I just finished posting a four-part series on the culture of family bands in one region of Tennessee. The Minton family plays traditional music of the South–bluegrass, folk, gospel and Irish styles. On the way back to Indianapolis, I stopped at a store somewhere in the heart of Kentucky to take a break. I heard a woman speaking Russian on the store telephone.

“Hey,” I thought to myself, “I can’t understand a word that woman is saying. She’s either speaking Russian or Norwegian.” I’m not sure I can actually tell the difference between those two languages, but I have been wanting to include a sample of Russian in our lessons. So the woman caught my attention.

She finished the call, and I asked her where she was from.

“Right here in Kentucky,” she said. She said it in English that sounded just like the Russian she was speaking on the phone. She doesn’t speak anything but a regional Kentucky English.

Max and Max Spanish lessons include all kinds of angles to reveal the variety and beauty of language here and afar, to help people fall in love with language, any language.