Teaching language to enhance travel, and traveling to explore language!
This week I thought I should talk about more of my recent travels. And since Dublin is a popular travel spot, I want to describe my time there. I’m going to do it in a similar format to my post about Scotland’s Stirling Castle! Day 1: Arrival in Dublin Our initial arrival in Dublin was…
Last week, I talked about the places I currently wish to visit the most. So I thought this week I should do the same thing, but in the opposite direction! I’m gonna talk about my favorite places that I’ve already been to, and why I liked them so much. Maybe it’ll inspire you to go…
I want to do something a little different this week. I’ve been talking a lot about language lately since it’s really easy to talk about when I’m not traveling. But I have plenty of places I’d love to visit, so I thought I’d talk about them! As an anthropologist, many of them (but not all!)…
Germany, for many, is a dream destination. Filled with idyllic valleys and castles straight out of fairy tales, it’s a land with a rich history. But, you might struggle to get around if you don’t know German. Many Germans speak English (in fact, over half of the country’s population speaks it!). If you find yourself…
What is a language? That might seem like a weird question for me to be asking on a blog about language (and travel!). But the answer is actually pretty complicated. See, when you think about it, every language emerged as a dialect of another language, slowly changing over time into something new. There is a…
You’re likely to encounter a lot of languages in Indonesia. Most of them are not well-documented. Others are just not common outside of small communities. Several months ago, I wrote a guide to the languages you might encounter in Belize. That post seems to be pretty popular, and I had fun making it. So I…
We make a lot more sounds in speech than you probably realize. In fact, linguists have made a chart of them all, called the International Phonetic Alphabet or the IPA (not to be confused with Indian Pale Ale!). Still, as a non-linguist, this chart is not very easy to understand. So, let’s get into what…
I want to talk more about what I’ve been calling “vigilante revitalization”. I recently wrote a series of posts about dying languages, discussing the importance of revitalization and why it’s difficult. Now, a new obstacle has come up: AI-generated books. If you’re new here, or didn’t see those posts, the most relevant one for understanding…
What is adventure and wanderlust, really? I can tell you one thing: it’s not scrolling through Instagram and spending time in front of a screen. At least, not always. I’ve noticed something that tends to happen to me when I travel, and it revolves around the thing you’re reading this on: screens. Social media has…
When my family and I made our way from Glasgow to Inverness in Scotland, we decided to make what we thought would be a quick stop to check out a cool landmark. We didn’t expect Stirling Castle to be a full-day experience that we had to tear ourselves away from! I’m writing this in more…