Language-learning linkwrap 1/23/09

Voters head to polls today to decide 'English First' proposal: Nashville's "English First" proposal would "prevent city government from translating written materials into other languages or using interpreters for people who don't speak English well". Great, just what we need: less foreign-language use in the U.S.

Learning a language at home is easier than ever: Local news gushes over Livemocha.com and TellMeMore.com, and throws in a totally unrelated but seemingly mandatory shout-out to Rosetta Stone.

Column: 'Tell me' program opens world of languages: If you belong to the Marathon County Public Library in Wassau, Wisconsin, you can get access to TellMeMore.com for free. And those of you outside of the U.S. thought we were lucky to have free access to all those expensive language-learning recordings.

A Classical Language Requirement: Meet Jake Miller. Watch Jake get a whole lot about learning languages wrong. It's too much work to even try to correct everything this guy's getting wrong, so I'll leave it to someone else to tilt at this windmill.

It's all Greek to me: Omniglot gives us the low-down on how to say "It's all Greek to me" in a ton of languages.