In linguistics, a false friend is either of two words in different languages that look or sound similar, but differ significantly in meaning. Examples include English embarrassed and Spanish embarazada 'pregnant'; English parents versus Portuguese parentes and Italian parenti ; English demand and French demander 'ask'; and English gift, German Gift 'poison', and Norwegian gift 'married'.
Language education – the process and practice of teaching a second or foreign language – is primarily a branch of applied linguistics, but can be an interdisciplinary field. There are four main learning categories for language education: communicative competencies, proficiencies, cross-cultural experiences, and multiple literacies.
Dora the Explorer is an American media franchise centered on an eponymous animated interactive fourth wall children's television series created by Chris Gifford, Valerie Walsh Valdes and Eric Weiner, produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studio and originally ran on Nickelodeon from August 14, 2000 to June 5, 2014, with the final six unaired episodes later airing from July 7 to August 9, 2019. It has since spawned a spin-off television series, a sequel television series and a live-action feature film.
Kató Lomb was a Hungarian interpreter, translator and one of the first simultaneous interpreters in the world. Originally she graduated in physics and chemistry, but her interest soon led her to languages. Native in Hungarian, she was able to interpret fluently in nine or ten languages, and she translated technical literature and read belles-lettres in six languages. She was able to understand journalism in further eleven languages. As she put it, altogether she earned money with sixteen languages. She learned these languages mostly by self-effort, as an autodidact. Her aims to acquire these languages were most of all practical, to satisfy her interest.
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Europeans claim to speak at least one language other than their mother tongue; but many read and write in one language. Multilingualism is advantageous for people wanting to participate in trade, globalization and cultural openness. Owing to the ease of access to information facilitated by the Internet, individuals' exposure to multiple languages has become increasingly possible. People who speak several languages are also called polyglots.
Rachel Bluwstein Sela was a Hebrew-language poet who immigrated to Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire, in 1909. She is known by her first name, Rachel, or as Rachel the Poetess.
A phrase book or phrasebook is a collection of ready-made phrases, usually for a foreign language along with a translation, indexed and often in the form of questions and answers.
Eurofest '75 was an International Youth Conference and Evangelistic Campaign organised by the Billy Graham Organisation in Brussels, Belgium. It followed on from Spree '73 held in London. The General Secretary for both was Harvey Thomas.
Teach Yourself is currently an imprint of Hodder Education and formerly a series published by the English Universities Press that specializes in self-instruction books. The series, which began in 1938, is most famous for its language education books, but its titles in mathematics are also best sellers, and over its long history the series has covered a great many other subjects as well. "A Concise Guide to Teach Yourself", compiled by A R Taylor, was published in 1958 and listed all the titles up until then.
Virginia Yip (葉彩燕), is a Hong Kong linguist and writer. She is director of the Childhood Bilingualism Research Centre. She is a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include bilingual language acquisition, second language acquisition, Cantonese, Chaozhou and comparative Sinitic grammar, psycholinguistics, and cognitive science.
Ana Maria Carvalho is a Brazilian sociolinguist and a professor of linguistics within the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Arizona. She is the author of several books and articles on sociolinguistics and language acquisition.
Bilingual Books, Inc. is a privately held publishing company that develops foreign language learning products. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, the company publishes interactive computer software, books, audio programs and phrase guides for 20 different languages.
The Ruby Red Trilogy is a series of three young adult fantasy novels by German writer Kerstin Gier. The three books are: Ruby Red, Sapphire Blue and Emerald Green. The books have been translated into over twenty-seven languages and sold internationally. The series follows the story of Gwendolyn Shepherd, a time-traveling girl living in contemporary London.
Margarita Madrigal was a Costa Rican American author and language teacher best known for the Madrigal's Magic Key to... and An Invitation to... series. During her career, she wrote 25 books covering seven languages.
Silvina Montrul is a linguist specializing in generative approaches to second language acquisition. She is currently Professor of Linguistics and Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, as well as Second Language Acquisition, at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
Limmat Verlag is a Swiss publishing house, headquartered at Quellenstrasse 25, 8003 Zürich, Switzerland. Founded in 1975 in Zürich, it is specialized in political history.
Ana Celia Zentella is a Puerto Rican/Mexican linguist known for her "anthro-political" approach to linguistic research and expertise on multilingualism, linguistic diversity, and language intolerance, especially in relation to U.S. Latinx languages and communities. She is Professor Emerita of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego.
Patsy M. Lightbown is an American applied linguist whose research focuses on the teaching and acquisition of second and/or foreign languages in a classroom context. Her theories of second language acquisition earned her the SPEAQ Award for "contributions which have had an impact on the entire English teaching community in Quebec". She served in the United States Peace Corps in Niger, West Africa from 1965 to 1967. In her more than forty years in the field she has taught at multiple universities across the United States, Australia and Canada. She holds the title of Distinguished Professor Emerita at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. She has written seven published books and has been featured in many book chapters and refereed journals. She currently works as an independent consultant, editor, researcher and writing in second language acquisition and learning.
