Today is May 4th, and for fans of the Star Wars universe and nerds* like me, it’s a day to go around saying, May the 4th be with you. Why? A famous line in the Star Wars movies is, May the Force be with you and if you lisp just a little bit when saying…
Author: Cheryl
To me and for me
One of the things that plague native English speakers who are learning Spanish is when to use por and when to use para. So it never occurred to me that people learning English would have similar questions about all the words we use to express the same things. And then a friend asked me to…
Take me off your list
Intermediate to Advanced (length, slang, US popular culture references) It’s 3 a.m. Jake and I are lying awake in the old fold-out bed in the living room of our “transition” apartment, listening to the inevitable creaks and groans of too much humanity pressing against itself all around us. “I’m really starting to like this…
Using machine translation apps
Language learners (and teachers!) have a love/hate relationship with translation apps like Google Translate. You either love ’em or think, as the founder of Babbel does, You get the information, yes, but every language has its own way of describing the world. If you learn a new language, you usually also learn a new way…
Grit
If you look very long at Netflix, you will see words like gritty in some of the program descriptions. Reviewers use these words to signal several things at once. Just what does this mean? Real, physical grit* is like sand. It is uncomfortable and irritating, especially when it gets in your eyes (or certain places…