“The Lernen to Talk Show” Have you seen this blog in which a guy learns German in a year and posts weekly videos of his progress? It’s great. The guy behind the project, Mickey Mangan, wanted “to prove to people that learning a language is something you can do
Sample Sentences Bu kız çok güzel ama yürüyüşu çok tuhaf. This girl is very beautiful, but the way she walks is very strange. Arabaya benzin lazım. This car needs petrol. Bu kutuyu açma. Do not open this box. Bunu bana söylemene rağmen, anlamadım. Although you told me this, I did not
Well, it’s my last day in Morocco, so I wanted to devote a final post to the languages spoken here, in particular Moroccan Arabic, also known as Darija (which means ‘dialect’ in Arabic). I looked back at my on-and-off blog, Mary of Arabia, at the posts I wrote while
More Than Bilingual After a few months of surrounding myself with information about bilingual kids, it’s time to talk about multilingualism. There have been many news stories recently about the benefits of bilingualism (for both adults and children), but what about those of us w
This is the first in a series of interviews with multilingual people. Here Maria jumps into the advantages of speaking more than one language, her preference for Spanish when it comes to swearing, and the significance of who you talk to at the end of the day. Maria, tell us about your
Good at geography? Then you already know some Arabic 1. Medina = ‘city’ This city of Medina in Saudi Arabia is considered to be the second holiest city in Islam after Mecca. In Arabic, medina just means ‘city’. In some cities, though, people say medina to speci
Eek! I have no vocabulary! This weekend I traveled to El Chorro (“the Spurt”) in southern Spain to do some rock climbing. Two days before I went, I realized that I knew very little Spanish climbing vocabulary. Communication between climbing partners is important, and often
How much do we know about other places and their languages? After three days on this Mediterranean island off the coast of Spain, I meet a woman who resembles neither the average local Mallorcan nor the average European tourist. She says that she is from Bolivia, and has been working
The original idea In 2012, I proposed to travel to 12 countries and learn 12 languages. I even began the journey–flying to New Zealand to learn a new variety of English, and then to Indonesia to learn Bahasa–but the timing was wrong. I returned to Vancouver. As I now trave
Letting go of grades and levels A tutoring client recently asked me how to structure his learning of Turkish. He reads language books, writes grammar exercises, and watches YouTube videos, but he worries that this is too scattered and messy. “I can’t tell if I am making pr
