Author Archives: G Barto

About G Barto

Geoffrey Barto has been teaching language and culture for more than twenty years. His focus is helping people use language to achieve their goals, both for personal growth and in building their careers. The right words can make all the difference in the world!

Maintaining and re-awakening languages

Posted on March 30, 2021 by G Barto

There is a species of language learner who, on the chat boards, has come to be known as the YouTube polyglot. You’ve seen these people. They make videos of themselves saying a handful on phrases in 20 languages and encourage … Continue reading →

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Are apps for language learning a bad idea?

Posted on March 16, 2021 by G Barto

Agnieska Murdoch has the hot take for language learning this week: Don’t learn with an app. She makes a lot of valid points, but concludes by noting that apps are good for some things after all. Which is the very … Continue reading →

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Intercomprehension and Receptive Bilingualism

Posted on February 26, 2021 by G Barto

Meina at TogetherWeLearnMore has an interesting article about her experiences with “receptive bilingualism,” that place where you can understand a lot but you can’t speak. In her case, she shares her journey with Arabic, as well as a lot of … Continue reading →

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A new year…

Posted on January 12, 2021 by G Barto

Like many people, I’ve found myself laid off for quite some time due to COVID. It’s especially bad in California, and especially bad in Silicon Valley, where business closures and lockdowns have been pervasive. I’ve used the time to retool … Continue reading →

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Mezzofanti and Vocabooster

Posted on May 25, 2020 by G Barto

A few weeks ago, I followed an Agnieska Murdoch Youtube and wound up hearing about Vocabooster. As I am on layoff for the Coronavirus, when I saw the opportunity to get the full Vocabooster package for too much money, I … Continue reading →

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The Linguistics Research Center at UT-Austin

Posted on April 20, 2020 by G Barto

Over the years, I’ve referred to the Early Indo-European On-Line resources at the University of Austin many times. They are hosted by UT-Austin’s Linguistic Resources Center. The LRC, like many other university resources these days, is facing budget cuts, possibly … Continue reading →

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For the truly ambitious polyglot

Posted on February 3, 2020 by G Barto

A little while ago, I wrote about just how many languages there are to learn and John McWhorter’s Language Families of the World. Today, though, I stumbled upon something truly incredible: Handbook of Descriptive Language Knowledge. The author, Harald Hammarström, … Continue reading →

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Romagnolo Starter Dictionary now available

Posted on January 29, 2020 by G Barto

I have been studying the regional languages of Europe off and on for quite some time. One of the languages which includes a nice catalog of poetry and plays yet is probably on its last legs is Romagnolo. At a … Continue reading →

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So many languages!

Posted on December 17, 2019 by G Barto

If you go into the typical bookstore these days, you’ll get the impression there are about 10 languages, starting with Mandarin, Spanish and French, German and Italian. Oh yes, and there’s Portuguese, Russian and Japanese. These are the only languages … Continue reading →

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New Approaches to Polyglottery for the Language Addict

Posted on December 9, 2019 by G Barto

Recently, I ran across a reference to EuRom5, a book for studying French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Catalan, using one as your base and developing your intercomprehension skills to gain a reading knowledge of the other four. I’d read about … Continue reading →

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