It never ceases to amaze how many language learning resources are available on the web. I have recently downloaded two Romanian grammar books in PDF format which I then sent to my Kindle account in my iPad. I can refer to them over and over. This will be useful in my travels. Just for fun I google French grammar PDF, Spanish grammar PDF and Japanse grammar PDF. Lots of resources to be found. You can preview them, choose the one you like, and download it all free. Wow!
This is in addition to the handy conjugation and declension and other tables available when you need them, not to mention the wonderful content that I am finding for the languages I am learning. Double wow!
Do you have any recommendations for Russian grammar? I have yet to learn any and I would like to get a first overview. Probably I will watch a load of YouTube videos explaining various things since these are often very good.
I don’t like reference books in electronic form. Even if there is a search function. I find it easier to find things I want to know quicker when the book is in paper form. I also like to flip threw it at random and see if something catches my eye.
I have found about.com’s French grammar section to be very useful, though. Admittedly, its not a book.
I find that Wikipedia is often a quick source as well, but only makes sense, as with most grammars, if we also expose ourselves to the language we know what they are talking about.
I printed out my stand alone Romanian grammar, and use it sometimes, especially in the bath tub. But I am finding the iPad Kindle experience really great, and will use that form on my trip. It also saves the trouble of printing out hundreds of pages.
Thanks for the pdf. I just got my first Russian grammar injection by going through the first 15 videos of the funrussian series on YouTube (and yes I am in love). I will probably spend some time going through these sorts of video explanations before getting into the harder drugs.
djvlbass, the about.com French section has an excellent forum, too. The whole site is extremely useful, and very friendly–or it was a dozen years ago, when I visitied it often, anyway; I haven’t tried, recently. The site could serve as a very useful supplement to French study w/ LingQ. The author of the site, Laura K. Lawless, has written one of the “For Dummies” French books (the intermediate one, IIRC), and one of the Spanish books in the same series. She seems like a really nice person.
Like you, I really enjoy leafing through a printed grammar. Yet online material can be very helpful, if it’s easy to access–conjugators, and dictionaries, etc.
Steve, thanks for the Russian Grammar .pdf. It looks good. You’re right about accessibility and usefulness of language materials online. It’s wonderful.
Colin, This site is very useful when you’re reading or writing Russian: Морфологический анализ .