Language Learning & Music

"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...

The Time Magazine blog post: The Pentagon's Foreign-Language Frustrations shows how poorly US military personnel can actually communicate in Iraq and Afghanistan. The news is appalling, but not surprising. The military's language schools  have...

For parents whose childrens' schools have cut foreign language education, it's imperative to use foreign language music, movies, TV and radio at home to keep their kids learning. A software program WON'T be enough. See...

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...

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 ...

This Daily Show clip is hilarious! There is controversy at Hacienda Middle School in California. Some adults are afraid that having kids learn Mandarin will indoctrinate them into being Communists. It's sad to see that people are actually scared about this. McCarthyism all over again? Thanks Aasif Mandvi of the Daily Show for pointing out their idiocy.

My hero in brain work, Dr. Oliver Sacks, shows us in his New York Times Opinion piece how learning can help us grow our brains, at any age. This Year, Change Your Mind: Don’t leave...

In this lesson, Luciana Lage (of Street Smart Brazil) and I use the song Toda Sexta Feira to teach the days of the week in Portuguese, how to use the words todo/toda, and pronounce...

When people hear the title of my book, Language is Music, they often assume that one has to be a musician or a good singer to learn languages or that I profess that someone...

January not only brought in a new year, it brought in three new books! First, I updated Language is Music with about 30 new tips on language learning using music, TV, radio, movies and other...