A Knitting Academic

Lingq is a language learning service that uses translators, media, and flashcards to facilitate vocabulary building. It has a few regular promotions. One promotion is in December for $100 for a year of service. I decided to try since I felt that I'd figured out OCR. Day 1:  It was difficult to find the right content. A great way to start would include an assessment of your vocabulary and reading comprehension level. I finally found a useful lesson provided by a user from the Suomen Mestari text. It's a shame that Lingq makes money from using uploads of others' content. It would be good if Lingq partnered with content providers. Also, the service provides zero instruction. I had to find a YouTube video by a user to explain. I still don't know what the red (47%) means on the lesson. Day 2:  whoa, a new feature. Somehow the app started including word reviews between lesson pages. That's a huge improvement over what I was seeing before. [Turns...

One day as a child, my friend stormed out of the room while I was talking to other friends. "She's frustrated because we are all talking and she's excluded," a family member explained. My friend was and is deaf. Though I knew a little sign language, I only used it when talking directly to her and didn't realize until that point what it meant for her when others talked. I realized what she must feel to sit in a room seeing everyone else talk and laugh. She was invisible, and it would take her considerable effort to join. I made more of an effort to sign when speaking after that point. It doesn't exclude anyone to sign and speak concurrently. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to speak multiple languages at once and to have two languages and cultures coexist. Today,  I am inspired by the article " Unpacking the Emotional Labor of Immigrant Women " by Olga Mecking (a writer living in the Netherlands).  My impression of Europe, and Scandinav...