language identity

Author’s Column by Tymur LevitinLevitin Language School / Start Language School by Tymur LevitinLanguage. Identity. Choice. Meaning. In language learning, people often confuse opinion with position. An opinion is external.It reacts.It adapts.It defends itself. A position is internal.It does not argue.It does not explain itself.It does not rush. That difference changes everything — including the […]

Author’s Column by Tymur LevitinFounder, Director, and Head TeacherLevitin Language School | Start Language School by Tymur LevitinGlobal Learning. Personal Approach. 🌍 Choose your language: 👉 https://levitintymur.com/#languages Why Some Languages Stay Invisible — And Why That Matters Some languages dominate the global conversation.Others remain almost invisible — even when millions of people speak them every […]

Before we talk about language, let me tell you a story. Not long ago, one of my adult students asked a simple question.He wanted to say that he speaks calmly — not slowly, not poorly, not uncertainly, just… calmly.In his native language — and in English too.But he couldn’t find the right words. Every version […]

“Не пишите мне писем, дорогая графиня…”— sung under guitars in courtyards, passed across generations First Encounter: Why This Song Matters I was fifteen, the youngest in a group where the oldest was forty-one.Someone played this under a guitar. Not a concert, a life. And I didn’t hear the ceremonial “не хочу умирать” (I don’t want […]

Author’s Column by Tymur Levitin «О, не лети так, жизнь, слегка замедли шаг…»— Rauf Kubaev, О, не лети так, жизнь «Flieg nicht so schnell, Leben…»— German rendering There are songs where a man begs for love.There are songs where he thanks for the years that passed.And then there are songs like this one — where […]

💬 Real Language Is Not a List of Rules Most students start with grammar charts. Tenses, structures, exceptions.They memorize. They try to follow the rules. But at Levitin Language School, we believe language is not a system to be memorized.It’s a worldview. And grammar is how that worldview is structured. I never taught grammar as […]

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 […]

Why One Word in Salinger’s Novel Says More Than We Think Language, identity, translation – and the loneliness no one sees 🔗 Choose your language: https://levitintymur.com/#languages ❝ Sometimes, a word we almost miss reveals everything. ❞ There’s a scene in The Catcher in the Rye that barely takes up a paragraph.Holden is sitting alone in a hotel room. He […]