Find Part 1 here. Part 2: When You’re Ready to Write (1) Identify Language Form(s) Once you’ve established your target languages and begun connecting with those communities, you need to identify the appropriate language forms. No language is neutral or only has one pan-global form. So will it be British or American English? High German or…
Since moving to Germany, I’ve developed a keenly-tuned English-language radar. No snippet – spoken or written – is too small to escape my notice, and I delight when I find them. Along with hunting for moments of my mother tongue, I’m helping create them. I’m involved in several projects exploring different ways to incorporate English…
When I was in Iceland last year, I noticed a pattern with the guest books I was signing. As I visited museums and cultural sites I saw plenty of standard guest books – the ones on tables, the ones next to exits. The standard guestbooks usually had standard entries – names, hometowns, “Great museum,” “What…
You may have already seen this fantastic video of the United States Air Force Band’s flashmob at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, but here it is again. I love this performance, but I’m also incredibly biased. First, it’s taking place in a museum – what’s not to like? But, more importantly, these are…
There are a lot of beautiful ways to get yourself seriously injured in Iceland: volcanoes, glaciers, geysers, cliffs, and pieces of fermented shark on toast. I was lucky enough to experience almost all of them (not the shark, because ewww), and I was repeatedly surprised at how minimal and unobtrusive the caution and instructional signs…
During my latest tracking and timing study, I’ve noticed something. At the risk of ridiculous over-generalization, German visitors appear to spend more time in museum exhibits than American visitors. On average, I’m observing German visitors spending twice as long as Americans in exhibits of comparable size and content that I’ve conducted studies in.* They also…
Museums Askew 