The Language I Live — Author’s Column by Tymur LevitinLanguage. Meaning. Thinking. For more than twenty years, I have been teaching languages to people of different ages, cultures, professions, and life situations.And during all these years, one idea keeps returning — sometimes quietly, sometimes painfully clearly: Language learning is not really about language. It is […]
Tymur Levitin
Why Practicing Is Not the Same as Working 🟨 Choose your language Many students — especially adult learners — treat language practice like a job.They sit down, open a notebook, and start “working” on German. But here’s the truth:Üben ist nicht arbeiten.Practicing is not working. And when you treat practice like labor — it stops working […]
Tymur Levitin
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 […]
Tymur Levitin
Silence isn’t the absence of language. It’s what makes language human. We often treat language as speech. As sound. As something active, visible, measurable. But the most powerful part of language is what we choose not to say. Not because we don’t know the words — but because we know exactly what they might mean. Or […]
Tymur Levitin
