Lingotopia

Often language learners hope they could learn a language like a child again. It seems so effortless and effective. Even though I don't agree with this view, and say that learning a language like a child is neither effortless nor effective for an adult, I, actually, did learn a language like a child as an adult: Shanghainese ( Wikipedia article on Shanghainese ). In this post, I'd like to introduce Shanghainese and my relationship with it and in the next post, I'll discuss my take on "Learning a language like a child". Get a taste of how Shanghainese sounds on Wikitongues, a great site, where you can find recordings of an abundance of languages:  Ivy speaking Shanghainese .  I started to learn Shanghainese at the age of 31 when I moved to Shanghai for the second time. I stayed for five years and learnt the language in an immersive environment, my husband's Shanghainese speaking family, together with my kids. Ok, I cheated a bit. Before the birth of our...

The first time I learnt something about sign language was when I visited a dormitory for deaf youngsters who pursued a vocational training in Munich. The director of the dorm explained that German Sign Language (GSL, Deutsche Gebärdensprache) was a language completely independent of spoken German. I learnt that GSL had its own complex grammar and even dialects. After the tour through the dorm, the visitors could have drinks in the dorms café and suddenly I felt mute. How was I supposed to communicate that I wanted a coke? I didn't know any sign language! It was an interesting experience and since that time I was fascinated by sign language and by Deaf culture . Yes, Deaf people have their own culture. A world that is unfamiliar to hearing people. But I love it that the Deaf community embraces their own culture rather than seeing themselves as disabled. "Able-bodied" or "disabled" are just terms defined by society, but not necessarily how people feel themsel...

This week I finally started my new job as a lecturer in a masters studies program called "Germanistik und Interkulturalität/Multilingualität " ("German Studies and Interculturalism/Multilingualism"). As you may figure, this seems to be just the right thing for me and I'm excited to go back to teaching again. Interestingly, a new colleague asked me, if I was from New Zealand. It seemed that I looked a bit Maori to her. Not long ago, I talked to another italki user and told him, that I was mixed-race to which he replied that he always thought of me being American Indian. This prompted me to conduct a little experiment on stereotypes and I posted this discussion on italki:  https://www.italki.com/discussion/165794 . If you're not an italki user, you can't read the whole discussion, so I'm going to summarize it. My initial post was:  I had some discussions with other users that it seems to be difficult to guess my ethnicity and my age from...