At what price, monolingualism?
Fortunately, a scant few of us will ever be in a life or death situation requiring foreign language knowledge. However, Canetti’s example is not the only example of how a multilingual person in the Balkans used a language to save a life.
I’m co-producing the documentary, Saved by Language, with Bryan Kirschen about how Moris Albahari saved his life in the Holocaust by speaking in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) to an Italian Colonel and a US pilot.
Portuguese via Spanish, Italian & a little French: different roads to a mellifluous tongue
The strange thing with the Portuguese language is I don't remember why I wanted to learn it, yet I can speak it. The Spanish language and Italian literature and film have been major influences in my learning the Portuguese language and becoming interested in Portugal.
Don’t speak like your neighbor’s cow, Why a good accent is important
The French, who are very proud of and particular about the pronunciation and proper use of their language, have a saying about people who speak French poorly and/or with a bad accent: “parler français...
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 raise kids in a different country and maintain two languages
In this video interview, Aaron Myers, an expat from the US who has been raising two children in Istanbul for over four years gives advice about how to raise kids in a different country...
Free and inexpensive resources to learn Arabic
Free online resources to learn the Arabic alphabet, phrases and other
BBC Arabic: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/arabic/guide/videos/learning_arabic.shtml
Arabic alphabet: http://arabicreadingcourse.com/
List of Arabic learning resources: http://arabic.desert-sky.net/links.html
Explanations of songs, dialects and other resources for students of Arabic, The Arabic Student,...
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 ...
Susanna’s interview on the Polygot Project Podcast
David Mansaray and Claude Cartaginese are doing a The Polyglot Project Podcast with interviews of language learners. It was an honor to talk to them about how I learned languages. I clarified how I...
Foreign language skills = $. How to motivate English speakers to learn languages
Why is the UK losing 11 to 26 billion dollars a year? Nick Chambers explains that there aren't enough foreign language speakers to service export markets.
Susanna Zaraysky answers why English speakers are not good...
What does it take to keep a language alive?
Minde, a Portuguese village of 3000 people, has its own language, Minderico.
DSCN1304Minderico developed as a secret language of the textile merchants in the town of Minde. When I heard it, I couldn’t understand anything even though the language has Latin roots.
