 Monthly Archives
Categories
Free Language Resources OnlineNow available on our website: free language resources in ten different languages!... More Tags: dictionaries, language resources, newsletter, newspapers, online tools, tips
When You’re REALLY Grateful You’ve Studied the LanguageA few years ago, I studied abroad in Florence, Italy. At the end of the semester, my parents came to visit and I traveled by train with them down to Naples. The original plan was to pick up a rental car in Naples and then drive directly to the town of Ravello on the Amalfi Coast, a spectacularly beautiful coastline in southern Italy.... More Tags: Amalfi Coast, Italian, Italy, newsletter
National Italian-American Heritage MonthDid you know that in the United States, October (ottobre) is National Italian-American Heritage Month?... More Tags: Italian, Italian-American, newsletter
It goes without saying…You may not know it, but every time you use that expression, you’re speaking French. Well, that’s pushing it a bit, but this perfectly good English phrase is actually a borrowing from French.... More Tags: borrowings, calques, loanwords
Jijks!That would sound something like “yikes!” in Dutch, and it’s what I said to myself when I read this piece about the Dutch influence on place names in New York City. There’s a flurry of Dutchiness going on here right now, in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s arrival in these parts. (No, he wasn’t Dutch, but he was sailing for the Dutch East India Company poking around the waters that would later bear his name in the hopes of finding the fabled Northeast Passage.)... More Tags: Dutch
Recognizing Syllables In Language (And In Sigur Ros Lyrics)Just read the short piece “Private Tongues,” an interesting essay on how we recognize our own language versus how we discern (or don’t) the differences in syllables in other languages. Anglophones are quick to recognize the differences between regional dialects of English, but mostly consider other languages to be monolithic. This is sort of like being able to differentiate between lime, chartreuse, olive, khaki and pea, but seeing all shades of red as a single color.Incidentally, we’re big Sigur Rós fans in the office, though I’d never thought of the lyrics to “Untitled #1 (Vaka)” in English. I will, however, admit to interpreting Kate Bush’s “jeux sans frontières” (in Peter Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers,” the phrase’s English translation) as “she’s so popular” when I first heard it many moons ago. Related: One of us who speaks some Icelandic contends that there’s a lot more Icelandic to “Vonlenska” than most people realize. (SUZANNE) Tags: Icelandic, Sigur Ros
“I salute yaw vigah”One among us hails from Woostah, or rather Worcester, Massachusetts. He doesn’t speak that way any more, but did as a child, and can summon it at will. Which makes for a really good Mayor Quimby impersonation. (He also talks about wicked hahd slahp shawts, as in ice hockey.)... More
|
|||
