As I learn new Turkish words, I think about the best way to retain them. My methods so far have been mixed and haphazard, and I have no conclusion about the ‘best’ method. To get the conversation going, though, here are five methods that I have used or run into. 1. Anki Th
Abre los ojos A guest post by fellow language educator, Adam Samuel. My tri-weekly run usually takes me past the fish auction house and past the salt fields Las Salinas in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, where I live, right in the south of Spain and roughly an hour from Morocco. Depending on t
The problem with more words As I learn more words in Turkish, I am encountering an unexpected problem: choosing which word to use. Back in the true beginner days, I was ecstatic to have any word that might convey meaning. Now I am almost wary of learning synonyms, because I often end
The Inspector Chen Series What is it? The Inspector Chen books are a series of detective novels by Chinese poet and writer Qiu Xiaolong. The eight-book series follows Chief Inspector Chen Cao, a police detective, as he solves murders in present-day Shanghai. Who is it for? Anyone who
Learning French with Pomelo the garden elephant What is it? A series of eleven French picture books written by Ramona Bădescu and illustrated by Benjamin Chaud that explore the world from the perspective of a small pink ‘garden elephant’. It is obvious that Pomelo is not y
A Social Justice Tip for English Language Teachers I speak often about incorporating social justice themes into language lessons. For example, recently I posted a list of Spanish social justice subjunctive sentences. This week, I will switch the focus to teaching English modal verbs.
El día del amor y la amistad This Valentine’s Day (el dia de San Valentín or el Dia del Amor y la Amistad, the Day of Love and Friendship) and to follow Roma’s post about Valentine’s Day for Language Lovers, I’d like to talk about how to talk about love in Span
A Website for Translators, Interpreters, and Learners What is it? Spanish for Social Change is a blog by Sara Koopman, “a feminist political geographer who does collaborative research with international solidarity movements to support their efforts to decolonize the relationship
How to Make the Spanish Subjunctive a Little More Relevant I have written before about how to teach social justice through grammar lessons. Today’s lesson is on the subjunctive in Spanish. Most English speakers groan at the mention of the dreaded “subjunctive”, that
The Language of Los Abuelos Francisco Gabilondo Soler, better known as Cri-Cri El Grillito Cantor (Cri-Cri the Little Singing Cricket), was probably the most popular singer-songwriter of Spanish-language children’s music of the 20th century. I remember reading about Cynthia̵
