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 → […]
Tymur LevitinWhen 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 […]
Tymur LevitinHow 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 […]
Tymur LevitinHow 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 […]
Tymur LevitinA song can survive for decades. The words may survive. The melody may survive. Sometimes even the chorus survives almost unchanged. And yet the song can become something completely different. This is one of the most fascinating problems in language and translation: meaning does not live inside words alone. It also lives inside a generation, […]
Tymur LevitinYou can learn the words shipper, consignee, carrier, freight forwarder, customs, warehouse, invoice, bill of lading, ETA and delivery. You can memorize dozens of abbreviations. You can study lists of logistics vocabulary until you recognize almost every term on the page. And then a real shipment is delayed. The customer asks what happened. The carrier […]
Tymur LevitinA text can be grammatically correct, stylistically polished, logically organized, and genuinely intelligent — and still become surprisingly weak when someone stands up and reads it aloud. This is not necessarily a problem with the speaker. It may be a problem with the text. A page and a human voice do not deliver language in […]
Tymur LevitinA child moves to Switzerland. At home, they may have been good at mathematics. They may understand fractions, equations, geometry, percentages, or scientific reasoning perfectly well. Then they enter a German-speaking Swiss school. Suddenly, the results change. The child takes longer to complete tasks. Word problems become difficult. Instructions have to be read several times. […]
Tymur LevitinA student says: “I want to learn Portuguese.” It sounds like a complete decision. It is not. Portuguese for what? To live in Portugal? To speak with a Brazilian partner? To communicate with relatives? To work with clients in São Paulo? To understand colleagues in Lisbon? To travel? To read? To move between Portugal and […]
Tymur LevitinYou are sitting in a classroom in Norway. The teacher says something in Norwegian. Other students begin working, but you are still trying to understand what was said. You might know a few Norwegian words already. You might even be able to introduce yourself. But understanding a classroom instruction is a different task. When a […]
Tymur Levitin
