Writer Jhumpa Lahiri grew up speaking Bengali and later English, then became passionately devoted to a third language, Italian. Her book In Other Words: A Memoir (Bookshop|Amazon) is a love letter to Italian and a vivid account of the challenges and...
You’re in a business meeting. Is it bad manners to take out your phone to send or read a text? A new study suggests that how you feel about mid-meeting texting differs depending on your age and sex. Grant and Martha offer book recommendations for...
How do translators of literature decide which words to use? B.J. Epstein, a Chicago native now living in the UK, is a translator with an excellent blog on the subject called Brave New Words. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
Amanda Kruel from Knoxville, Tennessee, wrote to say that ten years after learning French, she was studying German and her mind would jump from German to French, instead of English, when she was at a loss for a word. This is known as faulty language...
The hosts and a listener in Grand Rapids, Michigan, trade some 17th-century insults. For more, check out these references: Gargantua and English Words With Native Roots And With Greek, Latin, Or Romance Suffixes by George Albert Nicholson. This is...
A listener from Texas heard an NPR report from Asia in which an interpreter translated a speaker’s words into English as “a whole new ball game.” He wants to know if that’s a literal translation from an Asian language, and if so, is it a reference...
