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“A lower grade does not always mean less knowledge. Sometimes it means that knowledge has entered a new system and has not yet learned how to become visible there.” A child was doing well at school before moving to Switzerland. Mathematics was fine. Biology was fine. History was fine. Teachers considered the child capable. Homework […]

“Two students can receive the same homework. One needs twenty minutes. The other needs two hours. The difference is not necessarily effort.” A child sits down to do homework at 6 p.m. At 6:20, almost nothing has been written. At 7:00, one exercise is finished. At 8:00, frustration has replaced concentration. The parent sees an […]

“Past” looks like one place only until a language asks how far into it you have travelled. He died. I saw him. I went there. I was born. For an English speaker, all four sentences have something obvious in common. They are about the past. Of course, the events may belong to radically different periods. […]

What is difficult to name in one language may be an ordinary distinction in another. Look at something red. Now name its color. Red. You do not need to say: the color of blood. You do not normally search your memory for a red object and then describe the color through that object. English gives […]

A language can draw a boundary differently without making the reality on either side disappear. Imagine pointing to your hand and asking someone: What is this? For an English speaker, the answer seems almost embarrassingly obvious. A hand. The category feels natural because the anatomy feels natural. The wrist seems to provide a visible boundary. […]

Sometimes grammar does not begin by asking who is the subject. It begins by asking who stands higher in the conversation. English gives us two extremely ordinary sentences: You see me. I see you. Nothing mysterious seems to be happening. The verb see stays see. The participants change places around it. you → see → […]

When Objects Become Too Prominent to Stay Unmarked Grammar does not only tell us who did what to whom. Sometimes it also tells us what kind of “whom” we are dealing with. Category: Language as a Way of Thinking Consider two Spanish sentences: Veo la casa.I see the house. Veo a María.I see María. At […]

How Language Marks the Moment Reality Changes for the Speaker Imagine opening a door. Your friend is standing behind it. He has been there for ten minutes. Nothing has just happened to him. He has not suddenly arrived. He has not suddenly become your friend. The physical reality on the other side of the door […]

How Languages Build the Same Event Differently A man leaves a house. Nothing particularly complicated has happened. We can see the man. We can see the house. A moment ago, he was inside. Now he is outside. If language were simply a system for attaching words to reality, describing this scene should be easy. But […]