Mango Languages

Feature Friday: Meet New Mango, Andrea Ehlert

We are so excited to welcome Andrea Ehlert to the Mango family. She started working at the Mango Grove in October to help out our Language Learning Specialist Team. She will be supporting our Mango customers in Oregon, Indiana, Washington, DC, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Kansas, Ohio, New York, Wyoming, and Montana. She will be available to train library staff, help with the Mango Administration System support, and she is happy to answer any questions you may have about your subscription.

Andrea has a fascinating and very diverse background. She was born in Quito, Ecuador, and moved to Tanzania, Africa, when she was seven years old and lived there for two years. Her father managed a shrimp farm there. When she said this, I got visions of the movie “Forest Gump” and all the different shrimp dishes she must have enjoyed. In 1998, her family visited some relatives in Michigan and loved it. They decided to stay and became official U.S. Citizens in 2008. A true immigrant story!

When Andrea came to the U.S as a nine-year old, she didn’t know any English as she was fluent in speaking Spanish. However, today she doesn’t even have an accent. She loves languages and heard about Mango through some college connections she had. Once she visited the Mango website…she fell in love. She is a very persistent lady as she stalked us until we hired her. We love her passion and drive!

We are so glad she stalked us and she is an awesome contribution to the sales and marketing team. Please help us welcome Andrea!

Travel Tuesday: This is what life is all about

When I was 15 years old, I saw an article in the local newspaper about an exchange student program where families hosted teenagers from around the world in their homes for a school year. I thought this was an amazing idea and begged my parents to be a host. You see…I am an only child and had always wanted an older brother or sister! My parents thought about it and they decided to bring over a girl from Brazil named Nara. We picked her out from a catalog, which to this day we find really funny. She was 18 years old and we had a ton in common. We both played the flute, took ballet lessons, and loved to travel.

I had no idea how much this random article would change my life forever. She lived with us for one year. We went to school together, we lived together and we traveled to Niagra Falls and Disney World. Yes, we fought and yes we eventually became “sisters.” When she left, I was so sad but forever changed. My world had opened up in ways I never knew were possible. I learned some Portuguese, I learned about her culture and food. I learned that we are the same yet different in really cool ways.

When I was 18 years old, I was able to go to her home in the capital of Brazil, Brasilia. I lived with her and her family for about 4 months. This was an awesome opportunity and such an eye opening experience. As our roles were reversed, I was know the foreigner in a strange land. She has a much larger family so I gained sisters and brothers and another set of parents. She comes from a fairly wealthy family, so I even got to have maids. My mom was worried I would forget how to make my bed. I learned so much about Brazil, the world, and myself through this experience.

What I find more amazing is over the years we have stayed in touch. We even wrote real handwritten letters to each other before the internet, chat, and skyping were even possible. It has now been more than 20 years since we first met that summer day in 1990. We have traveled back and forth for special events and I even went to her wedding. Now she has two beautiful children and this past weekend, she brought her family to Disney World in Florida. I surprised my mom for her birthday with a trip down to Disney for the weekend to meet her granddaughters. Of course the most magical place on earth!

It was so amazing to see my Brazilian sister Nara, and meet her two daughters, my nieces, who are four and five years old. I truly fell in love with them. They are wonderful children who, despite a bit of a language barrier, wanted to hold my hand and play as if we have known each other their entire lives.

This weekend was one of those moments that makes you so thankful for the people who have come into your life and changed you forever. I am better for knowing Nara. She inspired me to love language and culture, and want to share my experiences with others. I am blessed and so grateful to have her as my sister.

Who has inspired you?

Feature Friday: Libraries Rock

First, I have to say I LOVE my job. And this is one of those times that really reminds me how lucky I am to get to do what I do with such cool customers – Libraries.

Mango likes to have fun…and at the New York Library Association trade show we really like to do it up. Why? Because we have a serious reputation to uphold. We have won best booth for two years running and the themes of the shows keep getting better and better. This years theme is Libraries Rock. And we couldn’t agree more!

Libraries are centers of the community. They are Google, Amazon, and Starbucks all rolled into one super human hero of searching capabilities and knowledge. I read a tweet today from the #nyla11 Hashtag that said 60% of librarians had helped someone get a job this year. Libraries are helping to keep this country working too! Wow!

We are always humbled by the words of love that our customers give to us…we honestly love you too. We wouldn’t be here without you and say thank you for all you have given us! I know that I have made some wonderful librarian friends and can’t wait for next year’s theme and show to do it all again!

Libraries…YOU rock! Thanks for letting us be your groupies!

Travel Tuesday: Bienvenidos a Little Village

This past weekend I had the pleasure of visiting one of my very best friends Betsy in Chicago, where she recently moved for grad school. Of course it’s always great to visit friends, but discovering the sights and sounds of an unfamiliar place is always my favorite part of travel. And discover we did.

Betsy works with a non-profit organization called Enlace Chicago, which works to improve the quality of life for inhabitants of Little Village, a vibrant Mexican-American neighborhood on the city’s west side. Rich with language and culture (right up my alley, non?), Enlace strives to preserve the tight knit community and eradicate the neighborhood’s pain points through education, violence prevention, cultural enrichment, and economic development. I was lucky enough to be in town for a peace summit this weekend held in conjunction with another organization Ceasefire entitled “What’s Good in the Hood?” It was so awesome to see kids of all ages coming together for a common goal: peace. In addition to ending the violence, the summit also celebrated their Mexican roots. Through music, performances, and (my favorite) food, attendees were able to focus on the positive aspects of Little Village rather than solely on the negative. Because my life revolves around food, I have to mention the amazing homemade spread that greeted us. Authentic Mexican soup called pozole, tamales (red and green), salsa verde, and even a sweet cinnamon rice milk called horchata allowed people to sit down together, eat, and enjoy the atmosphere. No Taco Bell here, folks.

Just walking through the area on the way to the event, it is clear that the neighborhood is something special. From the Mexican markets to the taquerias to simply hearing Spanish spoken everywhere, you almost feel like you are in a village in Mexico. Though it is just a short subway ride away from the heart of Chicago, you are seemingly thousands of miles away. It really was inspiring to see an ethnic community working together to preserve their strong cultural roots in a positive way.

Who says you have to travel far away to indulge in a true cultural experience? Most of us have neighborhoods like Little Village within close proximity to our own homes. Here in Detroit we have Mexican Town, I have visited China Town in Washington, D.C., and Little Italy in New York City is just one of several cultural hubs in the booming metropolis. Don’t have the time or money to take a trip to Mexico? Hop on the subway or jump in your car and escape “America” for a few hours. You won’t be disappointed. And be sure to grab some Mexican candy before you head out! You can thank me later.

Do you have an area like Little Village near you? Tell us about an authentic cultural experience you have had there!

Happy Halloween from Mango

Some of us here at Mango have dressed up to wish everyone a very fun-filled and happy Halloween!

In that spirit, check out these fantastic photos of Halloween Around the World from The Huffington Post and fill us in on your favorite Halloween traditions!

Mango Stampedes Calgary

Last week, I spent an amazing five days in Calgary, Canada, for the Netspeed Alberta Library Show. We are so excited that the entire Province of Alberta is now part of the Mango family. I was able to meet and train public and academic libraries on the Mango system, introduce the new iPhone app and share additional products like Little Pim.

We met some raving fans of Mango:

I encountered many interesting people and even cultural nuances and experiences. Growing up in Detroit, Canada doesn’t feel very foreign. I guess it is because we used to be able to drive across the border in about 20 minutes with our Michigan Drivers License. I remember as a kid buying candy there and getting double what I could get in the U.S. as the dollar was so strong.

Flying to Calgary was different. Customs was much stricter and, as I travel often, it felt much more like going to Europe or South America to me. Once I arrived I found several things were different. Yes, they speak English but with a few differences. Lots of long vowels, but we have that in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, too. More importantly they say things like Parkade instead of parking garage and they ask for their bill instead of their check. And many words are spelled like the British, for example favour instead of favor.

What I can say is Calgary has some of the nicest and hospitable people around. I know I missed the Calgary Stampede but I did visit Fort Calgary and realized how much history Michigan and Calgary have in common. On top of all of that I visited Banff, and the Canadian Rockies are gorgeous! Go! You won’t regret it! Oh Canada, I already miss you!

Seeing Mango in Action

Seeing the Mango program in action will never get old.

This past weekend, members of the Mango Languages marketing department headed down to Atlanta, Georgia, in tie-dye t-shirts for a Travel and Adventure trade show where we had the opportunity to demonstrate our product to travel enthusiasts and professionals.  This being my first trade show since I started working at Mango, I was thrilled to see the program through the eyes of interested language learners of all ages and backgrounds.  Here are a few things I learned:

1. Age is just a number.

Seeing children walk up to our booth at the show and immediately begin to pick up on a foreign language within a few minutes of a demonstration was phenomenal to see. Also seeing a 70-year-old man, previously convinced he was too old to learn a language, pick up on it within a few minutes is even more amazing.

2. Language is personal.

Hearing stories from attendees about why they wanted to learn a language made me realize just how amazing an endeavor learning a language is. People genuinely want to connect with other people and cultures; whether it’s to feel connected to the rich art history on a trip to Paris or to finally have a conversation with their Spanish-speaking future mother-in-law.

3. People love tie-dye.

We proudly sported tie-dyed t-shirts at our trade show booth. Say what you want about tie-dye; deep down, everyone loves it.

So, what feature do you like the most in the Mango products? Are there new features you would like to see?

Theory Thursday: Mental Dictionaries

I’d like to share a couple funny and cute linguistics stories in this blog. I will be talking about how bilinguals recognize and speak words in each of their languages.  What? That doesn’t sound cute? Just hang in there.  I promise that this will be a cute but informative linguistic blog.

I am the mother of four children who are all bilingual in English and Spanish.  Some time ago I was sitting with my now nine-year old son (I think he was 7 or maybe 8 at the time) as he read to me “The Digging-est Dog” by Al Perkins.  He was doing an excellent job, but when he got to the page that reads, “I dug up fences, I dug up gates” without realizing his mistake he very confidently read, “I dug up fences, I dug up cats.”

So why would my son read “cats” instead of “gates”?   Obviously “cats” and “gates” don’t rhyme or even really look similar, at least not in English.  However, as I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, my children are bilingual in English and Spanish.  Well, the Spanish word for “cats” is “gatos.”  Ahhh, you say! “Gatos” and “gates” look very much alike!  It is easy to see how he could mistake “gates” for this other word “gatos.”  What makes this case even more interesting is that while his brain apparently recognized the Spanish word “gatos” he produced the English translation for this word: “cats.”  Although my son was reading in English and produced an English word, “cats,” it is evident that his Spanish lexicon (or mental dictionary or vocabulary list) was still very much active.

On another occasion, my older son asked me if he could fill and use a salt shaker I had brought back from Cuernavaca, Mexico.  To which I replied, “No! You can’t use that! It’s a memory!”  Does it seem strange that I referred to a salt shaker as a “memory”?  Well, it may help to know that the word for souvenir in Spanish is “recuerdo” which literally translates to…you got it…“memory.”

Yet another time, I recall shopping for a digital video camera with my husband.  We had picked out the camera, a bunch of editing software and additional accessories.  My husband approached the salesman who was assisting us and asked, “So, how much for todo?”  The salesman just smiled and continued to talk about the different features of the products we had chosen.  My husband asked again, “How much for todo?” I was standing right beside my husband and could not figure out why the salesman was not answering him.  Until of course it dawned on me that while I understood my husband’s question, the salesman who obviously did not speak Spanish, did not, because my husband was mixing the two languages: English and Spanish.

The focus of research in bilingualism for a long time was whether or not bilinguals have a single lexicon (mental dictionary) that comprises all of the words they know in both of their languages, or separate lexicons.  And additionally, whether access to these is selective or not.  Multiple theories to address these questions have been proposed.

One of these, the hierarchical model, proposes that the lexicons are combined at the conceptual level but separate at the word representational level.  Basically bilinguals have separate “dictionaries” but that the entry for a particular word in each language links back to the same “meaning” or “concept.”

Another theory is the Bilingual Interactive Activation Model (BIA). This theory argues that letter strands activate possible lexical candidates (words) in both languages, which then compete for activation.

As with many questions in the field of Linguistics and specifically bilingualism, whether bilinguals have one or two “mental dictionaries” and how they access these is still not fully understood.  However, for me as a Linguist it is exciting to be able to point to and analyze these everyday aspects of real life and apply it to my passion for languages.

Have you experienced a situation where you interchanged your “mental dictionaries”?

Take me out to the ball game…

There are many classically “American” traditions, but Baseball is certainly one of the more important ones.

As far back as I can remember baseball was a staple in my home. My dad is definitely a fan. He taught me the game and even coached my softball team in middle school.

One of my favorite memories of baseball came in the fall of 1984…I remember it like it was yesterday. I was proudly wearing my signed Alan Trammel jersey and the old English D cap. My dad and I sat together on our comfy 70′s orange and brown couch watching the 19″ TV with no remote control–except me when I turned the knob and bunny ears to get the channel just right (benefit of being an only child…who says we are spoiled?). I sat there proudly with my papa and saw history being made as the Tigers won the World Series.

We jumped with pure joy when we clinched the title…”Champions.” We heard our neighbors screams of delight and all ran outside to celebrate together with the sounds of fireworks in the distance. My city was united, my father and I were bonding, and my neighbors became family that night.

Since then it has become a Father’s Day tradition to take my “old man” (who is only 59 years young) out to the ball game.

We spend about three hours in our beautiful Comerica Ballpark, shelling peanuts, eating stadium dogs, and taking in the sights of the D in the background. And just being…daddy and daughter! With an occasional wave and a joyous rendition of the classic 7th inning stretch…”Take me out to the ballgame.” These are special moments and I cherish them more each and every year!

Baseball is tied to my youth, my dad, and my city. Yes…Baseball is an American tradition but it is also a great analogy of the human spirit…and that belongs to everyone!

Travel Tuesday: A European Love Affair

Most college-aged girls getting ready to study abroad indulge themselves in fantasies of a whirlwind romance with a local, leading to a “happily ever after” in a foreign land. Well, my time abroad did, indeed, yield a whirlwind romance, however it was not with a local and did not require me to stay thousands of miles from my home (much to my mother’s delight). No, this was a romance of a different kind. My European love is actually an American: Rick Steves. Many of you may know of this travel expert from his famous European guide books, or maybe from his PBS television series Rick Steves’ Europe. Before I started traveling, I thought travel books were a waste of money and that I could easily discover a city by simply chatting with the locals. While some of this may be true, it is not always that easy to simply “chat with the locals,” due to many different factors. What I like about Rick Steves’ books is the fact that he takes travelers off the beaten path. He knows the importance of visiting historical sites, yet is able to retain an authenticity to your travels.

Though I studied in France, we used Rick Steves’ travel books in Italy, Spain, and France, at the very least. My favorite part of his books is, by far, the walking tours. Traveling throughout Europe is expensive, and he is cognizant of this. Steves gives step by step directions on totally free walking tours throughout most of the cities in his books, allowing you to see all that there is to see without breaking the bank. One of the most memorable is the “Night Walk” in Rome. Though probably intended as a romantic night stroll, I participated in this guided tour with a group of about 6 travel companions. And let me tell you, the magic was not lost. The tour takes you through Rome at night, glowing under the streetlights. Notable stops include the Piazza Navona, Campo dei Fiori, Trevi Fountain, and a dramatic finish on the Spanish Steps. What I find most fascinating about Steves’ tours is the way in which he gives directions. Rather than instructing with street names, he gives direction by landmarks. For instance, instead of telling you to follow a specific road for 40 meters, he will tell you to follow the road you are on until you see the man on the corner selling roses. Then, turn right. And sure enough, after walking a few paces, you will see the man on the corner selling roses and know that you have reached your destination. It is clear that he is well traveled in these areas and it instills a sense of trust in all those who use his books.

On our last day as students in Aix-en-Provence, France, my friends and I decided to take a look at the Rick Steves book detailing the south of France. Sure enough, we found a walking tour of our beloved city and decided to spoil ourselves with the sights and sounds one last time before returning home to the good ole U S of A. Imagine our shock and awe when we discovered that Rick Steves (affectionately dubbed Rick James by this point, due to his all-around awesome-ness) recounted our daily walk to class. If that didn’t put the past 6 months into perspective, nothing could.

While I do appreciate the value of discovering things on your own (mostly by accident) and utilizing the expertise of locals to create a well-balanced vacation, a little help from time to time can’t hurt. To anyone looking for a nudge in the right direction, I highly recommend one of Rick Steves’ travel guides. So here’s to you, Rick! Thanks for the tips! And if you ever need an apprentice that loves language, culture, and travel, I’m your girl.

What are your favorite travel books? Have you ever had a great guided experience abroad? Tell us about it!