The Best Articles in Language
The most useful articles and videos in Language from around the web, curated by thought leaders and our community.
Refind focuses on timeless pieces and updates the list whenever new, must-read articles or videos are discovered.
Top 5 Language Articles
At a glance: these are the articles that have been most read, shared, and saved in Language by Refind users in 2024 so far.
Videos
Watch a video to get a quick overview.
Do conversations with people you don't know intimidate you? Try this
If you're nervous about having a conversation with a stranger, Charles Duhigg, author of "Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language," says one si...
Why does this nonsense phrase appear in so many old newspapers?
Check out my PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/dimestoreadventuresHUGE thank you to my PATREON SUPER SUPPORTERS:BIG SUMCarson WWesley SnipesChristopher KuklaK...
How Language Shapes Thought
Do the languages we speak shape the way we think? For example, how do we think about time? The word "time" is the most frequent noun in the English languag...
Why we say “OK”
“OK” is thought to be the most widely recognized word on the planet. We use it to communicate with each other, as well as our technology. But, it actually started out as a language fad in the 1830’s.…
Lessons from Auschwitz: The power of our words
Classical music mastermind Benjamin Zander concluded his 2008 TED Talk by recounting the heartrending story of an Auschwitz survivor and her brother. This short animated piece highlights that story,…
How to ...?
How To Know If You're An Interrupter Or A 'Cooperative Overlapper'
This conversational habit seems like interrupting but it's actually not.
How to Win at Wordle (Without Cheating)
Solve these puzzle questions to level up your Wordle game.
Trending
These links are currently making the rounds in Language on Refind.
How a second language can boost the brain
ven when you’re fluent in two languages, it can be a challenge to switch back and forth smoothly between them. It’s common to mangle a split verb in Spanish, use the wrong preposition in English, or…
“Integrated thriving” can fix unhelpful buzz words like “girlboss” and “snail girl”
It’s hardly surprising that there’s a growing obsession with labeling women in the workplace. From “girlboss” to “lazy girl” to most recently “snail girl,” women are looking for ways to redefine their…
Can you learn a language in 6 months?
Act now! Limited time! One secret tip! 🤔 Are there shortcuts for learning a language?
Can you forget your first language?
It sure is easy to forget words in your new language—but can you really forget your first language?
'Make a Party' as a New English Dialect Emerges in South Florida
A linguist explains how loanwords and direct translations known as calques are reshaping the sound of Miami and beyond.
Short Articles
Short on time? Check out these useful short articles in Language—all under 10 minutes.
A very short history of the F-word
The oldest unambiguous use of the F-word comes from De Officiis, a treatise on moral conduct by Cicero. No, the Roman philosopher didn’t gift English its soon-to-be favorite obscenity. Rather, in…
«For instance, the word didn’t appear in an English-language dictionary until 1966 when The Penguin Dictionary broke the taboo.»
Why Navajo is the world’s hardest language to learn
According to many linguists, the most difficult language in the world isn’t Mandarin or Basque or Hungarian or Xhosa, spoken in South Africa, but Navajo.Concentrated in Arizona and New Mexico, the…
How to Exclaim!
Noisy. Hysterical. Brash. The textual version of junk food. The selfie of grammar. The exclamation point attracts enormous amounts of flak...
A polyglot explains the tips (and myths) of learning new languages
When I visited Buenos Aires last year, I thought the six semesters of Spanish I took in school would pay dividends. The fast flow of Spanish from Argentinians quickly killed that delusion. I realized…
How language and social status change the developing brain
Brain development is a highly complex process that is strongly influenced by the environment in which a child is raised, with the earliest years of life being especially important for the emergence of…
«From the evidence that is currently available, it is clear that talking to babies plays a substantial role in the development of language circuitry in their brains.»
Long Articles
These are some of the most-read long-form articles in Language.
Feral Minds
We still don’t understand the role language plays in consciousness. The future of AI may upend what little we know.
Baroque, Purple, and Beautiful: In Praise of the Long, Complicated Sentence
The meter-tall stone that has come to be called the Mesha Stele, its smooth, black basalt carved some sixteen centuries before it was unearthed from the packed, red sand of Dhiban, Jordan in 1868, …
Why we can dream in more than one language
Sleep has a more powerful role in language-learning than was previously thought. What does this reveal about our night-time brain?
You Had Me At Meow: On the Hidden Language of Cats
“That one in there—he just sits and hisses.” The school caretaker pointed to a hole underneath the old building. I crouched down, peered in, and said, “Hello there,” to the dirty, scrawny little ca…
Past Lives of the Paragraph
Making a new paragraph is as easy as drawing a thin line in the margin.
«I propose that we treat the “rules” of Bain and company, particularly those designed to promote coherence, like these ruled lines—as elected parameters from which we may deviate as needed.»
Thought Leaders
We monitor hundreds of thought leaders, influencers, and newsletters in Language, including:
What is Refind?
Every day Refind picks the most relevant links from around the web for you. Picking only a handful of links means focusing on what’s relevant and useful.
How does Refind curate?
It’s a mix of human and algorithmic curation, following a number of steps:
- We monitor 10k+ sources and 1k+ thought leaders on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
- In addition, our users save links from around the web using our Save buttons and our extensions.
- Our algorithm processes 100k+ new links every day and uses external signals to find the most relevant ones, focusing on timeless pieces.
- Our community of active users gets the most relevant links every day, tailored to their interests. They provide feedback via implicit and explicit signals: open, read, listen, share, mark as read, read later, «More/less like this», etc.
- Our algorithm uses these internal signals to refine the selection.
- In addition, we have expert curators who manually curate niche topics.
The result: lists of the best and most useful articles on hundreds of topics.
How does Refind detect «timeless» pieces?
We focus on pieces with long shelf-lives—not news. We determine «timelessness» via a number of metrics, for example, the consumption pattern of links over time.
How many sources does Refind monitor?
We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Who are the thought leaders in Language?
We follow dozens of thought leaders in Language, including Grammar Girl is also @grammargirl@zirk.us, Aeon+Psyche, Literary Hub, Nautilus Magazine, The Pudding.
Missing a thought leader? Submit them here
Can I submit a link?
Indirectly, by using Refind and saving links from outside (e.g., via our extensions).
How can I report a problem?
When you’re logged-in, you can flag any link via the «More» (...) menu. You can also report problems via email to hello@refind.com
Who uses Refind?
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Keep Learning
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