A new Nielsen report: The New Digital American Family: Understanding family dynamics, media and purchasing behavior trends is out. Very interesting, via Dick Stroud and  What is happening to American households?:

The family household is becoming less homogeneous, less educated and less affluent target audience.By the mid-2030s, the share of households with children is expected to decline further to between 25-30%. The family household is not going to look like it does today due to the ferocious projected growth of multi-cultural households.

Nielsen projections suggest that the majority of families with children will be multi-cultural before the end of this decade. Fewer than half will be native-born, non-Hispanic white. Families with children already register more than 40% multi-cultural. The proportion is even higher at 47% among those families with a head of household age 33 or younger and soars to 61% for the lowest income families.

This is important to me because people who are less homogeneous, less educated, less affluent, and less likely to use English at home will probably further continue to use the Internet as their lingua franca rather than a shared, educated English literacy.

No judgement here, actually, because I come from Hawaii and our linqua franca is Pidgin English, a patois of Hawaiian, English, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Filipino, and others into a shared tongue.

What I care about it how best to engage with this new community and how they communicate, how they engage, in what language, at what Flesch Reading Ease rating (and is the scale even relevant any more?), and also what will eventually matter to this less educated, less affluent, multi-culti online community?

Do you have any insight into this?  Do you have a plan?

Via Marketing Conversation

1 a : a course of action : MANEUVER b : a diplomatic or political initiative or maneuver
2 : a petition or protest presented through diplomatic channels

Main Entry: dé·marche
Variant(s): or de·marche /dA-’märsh, di-’, ‘dA-”/
Function: noun
Etymology: French démarche, literally, gait, from Middle French, from demarcher to march, from Old French demarchier, from de- + marchier to march
Date: 1658

The best thing about my life is that I am the least awesome and noteworthy of all of my friends.  Here is by buddy Oliver Uberti at the recent TEDxNASA doing a design and art presentation called “Smash The Design Button” — he’s a designer and artist for the National Geographic Magazine — enjoy!

From the video’s description:

The design process begins and ends with research — so he shares an office with a human skeleton. Oliver Uberti is a visual journalist and designer who dabbles in maps, infographics and words. He is a Design Editor at National Geographic magazine.

On a given day at Geographic, Uberti says he may be found painting with crude oil, charting man’s migration from Africa, drawing Stonehenge, counting jelly beans or directing a photo shoot of highway litter. He’s drawn to images that make him feel something — joy, sorrow, surprise or wonder.

Uberti writes a blog titled The Process, the stories behind National Geographic’s award- winning art, maps and designs. Here he answers the oft-asked question “How did they do that?”

About TEDx, x = independently organized event
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

Today was my first time through TSA NudeVision scanner technology. All I can say is that I blame shrinkage.

Here’s my latest post over at the Rosetta Stone blog, Language Journeys, Finding the Native Accent:

Perhaps you’re like many Americans who get so bummed out when they spend a lot of time learning a second language, and then they go abroad, excited to use their new language, and foreigners look at them perplexed. In all likelihood, the people you’re talking to simply can’t follow your rather inaccurate accent. Maybe this is confusing because you did so well in your French/Spanish/German high school and/or college courses.

Aha! Generally, few primary and secondary schools hire native speakers. So, the German that you may have learned from your Alabama- or Massachusetts-born-and-bred German teacher is aurally incomprehensible to Germans.

Accents can also vary greatly within a country, which is why they are often standardized in media outlets. The national news broadcast in the United States, for example, is standardized to a neutral accent, referred to as General American. In England, it’s called Received Pronunciation or the Queen’s English, and it’s what you hear on the BBC. In Germany, this neutral pronunciation is called Standard German, Hochdeutsch, or High German. Many countries, like Germany, Austria, and Switzerland not only have different accents from country to country but different dialects as well.

One of the most valuable things about TOTALe is that it offers the voices of native speakers only. So, when I’m going through my lessons, I only hear people who are native German speakers. When I log on to TOTALe for my live coaching, I get a native German speaker, and when the magic voice-recognition software asks me to pronounce German words and phrases into my headset, it is mapping my voice to a model of native speakers’ pronunciation. The speech-recognition engine is checking to see whether I’m speaking accurate German or if I’m getting lazy.

So, if and when Germans look at you perplexed or correct your pronunciation, they’re not trying to be rude or insult your speaking abilities, they’re trying to be helpful—learn from them. Most Germans really appreciate foreigners, especially Americans who are learning their native language.

The Rosetta Stone Language Journeys blog just posted my latest article entitled Third Time’s a Charm:

In the middle of my German language learning travails, Rosetta Stone reached out to me and asked me to blog about my language-learning process in light of being able to try out their new solution, Rosetta Stone TOTALe. So, here I am.

What have I learned in the last couple months using TOTALe?  Well, I have learned quite a bit and it is working.  Seriously.  And I’ll tell you why.

I actually got to meet Duane Sider, Director of Learning at Rosetta Stone, and he pointed out something that now seems so obvious, which is that people don’t learn languages based on charts, irregular verbs, vocab cards, rote memorization.  I didn’t learn English that way when I was a child and Mark didn’t learn German that way either — we learn languages by learning like children, learning phonetically and over time, which phrase works best in which situation.

I guess in the past, what I had been doing is learning what each English word means in German and what each German word means in English. Then I would try to piece each sentence together based on subject, verb, object noun agreement, like a puzzle, that at the end of the day, would convey meaning and secure me a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk.

Here’s the hard truth: you can’t really have a conversation with someone if you’re trying to do real-time translation based on coming up with a sentence such as, “I would like a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk” and then try to sort out that German equivalent, while still trying to be charming at the grocery store.  What you need to be able to do is see bread and milk and automatically think “Brot” and “Milch”. And when you would like something, you had better be nice and say “ich möchte Brot und Milch, bitter.”

This Rosetta Stone Language Journeys blog post, Learning German – Round 2, is a continuation of a previous post, part one, Failing with Language Classes, and deals with my General tendency to dance around learning something hard by obsessing about it, learning about it, and buying lots and lots of books and texts and stories and dictionaries instead of actually becoming a true bouncing baby German-speaker — collecting German instead of learning German:

I arrived in Berlin, terrified of sounding like a toddler and a moron while trying to speak German.  So, I just didn’t — I spoke English.  After a while in Berlin, I signed up for another language course, again starting at the beginning. This time it was serious: three hours a day, five days a week, for four months.

I was pretty religious with attendance and the course was completely immersive based on necessity, not just as a learning strategy — English was not the lingua franca of this school.  I had classmates who were from Iran, Yemen, Turkey, China, Italy, Spain, Russia, and Brazil.

Again, my story was a sob story. The moment I left class, I didn’t prioritize the hours of homework, the mandated flash cards, the rote memorization of verb conjugations and noun gender — I had a business to run and I had a social life — with Berliners who were happy to practice their flawless English.

Eventually, I realized I had been fetishing German learning more than I have been trying to learn German.  After three years of German language grazing, I have half-a-dozen German-English dictionaries, another four packs of German vocabulary flash cards, and an assortment of German workbooks, verb books, grammar books and the whole lot.  It was almost like I got confused — I was collecting German instead of learning German — like buying classical CDs instead of learning how to play the viola.

Score.  I am digging through the Goethe.de site for an SMNR I am putting together for the Goethe-Institut Washington for a blogger outreach we’re to be doing in support of what we’ve been doing for their Facebook page and their Twitter profile — thanks Rodrigo!  Well, there are so many gems secreted on the greater Goethe site and here’s one of them to check out.  I am currently level A2 at Goethe-Institut Berlin, nearing the end of an Intensiv-8 class, and these are some awesome resources with which to practice and study online for free…

Practise German at your own level. The easiest exercises are at levels A1–A2. All exercises are classified according to the Common European Reference Framework for Languages.

Test your German

Which is the right course level for you?

Goethe-Zertifiakt A1: Start Deutsch 1
Online Modellsatz

Test yourself and prepare for this exam online.

Goethe-Zertifikat A2: Start Deutsch 2
Online Modellsatz

Test yourself and prepare for this exam online.

Radio language Course “Radio D”

Learning German for beginners on two levels: In all episodes the reporters Paula and Philipp experience exciting stories.

Mediterrania

Listen to a story, play a game, sort pictures and text

Schellingstraße

The inhabitants of this house in Munich let you glimpse into their daily lives. Authentic material for beginners of German including audio and video.

Read interesting texts for learners of German or watch short, up-to-date video clips on German culture.

“Deutsch-Wagen-Tour”

The “Deutsch-Wagen” are on tour through Poland, arousing people’s interest in learning German with creative games, quiz games and competitions.

Podcast: “Greetings from Germany”

Language lessons of another kind: 60 amusing audio stories about Germany for students of German.

Radio language Course “Radio D”

Learning German for beginners on two levels: In all episodes the reporters Paula and Philipp experience exciting stories.

“100 and Me”

Tell your personal story, captured on video, based on one of 100 German words.

German contemporary literature in Spanish

Get to know today’s generation of German writers. With information for booksellers and librarians, videos and interactive exercises.

Line E

The interactive on-line quiz focussing on the European languages!

Deutsche Spuren in Schweden

Join us and track German traces in Sweden.

The City of Languages

Play an exciting online-quiz about languages and scripts of the world.

Learn German with jetzt.de

Young people learn German with authentic texts from “jetzt.de”

KuBus – Cultural Videos from Germany

A collection of video contributions on cultural and societal life in Germany.

A-Level German website

Discover useful German weblinks and join the Deutsch-Klub!

Ausgewanderte Wörter

24 words of German origin which “emigrated” and found a home in other languages

Ballgeschichten

Stories and anecdotes about your favourite ball. Do you have a favourite ball? Are you creative? Send us photo and story about your favourite ball!

Make friends,
have fun with German

Podcasts with Mexicans in Germany and multi-cultural German classes in North America

Memo-Spiel

Wussten Sie, dass viele Wörter des täglichen Umgangs aus dem Deutschen stammen? Gehen Sie auf Entdeckungsreise!

Schellingstraße

The inhabitants of this house in Munich let you glimpse into their daily lives. Authentic material for beginners of German including audio and video.

Filou

German-French magazine for children between 8 and 12

[Goethe-Institut Nancy]

Bridging the World

German language bridges the world. Experiences and impressions – Be part of it!

[Goethe-Institut Australia]

Make online contact with other learners of German.

German Language Get-Together

Meet nice German students and native-language tutors. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday 7–8 a.m. (CET) and Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, 8–9 p.m. (CET) at the Cafe on the Goethe Island.

Online Chat ‘JETZT Deutsch lernen’

At specific times you will find native German speakers and guests online

Forum “Deutsch lernen mit jetzt.de”

Exchange ideas with other students, find email-partners or just “talk” with other people.

The Image of the Other

International email project for young beginners

[Goethe-Institut Krakau]

Mediterrania

A journey of discovery around the world: Email and other online exercises for primary school students

Odyssee

Intercultural e-mail game

I got confused last night about “wer” and “wen” but then stumbled upon this! Ah! They both mean who — but wer is subject, “who” and “wen” is the accusative or dative — sort of like “whom” or “to whom” or “for whom.” Very cool. Now I need to sort out Wem and Wessen! Any insight?

I think this is from English Grammar for Students of German