Joey from Orono, Minnesota, has been learning Italian and its many idioms, which makes him wonder if there are other languages that can simply be learned in a classroom without input from a larger cultural context of new and evolving expressions...
Elia lives in northern Arizona, alongside the Navajo Nation. He grew up in France and learned English as a second language, but he knows very little Navajo. When he overhears Navajo being spoken, he has a hard time picking up any emotional tones at...
The new play English by Iranian-American playwright Sanaz Toossi powerfully evokes the challenges and rewards and changes involved in struggling to gain fluency in another language. Reviewing the play in the The New Yorker, Alexandra Schwartz...
What kind of book is most often requested by people who are incarcerated? The book that prison inmates ask for the vast majority of the time is a dictionary. These books, as well as thesauruses, prove useful for mastering reading skills, writing...
Maira lives in Puerto Rico and speaks English as a second language. When friends visiting from Minnesota join her at the beach and are ready to swim out into the surf, they say I’m ready to go out. When they’re ready to go back onto the shore, they...
The English language includes several words deriving from Arabic, such as coffee, sugar, and giraffe. Another is ghoul, which comes from an Arabic term for a “shapeshifting demon.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Words from...