Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 50

• Gender or gender?

  By ljd42 on February 22, 2020

  

  Is sex the same thing as gender? When I was learning a little Latin and less French in middle school, I learned that gender was nothing but a grammatical category, having little or nothing to do with sex. Why should… Read More ›

• Which languages are the most “efficient”? Which are the least?

  By ljd42 on February 20, 2020

  

  Perhaps you’ve learned some Latin, or German, or Russian. If so, you probably don’t find those languages very “efficient”: they have too many fussy endings, too many details you have to pay attention to. If, however, you speak Mandarin, that… Read More ›

• Can you say Buttigieg? Can you even say Klobuchar? What makes them so hard to pronounce?

  By ljd42 on February 18, 2020

  

  We all try to say Mayor Pete’s name correctly — but most of us fail. That’s partly because we’re told that his neighbors pronounce it “Buddha judge” whereas his campaign insists on “Boot Edge Edge,” according to the New York… Read More ›

• Valentine’s Day Dinner at Tavolo

  By ljd42 on February 16, 2020

  

  Barbara and I had an excellent virtual-Valentine’s-Day dinner last night at Tavolo. (Yes, I know it was the “wrong” day: their Valentine’s specials lasted for two days!) We both had the combo of filet mignon, lobster tail, duchess potatoes, asparagus,… Read More ›

• Weston wins! High School Quiz Show: Tantasqua vs. Weston

  By ljd42 on February 14, 2020

  

  Congratulations to Weston High School for their impressive performance in the opening salvo of this year’s WGBH High School Quiz Show! Weston beat Tantasqua Regional by the comfortable margin of 555–440, despite the fact that Tantasqua’s team consisted of four… Read More ›

• Mathematics Galore!

  By ljd42 on February 13, 2020

  

  The aims of a mathematics masterclass and of this book are to enthuse educate inspire challenge audiences of young people, their parents and teachers, with the wonder, excitement, power, beauty, and relevance of modern mathematical ideas. So it says in… Read More ›

• Listen and vote!

  By ljd42 on February 11, 2020

  “The Day Democracy Died”: vote for whichever candidate the Democrats nominate! But first listen to this song. (Thanks for the link, David Schwartz!)

• A very intensive language course

  By ljd42 on February 10, 2020

  

  In my 1/30/2018 review of Our War I mentioned that one of the few war novels that I’ve read was Im Westen Nichts Neues, which I guess is translated as All Quiet on the Western Front in English, though I remember it in… Read More ›

• How does the Washington Post know what you’re going to read and at what age you’ll read it?

  By ljd42 on February 9, 2020

  

  Interesting post by one of my favorite novelists, Lev Raphael: “The Washington Post Claims To Know What You Read And When.” In case you decide not to read either Raphael’s post or the Washington Post column he describes, here is… Read More ›

• Iowa and Ireland: election math

  By ljd42 on February 8, 2020

  

  What happened in Iowa? Well, we don’t really know for sure how Mayor Pete managed to astonish everyone, but that’s not what I’m writing about here. And what does it have to do with Ireland anyway? The issue is one… Read More ›

• The sister of English

  By ljd42 on February 7, 2020

  No, not Paul English or Todd English —  I mean the sister of English, as in the English language. Languages, like people, have family trees. If you’re French, you might be able to trace your family tree back to an ancient Roman… Read More ›

• Which American dialect do you speak?

  By ljd42 on February 6, 2020

  

  You and I don’t speak exactly the same version of American English. Our vocabulary, pronunciation, and maybe even syntax will vary, depending on geography (producing different dialects), socio-economic class (sociolects), and individual characteristics (idiolects). Many Americans are skilled at identifying… Read More ›

• Map workshop at the BPL

  By ljd42 on February 4, 2020

  

  Interactive historical local maps! Interactive historical local maps! Yesterday I attended a fascinating workshop at the Boston Public Library (JP branch), where we explored their new home-brewed web-based software for dynamically viewing historical changes in local maps and used it to… Read More ›

• We need a respite from xenophobia.

  By ljd42 on February 2, 2020

  Our xenophobic president is about to be acquitted of the high crimes and misdemeanors that he committed. His “alleged” actions have been proved, even according to Mitch McConnell’s good friend Senator Lamar Alexander (R, TN), who voted against additional witnesses… Read More ›

• “There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.”

  By ljd42 on February 1, 2020

  

  Leonard Cohen, Louise Penny, and Michael Connelly have nothing to do with each other. Nothing obvious, at any rate. But there’s an important connection that all these artists share, embodied by the quotation in the title to this post, which… Read More ›

• Our War

  By ljd42 on January 30, 2020

  

  This novel is strictly fictional. It’s just fiction, I tell you. It’s purely coincidental that Craig DiLouie’s Our War is about a Republican president who is impeached by the House, and then is convicted by the Senate (!), and then…  wait for it…… Read More ›

• What is the most popular surname in your country of origin?

  By ljd42 on January 28, 2020

  

  Thanks to Lisetta Shah, my former colleague and former student, for this link to maps and explanations of the most popular last name in every country. Check it out! Some of it will come as a surprise to you, some of… Read More ›

• The huge Amherst Railway Society Railroad Hobby Show

  By ljd42 on January 26, 2020

  

  This year’s Amherst Railway Society Railroad Hobby Show was different from previous years’ — not because the exhibits were significantly different (they weren’t) nor because it was held in West Springfield rather than Amherst (that’s been true for years). It… Read More ›

• To be in Irish and Spanish

  By ljd42 on January 25, 2020

  

  Or should that title be ‘“To be” in Irish and Spanish‘? The issue is just use versus mention, you know. (If you don’t know, check out this Wikipedia entry.) Let’s start with Spanish, since I am guessing that most —… Read More ›

• “Angry white guy unloads on new city councilor in voice mail”

  By ljd42 on January 24, 2020

  As posted by Adam Gaffin: My new city councilor, Julia Mejia (whom I wrote about on December 11 because she won by a single vote) received an angry voicemail message from a Trump supporter and gave a masterful response in… Read More ›

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