, in form of learning websites, articles, or linguistic analysis papers. I obtain the rest, in forms of grammar books, dictionaries, magazines, cassettes, audio CDs, movies, learning DVDs, or music, in shops around me, which I always buy every time I run across them, or overseas, when I have the chance to visit the languages' native countries.

Here, I'd like to share you the digital learning materials for some languages that I have. Firstly, they appeared in forms of HTML pages in languages learning websites. Then, I gathered and edited them in my word processor programme. Lastly, I compiled them in PDF or DOC format for my study purpose. Now they are here for you too.

While I always tried to mention the materials' sources, please pardon me if in some cases this is forgotten. I myself did this for study purpose, and no copyright infringement was meant. I hope you have fun as much as I did when learning these languages. =) Please always check back, as I always try updating this page's content!

I would appreciate if you leave your comments regarding the materials provided here. Your comments ensure future update and improvements.

Click here to leave comments

NATURAL LANGUAGES

Nahuatl people which reside in present-day Mexico is one of the heirs of the great Aztec civilisation which flourished in Central America prior to the arrival of European settlers. It was well known for its great pyramids, its great capital located in the middle of a man-made lake (Tenochtitlan), and its notorious daily human sacrifice for the sun god. During Aztec civilisation period, Nahuatl was one of Aztec dialects and was its most dominant one. It was officially adopted as the language of the empire. Before European colonies were established in the American continent, Aztec civilisation suddenly and mysteriously faded and left only a small number of population which still becomes a subject of investigation until now.

Download Overview of Aztec Grammar (PDF) here

Quechua was the language of the Inca empire which ruled South America prior to the arrival of European settlers. The Inca people was well known for their advanced technology which included high-standard production of ceramic, textile, and metal in organised factories and precise fitting of stones in their architecture. In the 20th century, Inca civilisation became famous after the discovery of Machu Pichu, an exotic Inca city, who was supposed to be inhabited by Inca royal family, found to be abandoned on one of the peaks of Andes mountain, separated from the surrounding areas by steep slopes.

Download Basic Quechua Grammar (PDF) here

Mandarin is the official and uniting language of China, which has hundreds of languages spoken by its citizens. Contrary to common (mis)understanding, Mandarin, as well as the Chinese people, doesn't originate from the same ancestor as Japanese and Korean do. Mandarin belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family, although since its presence thousands of years ago, it has indeed influenced China's neighbouring cultures and languages, such as Japanese and Korean. Mandarin has its own script, known as Hanzhi, which gave birth to Japanese and Korean Kanji.

Download Complete Basic Mandarin Lesson(PDF) here

Ainu was the language spoken by the people who first came to Japan in 30.000 BC which marks the beginning of the Jomon period in Japan. In 300 BC, other people -the Han Chinese and Koreans- came to Japan which marks the beginning of the Yayoi period. Today's Japan people are a mixture of Jomon and Yayo'i people. The Ainu language is not closely related to modern Japanese language. However some of its characteristics make linguists categorise it as an Altaic language, just like Japanese.

Download Ainu Grammar (PDF) here

Japanese is the language used by the people in Japan, a country which has a rich culture and tradition. Like Korean, Japanese didn't originate from Chinese. Due to its peculiarity in its vocabulary, Japanese is not related to world's any language family and has its own family: the Japanese language family. However, high similarity in grammatical structure and syntax has made Japanese subject to proposal as a language of Altaic language family, where Mongolian, Manchurian, and Turkish belong to.

Download Japanese Grammar (PDF) here

Korean is the language of the people in the Korean peninsula. After Korean emperor, Sejong, invented Korean own script, named Hangul, Koreans dropped the usage of Chinese Hanzhi gradually. Like Japanese, Korean is peculiar in its word stock in comparison to the neighbouring languages, so that it is grouped in its own family: the Korean language family. It is not the same family where Japanese is present. However, also like Japanese, due to its high similarity in grammatical structure and syntax, Korean has been supposed to belong to the Altaic language family, where Mongolian, Manchurian, and Turkish belong to.

Download Complete Korean Lesson (PDF) here

Indonesian (my mother language) is the official and uniting language for the hundreds of millions of people of Indonesia who speak hundreds of indigenuous, mutually unintelligible languages. Indonesian stemmed from peninsular Malay and, together with Sundanese, Javanese, Filipino, Hawaiian, and the languages of Micronesian, Polynesian, Melanesian, and Madagascar people, belong to the Austronesian language family which has the widest spread in the world (from the Hawaiian island in the Pacific to Madagascar in Africa).

Download Complete Basic Indonesian Lesson (PDF) here

Turkish is the language of the people of the Turkish Republic on the Mediterranean Sea and the language of the Ottoman empire, which during its zenith in the Mediaeval Age ruled a region so vast encompassing Arabia, the Mediterranean Sea, North Africa, and southeastern Europe. Often unknown by common people, Turkish shares the same ancestor with Uzbek, Kazakh, Tartar, Manchu, and Mongolian. They are grouped under the Altaic language family, which has the Altaic mountain in Siberia as its supposed origin. Turkish people reside in the modern day's Turkey and adopt Islamic culture after hundreds of years of emigration from their homeland and islamisation during the course.

Download Turkish Grammar here

Swahili is one of the lingua francas in the African continent. It takes the second place as the most widely understood and spoken language in Africa with its 80 million speakers, after Arabic with its 130 million speakers, and followed by Berber (44 million), Hausa (39 million), Oromo, and Zulu (each 25 million).

Swahili is spoken in Africa's eastern coast and receives a large vocabulary influence from Arabic. The word "Swahili" itself comes from Arabic "sawahil", the plural form for "coast". However, in the core Swahili is still a native African language. Amongst Swahili interesting feature is its 16 classifications for nouns, where if an adjective or a verb is paired with a noun from a different group, then the adjective or verb must totally change form. Swahili is also agglutinative, where a relatively lengthy English sentence can be substituted with a single Swahili word.

Download Complete Swahili Lesson (PDF) here

Persian is a thousand-years-old language which is spoken by people who live in modern Iran and nearby areas. Often misunderstood by commoners, although it is written in Arabic script, Persian doesn't share same linguistic ancestry with Arabic. In fact, together with Sanskrit, German, French, Russian, and other European languages, it belongs to the Indo-European language family, which has thousands of years of history and has its supposed common origin somewhere on the Black Sea millenia BC.

Download Overview of Persian Grammar (PDF) here

Download Complete Persian Grammar (PDF) here

Sanskrit is the language of the Aryan people in ancient India and still used today as Hindu's liturgical language. Together with Persian, Sanskrit makes up the Asian branch of the Indo-European language family. Sanskrit's grammatical rules were first booked by Panini, an Indian linguist, through which we are able to see Sanskrit's similarities with other European languages. Sanskrit has a complex grammar which resembles that of the Indo-European parent language. The language's great influence can be traced in other languages as far as Indonesian, whose culture adopted Hinduism in the Mediaeval Age.

Download Complete Overview of Sanskrit Grammar (PDF) here

Pali was a language spoken in northern India from 5th to 2nd century BC. It is one of the successors of the ancient Sanskrit and retains many of Sanskrit's grammatical features, including its 8 grammatical cases. It was the language spoken by the Buddha (Siddharta Gautama). Although it no longer has native speakers, it is still used as the liturgical language of Buddhism.

Download Complete Basic Pali Lesson (PDF) here

Download Complete Pali Grammar (PDF) here

Sumerian is well known as one of human's oldest civilisations to be established on Earth. It is also well known as human's first civilisation that developed the writing system, known as the cuneiform. Sumerian people inhabited the Mesopotamian region of present day Iraq since the 4th millenium BC and developed city-states throughout the region which then grew strong and rich.

Although their civilisation was located in the Middle East, the Sumerians themselves were not Semits, ancestor of most present-day Middle Eastern people. By their decline in the 2nd millenium BC, the Sumerian culture began to be adopted by the Akkadians who infiltrated the region and were of Semitic origin. Afterwards, Akkadian culture flourished throughout the region.

Download Complete Sumerian Grammar (PDF) here

Download Overview of Sumerian Language (in German, PDF) here

Akkadians were ancient people who infiltrated and dwelled in the Mesopotamian region, after the region had been previously been inhabited by Sumerian people. Unlike the Sumerians, the Akkadians were Semits and developed many city-states throughout Mesopotamian region -like Assyria in the north and Babylon in the south- many of them competed against themselves. Although being of different ancestor from the Sumerians, the Akkadians adopted fully Sumerian culture and mainly writing system, the cuneiform. Akkadian is the oldest written Semitic language. In 900 BC, it began to be replaced by Aramaic, the language which Jesus of Nazareth spoke.

Download Complete Akkadian Writing System & Grammar (PDF) here

Ancient Egyptian has been revealed ! Thanks to the enormous effort of great egyptologists, we, amaetur, finally can find out how the Ancient Egyptian language worked! Leading you to the most important aspects beyond Ancient Egyptian language, this material also teaches you how to decipher egyptian hieroglyphs.

Download Overview of the Egyptian Language & Hieroglyphs (PDF) here

Download Overview of Egyptian Grammar (PDF) here

Arabic is a popular language spoken by as many as 150 million people in the Middle Eastern and South African regions. Together with Hebrew, Ancient Egyptian, Aramaic, and Akkadian, it comes from the Afro-Asiatic (once called Hamito-Semitic) language family and is the only surviving of this language family which still retains the Afro-Asiatic ancestor language's grammar complexity. Arabic can be grouped into Classical Arabic, in which the Koran was delivered, and Standard Modern Arabic, which is derived from the former one.

Download Overview of Arabic Grammar (PDF) here

Hebrew was the language once spoken by the Jewish people who inhabited ancient Palestine together with other nations since the Bronze Age. It was the language, in which the Old Testament was written. Since about 500 BC, its usage, even amidst the Jewish people themselves, was replaced by Aramaic whose culture became prominent in the region. The language was revived in the 19th century by the Jewish people who found the need of a common tongue to unite the Jews in Palestine and in the diaspora. Together with Arabic, it is the official language of Israel.

Download Complete Biblical Hebrew Lesson (PDF) here

Aramaic was the native language of the famous historical figure Jesus of Nazareth. It was spoken in Syria and became a lingua franca for the Near East in approximately 6th century BC. It was written in the Hebrew alphabet. In the 7th century AD, it was supplanted by Arabic. However a modern language descended from Aramaic, Syriac, is still spoken by some people in Syria and Turkey.

Download Introductory Aramaic Lessons (PDF) here

Euskara people were one of the early inhabitants of the European continent prior to the advent of the Indo-European people, the fathers of most of modern European people, in Europe about 2000 BC. Since then, most of the native population were supressed, leaving only a small number of descendants. One of them are the Euskara people who now inhabit the Basque region in Northern Spain. Their language count as unique since it recognises no Subject and Object, but Ergative and Absolutive cases.

Download Overview of Euskara Grammar (PDF) here

Proto Indo-European is the father language of the Indo-European language family, from where almost all modern European languages, north Indian languages, and Iranian language (the latter two were previously known as Aryan languages) come from. It was the language spoken by the first ancestors of modern European and Indo-Iranian people 4000 BC in their supposed original homeland north of the Black Sea. From there, they splitted millenia latter to various directions as far as the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, China, and the European continent.

Serious attempts have been made since the19th century by linguists to fully reconstruct the Proto Indo-European by intensively studying available archaeological records. This project now is almost accomplished. Recently a visionary project has been brought by the international Dnghu Language Association in Spain to reintroduce the reconstructed Proto Indo-European language to modern European people and promote its usage as European Union unifying language. The reconstructed Proto Indo-European language for this purpose is termed Europaiom a.k.a the Modern Indo-European.

Download The Modern (reconstructed Proto) Indo-European Grammar (PDF) here

Download Proto Indo-European Dictionary (PDF) here

Download Proto Indo-European Sound System (PDF) here

Hititte are ancient people who inhabited the Anatolian (modern Turkish republic) region from 1800 to 1200 BC. They were Indo-European people and were perhaps among the first of Indo-European people who had conflict with the ancient Egyptian kingdom under its king -Ramesses II, who is often hypothesised as the chaser of Moses in the biblical story- for their ambition to rule Syria and Palestine.

Download Complete Hittite Grammar (PDF) here

Greek is a language of great prominence in European civilisation. It has been present since 2nd millenium BC and was the language of the Greek civilisation, which is often thought as the foundation of European civilisation. Under the Indo-European language family, Greek is not a member of any language group (Latin, Germanic, Slavic, etc.). It has its own group: Greek language family. Although it is present in the same region as Latin is, Greek is definitely different from Latin. Greek evidences its importance by the usage of basic words of Greek origin in modern scientific fields, such as technology, architecture, biology, etc.

Download Basic Greek Lesson (compressed in RAR) here

Latin was the language of the Roman empire. As the empire grew, so did evolve the Latin language. After the fall of the Roman empire, Latin split into 2 forms: 1) Formal (Court's) Latin, which became Europe's lingua franca during and after the Roman empire and the liturgical language of the Roman Catholic Church, and 2) Vernacular (People's) Latin, which developed in the provinces of the Roman empire and later evolved into modern Italian, French, Spanish, Romanian, and Rhaeto-Romanian. Latin Grammar is fairly complicated and irregular, thus often frustating to many scholars. However, I must say that at the same time it is undeniably interesting.

Download Complete Latin Grammar (PDF) here

Spanish is the language used by the people in Spain, most Central and South American countries, USA's southern states, and was also widely used in the Philippines. Spanish is one of the descendants of Latin and is the only Romance (Post-Latin's) language to have received a great Arabic influence, due to Arabic Moors' rule in Spain from the 8th to 15th century. Now Spanish is the second mostly used language in the world after Mandarin.

Download Complete Spanish Lesson (PDF) here

French is the language spoken in France, part of Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, Indochina, and many of African countries, due to French colonisation. It is one of the descendants of Latin and grew in the province of Gaul (Latin Galiia) after Roman conquest under Julius Caesar in about 50 BC. Before that, the population of Gaul spoke a Celtic language. Subjectively by many people, French is considered a beautiful language and it is one of the official languages of the United Nations.

Download Complete French Lesson (PDF) here

German is the language spoken currently by about 100 million people in Germany, Austria, part of Switzerland, and northern Italy. Together with Dutch, Danish, English, Swedish, and some other languages, German belongs to the Germanic group of Indo-European language family. In comparison to other Germanic languages, Modern German is the only language to still preserve the grammar complexity of the Germanic group's father language. By the European Language Committee, German is rated as the second hardest language to learn in Europe by non-Germans, after Russia. German itself is a non-German word firstly mentioned by Julius Caesar which perhaps meant the neighbours in Celtic. German itself is called Deutsch in German which comes from the Old German diusco which meant the (common) people.

Download Complete German Lesson (PDF) here

Dutch is the language used by the people in the Netherlands, Belgium, Surinam (South America), the Netherlands Antilles, and was widely used in Indonesia, during Indonesia's 3 century colonisation by the Dutch. Dutch belongs to the Germanic group of Indo-European language family. It is closely related with German, where it differs in grammar (Dutch grammar is far simpler than German), vocabulary (slightly), and mainly pronunciation. Whereas most Dutch can understand written and spoken German, the Germans can only understand written Dutch. Later, Dutch gave birth to Afrikaans, the language used by the Dutch colonies in South Africa, which is far simpler and more regular than Dutch.

Download Complete Dutch Lesson (PDF) here

Old and Mediaeval English are the languages in the period of King Arthur and Shakespeare respectively. They are separated by hundreds of years and are periods in the development of the English language before it becomes the Modern English that we know today. This material will introduce you to the basic grammar of Old and Mediaeval English which were still similar to their ancestor language: Old German (Anglo-Saxon).

Download Overview of Old & Mediaeval English (PDF) here

Swedish, natively known as Svenska, is descended from the Germanic language group of the Indo-European language family and spoken by people in Sweden and also Finland, where Swedish is one of the two national languages. Swedish is closely related with Danish and Norwegian, where mutual intelligibility between these speakers are still present until today.

Download Overview of Swedish Grammar (PDF) here

Many people know that Wales is one of the kingdoms that make up the United Kingdom. However not so many know that the local language that Welsh population speak, Welsh, doesn't share common ancestor with English, the principal language of United Kingdom. While English descended from the Germanic group of Indo-European language family, Welsh descended from the Celtic group of Indo-European language family. Welsh is grouped together with Irish, Cornish, and Scottish. The Celts were the dominant inhabitants of Great Britain prior to the arrival of the German Anglo-Saxon tribes (the ancestor of the English people) and the later Roman settlers.

Donwload A Brief of Welsh Grammar (PDF) here

Irish is the language of the native people of the Northern Ireland's part of the United Kingdom and the Irish republic. It shares common ancestry with Welsh and other Celtic languages. It was brought by the Celtic invaders from mainland Europe in about 1000 BC. Until the 18th century, Irish was the dominant language of Ireland, before it was taken over by English.

Download A Brief of Irish Grammar (PDF) here

Finnish, also natively known as Suomi, is the language spoken by the people of Finland. Finnish is one of the few languages in Europe which doesn't belong to the Indo-European family. The Finns and their language belong to the Uralic language family, under which Hungarian, Estonian, and other languages in Western Russia are its members. Experts have hypothesised that Uralic and Indo-European language family descended from a common ancestor, while some other relate Uralic to Altaic language family. Finnish is well known as a European language which has the most number of grammatical cases: 15. Simply explained, it means that a Finnish noun can change to 15 different forms as the noun is put in different contexts.

Download Complete Basic Finnish Grammar (RAR) here

ARTIFICIAL LANGUAGES

Esperanto is an artificial language created by Ludwik Zamenhof, a Polish-jewish occulist before the World War I. At that time, Europe fell into political turmoil and Zamenhof saw the need of a language which is neutral in politics and hence can be used as the lingua franca in Europe. Esperanto is very simple and highly regular in its grammar and takes its word stock from West European languages. Since its creation, and mainly after the invention of Internet, Esperanto has been learned by those who favour a neutral lingua franca. The number of its speakers worldwide now estimatedly reach 2 million people.

Download Esperanto learning material (PDF) here

Interlingua is another articial language which was created in 1951 by the International Auxiliary Language association to be the world's lingua franca after the invention of Esperanto in 1887 by Dr. Zamenhof. Interlingua shares many similarities with Esperanto, since Interlingua's creators were speakers of Esperanto. However, Interlingua draws most of its vocabulary from the Romance (Post-Latin's) languages, whereas Esperanto draws its vocabulary almost from all European languages evenly. Interlingua is said to be able to be instantly understood by the speakers of French, Italian, Spanish, and Esperanto. It is also claimed that it can be learnt in instant time, where its learning material, numbering only a couple of pages, tries to prove this, thus fitting to be the world's international language.

Download Interlingua's learning material (PDF) here

Do you often watch the Star Trek series? Then you must know the alien Spock race in the film. This race speaks their own language, which is called Klingon. Klingon itself is an artificial language specially created for the film by Marc Okrand, an American linguist and an expert in Native American languages. He also created the Atlantean language for Disney's movie "Atlantis". Okrand designed Klingon with a complex grammar and a large number of vocabulary, which is specially published in the book "Klingon Dictionary". Klingon has its own association and large number of speakers in the Internet.

Download Klingon's Basic Grammar & Dictionary (PDF) here

Have you ever watched The Lord of the Ring's Trilogy? Do you know the race of the Elves (those with the narrow-tipped ears)? Did you notice the language that they spoke? It is Elvish a.k.a Quenyan in Elvish tongue itself. When writing the chronicle of the Middle Earth, not only did J.R.R Tolkien, the author, write about the history of each race, he went as far as designing the languages for each race; each with its complete grammar and sufficient number of vocabulary. J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) himself was a Professor of Anglo Saxon and of English language & literature in the Oxford University. Middle Earth's chronicle was his depiction for the wars which tore Europe apart at that time.

Download Elvish (Quenyan) learning material (PDF) here

If you have read the chapter "My Childhood" in this website, you must have known that during my childhood, just like Tolkien and before I ever knew him, I had imagined of my own nation, together with its own chronicle. This nation would inhabit a vast continent between Japan & the American continent and consist of so many cultures, speaking various languages. As I began writing the chronicle of this nation at that time and drew everything around this nation (its land, cultures, architecture, traditional costumes, modern costumes), I also started designing the languages. One of these languages was called Entrebian.

Due its geographical location, Entrebian was supposed to originate from Altaic language family and receive heavy influence from the neighbouring Meso-American cultures & languages. Although I succeeded to finish the chronicle, the language itself was left unaccomplished. Later, I resumed this project and put all my lingustic knowledge and creativity on the language's basic pattern which I had laid in junior high school. Now you can take a look at this language and enjoy by trying to view the world from this language's system of thought. I did this, since I myself always dislike everything's unfinished. =)

Download Basic Entrebian's learning material (PDF) here