My mind is awash with thoughts from last week’s linguistic landscape workshop in Ethiopia’s capital city—thoughts from the last two days of informal visits to the campus of Addis Ababa University, from a group excursion 300km through the countryside to the Debre Libanos Monastery and the Blue Nile Gorge, [...]

It still amazes me how I can grow up with a word, know what it means, but not know where it comes from.  In this sense, every word is a bit foreign to me.

Earlier this month I was looking at my calendar, the same way I do every day for work to make sure I [...]

Seeing a Japanese word I thought was buried in the past re-emerging in day-to-day use reminded me of a strand of posts I started but haven’t kept up with:「ありがとうございます」(Thank you very much),「入口」 (Entrance), and「おひさしぶりです」 (Long time, no see)  were posts I wrote as I tried to make sure my [...]

한 2년 전에 이 블로그 FIT에서 UC버클리 일본어 선생님들께 감사의 말씀을 적은 적이 있다. 내가 학부생 일때 그 언어를 철저하게 공부할 수 있게 해주신 선생님들께 적어도 그렇게 써드려야겠다고 생각 했기 때문이다.

About 2 years ago here on FIT I wrote a post thanking my UC Berkeley Japanese teachers. This was the least [...]

It was great to meet everyone who came out to the Found in Translation get-to-know-you meeting last Friday at Caffe Strada, and everyone in Rick Kern’s course, Applied Language Studies. I’m looking forward to a great semester of blogging with you all about our experiences learning, using, and thinking about languages and cultures.

Last [...]

Il est peut-être un peu bizarre de parler de ma exerience d’apprendre l’anglais en français, mais ça c’est un project pour mon cours français. Alors, j’essaie de écrire en français.

En chine, apprendre l’anglais est quelque chose de grande importance. J’assistais au cours anglais parascolaire quand j’avais seulement sept ans.  Les leçons étaient comme les jeux [...]

At last Friday’s FIT afternoon get-together, as usual, the conversation careened between topics serious and inane, from the origins of the dirty joke (with plenty of examples) to a quick primer on the term “hermeneutics”. But, like Mike said, there are few places even in Berkeley where one can sit down with a group of [...]

It’s been quite a while since I’ve ventured to write about learning French, or even taken a few baby-steps in the direction of actually writing in French – this mostly because I haven’t been studying and practicing as I should for my research project between learners of French in Berkeley and [...]

여러분, 안녕하세요? (Hi, everyone!)

I’m writing this post for anyone on this blog, Found in Translation, but want to give a special shout-out to the summer language classes at Cal. And since I’m in Korea right now, and since I started studying Korean many years ago in a K1 summer language class at Berkeley (now I’m [...]

Now, looking back and looking forward at the end of my third semester in Language and Power, I’m struck by how much the syllabus feels like it tells the story of a journey of survival. But, I have to admit, it’s a funny kind of journey, and one I wouldn’t have ever hoped for, since [...]

I couldn’t look at myself without cringing. My pants were a major upgrade from what I normally wore when I went out, but they were seriously lacking in material. They looked more like chaps that covered most of my quads and calves, but only had straps along the inner sides of my legs, thus [...]

So I noticed today that Google had Morse Code on its front page.  “How interesting,” I thought to myself.  It’s Samuel Morse’s birthday — he was the inventor of Morse Code and one of the inventors/developers of the electric telegraph.

I actually learned Morse Code many years ago, when I was a Boy Scout.  [...]

枝垂れ桜はなぜこんなに美しいのでしょうか。 昨日、キャンパスの中にある、モフィット図書館のすぐ前を歩いていて、この枝垂れ桜を発見しました。数百回歩いているみちですが、まるで久しぶりに昔の友達にばったり会って、うれしく感じて、互いにあいさつした、と言った方がいいかも知れません。

その周りにほかの桜の木もいろいろあります。日当たりのもっといいところにはもっときれいに見える薄紅色の花がたくさんあります。にも関わらず、垂れている枝と、薄いピンク色の花びらを見て、美しいなぁって再び思いました。 どうして美しいのでしょう。

今日は四月一日です。バークレー大の春休みが終わったばかりで、あと少しで学期も終わる時期です。学生や教授ならだれでも疲れる頃、つまり、肩を落とすように、そして、下を向くように垂れる頃です。でも、この枝垂れ桜を見ながら、「四月一日」と思っていたら、ふと思い出しました。今日は、終わる頃じゃなくて、日本ならもうすぐやってくる新学期のことと、春を待つ人々の期待感が含まれている、いわゆる始まりの日だということを。

なるほど。私たちも、昔の兼六園にあった旧友の枝垂れ桜のように、疲れや病気などにちょっと落ち込んでいても、きれいな花が開く時期です。そして、おそらくその桜の木の枝が垂れているからこそ、花がさらに美しく見えるのかも知れません。

Who here learned the English alphabet to the “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” melody? Of course since we have many international readers I’m half expecting a few people to say “I didn’t!” (or maybe you did? I’m curious). Well, from my own experiences growing up, the link between music and language was strong. From more→