Erin Donnelly, Author at The Pimsleur Language Blog https://www.pimsleur.com/blog/author/erin-donnelly/ Learning another language doesn't have to be hard. Mon, 02 Feb 2026 17:42:46 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8 Why Do People Mimic Accents https://www.pimsleur.com/blog/why-do-people-mimic-accents/ Mon, 06 Dec 2021 22:16:31 +0000 https://blog.pimsleur.com/?p=27492 Have you ever caught yourself imitating someone else’s accent or speech mannerisms after spending time with them? This can be especially obvious when their accent and speech are very different from your own. Sometimes it can even be embarrassing- our friends might tease us if we come back from vacation with an ever-so-slightly different accent. Read More >>

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]]> Do Animals Have Language? Differences Between Human Language & Animal Communication https://www.pimsleur.com/blog/do-animals-have-language/ Thu, 30 Jan 2020 19:45:30 +0000 https://blog.pimsleur.com/?p=13584 How is Human Language Different From Animal Communication Systems In the 1960s, linguist Charles Hockett identified a set of “design features” to distinguish human language from animal communication systems. While there are ongoing debates about the usefulness of these design features, they do accurately describe the unique properties of human language. Let’s explore the wonders Read More >>

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]]> How Language Shapes the Way We Think and See the World https://www.pimsleur.com/blog/how-language-shapes-the-way-we-think-and-see-the-world/ https://www.pimsleur.com/blog/how-language-shapes-the-way-we-think-and-see-the-world/#comments Thu, 02 Jan 2020 20:18:01 +0000 https://blog.pimsleur.com/?p=13154 How Language Influences The Way You See Colors, Space, and Time One day I was in my Kiswahili language learning course when my instructor taught us something profound about how language influences how we see other people. In the course, he taught us how a noun class identifier that was supposed to denote “things” was Read More >>

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]]> https://www.pimsleur.com/blog/how-language-shapes-the-way-we-think-and-see-the-world/feed/ 6 Is Slang Destroying the English Language? https://www.pimsleur.com/blog/does-slang-ruin-english-language/ Wed, 06 Nov 2019 19:48:34 +0000 https://blog.pimsleur.com/?p=12068 Is Slang Bad and Does Slang Ruin Language? Slang is inevitable in any language. While you probably won’t be using it in a job interview, here’s why it’s fine for language and here to stay.  What is Slang? Although we might think of slang as any nonstandard language use, it actually has a fairly narrow Read More >>

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]]> Whistled Languages – Ultimate Guide to Long Distance Conversations https://www.pimsleur.com/blog/whistled-languages-ultimate-guide-long-distance-conversations/ Fri, 30 Nov 2018 17:00:30 +0000 https://blog.pimsleur.com/?p=1099 In some languages, whistled languages can be used as a fill-in for spoken language when a face-to-face conversation is not possible. Whistled speech is a form of communication that abstracts certain aspects of spoken language into whistles. These whistles languages can be understood by others in the speech community. Whistled languages can be found all Read More >>

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]]> Do Women Really Talk More Than Men? https://www.pimsleur.com/blog/language-ideologies-do-women-really-talk-more-than-men/ Mon, 19 Nov 2018 20:30:03 +0000 https://blog.pimsleur.com/?p=946 How Does Gender Affect Language Use? The opinions, attitudes, and beliefs that people hold about language are called language ideologies. Language ideologies affect how we talk and behave, as well as how we perceive others’ speech. Intuition tells us that men and women use language differently. Many people say they believe that gender affects language Read More >>

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