Twists of the Tongue: Speaking Foreign Languages
Taught by Jonathan Soma
Soma was born in the South, is what someone from the North would say. He co-founded the Brainery, is the sciencey half of Masters of Social Gastronomy, and plans on getting married to Waffle House. In his more droll moments he is a tragic sellout to higher ed as a professor of data journalism at Columbia University's journalism school.
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Ever wondered why Japanese speakers mix up L and R, or where a Southerner's drrraaawwwl comes from? Your mouth is just a box that lives in your head, and we're going to be analyzing the machinery that makes it work (and what you can do to put it to work for you).
With a little linguistic background you'll pick up foreign languages faster and more easily, instead of staring wide-eyed while sounds tumble out of a person's mouth. You'll learn what a voiced bilabial stop is, and get to use fancy words like affricate.
We probably won't talk much about tonal languages but I will make you listen to people read Chaucer in hilarious olden days accents.
