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!

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 →

Posted in Romagnolo | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in Polyglot | 1 Comment

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 →

Posted in Polyglot | 1 Comment

It’s Black Friday! Language learning bargains

Posted on November 29, 2019 by G Barto

One of my key recommendations for language learning is that you use lots of different materials and techniques so you can find things that fit you and things that challenge you. But, alas, that doesn’t come cheap. So here’s a … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Place to start listening?

Posted on November 26, 2019 by G Barto

I just ran across a program called LingoJump. It’s a collection of audios where a native speaker pronounces at normal speed, then really drawn out, then less drawn out, then back at normal speed. I’ve been listening for Turkish and … Continue reading →

Posted in Polyglot | Leave a comment

AI to decipher old languages?

Posted on July 10, 2019 by G Barto

Interesting article from the MIT Technology Review: Machine learning has been used to automatically translate long-lost languages But speaking about new research into AI translation of lost languages, the article notes, “In this paper, Linear A is conspicuous by its … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Ijo li awen lon tenpo suli…

Posted on August 11, 2018 by G Barto

I recently had surgery and, as always happens when I’ll have some time to do nothing, I set great goals for working on, say, Sanskrit or Tibetan. That happened… Actually, I stumbled again upon Toki Pona and Esperanto and really … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Romagnolo Dictionary

Posted on March 30, 2018 by G Barto

In the past few months, I’ve been working on a dictionary of Romagnolo. If you look in the header for the site, you’ll notice there’s an article for it. The dictionary should come some time this summer. In the mean … Continue reading →

Posted in Romagnolo | Leave a comment

Another year without resolutions

Posted on January 13, 2018 by G Barto

Way back in January 2009, I shifted from New Year’s Resolutions to directional intentions. In January 2015, I gave up ascribing any importance to the changing of the years for my language learning. I’ve found that I’m learning more, though … Continue reading →

Posted in What makes us tick | Leave a comment

Whither Europe?

Posted on October 28, 2017 by G Barto

In the past few months, Catalonia has been very much in the news. And it’s got me thinking about the Catalan language. For one thing, as a French speaker, I’m very much aware of what happens to other languages in … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment