I’m chatting in English to a medical student from Germany who is visiting Sydney, Australia, and we’ve already talked about how I lived in Germany for a while and speak…
Hanna TorshMay 15, 2012
Hungarians in RomaniaUp until a few decades ago, the academic consensus – along with public opinion – was that bilingualism is detrimental to the individual and society. Nowadays, that has…
Ingrid PillerFebruary 20, 2012
I know some people think what I am doing with my daughters – speaking German to them one-hundred percent of the time even though German is a second language for…
Christof Demont-HeinrichJanuary 30, 2012
USD 254,000: that is the cost of raising two children bilingually in English and German in Denver, Colorado. That’s a lot of money, and inspired me to do some number-crunching…
Ingrid PillerNovember 25, 2011
American society places little value on meaningful multilingualism for young people, or for adults for that matter. Nowhere is this lack of valuation more apparent than in the U.S. public…
Christof Demont-HeinrichNovember 23, 2011
Persian version of Lachlan Jackson's award-winning blog post about interlingual relationships. Translated by مطهره سامری (Motahare Sameri) "وقتی پای عشق به میان می آید ژاپنی ها محبوب ترین موجودات روی کره ی…
Vahid ParvareshNovember 15, 2011
How to make English-speaking friends is one of the perennial hot topics for new overseas students and new migrants. Advice on how to make “native” friends circulates like an underground…
Ingrid PillerNovember 4, 2011
In the past three decades attention has shifted from communicative competence to discourse as a frame for understanding the challenges faced by language learners. Yet, the question of how stereotyping…
Vahid ParvareshOctober 12, 2011
KOALA Buchstabenhaus (Adapted from: Urbanek, R. et al. (2006): Tinto grün. Arbeitsheft 1. Schreiben. Berlin: Cornelsen) Contemporary Germany is the 3rd largest immigrant-receiving country internationally. In 2008, 15.6mio inhabitants (19%…
Victoria BenzSeptember 13, 2011
I was so grateful to read Ingrid Piller’s in-depth critical post on German language politics, where she offered a profound analysis of the assumptions underlying the campaign “Ich spreche Deutsch”.…
Bettina KleinerAugust 31, 2011
Pretty much everyone I know wants to learn English or improve their English – with the exception of those who consider themselves native speakers, obviously. What is more, everyone I…
Ingrid PillerAugust 16, 2011
Having lived and taught English in Japan for more than fifteen years, until last night I’d thought I’d seen it all. That was until I stumbled across the もし彼氏が外国人だったら英会話 (What…
Lachlan JacksonAugust 11, 2011
“PR” is probably one of the abbreviations I have heard most since coming to Australia. Despite the fact that PR – “permanent residence” for the non-initiated - is the much-coveted…
Grace Chu-Lin ChangAugust 5, 2011
I recently returned to China from graduate study in Australia and soon reestablished my old habit of reading the newspaper over breakfast. One Sunday morning, this color flier was enclosed…
Zhang Jie 张洁July 22, 2011
Ads for a campaign to speak German are currently all over Germany. The campaign is called “Ich spreche Deutsch” (I speak German) and aims to convince migrant youths to learn…
Ingrid PillerJuly 20, 2011
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