Author’s Column by Tymur LevitinSeries: “Language. Identity. Choice. Meaning.” 🌐 Choose your language: 🔗 Read in Ukrainian / Читати українською🔗 Read in Russian / Читать по-русски 📍 Introduction This is not just a story about words.It’s a story told by a grown man.A teacher. A translator. A son. And it started with a simple question from a […]

🔗 Choose your language “Simple” doesn’t mean effortless At first glance, Malay (Bahasa Melayu) looks easy.No verb conjugation. No gender. No plural endings.Just words, one after the other. That’s why many students jump in without preparation.And that’s exactly why they get stuck. Because Malay is not hard — but it’s also not mindless.It follows patterns. It relies on structure.And […]

Why Doubt Is the Beginning of Real Understanding “If you’re not sure what a word really means — good. That means you’re thinking.”— Tymur Levitin Author’s Column — The Power of Doubt in Language LearningPart 1 of the series Literal Translation Is a Reflex — Not a Skill Most language learners start with this question: […]

🔗 Choose your language Two languages. One melody. Two minds. At first, Azerbaijani sounds like Turkish.The same soft rhythm. The same word endings. The same sentence music. But when you start to learn it — you realize something strange:It doesn’t think the same way. Azerbaijani follows its own logic,uses its own idioms,and has a cultural tone that […]

A real story about sound, culture, and what words really mean 🪧 Choose your language: levitinlanguageschool.com/#languages Words can be dangerous — even when they’re correct In German, a tiny vowel can carry a world of difference.One student — a thoughtful, curious young man from Honduras — discovered this the hard way. We were practicing spoken German, and I asked: […]

🔗 Choose your language A language that crosses worlds Urdu is a language that confuses expectations. It uses the Arabic script — but it’s not Arabic.It sounds almost identical to Hindi — but it’s not Hindi.Its grammar is Indo-European — but its imagery is Persian.And even its name — اردو — means “camp” or “gathering”. Urdu […]

Words are not what they seem. They’re never just words. Every day, students ask me how to say something.They have the words. They have the grammar.But something still feels off. The meaning doesn’t land. The listener doesn’t react the way they expected. And then they realize:They translated the sentence — but they didn’t express what […]

🔗 Choose your language A language that sounds like music — but thinks like logic For many, Persian (Farsi) is one of the most beautiful languages they’ve ever heard. Flowing syllables, melodic phrases, poetic expressions — Persian has long enchanted poets, musicians, and learners alike. But behind the elegance lies something far more powerful: a system of […]

What “Shtil” and “Wind of Change” Reveal About Language, Culture, and Emotion Choose your language What if silence means something different in your language than in mine? What if the word “change” carries fear in one tongue and hope in another? And what happens when you try to translate not just a song, but the […]

Learning Kazakh Online — A Language That Rethinks Direction, Action, and Space👤 Author: Tymur Levitin — founder, director, and lead teacher📄 View my teacher profile🔗 levitinlanguageschool.com📞 Telegram: @START_SCHOOL_TYMUR_LEVITIN Why Kazakh Doesn’t Feel Familiar — and Why That’s a Good Thing Kazakh doesn’t share grammar with European languages.It doesn’t sound like a Romance language.It doesn’t follow Slavic logic.And that’s why […]