Learn Other Language

RUSSIAN
Sites for Grammar
masterrussian.com/ - Lessons and vocabulary
www.russianlessons.net/ - Beginner lessons and the site I use for referencing basic grammar
www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/ - My favourite site for grammar, goes right from the basics to what you need to construct complex sentences. Great examples with
sentences and exercises.
Dictionaries
wordreference.com - Already been mentioned, but usually has good explanations and examples
ru.thefreedictionary.com/ - A Russian-Russian dictionary that usually just gives synonyms, but still okay
slovari.yandex.ru/ - Yandex is pretty much the Russian Google. So yeah.
News
www.bbc.co.uk/russian/ - The BBC news in Russian. Articles usually get translated a few hours or a day after they appear in English.
www.pravda.ru/ - Pravda's still going, and pretty popular.
www.vesti.ru/ - Just a news site
ytro.ru/ - Just another one
lenta.ru/ - And another one
TV
itv.1tv.ru/ - Stream Russia's First Channel
www.1tv.ru/videoarchiver/ - Loads of full and free shows from First Channel's archive
rutracker.org - Download just about anything. Like, anything. In a forum format, so you can browse shows/films/music/comics and download at will.
www.internytv.ru/online.php - Watch Интерны online, it's kinda like a Russian Scrubs. Pretty funny.



JAPANESE
www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/
It's a firefox module. Indispensable if you don't want to open a dictionary tab for each word you see.
www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/complete
Awesome guide on grammar.
www.nihongoresources.com/
The lessons are very heavy, but it has a dictionary. I use it to learn jouyou kanji!
jisho.org/kanji/
Will find the kanji you're looking for with kana and number of strokes.
fr.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japonais/Grammaire/Introduction
www.dictionnaire-japonais.com/rechercher.php
First one is a succinct grammar guide, second is a dictionary. Sorry it's in french but it can still be useful so I'll post them.
MISC
www.wordreference.com/



SPANISH
www.studyspanish.com/tutorial.htm
Almost everything you need to know on grammar.
www.youtube.com/user/languagenow
This motherfucker is a professional teacher, he will teach you about spanish AND portuguese.
www.spanishdict.com/dictionary
Best dictionary I came across so far, it contains a lot of idioms.
www.ctspanish.com/idioms/idioms.htm
www.languagerealm.com/spanish/spanishslang.php
Idioms and idioms and some slang.



PERSIAN
http://www.easypersian.net/




GERMAN
http://www.uni.edu/becker/German.html
http://www.uni.edu/becker/German2.html
http://pons.eu/  Translator (better then google)
http://www.prosieben.de/tv/stromberg/episoden-subpage/
German version of The Office
http://deutschkurse.dw-world.de/




FRENCH
http://www.leconjugueur.com/frconjonline.php
Even if already conjugated, just type the verb you're looking for to know all it's secrets.



NORWEGIAN
http://www.frathwiki.com/Norwegian
Contains basic grammar of norwegian if you want to taste the water.



KOREAN
www.learnkoreanlanguage.com - General lessons and hangul for beginners
talktomeinkorean.com/ - Lessons and culture from beginner to advanced
www.learnkorean.com/ - More general lessons, good for beginners






FINNISH
www.digitaldialects.com/Finnish.htm
www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/Finnish.html
website full of useful links




MANDARIN CHINESE
nciku.com
www.youtube.com/user/ShermerIL
Chinese lessons.
www.chinasprout.com/ - Amazing store with tons of textbooks, games etc for learning chinese language. Most books have the option to choose between simplified and traditional
characters as well. If you need to order a chinese textbook, I recommend buying from here.
www.chinese4kids.net/ - Good site, has cartoons, lessons and activities. Aimed at kids, but it's suitable for beginners as well.



ICELANDIC 
icelandiconline.is/
Great website that goes over the basics, and is generally a great resource for learning the language. Some institutes have adopted it as an acceptable prerequisite for more
advanced courses, and it is also helpful with Old Norse.
Other useful Icelandic links;
digicoll.library.wisc.edu/IcelOnline/Search.TEId.html
>Free online Icelandic dictionary. You tend to search by headwords, but it can check the entire entry as well, which is useful for common phrases with particular
declensions
bin.arnastofnun.is/
>Free declension database. Put in the word you want, select the box marked "Leit að beygingarmynd" so that it searches the entire entry in case you're trying to figure out
the head-word, and then go. You need to know the category, and it's only in Icelandic (learn that vocabulary!), but it's useful.
I also have an Old Norse textbook on my computer, but it's a terrible, terrible book, and I've only used it because it gets you reading texts quickly.
Hope this shit helps out anyone looking into Icelandic. Very good language to get into, and it really forces you to think about what you're saying.



GENERAL RESOURCES

**General Extensions for Google Chrome:
Polyglot: Automatically translates random words on websites you're surfing to your selected language. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/plpjkjplknknmhfhkjgcfgofclmlnine

I2Type: Pop-down keyboard for most any language.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ohpiacnomiacdnhcfalghggiankgknak

***Social Resources
http://conversationexchange.com/: Meet people to be penpals and talk in e-mail or msn/skpe

http://www.interpals.net/account.php: Same thing but quite myspace-ish.

**General sites
http://a4esl.org/: Lots of esl stuff, and lots of stuff for many languages, I use it for the Thai vocab quizzes.

Viki.com: Tons of TV shows and movies subtitled by member of the site- helps with exposure I think.

And that's it. For Thai specifically there's not much I've found at the intermediate level. But besides skyping with penpals I go to:

Thai2English.com -decent dictionary
Sanook.com - Thai news site, simple quite easy to translate
thairath.co.th: Probably the most professional Thai news site on there. Good luck.


mandarintools.com
ninhao.com

MCF 2011 visit log

So me and my friends went to CF 2011 last saturday. Gonna write some shit about it.

From what I experienced;

1. Ticketing system (Management)
• Massively long queues
• Difficulty to get ticket to enter the venue is S++
  (I was lucky i had some friends who came early, by 1.00am)
• Crowd Flow control is shit
  
2. Hunger and thirst
• buys a ticket - get chocolate only
• little to almost no cheap, fast food vendor nearby (i'm talking about hotdogs and stuff)
  
3. Doujin/circle booth
• Mostly badges
• Most fanmade merchandise are cheap looking but overpriced/not worth your money etc etc
• mostly caters to fujoshi(s)
• almost no touhou stuff. if available, is either overpriced or not worth it
• Some original content is too western-looking. People would prefer manga style, as it's leaning more towards the niche (anime)
• Most drawing are shit, even if high-quality drawings are present, most of them felt 'empty' during fast browsing.
  
4. Company booth
• eh, keep up the good job
• if possible can add more?

Judging by quality alone, I think it's pretty so-so...


Looking at good artists' booth (idk their circle name)
= Great artworks, love the surrealism in their art. Unfortunately, i could only buy 

Looking at shit artists' booth
= Shit price for shit piece. Not worth my shit.

I have a pixiv!

Click the bewbs.