Story written by Miranda Meyer, IEM/MPA, ’18 Spanish and I have a love/hate relationship. Some days I absolutely love listening to it, speaking it, and thinking about it. Other days, I struggle to come up with words, my pronunciation is terrible, and if I hear one more song in Spanish I want to scream. I […]
Story written by Erika Quinonez, IEM, ’17 My fascination with Brazilian culture began long before I started to learn Portuguese in a formal setting. I had a profound interest in the rhythm of the language, particularly when it came to Brazilian music and poetry. There were always classic Brazilian records playing on the turntable in […]
Elizabeth started her language journey with a high school student exchange program to Marbella, Spain. In that small coastal town, she learned Spanish through immersion in the culture and was able to gain proficiency in the language otherwise unattainable through classroom learning. That experience informed her decision while studying in university to pursue Italian in […]
Growing up in Taiwan, Mandarin was my first language. My first encounters with Korean were watching Korean dramas with my grandmother as a child. Learning Korean was naturally fun to me as a beginner; the pronunciation of Hanja is similar to Chinese and the spelling is alphabetic like English. The social aspect of Korea attracted […]
For me, Russian language has been a key to answering many questions about the relationship between Russian and Soviet societies and their domestic and foreign policies. Aside from always having a Russian gymnastics coach and ballet teachers, I became especially … Continue reading →
When I was young, every day after school I would take the bus all the way across New York City to the Mid-Manhattan Library downtown, because on the third floor they had language textbooks. At my school there was a … Continue reading →
I started learning to speak Russian in kind of an ironic, organic fashion. I met my best friend during my first year of college and she was born in a small town in the Smolensk region of Russia. She was … Continue reading →
I grew up “mixed.” Whatever that means, right? My background in language learning comes from a Quebecois grandmother who spoke French and instilled a sense of pride in me for the language, while my mother, who had refused to learn … Continue reading →
While living in Chechnya, it was common for me to be walking down the street and suddenly hear deep voices yelling something in my direction. Sometimes it was someone asking for directions or yelling at me for breaking social norms. … Continue reading →
Growing up a ‘third culture kid,’ Francesca learned quickly how to adapt to new places and new people. Francesca describes being a third culture kid as being a bridge between cultures. She navigates her family culture and the dominant culture … Continue reading →
