Spotlight – September 2019

44

Fotos: Brandt Johnson; Judith Gilbert; artnLera/Shutterstock.com

English who want help with aspects of it.

I remember this family who showed up

on the very first day. They were native

Hebrew speakers. They were curious as

a whole family, this nest of people that

came over full of questions. I just loved

that. And also, that they just accepted that

there was a Grammar Table! This is a big

tourist area, so I get people from all over

the world who are staying at hotels near-

by. I also get locals who are non-native

speakers, all different languages.

You’ve studied 21 languages. Do you

discuss only English?

Grammar Table usually is used for Eng-

lish, because I’m living in New York. I

made a grammar sign for the table and

on [it] I wrote “any language,” so people

will feel encouraged to talk about what-

ever language. They can teach me Persian.

I have books on the table that represent

two different languages besides English.

Recently, I took out Portuguese and Per-

sian. I’ve taken out Russian and Swahili.

I have German, Italian, French, and Span-

ish fairly often. I try to bring out lan-

guages with different writing systems

and really mix it up. I want to send the

message that I’m happy to talk about Eng-

lish because that’s where I have the most

authority, but I hope that you will come

and talk to me about other things.

For your documentary, you took Gram-

mar Table to Venice Beach, California.

How was that?

Like New York City, Venice Beach has

tourists from all over the world, so the vis-

itors were pretty international. But on av-

erage, people spoke a bit more slowly and

sounded more relaxed, as one might ex-

pect along the beach in the sun. A family

of five from Connecticut stopped by, and

the oldest child wanted to know whether

it was “I need to lie down” or “I need to lay

down.” (The answer is “lie.”) There was so

much grammar business that Grammar

Table was still answering questions (for

example, about the difference between

Spotlight 9/2019 INTERVIEW

Ellen was surprised at

how quickly her sign

attracted attention — she

says it’s because people

care about language

Hebrew [(hi:bru:]

, hebräisch