Skype Me Maybe

Many of my friends got together and made a great YouTube video, Skype Me Maybe. Benny did a fantastic job!.I really love how us language learners share our passion for something, connect, and enjoy what we do. I hope you enjoy the video as much as I did.

Dawdling along in Mandarin Playlists

Hello Amigos,

The Winter Holidays are here, and I wish I was shopping on fifty-seventh street in New York City.

I have been spending a lot more time indoors, and less time walking with the kids whilst listening to Chinese on my Ipod. This evening I thought it would be a good time to make a quick playlist for myself. I can watch the playlist on my television screen and on my notebook. It is a simple playlist of videos from my favorite linguist, Glossika.

I decided to embed the playlist below so that if you are also learning basic Chinese you can enjoy the videos as well.

Enjoy!

Six Ways to Chat with a Native Speaker

If you live in any metropolitan area, chances are you will be lucky enough to meet native speakers of your target language. Take advantage of this opportunity. I tend to be shy when I am speaking another language. It can be difficult breaking through that barrier, but trust me it will be worth the effort.

Start with the right attitude. If you have the right attitude the experience will be pleasurable. Native speakers tend to be happy that you are trying to speak their language. They can be very encouraging.

1. Be flexible about their correction of your pronunciation or grammar. I stopped worrying about making mistakes a long time ago. Enjoy yourself, and be grateful for their corrections. Smile and show that you are happy they corrected you.

中语 Many Languages of China

Chinese Language Map

Did you know that China has fifty six recognized ethnic groups? In order of population, this is the list of the 56 ethnic groups in China that are officially recognized by the government of the People's Republic of China. Members of several ethnic groups reside in Hong Kong and Macau, but due to the long separation from China, many of these ethnic groups are generally unknown to the Special Administrative Regions (of People's Republic of China) of Hong Kong and of Macau.

Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication containing statistics for 6,909 languages in the 16th edition, released in 2009. It gives the number of speakers, location, dialects, linguistic affiliations, availability of the Bible in the language, and so forth. According to Ethnologue, China has 292 living languages and 1 extinct language (Jurchen).

漢語（英语：the Chinese language(s)），又称中文（單指文字）、汉文、华文，其他名稱有唐文、中國語，唐話、中國話等^[1]，是属汉藏语系的分析语，具有声调。汉语的文字系统——汉字是一种意音文字，表意的同時也具一定的表音功能。漢語包含書面語以及口語兩部分，古代書面汉语称为文言文，现代书面汉语一般指使用現代標準漢語語法，詞彙的中文通行文体。目前全球有五分一人口使用漢語作為母語。現代漢語書面語高度統一，口語則有官話、粵語、吳語、湘語、贛語、客家語、閩語等七種主要漢語言。

Malaysia Maps and Malay Alphabet in Photos

The official language of Singapore is Malay. Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. Malay is the national language of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. It is spoken by forty million people across the Malacca Strait and along the eastern coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. Before getting into the the Malay language, a language I do not know a thing about, one should first be familiar with the area where it is spoken. I think that understanding the geography of an area is an important part of knowing a language. Each time I studied a language in college, I had to learn about the country as well. So here are some Maps of Areas where this major world language is spoken.

Turkish Alphabet in Photos

The Turkish Alphabet was changed from Ottoman script to a Latin based script soon after the Turkish Republic was declared. Ottoman script was based on the Arabic alphabetic script but this did not adequately cover the phonetics of Turkish. 

Kemal Atatürk introduced the new Latin alphabet almost overnight.

The Turkish Alphabet consists of twenty-one consonants and eight vowels.
The alphabet is phonetic as each letter retains its individual pronunciation at all times. There are no diphthongs - except in a few foreign loan words, and no letters "W", "X" or "Q"

Input Based Learning

Today one of my favorite YouTube polyglots, Lingo Steve published a video called 'Input Based Learning.' The learning method stresses taking in as much authentic material as possible, and progressing from beginner books to living texts withing a few months. The method requires that you download audio programs onto any listening device. With consistency, learners must attentively listen to the material.  It also requires that the learner read the language with as much frequency as they listen to it. This method certainly sounds easy. The good news is that it is easy. But like any language learning strategy, you must be disciplined and willing to put in the effort.

One of the things I discovered about polyglots is that they tend to agree that the most important part of language learning is listening. Moses McCormick repeatedly stresses the importance of listening. I wish that someone had said this to me when I was in high school learning French. I used to rent French movies on my own and watch them. It never occurred to me to try input based learning. I trusted that I would learn French from my teachers.

Many people think they know how to listen. It is the most basic skill, we've been doing it since birth. But many people actually do not know how to listen. Allow me to break down listening into six categories:


1. Ignoring /  Passive listening
2. Pretending / Usually stock nods and uhums, yes, of course, etc.
3. Selective listening - Intentionally disregarding/dismissing the other person's views.
4. Attentive listening - personally driven fact gathering and analysis
5. Active listening - understanding feelings and gathering facts
6. Emphatic listening

Input based learning is based on the idea that one should spend a bulk of their time taking in information. This technique is opposed to Out-put content, such as speaking, writing, and composing. I think of it in terms of taking more than giving. Steve finds this to be one of the best ways to learn a language, and he lists five reasons why Input Based Learning is the way to go.

Hebrew Alphabet and Maps in Photos

With everything going on in Israel right now, today is a good day to publish Hebrew alphabet, numbers and charts. I will include maps as well.

Buy foreign language books for children this Christmas.

Christmas Shopping for the Kiddies

The best time to learn foreign languages is when we are children. Since we cannot roll back the clocks, maybe what we can do is buy foreign language books for our children. First, let me just say that it was no easy task finding these websites. I am willing to do the work for something that I think is important. For me, language learning is important.

If you would like to buy some foreign language books for your little ones, check out the following links. I would like to find websites for buying books in Arabic, Russian, Portuguese, and Greek. If you know any other languages or websites, post a comment on this blog. 

Chinese Alphabet in photos

Chinese does not have an alphabet in the sense that we know it in the West. Chinesecharacters are not really letters, they are characters that represent concepts and ideas. Enjoy these images. If you need to learn how to type Chinese with your English/American keyboard, visit my other blog: How to type Chinese  Please subscribe to my blog. I enjoy publishing useful material to my viewers.

Naomi

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Chinese, German, English, Russian, Japanese Words For the Fall and Halloween

In Chinese (Traditional / Simplified font): 

spider: 蜘蛛 (zhīzhū) 
fall, autumn: 秋季 (qiūjì) 
broom: 掃把 / 扫把 (sàobǎ) 
candy: 糖 (táng) or 糖果 (tángguǒ) 
candle: 蠟燭 / 蜡烛 (làzhú) 
cemetery: 墳場 / 坟场 (fénchǎng) or 墓園 / 墓园 (mùyuán) 
black cat: 黑貓 / 黑猫(hēimāo) 
bat: 蝙蝠 (biānfú) 
pumpkin: 南瓜 (nánguā) 
costume: 服裝 / 服装 (fúzhuāng) 
devil: 魔鬼 (móguǐ) or 魔王 (mówáng) 
scarecrow: 稻草人 (dàocǎorén) 
ghost: 魔鬼 (móguǐ). Chinese don't usually distinguish between devil & ghost. 
jack-o'-lantern: 南瓜燈 / 南瓜灯 (nánguādēng). Lit. translation: pumpkin light. 
leaf: 葉 / 叶 (yè) 
Halloween: 鬼節 / 鬼节 (guǐjié) 
to haunt: 嚇人 / 吓人 (xiàrén). To scare someone to death: 嚇死人 / 吓死人 (xiàsǐrén) 
to play a trick (on someone): 做鬼 (zuòguǐ) 
goblin: 小妖精 (xiǎoyāojīng) 
mask: 面具 (miànjù) 
mummy: 木乃伊 (mùnǎiyī) 
monster: 怪物 (guàiwu) or 妖怪 (yāoguài) 
October: 十月 (shíyuè) 
witch: 魔女 (mónǚ) 
skeleton: 骨骼 (gǔgé) or 屍骨 (shīgǔ) for bones of the dead. 
All Saints' Day: 萬聖節 / 万圣节 (wànshèngjié) lit. translation 10,000 Saints Festival 
(All Saint's Day) or 萬靈節 / 万灵节 (wànlíngjié) lit. translation: 10,000 Souls 
Festival (All Soul's Day). 
the thirty-first: 三十一日 (sānshíyīrì) or 三十一號 / 三十一号 ((sānshíyīháo) 
vampire: 吸血鬼 (xīxuèguǐ) for blood-sucking ghost or 僵屍 / 僵尸 (jiāngshī) the Chinese 
version. 

South America is the linguistic powerhouse

Did you know that in the South American continent, there are thirty four language families and over a dozen isolated stocks with about one thousand individual languages? Wowza. It looks like the Amazon can brag about biological and linguistic diversity. This represents the highest level of diversity as compared with any other continent. All of Africa, Asia, and Europe combined have twenty one language families. Africa, for example, the single family Niger-Congo has 1436 languages while Bantu has over 1000. 

So how did this happen? Native Americans migrated from Asia in three separate waves over 10,000 years.  It is important to have a good sense of time, and with that, a good sense about how long it take a language to evolve to the point that it would not be recognizable by ancestors going back five, six, or ten generations. It is amazing when you think about it. 

With each large migration of Indians, spanning that huge chunk of time, they all would have been foreign to each other. Imagine the second or third wave arriving, and seeing Indians who arrived three thousand years prior. They will not have a common language. Their cultures may be very different from each other. 

Incorporating the Holidays into foreign language learning

One of the best ways to build vocabulary is to make the information personal to you in some way. As we have entered my favorite time of year, I have been thinking about how we can incorporate our holidays and seasons into language learning. I would like to than the contributors from Learn Any Language in helping me gather these words. It was a lot of work and could not be done without them. 

What makes this trick unique, is that within each culture and language, the holidays are expressed differently. There may be some holidays and celebrations that we are not accustomed to. It is a good opportunity to expand our holiday vocabulary, while learning about new traditions.

Again, I would like to thank the forum members for helping me with this list. I am putting together more lists from other languages. 

Kashmiri Language Study

Hello Readers,

I never studied Kashmiri, Hindi or anything remotely close to these languages. However, I know that many of my readers do. In this blog you will find several images, kashmiri language, basic kashmiri phonics, sentence structure and grammar. Feel free to use these images. 

Wikipedia: 

Kashmiri (कॉशुर, کأشُر Koshur) is an Indo-Aryan language and it is spoken primarily in the Kashmir Valley, in Jammu and Kashmir. There are approximately 5,527,698 speakers throughout India, according to the Census of 2001. Most of the 105,000^{[citation needed]} speakers or so in Pakistan are émigrés from the Kashmir Valley after the partition of India.They include a few speakers residing in border villages in Neelum District.

The Kashmiri language is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India, and is a part of the Sixth Schedule in the constitution of the Jammu and Kashmir. Along with other regional languages mentioned in the Sixth Schedule, as well as Hindi and Urdu, the Kashmiri language is to be developed in the state. Some Kashmiri speakers frequently use Hindi as a second language, though the most frequently used second language is Urdu. Since November 2008, the Kashmiri language has been made a compulsory subject in all schools in the Valley up to the secondary level.

Dwadling aling in Mandarin - III

With my computer problems lately I was able to organize my I-POD. A few days ago I finally was able to load all of my Chinese Living Language Lessons onto my IPOD. I take the boys to the library every week for story time. It is a good forty minute walk. While pushing the double stroller, getting much needed exercise, I listened to the Lessons. The beginning was just nuts and bolts, words, and phrases.

I went through six full Chinese lessons in Pimsleur. Pimsleur requires repetition, and anticipation of answers. The method is slightly different from Living Language. What made me very happy was when I started to recognize words. It felt like it was coming together and sentences were starting to roll from my mind with a certain, ease, or naturalness that I have not experienced in awhile. Of course, I am still in the nuts and bolts rudimentary stages of Chinese. I must admit that trying this language was a great decision. I am glad I did it.

I will keep you posted on my progress.

Vietnamese Alphabet and Writing System

Vietnamese Alphabet

Grandparents -

When I started learning Swedish two years ago, I learned that they make a distinction between paternal and maternal grandparents. This is not something we do in English, French, Italian or Spanish. Allow me to Illustrate

Swedish    Mormor and Morfar ( maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather)
                  Farmor and Farfar    (paternal grandmother and paternal grandfather)

Yesterday while walking with the boys, I started listening to Living Language Mandarin Chinese. I moved from Pimsleur to Living Language this week. So I started at the very beginning. They went over many words that I already knew, and then added some words that I do not know. (Remember that I always recommend using more than one language program.) I learned that the Chinese do the same thing as the Swedes. They make a distinction between paternal and maternal grandparents. 

Chinese  
                    
    祖父                      gong gong                         (informal) father´s father, paternal grandfather

外公

wài gōng

(informal) mother's father; maternal grandfather

外婆

wài pó

(informal) mother's mother; maternal grandmother

奶奶

nǎi nai

(informal) father's mother; paternal grandmother

It is a delicious idea, - some cultures find it necessary to make these distinctions while others do not. Some cultures find it necessary to be specific while others do not.  If you would like to know how your target language addresses grandparents, check out this blog Name Nerds. 

Russian Maps

One thing I have always loved doing is looking at maps. Today I made a collection of different maps of Russia. I looked at physical, political, ethnic and many more Russian maps. They are linked below for your viewing pleasure.

Thai Alphabet and Characters in Photos

How to learn French

Since the inception of this blog I have written about languages that I have never studied, like Armenian, Polish and Hungarian. I write about the philosophy and science of language learning. I have also given some great pointers about how to effectively take notes and study. Today, I decided to share with you how I came to learn French.

First, let me just say that I did not want to learn French in high school. My school only offered French and Spanish - I was interested in neither. I wanted to learn Italian. I thought Italian was much cooler and sexier than French or Spanish. Being the impractical person that I was, I chose French because it was more exotic than Spanish. I thought speaking Spanish did not make me ´special´enough. Yeah, I know what you must be thinking. How vain! I have to admit that you are right. I was mostly concerned with being unique and different than being practical. The only redeeming thing I can say about that, is that I was true to myself. I did not do things just because others did it. I followed what made me happy.

Armenian Alphabet in photos

Continue Reading This Blog for more Photos and Instructional Armenian Videos 

let the tones grow on you

The 10,000 hour rule

Outliers - The Story of Success 

The Rule of 10,000 hours states one must do a skill for 10,000 hours before they can claim Mastery. This comes from the book Outliers, by Maxwell Gladwell.Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to success of those who operate at the extreme outer edge of what is statistically plausible. Polyglots fall right into this niche.

Foreign Language Cartoons For Babies

Good Morning Everybody!

It is Saturday morning. We do not have television at my house, but I decided to let my eldest son watch some cartoons. I decided that my son should watch some Spanish language cartoons. If you have small children and would like them to watch Spanish language cartoons, provided below is a 25 minute episode.

Why should you let your children watch Spanish language cartoons? Because early exposure will make it much easier for your children to become fluent if they elect to do so. Listening is the key to language learning.

Enjoy!

I made a playlist of children cartoons. The playlist is embedded below. If you know of any other cartoons that you would like me to add, please send me an email.

Doing What The Heavy Weights Do

¨You cannot copy what the superstar weightlifters, guitar players or super-star linguists do every day because you are not in the right developmental stage to do that yet.¨ - Anthony Lauder a.k.a FluentCzech

Lauder explained that he tried to emulate the daily routine of successful language learners, and found himself increasingly frustrated by it. When one is emulating the athlete, doing everything the athlete does, it follows that one will start to feel like they just can´t do it. For the professional language learners, we know routine is the backbone of any language learning program. Routines facilitate teaching and learning.Routines make life easier and save valuable time. As we are self-taught language learners, routines are good for the teacher in ourselves and the student in ourselves. His video first put into question, at least for me, is it realistic that any Tom, Jane or Sue watch someone like Mike Campbell, McCormick, or Loki, emulate what they do, and become just like them?

How To Speak Like A Native

There are many times in my life that I studied another language and felt like I could not understand how it was spoken in a natural setting. It was very discouraging. In my second year of high school french I met some French people downtown Seattle. We became fast friends. When they spoke French I could not understand much of what they were saying. 

This problem is resolved in a couple of ways. First, one must become familiar with slang and common expressions that are not learned in an academic setting. This often means that one must familiarize themselves with idioms. Second, one must learn to improve their listening skills when listening to native speakers. The key is to listen to the language spoken at normal speed. When we listen to the language in class or language learning programs we have the freedom to stop, rewind, and listen again. This is not an option in the real world.

Languages of the Iberian Peninsula

Seattle Public Library is My Home

I have come to the conclusion that the Downtown Seattle Library is the best place on earth.  They have great language section located on the Seventh Floor. This does not even include all of the online sources available. 

Next time I am there, I am going to take a picture of the foreign language section, or make a video about it. It is truly one of the most amazing libraries that I have ever seen in my life.

Downtown Seattle Library

I picked this up at the Seattle Public Library

The homeless people are still there, but fortunately they are spread out in this huge place and are not very noticeable. This is truly a city for scholars and intellectuals. 

Trip to the local library

My progress in Chinese is moving along very slowly. I went to the public library to check out any other resources they had available. I picked up two programs: one DVD with basic Chinese songs and Living Language Italian. 

Foreign Films are a side dish - Not the main course

Foreign films will not teach you a language. But what they will do is give you a feel for the spoken languages rhythm, intonation and cultural contexts. I would say that it is a good add on activity, but do not think for a second that watching foreign films is the Main Course of language learning. Consider them....the side dish.

How-To-Learn-Any-Language.Com

This is one of my favorite language learning websites. I have gotten a great amount of help from other linguists here. With the two babies, my part time soap business, and all the work that goes into caring for a family I do not have as much time available to focus on my passion. But you know what...we do what we can.

Dawdling along in Mandarin III

Since I have not posted in awhile I thought I would drop in and give you all a quick update on my progress. The only time I have to work on my languages are as follows:

1. Every Wednesday when I go to the doctor in Seattle. I have to take the light rail and two buses. My youngest son comes with me for each appointment. I listen to Mandarin Chinese on my I-POD for thirty minute intervals. Since Chinese is so different from anything I have ever studied, I have to listen to the same lessons over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over.

Pakistan Language Map ... सराइकी ਸਰਾਇਕੀ سرائیکی

The United States of America had about five hundred tribes of Native Americans. Within one State, there could be two or more languages spoke by the Indians. Being part Cherokee, this is something close to my heart. It is hard for us lingua-centric, ethnocentric U.S. Americans to comprehend. In the United States of America - hundreds of languages were spoken four thousands of years.

We took a look at the map of Dagestan previously, and looked at all the smaller languages spoken within that tiny country alone. Lets revisit another country I already blogged about. Pakistan.

Why Trivial Arguments Piss Me Off – A Diatribe

It is true, trivial arguments do annoy me. I do not participate in them. I do NOT like being around people who do it. I have lived in two foreign countries, one of them is a first world and the other is a third world country. I saw people who have REAL problems. You know...children digging in garbage for food. That sort of thing.

Winning a Trivial Argument

When people bitch about trivial things, it annoys me because the argument is an energy sucker. Allowing this trivial crap to imbibe one's talent, energy, thoughts and time is one of the stupidest things a person can do. Trivial arguments are parasite that feed on our valuable time. 


It gives us nothing. It does not improve our lives. It does not improve the lives of others. When we are dead, the world is not a better place because we engaged in the argument.

Engaging in trivial arguments is like competing in the special Olympics. Even if you win – you are still a freaking retard. Congratulations. Here are your trophies. You should be so proud.

What is most interesting to me is that people get very angry about their trivial bullshit. Those negative feelings fester and rot. It brings me back to my original point – how in the hell is your life any better? Have you really used your time wisely?

When I was little my father and I would argue about trivial bullshit. I was a child and did not know any better. He was an adult and should have known better. We would argue about which language came first, French or English. We would argue about which country was defeated by Hitler first. Some of the arguments I would win and some arguments he won. Whenever I won an argument my Dad could not tolerate the idea of being beaten by a 13 year old girl, so he would back pedal and redefine a word in order to make himself appear like the winner – which of course would piss me off to no end.

Cyrillic Alphabet in photos

Do not let the Cyrillic Alphabet scare you!

Let's start with a little history. The Cyrillic Alphabet was invented by two brothers, Cyrill and Methody, also known as Methodius. In fact, they are credited for giving written language to the Slaves.

The Cyrillic Alphabet is the second script invented by the Bulgarians (Cyrill and Methodius). Although the writing system was developed in Bulgaria, the brothers were originally from Macedonia. This explains the similarities to the Greek Alphabet. In other forums and blogs, people seem to get really pissed off when this alphabet is called Russian alphabet. The people who get upset about this are usually Bulgarians.

In my food blog (link), I discuss the fight between the Spanish and French about who invented the Creme Brulee. The Arabs argue that they invented astronomy (actually, the did steal that knowledge from the Greeks). But come on people...we do not live in a bubble. We influence, change, copy and improve on many ideas. If we didn't do this, then we would still be living in caves. So lets not waste our time on trivialities. Trivial arguments are leaches, they drain our positive energy, waste time, and we are not any better off.

 The first writing system invented by the brothers is the Glagolitic, as mentioned in a previous post, Glagolitic is a more complex version of Cyrillic. Can we say that they are really two different writing systems? How different are they from each other? I have no idea.  

 Cyrillic became dominant due to its similarity to the Greek alphabet. At its height during the Soviet Union, Cyrillic was used to write not only Slavic languages such as Russian, Byelorussian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, etc., but also languages from other family like Mongolian, Uzbek, Kazakh, Azeri, Tajik, and so on. It is easy to see how many Cyrillic letters derived from Greek.

Glagolitic Alphabet in photos

Ancient alphabet that gave birth to the modern Cyrillic Alphabet used in Belarus, Bulgarian, Russian, Serb, Macedonian, Montenegrin, and Ukrainian. Some non-Slavic nations also use it: Moldovan, Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Mongolian, the people of the Caucasus and Siberia. Cyrillic is a simplified version of Glagolitic. Enjoy these photos. 

Cyrillic Alphabet invented by Bulgarians

Image of the First Bulgarian Empire: 681 until 1018

Did you know that the Cyrillic Alphabet was first developed by the Bulgarians? The first Bulgarian empire lasted from 681 until 1018. When I started this blog today I was going to write about the Cyrillic Alphabet. But then I had to ask myself those questions like, where did this alphabet come from? How long has it been around? What did it originate from?

My first little conversation in Chinese

My husband and I were at the food court today looking for something to eat. The mall was completely dead.

I went up to a Chinese restaurant. There was a little Chinese man working there, he could hardly speak English. He gave me a sample of orange chicken.

Then...it happened.

I spoke to him in Chinese and HE UNDERSTOOD ME.  I am very proud of myself. You would think that it would not be that big of a deal for me especially since I have already learned other languages. But there was something about this moment that made me happy. The other Chinese woman working there told me that my intonation was very good. I am giving myself a pat on the back right now.

Dawdling along in Mandarin Part II

It has been a few weeks learning Mandarin Chinese. My approach with this language is different from other languages. When I learned French, Italian, and Spanish I took classes at a community college or University. While living in Mexico I studied Swedish and Spanish with Rosetta Stone. In class I was always given a syllabus to follow and assignments to complete. I had exams that I needed to pass.

When I started Pimsleur, and Introduction to Mandarin Chinese, I took a different approach and started to learn the language phonetically. This simply means that I am listening to the spoken language and learning it by ear. Some say that we should start off with both reading and listening.  Usually that is what I do.  But Chinese is so different from anything that I have known, I decided that I needed to listen to the language, the phonemes and most important – the tones. Chinese words rise, fall, plateau, fall and rise again. The words remind me of rough ocean waves with their rising and falling. The words and phrases are a series of peaks and valleys, as if nature formed this language rather than the pragmatic need to communicate.

Foreign Service Institute Website

Much thanks to Youtube Polyglot FantasticIdiomas for showing me this website.

http://www.fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php

The real secret to language learning

The Real Secret To Language Learning

Okay, so I am going to ask you a question about your study habits. Answer the Questions honestly.

It is better to study...

A. Forty Minutes Monday, Wednesday, Friday

B. Thirty Minutes Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday

C. Twenty Minutes Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

D. Three hours every Saturday

The Correct Answer is at the bottom of this blog....

Pancakes are a universal food

Pancakes  Crêpes, Pannkakor, Clătită, Okonomiyaki

This fine Monday morning I decided to write about the adorable rainbow pancakes that I made for my son. (For the recipe, go to the blog).

As I started writing about the rainbow pancakes, I realized that the pancake concept exists in nearly every culture that I can think of. It is a basic, carbohydrate rich food made of grains, water, egg and milk. Thick, thin, fluffy, bubbly, fried, wrapped, or topped – the concept is the same. It is a thin dough fried on both sides in a skillet. Some are served with breakfast, some are served at lunch, and in some parts of the world, they are served at dinner.

Today I am writing about every way we can say pancake ( or pancake version), in another language. Each foreign word will be linked to a website showing you how to make these treats.  FYI – writing this blog made me hungry.