Learn your grandparents’ first language while they’re still around to laugh at your accent.

A language carries jokes, tone and a way of thinking that translation cannot bring across, so losing one closes off a room you could have stood in. It also stops being learnable in the good way once the fluent speakers are gone, because books teach words and people teach how it is really spoken. The window is open now and will not stay that way.

Learn ten phrases this month and use them badly on the phone. Ask for the family words, the ones no app contains. Getting laughed at is the fast version of the lesson.