Folium: How the Internet Is Changing the English Language via DailyDot

… Connect: DailyDot: How the Internet Is Changing the English Language … No matter if you speak English, French, Spanish, or another language, the internet can be a dark place for language lovers. If you have ever delved into any of the popular websites, you may have noticed that the words you know and love […]

Folium: English Is Not Normal via Aeon

… Connect Aeon: English Is Not Normal … I am sure you have noticed, but English is a pretty strange language, and I know many who agree to that statement. John McWhorter is is a professor of linguistics and American studies at Columbia University. He writes in his article titles “English is Not Normal” about […]

Folium: Strange Spelling Puts English-Speaking Learners At a Disadvantage via BigThink

… Connect BigThink: Strange Spelling Puts English-Speaking Learners at a Disadvantage … English is hard. Between the pronunciation and the spelling English words are extremely difficult to master to foreign speakers. Native English-speakers intuitively know what order to put words in, but this is hard to teach to those just learning the language. The difference […]

Folium: How Does English Sound to Foreign Ears via MetroUK

… Connect How Does English Sound to Foreign Ears via MetroUK … A lot of times growing up, it was fun to mimic accents from different languages I heard, but really, I was trying to make sense of what I was hearing. One day I got to wondering how the English language sounds to non-English […]

Folium: 10 Things That Will Ruin the English Language via io9

… Connect 10 Things That Will Ruin the English Language via io9 … Mom was strict about the use of language. She constantly corrected us whenever what she considered misuse of the language crept into the vernacular. She hated slang.  I had a good friend in high school in the 1950’s. He was a cool cat. […]

Aero: Alaiza Dominguez – Costa Rica 2015 – Learning the Language

Aero: Alaiza Dominguez – Costa Rica 2015 – Learning the Language … … Despite already having a little bit of a background knowledge with the language there were a few bumps in the road. Among them were dialect, the speed at which some folks spoke, and my big ol’ American accent. Overall it was pretty easy […]

Folium: Useful Words With No English Equivalent via BoingBoing

Shemomedjamo – “I accidentally ate the whole thing.” Folium: Useful Words With No English Equivalent via BoingBoing … Mark Twain often wrote of his distaste of the German language, how new nouns could be formed by smashing them all together, or worse, by smashing a load of functions or meanings together to create something totally […]

Folium: The Longest Word in the English Language via Gizmodo

Folium: The Longest Word in the English Language via Gizmodo We have often discussed on Folium the “flexibility” of the English language, and this is just another example of just how far the rules of language can be pushed (which, to find out, is pretty far). The adaptability of English tends to be a two-edged […]

Folium: The History of The English Language via YouTube

Folium: The History of The English Language via YouTube Here at LEAF, we tend to discuss the benefits of learning foreign languages from the perspective of the reasonably curious monolingual American. It’s the point of view that suits us best, but offers us little room to take a good long look at ourselves. So, what […]

Folium: Foreign Accent Syndrome via SWNS

Creative Commons Media via Flickr User Zion Fiction Folium: Foreign Accent Syndrome via SWNS via SWNS The human brain is an amazing thing. It seems like the more we discover, the less we actually understand… FAS, or “foreign accent syndrome”, affects only a few people in the entire world. Yet this disorder has gained national attention […]