How Small Children Communicate: A few weeks ago I spent time with a friend’s 15 month old daughter. She has learned some baby sign language recently, specifically the sign for “done”. What this has translated to is, when she is put into her high chair (and she doesn&
New country, new language I crossed in the border into the Autonomous Province of Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan with curiosity. How much would my intermediate level of Turkish help me to read, understand, and communicate? Azerbaijani, also known as Azeri, and Turkish are from the same family
This is the third year of Language Partners BC, a volunteer run language organization in Vancouver. The project started with an the influx of Syrian refugees in the winter of 2015-2016 and the idea that a partner-based language program might offer connections and solidarity between pe
New Year, New Focus Happy New Year! It’s hard to believe that another year has passed already! 2017 was a great year for our contributors at Esperanza Education – a year of personal and professional growth for all of us. It has been a year of change too, and 2018 brings a
An event to bring people together If you live in the Vancouver area, I invite you to the September 23 Community Languages Festival – Facebook event here – held from 2-5 PM at the Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood house. The goals are to bring people together from different languages backgr
Diferenças no nível de comunicação O primeiro desafio de quem está estudando uma nova língua, é ter a capacidade de se comunicar de forma eficiente. Conseguir entender e ser entendido. É uma alegria quando, enfim, podemos aposentar as mímicas e o uso de cem frases diferentes para expl
Questions Everyone Asks about My Job Since October 2015, I have been working with Kwi Awt Stelmexw, a non-profit in Vancouver dedicated to strengthening Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) language and culture. The Skwxwú7mesh Peoples are Indigenous peoples whose territory includes modern-day Vanc
A basic linguistic guide across the “stans” History has marched and galloped back and forth across Central Asia – which guide books tend to describe as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikisitan, and Afghanistan – and to which I’ll add Pakistan bec
To hug or not to hug? If you have a Latin American friend you have probably noticed by now that we tend to touch each other a lot. Or maybe more than you are used to. It is one of those cultural differences that seems exotic, but that may generate some awkward moments. I have been in
Facebook Founder Learns Mandarin Two weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg spoke with students at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Apparently he has been learning Mandarin Chinese, because he surprised everybody by speaking in Mandarin. So, how did he do? From my own limited, but immersive, expe
