Home Blog Page 6
how to learn a new language fast

FREE: San Francisco & Berkeley presentations and screenings of “Saved by Language”

FREE: San Francisco & Berkeley presentations and screenings of "Saved by Language"

Watch “Saved by Language” online or on DVD

The film, Saved by Language about how Moris Albahari saved his life in World War II in Bosnia by using the Ladino language is now available to the public! You can rent it for $7 to watch online as many times as you like in a three-day period or you can buy the DVD for $25 and watch it whenever you want. You can order the DVD in either the PAL or NTSC format. Both the DVD and the online rental have subtitles in English, Ladino, Spanish, Portuguese and Bosnian/Serbo-Croatian.

Don’t fault innovative musicians!

Instead of criticizing people who are risk takers, we should be applauding their efforts because if we don’t innovate, these languages are going to die.
The Interpreter

Why I Hate Interpreting and Translating: multilinguals are not “natural” interpreters and translators

Just because somebody speaks two languages, he/she is not a natural, automatic interpreter and translator. A multilingual person can’t translate anything anybody wants, and can’t do simultaneous interpretation. I have received many requests and demands to translate and interpret on the spot from monolingual people and from multilinguals who aren’t used to being in situations where they have to interpret or translate. The idea that just because somebody is bilingual that they should make a career as a translator and an interpreter or do it for friends and family as favors is absolutely faulty.

Brazil: A Failing State

Rio de Janeiro took my breath away at first sight because of its beauty. Now the entire country may be choking because of government mismanagement, corruption and the drought.
Language Learning Articles

You are not your language. Linguistic snobbery blocks language learning

f you fashion yourself Ernest Hemingway or Jorge Luis Borges’ incarnate and therefore exempt from learning an “inferior” tongue, let’s do a reality check. Where’s your Nobel Prize for Literature? Where are the bookshelves of tomes in your name worthy of mention?
how to learn a new language fast

Gift for the holidays: how a language saved a life

For a limited time, until December 31, 2014, Saved by Language is on pre-sale. You can buy it here. The DVD comes with English, Ladino, Spanish and Bosnian subtitles. Choose from PAL and NTSC formats.
music and language

Music can bridge the income gap in education

Music can help people bounce back after a stroke or brain trauma. It can also narrow the achievement gap between poor and rich kids.

TEDx: Music + language (songs) activate our brains, hearts and souls.

Alas, my TEDx talk on why we need to learn foreign languages and save endangered languages via music has been posted online.
Idioma é música

The Portuguese language has many homelands

Over two years ago, I wrote about the idea of a language as a homeland as I was starting my journey into the endangered...

Recent Posts

Popular Posts

Translate »