Language Learning Blog

A Dip Into Spanish Literature

Pimsleur Approach • May 3, 2012 • Foreign Literature, Language Learning, Spanish • Comments (0)

Without Spain the modern day novel might not exist. Not that the Spanish invented writing or books, but one of the first novelists was Spanish. Miguel de Cervantes was a Spanish author and between 1605 and 1619 he published two volumes of Don Quixote, one of the world’s most influential novels. The novel’s full title [...]

Going, Going…Saved: Four Successful Language Revivals

Pimsleur Approach • April 25, 2012 • Foreign Language, Foreign Literature, Global, Language History, Language Learning • Comments (0)

It is a statistic that has linguists and linguaphiles alike wringing their hands and furrowing their brows. Almost half the world’s 7000 languages are likely to disappear in the 21st century. Shockingly, a language dies out about once every two weeks. But does it matter? Surely, with the increasing dominance of English, Spanish and Chinese, [...]

Folk Tales of Russia

Pimsleur Approach • April 23, 2012 • Entertainment, Foreign Literature, Language Learning, Russian, Traditions • Comments (0)

So important were folk tales to Russian culture for centuries, that when the tales began to appear in print in the 16th century, they were taken as historical fact. Until the end of the 18thcentury, people of all levels of Russian life enjoyed hearing folk tales. Though later viewed as mere entertainment for the lower [...]

Teaching Wisdom, Ethics and Nature: The Folk Tales of India

Pimsleur Approach • April 18, 2012 • Foreign Literature, Language Learning, Traditions • Comments (0)

For many centuries in India, folk tales passed down individual and community values, morality, wisdom, devotional practices, local legend and myth. The tradition extends into sacred texts, such as the great ancient epic, the “Mahabharata”, a revered Hindu text that contains the world renowned “Bhagavad Gita”. Print collections of Indian folk tales have long been treasured by [...]

“Beginning of the Tale”: Folk Tales of Greece

Pimsleur Approach • April 4, 2012 • Arts, Entertainment, Foreign Literature, Greek, Language Learning, literature, Traditions • Comments (0)

In addition to carrying many elements of Greek mythology, Greek folk tales have been influenced by the many cultures that surrounded it over the centuries. These include influences from Western Europe, the Middle East, India, and the Ottoman Empire, which once stretched across the Mediterranean and North Africa into Central Asia. Despite these wide-ranging influences, the Greek folk [...]