language

Since 2003, Capital Region Language Center has been bridging cultures and connecting communities through language. It serves all ages and language levels with about 25 part-time teachers offering in-person classes at their location just off Wolf Road in Albany, New York; offsite at schools, organizations, or businesses; or online. Learning options include one-on-one or group classes so that everyone can access language learning in a way that works for them.Our guests to today are Founder and Director of Capital Region Language Center Kim Andersen, Korean teacher Sonya Kim, Japanese teacher Yoko Segerstrom, and Spanish teacher Miriam Rogers.

On Sunday, May 3 at 2 p.m., renowned scholar and curator Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett will explore what it means to put Yiddish on display in The Yiddish Book Center’s 2026 Melinda Rosenblatt Lecture. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett is University Professor Emerita and Professor Emerita of Performance Studies at New York University and Ronald S. Lauder Chief Curator of the Core Exhibition at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, in Warsaw and she joins us now.

Scientists may have discovered the genetic key that allowed humans to develop complex language.And new research looks deeper into what causes allergic reactions and intolerances to common foods like nuts, milk, and eggs.

Librarian Fred Gitner was recently honored by the American Library Association for his work at the Queens Public Library on programs to assist migrants. “Over 200 languages are spoken in Queens,” he says. “We have collections in 50 or so and regularly purchase in about 30.”

Capital Region Language Center is the area's largest local world language instruction school. Over the past 20 years, the school has grown from two Spanish classes a week to a team of 30 teachers, providing instruction in 13 languages, including: American Sign Language (ASL); Arabic; Chinese; English; French; German; Japanese; Korean; Latin and Portuguese (both Brazilian and European) and Spanish. They also provide communication workshops for organizations and employers. CRLC will host a virtual information session on Wednesday, March 20 at 7 p.m.

Like Conrad, Nabokov, and Beckett, novelist Hernan Diaz (“In the Distance,” “Trust”) writes in a language other than the one he spoke as a child, and it helps him see the world afresh: “If you move out of one language and into another, it is like moving out of one country and into another.” A repeat broadcast from January 6, 2023.

Banda Magda will return to Saratoga Springs, New York when they play the Spa Little Theater at SPAC on Thursday, May 4 at 8 p.m.The group tours the world sharing their global sounds that range from samba to French chanson, from Greek folk tunes to Colombian cumbia and Afro-Peruvian lando. Their songs capture the best of mid-century pop ballads and cinematic arranging, drawing on the band’s global background and unchained musicality. Their third album “Tigre” was released in 2020.Banda Magda is founded and fronted by composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Magda Giannikou.

In the new book “Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions,” New York Times bestselling author, autism activist, and scientist Temple Grandin explores cutting-edge research to take us inside the world of visual thinking, reframing the conversation on neurodiversity and showing how necessary different types of thinkers are essential for our collective well-being.

After a meteoric rise, China today is one of the world’s most powerful nations. Just a century ago, it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, as the world underwent a massive technological transformation that threatened to leave them behind. Jing Tsu, a Yale professor and world-renowned authority on East Asian languages joins us to discuss her new book, "Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern."

Jess McHugh is a writer and researcher whose work has appeared across a variety of national and international publications, including The New York Times,…