A Thing For Wor(l)ds

My English academy director entered a shop in Bilbao the other day and came across an aisle dedicated to cushions, or “cojines” in Spanish. What she was not expecting was the above sign, mistakenly written with “cojones,” therefore asking customers: “Please don’t pull on ...Read More

My trip to Krakow and Wroclaw, Poland, in April was both my first time in Eastern Europe and my first time REALLY traveling alone. (I did 10 days by myself in Spain before, but since I was living there, I only half-count it; I ...Read More

After hearing my students struggle with the difficult pronunciation of English “-ed” words (listen to the three different ending sounds of “cleanED,” “askED” and “acceptED” and you’ll know what I mean), the linguist in me decided to do an abridged version of my quarter-long university phonetics ...Read More

World languages never cease to amaze me. They are so uniquely expressive, and while many share similar alphabets or grammatical features, the vocabulary in one language can capture concepts that another cannot. Here are a few of my favorite terms from this post that’s ...Read More

I kicked off my Easter Break vacation with three days in the German capital, where I oddly enough did NOT fall as in love with the city as everyone seems to tell me is inevitable. I’m sure three days doesn’t do it justice. I’m ...Read More

Becca Novak is 25 years old and lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is the Education Manager for ScriptEd, a startup nonprofit organization that connects students to tech careers by recruiting volunteers to teach computer science in under-served schools. Previously, she taught special education ...Read More

Caitlin Lacey is 26 years old, and currently the head of production at Dandelion Chocolate, a small bean-to-bar chocolate maker in the Mission district of San Francisco. She graduated from Pitzer College in 2010, and spent the following year teaching English in Thailand on ...Read More