A couple of days ago while walking through Central Park with my Pimsleur lessons, I was informed in Dari lesson 24, second level, that buzkashi is the national sport of Afghanistan. “It’s somewhat similar to polo, but is played with…
Tonight after months of frustration at the lack of sound in Persian courses on Memrise, I went to the Memrise Madness group on Facebook and expressed my disappointment over my soundless learning experience. George Muresan, a dedicated language learner and…
Over the past two months, I have spent a ton of time on language, but hardly any time writing about language. Oops. Blogs don’t really work if you don’t write. So anyway, I am back. En Route to…
A week has now passed since my return from ACTFL, the annual U.S. language conference for teachers of foreign languages. It was well worth the trip to San Antonio, Texas, even though most people there seemed perplexed (since I…
Swedish has been in my life on a daily basis for a long time. Not the language—the genetic material. Brandt. Husband. My husband, Brandt, is of Swedish descent. He looks it, no? Swedish is a North Germanic language,…
Today four more Swedish books arrived. Left to right are Get Started in Swedish, by Ivo Holmqvist (Teach Yourself); Essential Swedish Grammar by Julian Granberry (Dover); Swedish: Essentials of Grammar by Åke…
For quite a while now, people I know have been going on about how great Duolingo is. I have been told multiple times how addictive it is and how much fun and bla bla bla. Well, that wasn’t my…
When I studied Dutch in 2012, I had a hard time figuring out how to pronounce things. And I am not a person who can read a text about or in a foreign language without knowing how to pronounce the foreign…
In my neighborhood last week, I auspiciously came across a new Swedish cafe, Fika, pictured here. At least I think it’s Swedish; I guess it could be pretend Swedish. Att fika in Swedish means “to have…
After a winter hiatus, I am back to doing weekly Big Apple Greeter visits. What that means is I take tourists around New York through the Big Apple Greeter volunteer program. The goal is to show visitors a slice of…
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