Linguistics

If you’re reading this blog, there is a good chance that you’re a hopeless language addict, suggestible to any new language recommendation, and forever putting languages aside to try out the new hot thing. So maybe I shouldn’t be enabling you. But if you’re looking to learn a new foreign language and don’t know which one to choose, I have …

I get this question a lot: “You mean, there is more than one sign language?” And don’t feel bad, before I studied linguistics and started doing research on Nicaraguan Sign Language, I hadn’t thought about sign languages much either. I had plenty of wrong ideas about how they worked. But yes, to answer the question, there are actually many sign …

Happy International Mother Language Day! My mother language, or “mother tongue” as we say in the US, is English. This is fitting for a linguist. Not because it is currently a so-called lingua franca, but because it is a very mixed-up and promiscuous language, vulnerable to nearly any language it comes in contact with, mixing its many linguistic influences, sometimes …

Working on your accent? So am I — in six languages. As a native speaker of English and an adult learner of Spanish, French, Mandarin, Korean, Indonesian, and ASL, I’ve had my fair share of phonetic struggles, from Mandarin tones to that rolled Spanish “r”. But guess what? There are concrete steps you can take to improve your accent, especially …

Apps, textbooks, and tutors will definitely form the basis of your language study. However, without the right frame of mind, it will be hard to actually design and follow through with your study plan. Here are some things that will help you create an optimum environment for language learning, and guess what? They all cost you $0. CURIOSITY Mark Twain …

Since my husband and I live in Korea, and my parents and sister live in California, this Christmas we decided to convene smack in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, on an American island called Hawaii (or, as the Koreans might call it, the American Jeju 😉 ). Before our trip I figured I had better bone up on Hawaiian …