Babel

The multilingual, multicultural online journal and community of arts and ideas. There's a heaven above you, baby.

Babel

Archives for November, 2010

Se aprende mejor un idioma con la música

Posted by  on Tuesday, November 23rd 2010     

Este articulo acerca de mi libro, El Idioma es Música, salió por la agencia EFE y ha sido publicado en más de paises de habla hispana desde que salió el miercoles pasado. http://www.impre.com/laraza/noticias/2010/11/21/se-aprende-mejor-el-espantilde-223557-1.html#commentsBlock

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Azerbaijan: Linguistic Chameleon

Posted by  on Monday, November 22nd 2010     

The city sparked my interest in 2006 when I read The Orientalist about Lev Nussimbaum, a Russian Jew from Baku, who was a cultural and linguistic chameleon.  In Baku, he spoke Russian at home and learned German from his tutor. Lev Nussimbaum escaped the Russian Revolution in a camel caravan to Istanbul.  Later on, in [...]

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What Makes Us Who We Are?

Posted by  on Saturday, November 20th 2010     

Well, of course, we won’t admit we are alone! We will never admit the fact that we are facing an identity crisis that spreads its claws further and deeper in and on our beloved planet as we are advised to shed any type of membership to a group, community or culture.

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Quid pro quo (Clarisse)

Posted by  on Thursday, November 11th 2010     

Who could forget this scene?  (I could only find it in Spanish) “Si la ayudo, Clarisse, Ud. y yo nos tornaremos. Quid pro quo; yo le digo cosas y Ud. me dice cosas” So quid pro quo means “this for that”, an exchange, barter, I’ll give you something and you give me something, presumably of [...]

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Learning New Languages And Improving Skills You Already Have

Posted by  on Wednesday, November 10th 2010     

Ever since human beings have joined in social groups, eventually forming societies and cultures, information exchange has been a key element in every-day life and not only. The archetypal need of communication and the wide variety of languages and dialects may not always go hand in hand peacefully, but, especially in a global world as [...]

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Hawaiian Volunteering Opportunity

Posted by  on Tuesday, November 9th 2010     

I am talking about a site I found some time ago when I had a Hawaii infatuation about something I never thought existed: the Hawaiian royal palace, ‘Iolani Palace.Throughout its history, Hawaii was first a democratized tribal society, then turned into a monarchy until the U.S.A. forcibly (no pun intended, I’m just stating historical facts, [...]

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The Man vs. The Poet

Posted by  on Monday, November 8th 2010     

Adrian Paunescu is one of the most controversial personalities from (post-) Communist Romania.  For the older generation (I mean those who were in their teens/twenties – even thirties or more in the 1970s and 1980s) he was the local version of a pop star. He could gather thousands of people (without ANY sort of PR), [...]

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Napoleon did surrender (didn’t he?)

Posted by  on Saturday, November 6th 2010     

As I was jogging today my favorite ABBA song came on the iPod: My my! In Waterloo Napoleon did surrender Oh yeah! and I have met my destiny in quite a similar way. And let’s not forget these stirring lines, The history book on the shelf Is always repeating itself! Perhaps this is my favorite [...]

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Mad Men screen shot

Posted by  on Friday, November 5th 2010     

Thanks for reading my new blog, everyone.  I’d like to start off with a brief comment about Mad Men, the show everyone is mad about, me included.  (It’s pretty embarrassing that I don’t get around to “discovering” shows, music, etc. until about 5-10 years after they appear, but it’s been an unbreakable pattern since childhood.  [...]

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