Tweet This is the first in a series of profiles of entrepreneurs on The Huffington Post, a preview of my forthcoming book, Pursuit of the American Dream: Success Stories of Today’s Immigrant Entrepreneurs. Luis von Ahn’s new company, Duolingo, has set two very large goals: help users learn a language for free while simultaneously translating the Web. The start up may very well transform both the translation and language-learning industries in the process. Needless to say, von Ahn has a stellar track record for Internet

Tweet I watched this presentation on TED.com months ago from photographer, Phil Borges about the loss of endangered languages and cultures and I couldn’t get it out of my head. The photos, personal stories, and statistics that Borges shared blew me away, especially the opening paragraph: A fact came out of MIT, couple of years ago. Ken Hale, who’s a linguist, said that of the 6,000 languages spoken on Earth right now, 3,000 aren’t spoken by the children. So that in one generation, we’re going

Tweet Hispanic marketers and researchers often discuss the growth of the U.S. Hispanic audience and their acculturation process into American society. But rarely do we analyze the opposite side of the same coin. How do Caucasians learn the Spanish language, acquire information about Latinos’ native countries in Latin America, and “acculturate” to a more Hispanic America? As the Hispanic population grows, speaking Spanish becomes more useful than ever before. Many American students choose to study Spanish because of its usefulness here in the U.S. or

Tweet So often, when friends learn that I speak Spanish, they tell me, “oh yeah, I studied Spanish in high school but I don’t remember anything. I’m not good at learning languages.” If I could have a nickel every time I heard that, I think I’d be a millionaire. Tim Ferriss’ video on TED.com below highlights how he learned Japanese, Tango dancing and how to overcome his fear of swimming. “Fear is your friend,” he says. It can point you to what you can do