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Two Performances, One Stage

In the kid-friendly production "Stories by Shel," Deaf West Theatre takes advantage of different aspects of stage communication to reach both hearing and deaf audience members.
Posted: 4/8/2009

Tattoos We Get, and Don't

Coming into contact with languages we don't speak means making mistakes, say local body artists and their patrons.
Posted: 2/6/2009

Manufacturing 'Authentic' Talk for Film

"The Exiles" combines the spontaneous with the premeditated, creating its own special language from the mouths of Native Americans in Bunker Hill. The quasi-documentary is set for DVD release in spring.
Posted: 12/4/2008

FAQ: Building a Weekend School for Spanish

Rey Rodriguez couldn't find a quality Spanish-language school for his sons, so he teamed up with like-minded parents in Pasadena who had already founded their own, as a Sunday language school.
Posted: 10/2/2008

His Kind of Spanglish

A Nuyorican comedian's book on the language hybrid is a defense of verbal redundancy motivated by double belonging. Bill Santiago calls Los Angeles the "promised land" of Spanglish.
Posted: 9/17/2008

Speech of the Young'ns

From "Ace" to Z, students collect elements of UCLA speech for course credit. The words come from afar and go way back.
Posted: 6/18/2008

Se Habla Angelino

Los Angeles is the home of one of the many dialects of Latin American Spanish, says Claudia Parodi, a UCLA professor of linguistics.
Posted: 2/13/2008

In Between Words

A collection of U.S. Latinos' experiences with English reveals just how much there is to learn with a new language.
Posted: 12/10/2007

The Sinatra-'Lucy'-Cronkite Method

Pop culture takes center stage in Latinos' remembrances of learning English.
Posted: 12/8/2007

What Do You Speak, Westwood CA?

LALA reporters ask the locals about language in Los Angeles. Watch the video.
Posted: 11/29/2007

Bilingual Education Not Dead Yet

Almost a decade after California voters eliminated most bilingual education programs in public education, a parent advocates for a middle ground in the language wars.
Posted: 11/28/2007

Won't Your Spanish Hurt Their English?

Spanish, of all languages, is nearly missing from the landscape of heritage language schools around the city, writes a Los Angeles parent struggling to bring up bilingual children.
Posted: 7/24/2007

Speak Up

In the film 'Dust of Life,' set in Westminster, the words people use and the languages they speak establish their rank and authority over others.
Posted: 6/14/2007

A Language Array Keeps the Doctor Away

Mediating between doctors and patients, a healthcare interpreter plays the roles of language specialist, culture guru, and even patient advocate. A debate simmers over the right mix of formal certification and cultural sensitivity for the job.
Posted: 5/22/2007

Multilingual Cinema Meets English-Only Filmmaking

A pair of famed cinematographers who fled Hungary after filming the failed 1956 revolt talk about their paths to success in Hollywood. Their line of work continues to demand English even as it goes international.
Posted: 3/1/2007

Phoning It In

A free interpretation service for limited English speakers is a nice idea, but the one we've got now in California does less for individuals than for large businesses.
Posted: 3/1/2007

Barriers in the Family

The Naskhulyans found it almost too easy to speak Armenian and Russian around Los Angeles, and struggled to communicate with their daughter.
Posted: 2/1/2007

Love's Labors Considered

What night classes and Saturday morning school in Japanese couldn't do, romantic and family ties can, writes a UCLA alumna living in two cultures.
Posted: 2/1/2007

Where Chicano English Gets Respect

A teacher in an innovative LAUSD program, Guadalupe Arellano of El Sereno Middle School tells her students that their home language needs to be understood, not rejected.
Posted: 2/1/2007