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Getting a New Perspective on Your Mother Tongue Posted by on Sep 21, 2016 in Archived Posts

Culture shock isn’t just when you leave abroad for a new place – it’s also returning home and seeing familiar things with new eyes. The same is true for language learning! You’ll see your native tongue from a completely different perspective. This is my favorite thing about travel: it’s not the culture shock you get…

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The Curse of the Englitalianeutsch Posted by on Sep 14, 2016 in Archived Posts

When you live in a multicultural context, you start to cultivate curious habits, like speaking a mishmash of languages. And what happens if you raise a kid in that context? The other day my wife and I were with my mom in an airbnb up somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Germany. My mom is American but…

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Learning Italian Through Card Games Posted by on Sep 7, 2016 in Archived Posts

You don’t always have to crack open a textbook to learn a language. Sometimes you just need to dive into a subject you know absolutely nothing about. As we all know, the best way to learn is to be thrown into the deep end and then observed from the side of the pool by someone…

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Danish Numbers: Out-Frenching the French Posted by on Aug 29, 2016 in Archived Posts

If you think French’s “four-twenties-and-thirteen” is a confusing way of saying “ninety-three,” just wait until you see Danish’s terrifying “three-and-fifth-½-times-twenty.” One of my favorite hobbies is complaining about the French system of counting. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again. I think perhaps it’s because French numbers are a perfect representation of what my personal experience…

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Break the Rules to Succeed Posted by on Aug 22, 2016 in Archived Posts

As language learners, it’s easy to get caught up in the rules: what can be done, what can’t be done, what is and isn’t allowed. But sometimes it helps to remember that in language learning, they’re really more guidelines than actual rules… The DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) is like how I imagine the American frontier…

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Americans Speaking to Americans in French Posted by on Aug 15, 2016 in Archived Posts

What happens when you’re in a foreign country, trying out the language you’re learning, and you discover that the person you’re talking to is from the same country you are? Do you keep speaking the language, together but probably incorrectly? Or do you bashfully lapse into your native tongue? I have a pet peeve. I…

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Biting Off More Than You Can Chew Posted by on Aug 8, 2016 in Archived Posts

Sometimes we’re nervous about learning a new language. Sometimes we’re intimidated. But sometimes we just plow right in, not fully aware of what exactly we’ve gotten ourselves into… The comic above is a true story, from a trip to China long ago. I was a teenager, and along with a high school friend of mine…

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