I’m No Good at Languages!
Some people believe they can’t learn any foreign languages…. “I’m hopeless at languages! No matter how much I want to learn a language, I’ll never be fluent. It’s not worth the effort.” This is a well-known myth not only men embrace, but also women. It’s more predominant in cultures that are dominated by a single […]
European Day of Languages
Every year on September 26 the European Day of Languages is being celebrated. The initiative dates back to 2001, the Year of Languages, when the European Commission proclaimed the day to honor the approximately 200 languages of Europe. It is a day full of activities which are also financially supported by the Commission. What is […]
Sanskrit – Mother of all Indo-European Languages
Sanskrit as an actively spoken language died out long ago. It now has only scientific value. That is what many people believe, turning their backs on the ancestor of the Indo-European languages.In India, however, the language is still alive among the descendants of the Brahmins. A young Indian woman told me that her knowledge of […]
Scripts of the World
Every year on September 8th the International Day of Literacy is celebrated. I was shocked to read, that 750 Million people all over the world cannot read and write – and 2/3 of them are women and girls. My next thought is: those people live mainly in Africa and Asia …. but even in Germany, […]
How Do We Learn Our Native Language?
Many people often wonder why they learned their native language so easily, but find learning a foreign language so difficult. Now that I have learned about how our brain works at Birkenbihl University, I would like to venture an answer from this perspective:How do we learn our native language?Research into how we learn has been […]