How To Prepare For Your First Oral Exam

For many exam season is approaching rapidly, and I know for many language students, this includes oral examinations. Mock conversations, meant to be spontaneous and fluid, are often intimidating and anxiety-producing. Here are six tips to help you prepare for your exam.

Offbeat Bollywood: 5 Indian Films Americans Should See

Beyond extravagant sets, elaborate costumes, and upbeat dance sequences, there’s another Bollywood almost unknown in the US (movie buffs may be excluded). These five films diverge from the plot lines Americans expect, and reveal a whole new side of India.

Thoughts for the Post-Colonial Reader

“The close relationship between colonization and translation has come under scrutiny; we can now perceive the extent to which translation was for centuries a one-way process, with texts being translated into European languages for European consumption, rather than as part of a reciprocal process of exchange.” – from Post-colonial Translation by Susan Basset & Harish Trivedi

Post-Colonialism has long since wedged itself into the cultural limelight, notably in the realm of pop culture and cultural appropriation. Translation and foreign literature has not escaped its purview, and while many readers may shirk away for one reason or another – to political, too liberal – it’s an important factor to think about. For, to some degree, colonialism has chosen and reinforced what we read.

However, now foreign novels are not translated into English nearly enough, meaning that we know less about the world and its peoples than we did before. While novels, movies, advertisements are translated out of English and into a multitude of other languages; the international novel market in the United States is still relatively small. The US has largely monopolized its culture through exporting it.

So what can we understand that’s useful for us readers about the translation and post-colonialism?

Now In English! Review of "Broken Glass Park"

 

"Sometimes I think I'm the only one in our neighborhood with any worthwhile dreams. I have two...I want to kill Vadim. And I want to write a book about my mother." - Alina Bronsky, Broken Glass Park

Originally written in German by the Russian-German writer Alina Bronsky, and translated by Tim Mohr, Broken Glass Park (German Title: Scherbenpark) reveals itself to be a young adult novel on the axis of maturity. The opening, seemingly over-dramatic, casts readers into a side of Europe they may not be familiar with – the ghettos.

Language Goal: C2 German in India

Learning another language in another country may seem counter-productive, but this isn't too far of a stretch. Benny the Polyglot did it with Arabic in Brazil, and now I’ll be pushing myself the extra mile while living in India.

Into India: From Delta to Dust

India reminds me of nowhere I've been, and everywhere at once.

In high school I sat bent over a desktop screen watching Jab We Met, my initial contact with Bollywood. What caught me was an iconic scene – that of a train speeding away, and the protagonist (Kareena Kapoor) rushing to jump on. Years later, when I arrived in India, I hit the tarmac racing through customs, baggage claim, to the next gate. My runaway train was my connecting flight to Pune.

5 Tips for Reading International Fiction

Last week I wrote a bit about why branching into international fiction is a good idea - but I barely touched on how to do it. Whenever you come in contact with another culture, there's going to be some complications in understanding, even if the story is similar to something you may read at home. So how can we get the most out of reading outside our culture?