Seven Italian Hand Gestures Worth Knowing Posted by Malachi Rempen on Jul 13, 2015 in Archived Posts
Many years ago, back when my wife was just my girlfriend and I was visiting her family for the first time in rural Italy, I spoke about as much Italian as a plate of spaghetti Bolognese. Unfortunately, her family spoke as much English as a chicken pot pie, so there were plenty of hilarious misunderstandings…
Lost in Translation: Untranslatable Words and Phrases Posted by Malachi Rempen on Jul 6, 2015 in Archived Posts
Let’s face it; there are some things that language simply cannot help us express. Religious experiences, travel experiences, life experiences – really any kind of personal, subjective experience is difficult to put into words that will accurately portray the experience being had. But don’t feel bad, that’s not your job; that’s why we pay poets…
Transforming the Economics of Language Learning (Part 5) Posted by Transparent Language on Jul 1, 2015 in Archived Posts
Helping an unmotivated student limp over the finish line. Is that a distasteful or unworthy goal in language training? No, not at all. It’s important and exciting to raise your language program’s lowest outcome. Students vary from program to program, but they mostly share the same goal: to achieve a particular level of proficiency or…
Ignorant Friends: the Secret to Your Success Posted by Malachi Rempen on Jun 29, 2015 in Archived Posts
Disclaimer: everything that follows is terrible advice. If you’ve followed the Transparent Language blog for any good amount of time, you’ll know there are lots and lots and lots of articles on how to improve your language-learning, how to get over the fear of speaking new languages, and what it takes to get better. But…
How I Became Trilingual in Three Years (and How You Can Too) Posted by Jakob Gibbons on Jun 24, 2015 in Archived Posts
In 2012 I was your typical monolingual English-speaking American. Now, almost exactly three years after picking up my first Teach Yourself Dutch book, I’m a functional trilingual backpacking my way through Latin America. I didn’t do it through expensive courses or an auspicious blow to the head, but instead by learning about how the brain…
A Brief History of Language Posted by Malachi Rempen on Jun 22, 2015 in Archived Posts
Sometimes it’s hard for us humans to keep time in perspective. I suppose it’s a good thing—after all, if we were constantly thinking about the fact that we’ve been around for about 200,000 years and for 98.5% of that time we never wrote anything down, we probably wouldn’t be able to function in our day-to-day…
What the word for “Spoon” tells you about your language Posted by Malachi Rempen on Jun 15, 2015 in Archived Posts
I’ve made a startling discovery. Much in the same way that the position in the night sky of arbitrarily-determined groupings of stars on the day you happened to be born can tell you everything you need to know about your personality, the tonal linguistics of the word for “spoon” in any language is a perfect descriptor…