Language Learning

Resources for Learning French

Includes a document describing various tools and techniques I've found useful in learning French, a one-page reference-card in PostScript, LaTeX, and an on-line Web document which translates 230 thorny “glue words”, and a list of 40 word-endings developed from a study of more than 18,000 French nouns which allow you to predict the gender of 75% of French nouns with an accuracy of about 95%.

De la Terre à la Lune

Jules Verne's De la Terre à la Lune, original French-language 1865 edition, fully illustrated. An English translation of this book is also available.

Autour de la Lune

Jules Verne's Autour de la Lune, the original French-language 1870 edition, fully illustrated.

Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours

Jules Verne's Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours, the original French-language 1873 edition, fully illustrated.

The Hebrew Bible

If your browser supports the Unicode character set and a font which includes Hebrew characters, here is a complete Hebrew Bible you can read in your browser. The text is the Koren Tanach and is presented without vowels or diacritical marks. An earlier edition, encoded in the ISO 8859-8 character set, remains available. The text of the two editions is identical.

Vulgate

Saint Jerome's A.D. 405 Latin translation of the Bible. Includes anchor labels for every chapter and verse, permitting easy citation from other documents in the conventional form. For example the parable of the Good Samaritan may be cited as:
<a href="http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/Vulgate/Luke.html#10:27>.

Dictool

OpenWindows tool for accessing the “Languages of the World” CD-ROM of language dictionaries. Provides pop-up language dictionary tools with an inverted index that allows near-instantaneous access to dictionaries on the CD-ROM.

The Use of the Apostrophe in the English Language

Nothing so instantly identifies the scribblings of intellectual knuckle-walkers as riotously funny misuse of the apostrophe. This humble punctuation mark has been the downfall not only of innumerable greengrocers, but also self-possessed self-published authors and pompous pundits. This document presents five easily-remembered rules which will keep you from tripping over the apostrophe in your own writing, and proclaims International Write Like a Moron Day to commemorate those who can't be bothered with such details.