Gen Eds, Language and Cultures: Pause

I have a half baked post on Spanish Language and Cultures. Where I'm stuck are the fundamental stories, practices, and rituals of other cultures. I'm sure there's a book out there to fill in that gap. The idea was to provide:

• some basic language phrases in these languages
• some basic cultural characteristics, using Erin Meyer's The Culture Map
• and some basic cultural identity markers like I mentioned above

Since I do not have a ready made source for those stories, since the fall semester is approaching rapidly, and since it will take quite some energy to proceed. I'm going to pause the series here for now. Perhaps I will return to it.

On a personal note, Joanne Solis-Walker told me about Duolingo a week ago Tuesday and I have been eating it up with Spanish. Why didn't I know this resource existed 7 years ago when I needed it??! I'm blazing a trail on it. I'm sure I'm more than 37%, but that's what it is telling me right now. Onward!

So I will continue this series privately, moving forward to learn the languages I was going to cover. Here is the probable order: 1) Spanish (now), 2) French (next), 3) German (gap-filler), 4) Russian, 5) Chinese, 6) Arabic, 7) then maybe Hindi.

In the meantime, I may do philosophy classics on Wednesdays. We'll see.