November 29, 2010
I just stumbled upon this email, which I sent home on November 17, 2006. I think it still stands true. Enjoy! Yeah, you read that right. I just watched Forrest Gump (a one-dollar bootleg DVD, of course) and now I understand why it was so popular here. One of my teaching colleagues even chose “Forrest” […]
November 15, 2010
I like this post by Jina Moore, a journalist based in Africa, about how she sounds different when she speaks different languages. It’s almost like that now in Kinyarwanda, where my vocabulary is more limited and so the words I know pop out, like the accented notes in a Hindemith counterpoint, and I can use […]
November 12, 2010
The first in an occasional series about living, speaking, and writing at the intersection between languages. Of all the products in Beijing’s upscale supermarkets, these pistachios have the best branding. Let me count the ways! 1) Literal. “Pistachio” translates to 开心果 kaixinguo. 开 means open, 心 means heart, and 果 means fruit or nut. 开心 […]