Primero Hay Que Aprender Español. Ranhou Zai Xue Zhongwen.
A quiz: If a person who speaks three languages is trilingual, and one who speaks four languages is quadrilingual, what is someone called who speaks no foreign languages at all?
Answer: an American.
Primero Hay Que...
Will there be more military linguists when homosexuals can serve in the military?
As I was driving home and listening to the news on the radio about the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell", the military's ban on homosexual military service people, I realized that this may...
Farenheit 451 (remake): no more multilingualism
As a bibliophile and great admirer of the dystopian novel Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and the original 1966 film adaptation, I was surprised at how much I liked the 2018 film remake that...
How to avoid bilingual caregiver burnout
The scalpel cut into my father’s chest. As blood oozed out of the wet, pink flesh, the surgeon said to me, “Tell your Dad I’m going to cauterize his skin to prevent infection.”
My Dad,...
Spaceman: Being in between languages
When I lived in Argentina, a Spaniard told me about a friend of his whose parents were from Spain but grew up in Portugal. When the Spanish man visited Spain from Portugal, he couldn’t...
How to raise a bilingual or multilingual kid
I am typing this just after having a trilingual conversation with my nephew who just came back from Ecuador. When I speak to him in Russian, he responds in Spanish. When I speak to...
How languages change the psychology of multilinguals
Steve Kaufmann, of LingQ, invited Tetsu Yung and I on his podcast to discuss how we change psychologically when we speak in different languages and the politics of learning certain languages.
For years, I've felt...
Proposed cuts in funding for foreign language programs in US
Public foreign language programs may now be cut or eliminated because of education budget cuts to the Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP), the only source of federal funding for K-12 foreign language programs. This...
Speaking your native (heritage) language despite ridicule
It’s assumed that just because I grew up speaking Russian that it was always easy for me to speak Russian. No way!
My parents’ Soviet immigrant friends liked to talk about how well their children...
When being multilingual is a burden
What you’re about to read may seem counter-intuitive.
Sometimes, being able to speak more than one language can be more of a burden than a benefit.
You might ask:
“How so? Isn't the ability to communicate across...
