Category

Languages

• 07.12.08
  Moving Russian Movies
  Languages, Movies, Russia (0)

  I'm moving my posts about Russian movies to a separate blog at kino.reticulator.com . It's something I had thought about doing anyway, but when Alexander Sedov brought up some interesting comments and questions about them, I decided it was time. Most of my comments about non-Russian movies and language-learning in general will be there, too. But since the movies I watch are mostly Russian ones, that will be the dominant topic.
  
  
• 05.07.08
  Spacing effect
  Languages, Schools (1)

  Here are a couple of items that need reticulating. The first is this article at Wired Magazine about Piotr Wozniak and how to remember things. No, it's not all in the wrist. Instead, as with stand-up comedy, it's about timing. The second is this web site about block scheduling, one of the latest fads that's ruining our secondary schools. Actually, the fad started some time ago. We had a big battle about it in our own school district several years ago, back when I still had a kid in high school. But the ...
  
  
• 04.24.08
  Another Q for Anton and David Treuer
  Languages (0)

  Here are more questions that I wish had been asked of Anton and David Treuer: You guys have both been published. Do you get any flak from people who think the language should be strictly an oral language? Is it really possible for someone who speaks Minnesota Ojibwe from Leech Lake to understand someone in central Michigan who speaks Ojibwe? One web site led to another while I was looking up some of their work, and I found this item at the Red Lake Net News. I liked number 3 the best. Top 10 Things To Say To A Non-Indian Upon ...
  
  
• 04.24.08
  Anton and David Treuer
  Languages (0)

  Tonight my youngest son mailed me a link to this page from NPR, "Letter Men: Brothers Fight for Ojibwe Language." It was an interesting interview. I have one of Anton Treuer's books. It's the one he read from during the interview: "Living Our Language: Ojibwe Tales & Oral Histories" (2001). It's a bilingual book, with Ojibwe on one side and the English on the other. When I pulled it down from my bookshelf, I found that the page he had read from was bookmarked with a yellow sticky-note. But I don't know ...
  
  
• 04.11.08
  Lingq
  Languages (0)

  I've been wondering for some time what I was going to do when I finished the Pimsleur Russian course. I like using the Pimsleur language courses because they're something I can do on my bicycle commute to work, or when I drive, or sometimes when I'm working out in the garage. But Pimsleur can take one only so far. It doesn't do much in the way of vocabulary building, and doesn't do much to help one with the written language. I worked my way through the last of the 90 lessons a couple of months ...
  
  
• 07.04.07
  A multi-lingual, English-as-Official-Language society
  Languages, Legislative process (0)

  Paul Greenberg writes: I'm all for the wonderful mosaic of cultures in this country - social, religious, linguistic, culinary and every other kind in this country of countries. Each contributes something to the way we all see things, think about things. We learn from each other. But here there is room for only one, indivisible, unhyphenated civic culture. A civic and civil culture that gives us a common tongue to argue in, and common ground to stand on. Note that having English as the one official language of this country, the language used for government work, would be quite compatible with our ...