The Atlantic

7 min read

Just as fish presumably don’t know they’re wet, many English speakers don’t know that the way their language works is just one of endless ways it could have come out. It’s easy to think that what one’s native language puts words to, and how, reflects

You South Africa

1 min read

Language is such a powerful tool for connecting with the world and the people around us. With YOU Learn 4 Languages kids of various ages can sharpen their vocabulary in their mother tongue and learn how to say everyday words in four languages: Englis

You South Africa

1 min read

One of my fondest childhood memories is of sitting on my dad’s lap, a Richard Scarry word book open on his knee. He’d point at the cute pictures that crowded the page and my job was to identify each object. How clever I felt! And it was such fun. Per

Tribune Content Agency Opinions

2 min read

"Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?" asked Professor Henry Higgins in the musical "My Fair Lady." It's a good question for Americans, especially millennials. On a recent flight two young women sat behind me, chattering away rath

India Today

1 min read

Q. How do you look back at your 53-year-long career as a playback singer? I have had a dream journey. Some of my career’s highlights have also been the challenges. For instance, the fact that I was a live performer before I became a playback singer.

Literary Hub

5 min read

One of the very first questions I wrestled with as a writer was this: Why write in English, the colonizer’s language, when I have others at my disposal? I grew up acquainted with three languages; my grandparents immigrated from southern China to Mala

The Christian Science Monitor

5 min read

What makes a story, a story? For Harry Bruinius, the Monitor’s New York bureau chief, it’s the moment a person’s life changes. He has long brought this approach to his reporting, covering issues of religion, race, and even gun violence.

Los Angeles Times

6 min read

I felt her staring at me on the playground as I called out to my daughter. She must be someone's grandmother, I thought. She must be curious, as people often are. Then she took one step toward me - pink fingernails, dark blond hair - and opened her m

The Guardian

3 min read

Writing letters to my mother feels liberating – even if simple sentences often get lost in translation

The Atlantic

6 min read

Embracing your inner child is comforting and fun—and just might revitalize the English language.

Beijing Review

2 min read

Language communication can be difficult between different countries. There are differences in cultures, attitudes, beliefs, local phrases and customs. Understanding a country’s history is also important to develop good communication skills. All of th

Woman & Home

3 min read

What does a Jerusalem artichoke have to do with Jerusalem? Why do we fall head over heels when that’s the right way up? And doesn’t having your cake and eating it make total sense? If you’ve ever pondered any of these linguistic curiosities, the answ

The Guardian

3 min read

Influential people have always had the power to change language. The president’s late-night typo sent the internet crazy, but will it stick around?

The Christian Science Monitor

2 min read

A reader asked about the origins of thwart, which has two sets of meanings that are at odds. On one hand, to thwart something is to hinder or prevent it; in older uses, though, thwart implied crosswise motion or position. English has several other wo

The Atlantic

3 min read

Even when she taps into the colloquial vernacular that’s characteristic of her Oklahoma roots, the Democratic presidential candidate risks appearing inauthentic.

NPR

2 min read

There are no exceptions. If a piece being prepared for broadcast has an offensive word or phrase, or involves excretory or sexual issues, care and consultation are required.

The Millions

12 min read

I could feel myself becoming restless and wanting my narrator to grow with me, make wiser choices, but instead I had to stay in her world, refine it and dig deeper into the questions I was exploring. The post Our Private and Public Lives: The Million

Literary Hub

6 min read

People ask me whether I think in French or in English now that I’ve lived in the US a while. I lie when I answer this. I say it depends on what I’m thinking about—English for work, French for family and curse words. This answer is usually welcomed as

Futurity

1 min read

The most accurate predictor of a student’s beliefs about what dialects of English are valuable isn’t race or class but the language choices of his or her parents, according to a new study. In the United States alone, there are more than eight differe

Literary Hub

4 min read

In the early 90s, I had a puzzling conversation with a college classmate. He told me about a movie he’d seen. I asked him if he liked it. “It was all right,” he said. “A little cheesy.” I had just arrived in the United States to study abroad. The mov

Nautilus

13 min read

An iconic sentence, this. But how did it ever make its way into the world? At 71 words, it is composed of eight separate clauses, each anchored by its own verb, nested within one another in various arrangements. The main clause (a decent respect to t

Saturday Star

1 min read

EVERY year, the home of world-renowned language data, Oxford Languages, releases its word of the year. However, due to this unprecedented time, the institution has decided to select several official words of the year. The English language has undergo

Pretoria News Weekend

1 min read

EVERY year, the home of world-renowned language data, Oxford Languages, releases its word of the year. However, due to this unprecedented time, the institution has decided to select several official words of the year. The English language has undergo

Literary Hub

5 min read

Every writer has their favorite words. As a translator, you get to know them intimately. I experienced this while translating Dola de Jong’s The Tree and the Vine, a controversial post-war novel from the Netherlands that explores a tumultuous relatio

The Atlantic

6 min read

Being out of school for half a year could change children’s relationship with formal expression.

The Guardian

4 min read

When you hear people conversing in an unfamiliar language, why is it that you can’t even tell where one word ends and the next begins? If you are a native English speaker, why is it so challenging to get your mouth around a French or Hebrew “r”, whic

Global Voices

4 min read

"For me, languages are an important way of making sense of the world and creating connections."

The Millions

6 min read

Bryan A. Garner is here to update us on changes in how people speak and write in real life The post English in the Real World appeared first on The Millions.

Literary Hub

6 min read

Americans have such a curiously un-English way of being strictly consistent and logical in their doings. –Grant Allen (1890) “You may be right on a technicality.” That is how a copy editor—let’s call him C—tried to end an argument with me the other d

Nautilus

4 min read

I would cut off my right hand if you find it.” That was the guarantee retired Columbia history lecturer Jens Ulff-Møller made that there was no word for “million” in Old English, a medieval predecessor of the language you’re currently reading. Some