MSI Press Blog

  University Spanish Classes After the 7 th grade self-taught experience, it was quite some time before I would take actual classes. In the interim, my Latin and French classes kept my Spanish going in a way, given their being members of the same language family: similar grammatical structure, similar lexical derivation. It was only at the university that I picked up courses in Spanish. Since I had a full plate of French, German, and Russian, Spanish did not fit easily into my schedule, so I asked one of the Spanish instructors if I could officially audit her class, and she agreed. Because I already knew some Spanish, it was decided that I should audit intermediate Spanish. I did two courses this way, which, had I taken them for credit, I would have finished the two-year language requirement (a requirement I quite overfulfilled in my college days). The teacher liked having me in class, let me participate with everyone else, take the test, and do the assignments. She was as met...

  When I think about English as my first language, I don’t just think of grammar lessons or vocabulary lists. I think of the way we actually spoke. Every family, every region, every community has its own idiolect—the personal flavor of speech—and its own dialect, shaped by geography and culture. Growing up in New England, I learned early that the way we spoke wasn’t always the way we were expected to write. In school, teachers corrected our spelling and word order, guiding us toward Standard English. But at home and in the community, we kept our own rhythms and sounds. We didn’t “park our car in Harvard Yard.” We “pahked owah cah in Hahvid Yahd.” That distinction mattered. In writing, dialects and idiolects were often erased, replaced by the standard language that carried authority in textbooks, exams, and professional life. Yet in speech, they remained alive, carrying identity, humor, and belonging. My dialect was a reminder that language is not just rules—it is culture, heritag...

  English was my first language, the one I absorbed without effort as a child. It was the language of my family, my community, and my earliest immersion in the world. I didn’t study it at first; I lived inside it. Every year, my understanding deepened as I listened, spoke, and eventually read and wrote. When I entered school, English became not just the language I spoke but the subject I studied. Teachers corrected my spelling, my grammar, and my word order. I learned that sentences had structure, that verbs carried tense, and that word placement could change meaning entirely. Grammar became a framework I could lean on, even if I didn’t realize at the time how valuable it would be later. That foundation in English proved indispensable when I began learning other languages. With Germanic languages, I found familiar ground in the shared grammar framework. With Romance languages, the gift of 1066—the Norman Conquest—was still alive in English. So many words had already crossed i...

  After a party in Tashkent, I found myself riding home in a car with five people. Among us, we knew eleven languages—but not one that united us all. I spoke Russian, French, and English. Another knew Turkish and Uzbek. A third had Finnish (not helpful) and Russian. A fourth spoke French and Uzbek. The fifth, Uzbek and English. Any two of us could communicate, but all five of us could not. So, we bantered in a joyful melee—five people translating for each other as topics shifted and languages rotated. More absurdly, non-linguists—or at least non-language learners—often don’t understand how languages work, and absurdities arise. Once, I traveled from Prague beside a woman who spoke only Czech. I helped her fill out her landing paperwork but worried she’d struggle at passport control. I asked an airport employee if I could assist. “No,” he said. “She’s a visitor, you’re a resident—separate lines.” Then, he reassured me: “Don’t worry. All the passport agents speak Spanish.” What? ...