I suppose for starters I'll post how to learn Arapaho. There aren't many resources to learn Arapaho with, nor are there any 'real' textbooks to use. Thus the task of learning this language might seem out of reach, but actually it's not as bad as it might seem.
The Sounds:
Most of us are probably interesting in learning the way a language is pronounced first, before getting into grammar. There are no really good audio to go with any of the lessons of the
Arapaho Project website (AP from now on). The only audio they have for the lessons are individually spoken words, and they don't have this for all the lessons. I recommend reading over the introduction to the
Arapaho Dictionary posted on the AP. After reading that, go to some of the dialogues and stories they have posted under
Archives on AP. This will give you a better feel for the speed of conversation, and give you some listening and speaking practice. Don't worry about understanding the words or grammar yet, just focus on hearing and speaking the language.
This can also be done with
Modern Arapaho Narratives: Hinono'einoo3itoono, which should come with 3 cds of audio to accompany the stories.
The Grammar:
After you think you have a good idea of how to pronounce Arapaho it's time to start looking at the grammar. I would recommend using
Let's Learn Arapaho as your main textbook for this. Luckily it's available free as a pdf on the AP site. However it won't be a bad thing the supplement the lessons in
Let's Learn Arapaho with the lessons on the AP site. This is made even easier by the fact that links are written in
Let's Learn Arapaho that go to the lesson(s) on the AP site. The Lessons on the AP are not really as good as the lessons in the LLA, so I wouldn't use them alone.
Let's Learn Arapaho is a great start; It goes over quite a bit of the grammar that Arapaho utilizes. However it doesn't go over everything (as can be imagined). If you have the interest and the money I would recommend also getting
The Arapaho Language, which is a reference grammar that is available on Amazon and other places online.
The Vocabulary:
Now, you've gone through the lessons in Let's Learn Arapaho and on the AP, but you notice that you only have about 100~200 words to work with. To go beyond this we have a few resources to use. First and foremost, I recommend using the dictionary on the
University of Berkeley Linguistics website. I do
not recommend the dictionary on the AP site, mainly because it does not have the tones marked.
Now, to use you're grammar and vocabulary resources to their full potential, I recommend reading over some Arapaho texts. You can either read over the texts in the Archives section of the AP site again, and/or read through the texts in one or both of the following readers:
Modern Arapaho Narrativesor
Arapaho Historical TraditionsAny of them are a great choice. You can also look up words in the dictionary (English - Arapaho) to use in conversation/writing.
After doing all that, you should have a great start in learning Arapaho.