Archive for 'Archived Posts'
You Know You Love Language Learning When… Posted by meaghan on Feb 19, 2014 in Archived Posts
A few weeks ago, I posted this image to our Facebook pages and asked you to fill in the blank. Here’s a few of my favorite responses: …when you stop relying on Google translate to do your homework. …your social life consists of asking others if they speak Arabic also. …you find the phrase “Il…
Something Borrowed, Something Blue… or Red Posted by Transparent Language on Feb 12, 2014 in Archived Posts
A wedding is a momentous occasion in every corner of the globe, though the event itself may take vastly different forms from one country to another. From the proposal to the preparations to the ceremony, the entire nuptial process is chock-full of traditions and superstitions. Not a detail is overlooked, with cultural peculiarities influencing the…
Heehaw or Eeyore: Onomatopoeias in Foreign Languages Posted by meaghan on Feb 3, 2014 in Archived Posts
WHAM! One of my favorite aspects of a language is onomatopoeia—the words assigned to specific sounds, like the woof woof of your childhood dog, or the vroom vroom of a new car. Part of the reason onomatopoeic words differ among languages is the availability of sounds in each language. A diving bird obviously can’t make…
“Saperlipopette!” Improve Your Language Skills by Reading Comic Books Posted by mtaulier on Jan 29, 2014 in Archived Posts
Now I know what a lot of you must be thinking: “Comic books? They’re for kids!” In the United States, comic books have had a long history of entertaining children and teenagers with stories of super-heroes fighting villains. The mass of major Hollywood movies based on comic books in the last decade is a testament…
Let It Slide: Transparent Language SlideShares Among the Top 1% Posted by Transparent Language on Jan 27, 2014 in Archived Posts
The nice folks at SlideShare sent us an e-mail last week with our Year in Review stats—as is turns out, our presentations were among the top 1% of the most-viewed content on the site. Pretty nifty, huh? Just in case you’ve missed out, here’s a few of our most popular SlideShares from 2013. 6 Must-Know…
The 6 Stages of Language Comprehension Posted by Transparent Language on Jan 22, 2014 in Archived Posts
I wrote this comic back in 2011, right around when I began to understand a foreign tongue for the very first time. I had taken Spanish classes all through middle and high school, but the only useful information I remember from those years is how not to ask a girl out. Spanish didn’t stick, and there’s nothing…
How to Screw Up in Paris: What Nobody Bothered to Tell Me About Living Abroad Posted by Transparent Language on Jan 15, 2014 in Archived Posts
If you’ve read my other blogs you know that I am an old guy who is trying to learn – really, really learn – a language other than my mother tongue. It’s been an embarrassingly large number of years (yes, years) since I stuck that first tentative toe in the water of “French 101” at…