Older Students Learn Fake Language Rules Faster. What about real languages?
Although I agree with the premise of the research findings that adults can learn languages, and perhaps even faster than children, I don't like the way language acquisition is measured by creating an artificial...
Brain Power: Repeating sounds
At the gym, I read the Can You Build a Better Brain? article in Newsweek about how to restructure our brains as we take on new things to learn. We need to repeat actions many times ...
Video: Simple tips for learning languages
So you're not from a bilingual family and you live in a monolingual area where there's no one who speaks the language you're learning, you can still learn a new language.
Aaron Myers and I...
Music therapy effects the brain
Here’s a great show in Portuguese about the healing effects of music. Musicoterapia e a energia que vem dos sons (Music therapy and the energy that comes from sounds) from Caminhos Alternativos from the Brazilian...
The Power of Music to affect the brain and foreign languages
Sometimes when I speak about the pedagogical and healing powers of music, it feels like I am talking to a wall as few teachers, doctors and newsmakers take music seriously.
Thankfully, National Public Radio (NPR)...
Why Hearing (The Unexpected) Is Often Not Believing
Yesterday, I heard a story, Why Seeing (The Unexpected) Is Often Not Believing on National Public Radio (in the US) about people at a crime scene blocking out what is right in front of...
Learning Portuguese with rap and Brazilian music, Don Blanquito and Idahosa Ness
I interviewed (Don Blanquito) and Idahosa Ness about how they, as native English speakers, create rap, funk and hip hop music in Spanish and Portuguese. They also discuss how music helps people get into the...
How to learn a language: surrender to it
The word "surrender" conjures up images of defeat and submission. But when it comes to language learning, the more you give yourself up to your target language, the more successful you will be.
Why do...
Ladino and the beauty of Sarajevo, Bosnia
"Sarajevo has a soul. It has a heart."
My passion for Ladino/Judeo-Spanish is no secret. In this video, Richard Simcott (the hyperpolyglot extraordinnaire) and I speak in Bosnian/Serbo-Croatian (or whatever else you like to call...
Accents matter. Which one to choose?
Learning a language with various regional varieties or dialects means choosing which accent(s) to learn. In this video with Richard Simcott and Luca Lampariello, we talk about how we chose which accent to learn...
