What If 911 Doesn’t Speak Your Language?

by Kevin Burton    Today’s post is kind of a follow-up to yesterday’s story about the best countries for expatriates.    The BBC did that story, based on a survey of people who had left their home country and settled elsewhere. My wife read it and asked “What about health care?” The story didn’t mention …

Survey Names Mexico Best Location For Expats

by Kevin Burton    I’ve done it before; I could do it again if I had to. So file this under “just in case.”    The BBC recently published a list of ten best countries for expatriates – people who leave their home country to live abroad – based on a survey by Internations, the …

Hey Marketers, Watch Your Language

by Kevin Burton    The good people at http://www.thoughtco.com have poked into some language-barrier marketing stories and discovered some of them are simply not true.    The first one burst my bubble.    I heard somewhere that Chevrolet had to stop selling Nova cars in Mexico because “no va” in Spanish means, “it doesn’t go.” …

Clear Channel (iHeart) Killed The Radio Star

by Kevin Burton    In the old days we turned on our radios for music, for news, for sports and weather forecasts, and we got all those things.    But what we really loved, and what kept us coming back for more, was the way those things were delivered, something that was woven throughout the …

A Language That Goes Beyond Words

by Kevin Burton    Surely you’ve heard this old joke:    What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call a person who speaks only one language?    American.     A wicked, sweeping generalization that. Not entirely fair. But …

My Bilingual Doubletalk In Mexico

by Kevin Burton    My career as an English as a Second Language teacher came to an abrupt early end one night under the streetlights outside a small taco shop in Puebla.    To tell you how and why that happened, I first turn to BBC writer Nicole Chang, who recently wrote about what speaking …

A Week To Show Appreciation To Teachers

by Kevin Burton    One of the things I said I would never do, is teach. I thought there might be some payback coming.    I reasoned that if I got back anything close to my just desserts after tormenting my teachers for so long, I’d be in serious trouble.      May 2-5 is National Teacher …

American Emigration Over The Years

by Kevin Burton    It is conventional wisdom in the United States that a US passport is the prized possession.    It would be foolish to downplay the benefits of American citizenship to many who live here. But for some it may be wise to at least look into what some other places may have …

Why People Are Leaving The USA

by Kevin Burton    Leaving your home country is a foreign concept that pushes against everything you have known from earliest childhood.    At least for Americans it is.    What set of circumstances would cause you to think about relocating permanently?    Wednesday we told one woman’s story. Amber Blackmon moved from the United …

Could You Leave The United States?

by Kevin Burton    Amber Blackmon told her story Monday on insider.com, I wish she had told more of it.    Or maybe it’s better this way. Maybe we are meant to insert our own details into what she has given.    The story hit home because she did something I sort of did years …