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Hi David, that’s wonderful that you are thinking about learning Portuguese. As I wrote on the front page, I think Portuguese is an absolutely gorgeous language that is quickly becoming an important world language as Brazil gains cultural and economic influence. If there’s something about the language that draws you to it, I say go for it. You don’t have to commit to becoming fluent right away – you can instead take it for a test drive to see if you get into it or not – that’s pretty much how I started. The Semantica videos, the book Portuguese in 10 Minutes a Day, and the Byki app are all fun and gentle ways to get more acquainted with Portuguese and see how you like it. If you do get hooked, you can pursue a more serious course of study later, but at the very beginning stages I think it’s important to keep it light and explore the language in a more freeform way.

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Having said all this, there is one thing I thing you should consider. Learning a language takes a sustained effort over several months or years, depending on how far you take it, and I think it’s difficult to keep up your motivation unless you have 1) people to speak the language with, and 2) a personal reason for wanting to learn the language.

In my case, I spent 5 years learning French in school but I’ve forgotten a lot of it, because I had no reason to keep speaking it and no French speakers to speak it with. With Portuguese, I made much faster progress because I wanted to learn it to understand a particular style of music, and I also had a trip to Rio planned that motivated me as well. Where I live in LA, I have a teacher that I meet with and several Brazilian friends so that I get somewhat regular practice speaking the language. Of course, the process of learning the language will most likely bring you into contact with speakers of the language, but it does take a little effort, and it helps if you live in a city or region where there is likely to be at least a small Portuguese-speaking community. And it’s also true that in learning the language, you may find new interests as the lusophile cultures becomes more accessible to you, and these interests will help motivate you too. I guess what I am saying is that you should look at your situation in terms of where you live and what you interests are. If you live someplace where there are a lot of speakers of, say, Spanish, it may ultimately be more fulfilling to spend your time learning Spanish because you will at least have the chance to use it regularly.

But if you’re set on learning Portuguese, then I suggest you find a reason to learn Portuguese – something that learning the language will help you to accomplish. I really do think the number one factor for success in learning a language is motivation, and if you can find that reason, it will keep you motivated throughout the process. Take care and best of luck! Hi David, my name’s David too. I read what you wrote and felt I just had to reply. I think we could really help each other.

I’m Brazilian, I speak Portuguese fluently like full on born and raised in Rio de Janeiro Brazilian yet I’m a born and raised English speak American of California. I’m quite literally the first American of my Brazilian family, a born natural at helping English speakers speak Portuguese and Portuguese speakers speak English. I’d really like to hear back from you and see if we can build a way for us to help each other. Please feel free to e-mail me personally if it sounds to you like this message makes sense.

@ David, There’s no reason why you shouldn’t learn Portuguese (or any other language). If you’re interested in the language, do as Lauren said, just take it easy, and study it during your free time. If the flirst evolves into a passion, you can take it more seriously, and eventually go to a Portuguese speaking country, and interact with natives. I personally learn languages because I want to gain a closer and more personal access to other cultures, especially literature and movies. It might be something else for you, but given the fact that the internet offers plenty of options to learn languages (and even interact with native speakers via Skype) for free, the only thing that you need to put in is time and effort. I learned English and German when I was in my twenties, and I’ve learned French on my opinion to an intermediate level in the last six months, and never once did I care to inform my friends that I’d do it or ask them their opinion whether I should do it or not. I did and do it and will continue doing it for myself.

Besides French, I’m currently learning Russian, and it’s a quite difficult language, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let that stop me from learning it and reading the Russian classics in the near future. I might even decide to visit Russia or find a language exchange via Skype to practice my conversation, but that will be my decision, not anyone else’s. Don’t let anyone tell what you can’t or can’t do.

Hi Lauren, Your website is extremely helpful and I’m enjoying it very much. I have studied Spanish, French, and Italian, and am just beginning to learn Portuguese. The written language is easier for me than the spoken, because it looks a lot more like Spanish than it sounds, but I love the sounds and want to acquire at least a passable pronunciation. What do you think of Portuguesepod101.com? Besides a paid website with a lot of lessons, they’ve published a couple iBooks that include audio. They offer a 7-day trial period, but I received a message that my trial had expired after less than 24 hours, so I’m not too impressed, but the lessons seemed pretty good. Also, are you at all familiar with the book “The Everything Learning Brazilian Portuguese Book: Speak, Write, and Understand Basic Portuguese in No Time” by Fernanda Ferreira?

It’s not too expensive and from what I could see from the sample pages on Amazon, it looks as if it might be a good, basic introduction. Audio-only is a good way to start, but I want a basic grammar reference. I’m debating between this one, and the much more comprehensive book by John Whitlam which you have praised so highly. Any thoughts or suggestions for a very new beginner, who has some background in several other Romance languages? Phil, thanks for checking in – I’m glad you found some of the suggestions useful. Yes, the way the words run together in speech is a major challenge and something that I still struggle with. Even if I know all the individual words a speaker is using, it can be hard to hear them clearly and make sense of them.

For this reason I’ve tried to find listening resources that have subtitles or transcriptions in Portuguese, so I can use it as a crutch when I need it, without feeling like I’m cheating too much. I have a bunch of suggestions on the Listening page, but you might find the free Ponto de Encontro listening exercises most useful since the speakers are slow and clear. The Semantica Series 1 videos, though not free, are also a great introduction to the sound of the language as it is spoken in Rio, and they also give you a peek at the unique cadence and intonation of Brazilians as they speak, which is actually helpful for getting the sounds down. I’ve been exploring Portuguesepod101.com, listening to some of the audio and checking out the pdfs, and you know what, it’s better than I expected. It has way more material than any other website I’ve seen and the podcasts are actually well produced and not too mechanical.

So I may have to give them a second look. Also, thanks for pointing me to the DK visual dictionary. I’ll have to get a copy and check it out. The only other visual dictionary I know of is the Oxford, which is terrible – this one sounds much better. Your original comment inspired me to finish working on a page I’d been meaning to upload on. At this point it’s mostly a brain dump of stuff that I’m sure is available in a clearer format elsewhere, but maybe there is some useful info there.

Good luck again, and have fun! Hey Phil, thanks so much for your continuing updates – I’d love to read your blog when you’re ready to share it. One thing I regret is not writing down my initial impressions as a beginner studying the language. Sounds like you are doing plenty of listening practice – which is fantastic – but I also suggest taking the time to do some writing every week. Even if it’s just a short email or a comment on a blog/facebook post, it puts us in the position of using what we’ve learned. I’ve also found that it builds vocabulary quickly because it forces me to look up common Portuguese words/phrases that I don’t know yet, and I remember these new words better when I’m using them in my own writing. Keep at it and drop a line in portuguese when you feel ready!

Hi, My husband is full Portuguese and speaks, for the most part, fluently with his family. While I am picking up phrases and learning words I would still like to invest in a program that will help me become fluent in all aspects of the language. My husband can speak and read but he states that he doesn’t know how to write it or the grammar. He said that he would love to sit down and brush up on it. The one question I have is which Portuguese do I learn? His mother is from Saint Jorge and his father is from San Miguel.

So I believe that I should do the European Portuguese instead of the Brazilian but I want to check and make sure before I invest in the wrong course. Thanks in advance for your help. Hi there, I just discovered this website while googling for a comparison of Rosetta stone and Pimsleur and thought I’d share my experience of learning languages. I’ve found that the best way is to be honest and decide exactly why you want to learn and -important – decide the level you want to attain. My own levels are Survival, Simple conversational, Full conversational, Semi fluency etc. For example, I learned greek using the Pimsleur CDs simply so I could enjoy our holidays more i.e. Survival and then simple conv.

The trick here is, once you’ve learned the very basics, to take control and ‘customise’ your learning. If I’m lost in the middle of Paris, my schoolboy french lessons years ago won’t be much help.

“The apple is on the table” isn’t much help! So what I do is take time to think about what I really need to know and imagine myself travelling in that country. Then I actively find out how to say what I want and, very importantly, learn all possible answers to my questions! If you do this alongside your language course, you’ll find the progress is amazing! Hi Paul, I haven’t tried to access the FSI files in a while; that’s good to know that they’re gone. Maybe what I can do, since I.think. I have the complete collection, is host them here.

I’ll leave you a message if I’m able to do that, but it won’t be for a couple weeks since I’m out of town. I wish I was more knowledgeable about European Portuguese resources, but there don’t seem to be that many out there. Many older books seem to teach that dialect by default. Ponto de Encontro is a good recent textbook that explicitly teaches both; Portuguese: A Reference Manual is another new one that tries to be neutral. If you find other resources that you like, please come back and share. I am thrilled to find this site. My girlfriend is Brazilian, and while English is her native language, I want to learn Portuguese anyway.

It would be fantastic to be able to converse with the rest of her family in Portuguese some day soon. I have been seriously considering the Pimsleur program. First of all, it has an excellent reputation.

Secondly, most of the other training methods that I’ve found seem to be software or web based. Since I am totally blind, this would present a problem. It’s uncertain whether the software or site would be accessible with screen reading software.

Even if it is fully accessible, my screen reader would read the materials with a real American sounding voice, which might throw me off. When I first looked into Pimsleur, I was expecting it to be highly expensive, and only available on CD. Well, they now offer mp3 downloads at $119 per phase.

Even better, you can purchase as you go, buying mp3 lessons in packs of 5 at a time for $24.95 each. This is a good deal.

Still, I thought I would see about other ways to save money on this. I googled “rent Pimsleur,” and found your page. I am absolutely stunned to learn that these lessons can be obtained through audible.com.

They also sell the five lesson packs for around $21 for non-members and about $15 for members. So I can use my 1 monthly Audible Listener credit on a pack, and buy more at the member rate. This is truly a fantastic find. I am curious to know if the versions offered by Audible are the latest revisions of these lessons. The release date shown on Audible is 2010, but the free lesson I obtained from pimsleur.com mentions a 2012 copyright date.

This leaves me wondering what, if anything, has changed? Should I pay more for potentially newer downloads straight from the source? Finally, while listening to the free lesson with me, my Girlfriend mentioned something that your post has confirmed.

She said it sounds somewhat formal. My usage will be in very relaxed, informal settings. I would be self-conscious if I sounded out of place. Can you recommend any other audio resources to help me transition to a more informal way of speaking? Thanks again for all of the useful information in this blog post.

I really appreciate it. After my earlier comment tonight, I still couldn’t sleep after getting excited by discovering this post.

I headed over to portuguesepod101.com, and on first glance I am highly impressed. When you first sign up for a free account, you instantly get a very hyped and pressured offer to get a nice-sounding deal. For $1, you get several items.

Something called the “Ultimate getting started with portuguese box set,” a free month of the premium subscription level, plus a couple other items that I haven’t explored yet. If it hadn’t been for the positive things you said about the site in this post and in the comments, I would have been very skeptical. The marketing technique used on this welcome page is the only thing I dislike here, and very nearly scared me away from a true gold mine.

I went for the $1 offer here because of your positive remarks. I must say, after downloading the huge zip file with the box set, it is very nearly all that was advertised. I know I will get a lot out of all of the audio lessons and PDF notes I received in this zip, not to mention what I have access to as a premium member. The pronunciation series was not in the zip as the email said, but I can easily download them separately because of the subscription. I did turn off automatic monthly renewal for now, strictly out of my own budget issues and not because of any content quality issues. Anyway, this is just to let anyone reading this know that the introductory offer from portuguesepod101.com is legitimate, and a great value. Thanks again for the helpful site.

I’m only now starting to read your other blog posts, and look forward to learning more as I go. Hi Lauren, my wife and I are moving to Brazil soon to be missionaries. We will be doing extensive language training in Brazil for the first year and completely realize that much of becoming fluent in Portuguese will happen there.

However, we would like to at least get started while state side. Reading and Writing it is not as important to us as speaking and listening. We want to be able to have conversations. Which program or method of learning the language to you recommend to us? By your summaries of each, Pimsleur sounds like it may make the most sense.

Though I am also going to look in to StreetSmart. I look forward to hearing from you, thanks! Hi, good review, I am an intermediate Brasilian Portuguese speaker and I’ve tried most of the recommendations here, the top 3 on my list would be 1. Bussuu Pimsleur is fantastic because it can be used while driving, on a train, walking,etc, you can be ‘unplugged’ and be learning a language on the go. It helped me learn the most out of all the other programs.

Its ‘dated’ but it has everything you need to start with the language and it has repetition in each lesson that drills vocabulary over time. Rosetta is great as well but requires dedicated time to sit and click through the lessons Bussuu is like Rosetta but less pricey, a great resource as well. This is really helpful! I’ve been having a lot of trouble finding software for learning European Portuguese, as most websites and software seem to focus on Brazil. As I am planning to move to Portugal, I’d feel really silly speaking in a Brazillian accent.

I already started on Livemocha, but only very basic levels are available on there. I’ve already lived in Portugal for a while, and even though I haven’t been focused on learning the language before (you can actually get around pretty well with English), the Livemocha courses are already too low level for me. Learning the colours and numbers is useful if you’ve never been in Portugal, but what I want to start learning is making sentences. Based on this review I’m now trying to get myself the Pimsleur mp3’s. I hope these will help me further!

The idea behind this program is that it uses a series of computer sequenced audio lessons that help you retain information from the very first lesson. Just about every Pimsleur Approach review that you will read mentions how much easier it is to use this program than other methods. The real reason for this is that you do not have to worry about reading, writing, spelling, or conjugating verbs – you simply focus on listening and speaking. Because there are fewer distractions with this type of learning, people find that they are able to understand native speakers much quicker and easier. Without the distraction of the written word, it is also a better way for people who are only interested in picking up a limited amount of language skills in order to travel.

My situation and reason for learning Portuguese is somewhat unique, so I was wondering if you could specifically suggest the best product(s) for me. My long term girlfriend is Brazilian (& American), so I have someone to converse with consistently and correct my mistakes immediately. Though I need to study consistently and learn on my own because we are both busy people and do not live together.

I have a solid knowledge of Spanish which is also a huge advantage, but more so with conjugation and sentence structure, not too much with vocabulary and pronunciation. I have a few books, but they seem more supplemental and referential to someone starting and not in classes with an instructor. My girlfriend is not instructing me and has not intention to do so.

I have been told by people that this is THE greatest gift you can give a significant other/spouse that is not a native English speaker. Not to mention, if we do get married I want to be able to understand her mother/other family and eventually my children (who will be dual citizens). Hi Lauren, Thank you for all your wonderful information on learning Brazilian Portuguese. I was wondering if you could offer me some advice. I was born in Brazil and speak it semi-fluently. We moved to the US when I was 5 but I continued to speak it with my parents. I made the mistake of not speaking it with my kids when they were born and now I regret it very much.

They are now 12, 10 and 7. I would like for them to learn it.

Can you recommend the best programs for kids? I know that I myself would be a great resource for them. I would like a program that they can use on their own and then I am available to review, practice and overall supplement what they’re learning. I never went to school in Brazil since we moved here when I was 5 so I am a much stronger at speaking and understanding than writing and reading. I regret so much not speaking it with them regularly as they were learning to talk. I was overwhelmed by motherhood and since English has become more native to me than Portuguese, it was easier. Also, I have forgotten so many words through the years that my Portuguese has become choppy.

These are all excuses, I know. If I had spoken with them as I should have, they would at least know as much as I do and that would’ve been great.

I know it will take some hard work on all our parts to make this happen but I am committed. I want to give them this connection to their heritage.

Any advice you can offer will be greatly appreciated. Hi Lauren, I have just come across your website and I think it is fantastic! I started learning Brazilian Portuguese properly at the beginning of the year as my partner is Brazilian and I wanted to be able to speak to his friends and family when we visited.

I have been teaching myself using the Living Language series which I find very good and I just wondered if you had come across this series? My only issue is that it doesn’t have listening comprehension excercises but I have found these elsewhere. I am now looking to buy a grammar book to go into more detail with grammar points and I think I will go with your recommendation on this.

I would perhaps also like to get another textbook for when I have finished with my current one and wonder which one would be your top pick?

. Herbert Marshall McLuhan (; July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian professor, philosopher, and.

His work is one of the cornerstones of the study of. Born in, Alberta, McLuhan studied at the and the. He began his teaching career as a professor of English at several universities in the U.S. And Canada before moving to the in 1946, where he remained for the rest of his life. McLuhan is known for coining the expression ' and the term, and for predicting the almost 30 years before it was invented.

He was a fixture in media discourse in the late 1960s, though his influence began to wane in the early 1970s. In the years after his death, he continued to be a controversial figure in academic circles. With the arrival of the and the interest was renewed in his work and perspective. Contents.

Life and career Herbert Marshall McLuhan was born on July 21, 1911, in, Alberta, to Elsie Naomi ( Hall) and Herbert Ernest McLuhan, both born in Canada. His brother Maurice was born two years later.

'Marshall' was his maternal grandmother's surname. His mother was a school teacher who later became an actress; his father was a and had a real estate business in Edmonton. That business failed when broke out, and McLuhan's father enlisted in the. After a year of service, he contracted and remained in Canada, away from the front lines. After his discharge from the army in 1915, the McLuhan family moved to, Manitoba, where Marshall grew up and went to school, attending before enrolling in the in 1928. At Manitoba, McLuhan explored his conflicted relationship with religion and turned to literature to 'gratify his soul's hunger for truth and beauty,' later referring to this stage as.

After studying for one year as an engineering student, he changed majors and earned a (1933), winning a University Gold Medal in Arts and Sciences. He took an (1934) in from the in 1934. He had long desired to pursue graduate studies in and was accepted to the, having failed to secure a to. He had already earned a BA and an MA degree at Manitoba, but Cambridge required him to enroll as an undergraduate 'affiliated' student, with one year's credit towards a three-year bachelor's degree, before entering any doctoral studies. He entered in the autumn of 1934, where he studied under and and was influenced. Upon reflection years afterward, he credited the faculty there with influencing the direction of his later work because of their emphasis on the training of perception and such concepts as Richards' notion of. These studies formed an important precursor to his later ideas on technological forms.

He received the required bachelor's degree from Cambridge in 1936 and entered their graduate program. Later, he returned from England to take a job as a teaching assistant at the that he held for the 1936–37 academic year, being unable to find a suitable job in Canada. While studying the at Cambridge, he took the first steps toward his eventual conversion to in 1937, founded on his reading of. In 1935, he wrote to his mother: 'Had I not encountered Chesterton, I would have remained agnostic for many years at least.' At the end of March 1937, McLuhan completed what was a slow but total conversion process, when he was formally received into the Roman Catholic Church. After consulting a minister, his father accepted the decision to convert. His mother, however, felt that his conversion would hurt his career and was inconsolable.

McLuhan was devout throughout his life, but his religion remained a private matter. He had a lifelong interest in the number three (e.g., the trivium, the ) and sometimes said that the provided intellectual guidance for him. For the rest of his career, he taught in Roman Catholic institutions of higher education.

From 1937 to 1944, he taught English at (with an interruption from 1939–40 when he returned to Cambridge). There he taught courses on and tutored and befriended, who went on to write his PhD dissertation on a topic that McLuhan had called to his attention, and who also became a well-known authority on communication and technology. McLuhan met Corinne Lewis in St. Louis, a teacher and aspiring actress from, and they were married on August 4, 1939. They spent 1939–40 in Cambridge, where he completed his master's degree (awarded in January 1940) and began to work on his doctoral dissertation on and the verbal arts. While the McLuhans were in England, had broken out in Europe.

For this reason, he obtained permission to complete and submit his dissertation from the United States, without having to return to Cambridge for an oral defence. In 1940, the McLuhans returned to Saint Louis University, where he continued teaching and they started a family. He was awarded a Ph.D. In December 1943. He next taught at in from 1944 to 1946, then moved to in 1946 where he joined the faculty of, a Catholic college of the.

Was one of his students and Canadian economist and communications scholar was a university colleague who had a strong influence on his work. McLuhan wrote in 1964: 'I am pleased to think of my own book as a footnote to the observations of Innis on the subject of the psychic and social consequences, first of then of.' In the early 1950s, McLuhan began the Communication and Culture seminars at the University of Toronto, funded by the. As his reputation grew, he received a growing number of offers from other universities and, to keep him, the university created the in 1963. He published his first major work during this period: (1951).

The work was an examination of the effect of advertising on society and culture. He and also produced an important journal called Explorations throughout the 1950s. McLuhan and Carpenter have been characterized as the, together with, and. During this time, McLuhan supervised the doctoral thesis of modernist writer on the subject of. He remained at the University of Toronto through 1979, spending much of this time as head of his Centre for Culture and Technology.

McLuhan was named to the Chair in Humanities at in the Bronx for one year (1967–68). While at Fordham, he was diagnosed with a benign brain tumour, and it was treated successfully.

He returned to Toronto where he taught at the University of Toronto for the rest of his life and lived in, a bucolic enclave on a hill overlooking the downtown where was his neighbour. In 1970, he was made a Companion of the. In 1975, the hosted him from April to May, appointing him to the McDermott Chair.

Marshall and Corinne McLuhan had six children:, twins Mary and Teresa, Stephanie, Elizabeth, and Michael. The associated costs of a large family eventually drove him to advertising work and accepting frequent consulting and speaking engagements for large corporations, IBM and AT&T among them. 's Oscar-winning motion picture (1977) featured McLuhan in a cameo as himself; a pompous academic arguing with Allen in a cinema queue is silenced by McLuhan suddenly appearing and saying, 'You know nothing of my work.' This was one of McLuhan's most frequent statements to and about those who disagreed with him. In September 1979, he suffered a stroke which affected his ability to speak.

The University of Toronto's School of Graduate Studies tried to close his research centre shortly thereafter, but was deterred by substantial protests, most notably by Woody Allen. He never fully recovered from the stroke and died in his sleep on December 31, 1980. Major works During his years at (1937–1944), McLuhan worked concurrently on two projects: his doctoral and the manuscript that was eventually published in 1951 as the book The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man, which included only a representative selection of the materials that McLuhan had prepared for it. McLuhan's 1942 Cambridge University doctoral dissertation surveys the history of the verbal arts (, and —collectively known as the ) from the time of down to the time of. In his later publications, McLuhan at times uses the Latin concept of the trivium to outline an orderly and systematic picture of certain periods in the history of Western culture. McLuhan suggests that the, for instance, were characterized by the heavy emphasis on the formal study of logic. The key development that led to the was not the rediscovery of ancient texts but a shift in emphasis from the formal study of logic to rhetoric and grammar.

Modern life is characterized by the re-emergence of grammar as its most salient feature—a trend McLuhan felt was exemplified by the of Richards and Leavis. In The Mechanical Bride, McLuhan turned his attention to analysing and commenting on numerous examples of persuasion in contemporary.

This followed naturally from his earlier work as both dialectic and rhetoric in the classical trivium aimed at persuasion. At this point his focus shifted dramatically, turning inward to study the influence of independent of their content. His famous ' (elaborated in his 1964 book, ) calls attention to this intrinsic effect of communications media. McLuhan also started the journal Explorations with anthropologist. In a letter to dated May 31, 1953, McLuhan reported that he had received a two-year grant of $43,000 from the Ford Foundation to carry out a communication project at the University of Toronto involving faculty from different disciplines, which led to the creation of the journal.

At a Fordham lecture in 1999, suggested that a major under-acknowledged influence on McLuhan's work is the Jesuit philosopher whose ideas anticipated those of McLuhan, especially the evolution of the human mind into the '. In fact, McLuhan warns against outright dismissing or whole-heartedly accepting de Chardin's observations early on in his second published book The Gutenberg Galaxy (p. 32): 'This externalization of our senses creates what de Chardin calls the 'noosphere' or a technological brain for the world.

Instead of tending towards a vast Alexandrian library the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as in an infantile piece of science fiction. And as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside. So, unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and super-imposed co-existence.'

In his private life, McLuhan wrote to friends saying: “I am not a fan of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The idea that anything is better because it comes later is surely borrowed from pre-electronic technologies.” Further, McLuhan noted to a Catholic collaborator: “The idea of a Cosmic thrust in one direction. Is surely one of the lamest semantic fallacies ever bred by the word ‘evolution’. That development should have any direction at all is inconceivable except to the highly literate community.” The Mechanical Bride (1951).

Main article: In Laws of Media (1988), published posthumously by his son, McLuhan summarized his ideas about in a concise tetrad of media effects. The tetrad is a means of examining the effects on society of any technology (i.e., any medium) by dividing its effects into four categories and displaying them simultaneously.

McLuhan designed the tetrad as a pedagogical tool, phrasing his laws as questions with which to consider any medium:. What does the medium enhance?. What does the medium make obsolete?. What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier?.

What does the medium flip into when pushed to extremes? The laws of the tetrad exist simultaneously, not successively or chronologically, and allow the questioner to explore the 'grammar and syntax' of the 'language' of media. McLuhan departs from his mentor in suggesting that a medium 'overheats', or reverses into an opposing form, when taken to its extreme. Visually, a tetrad can be depicted as four diamonds forming an X, with the name of a medium in the centre. The two diamonds on the left of a tetrad are the Enhancement and Retrieval qualities of the medium, both Figure qualities. The two diamonds on the right of a tetrad are the Obsolescence and Reversal qualities, both Ground qualities. A blank tetrad diagram Using the example of radio:.

Enhancement (figure): What the medium amplifies or intensifies. Radio amplifies news and music via sound. Obsolescence (ground): What the medium drives out of prominence. Radio reduces the importance of print and the visual. Retrieval (figure): What the medium recovers which was previously lost.

Radio returns the spoken word to the forefront. Reversal (ground): What the medium does when pushed to its limits. Acoustic radio flips into audio-visual TV. Figure and ground. Main article: McLuhan adapted the idea of a figure and a ground, which underpins the meaning of 'The medium is the message'. He used this concept to explain how a form of communications technology, the medium or figure, necessarily operates through its context, or ground. McLuhan believed that in order to grasp fully the effect of a new technology, one must examine figure (medium) and ground (context) together, since neither is completely intelligible without the other.

McLuhan argued that we must study media in their historical context, particularly in relation to the technologies that preceded them. The present environment, itself made up of the effects of previous technologies, gives rise to new technologies, which, in their turn, further affect society and individuals. All technologies have embedded within them their own assumptions about.

The message which the medium conveys can only be understood if the medium and the environment in which the medium is used—and which, simultaneously, it effectively creates—are analysed together. He believed that an examination of the figure-ground relationship can offer a critical commentary on culture and society. A portion of Toronto's St. Joseph Street is co-named Marshall McLuhan Way After the publication of Understanding Media, McLuhan received an astonishing amount of publicity, making him perhaps the most publicized English teacher in the twentieth century and arguably the most controversial.

This publicity began with the work of two California advertising executives, and Gerald Feigen who used personal funds to fund their practice of 'genius scouting.' Much enamoured with McLuhan's work, Feigen and Gossage arranged for McLuhan to meet with editors of several major New York magazines in May 1965 at the Lombardy Hotel in New York. Philip Marchand reports that, as a direct consequence of these meetings, McLuhan was offered the use of an office in the headquarters of both and, any time he needed it.

In August 1965, Feigen and Gossage held what they called a 'McLuhan festival' in the offices of Gossage's advertising agency in San Francisco. During this 'festival', McLuhan met with advertising executives, members of the mayor's office, and editors from the and magazine.

More significant was the presence at the festival of, who wrote about McLuhan in a subsequent article, 'What If He Is Right?' , published in and Wolfe's own. According to Feigen and Gossage, their work had only a moderate effect on McLuhan's eventual celebrity: they claimed that their work only 'probably speeded up the recognition of McLuhan's genius by about six months.' In any case, McLuhan soon became a fixture of media discourse. Newsweek magazine did a cover story on him; articles appeared in Life Magazine, Harper's, Fortune, Esquire, and others. Cartoons about him appeared in The New Yorker. In 1969, magazine published a lengthy interview with him.

In a running gag on the popular sketch comedy, the 'poet' would randomly say, 'Marshall McLuhan, what are you doin'?' McLuhan was credited with coining the phrase by its popularizer, in the 1960s. In a 1988 interview with, Leary stated that slogan was 'given to him' by McLuhan during a lunch in New York City.

Leary said McLuhan 'was very much interested in ideas and marketing, and he started singing something like, 'Psychedelics hit the spot / Five hundred micrograms, that’s a lot,' to the tune of a Pepsi commercial. Then he started going, 'Tune in, turn on, and drop out.' ' During his lifetime and afterward, McLuhan heavily influenced, thinkers, and media theorists such as, and, as well as political leaders such as and. Was paraphrasing McLuhan with his now famous ' quote.

When asked in the 1970s for a way to sedate violences in, he suggested a massive spread of TV devices. The character 'Brian O'Blivion' in 's 1983 film is a 'media oracle' based on McLuhan. In 1991, McLuhan was named as the 'patron saint' of and a quote of his appeared on the masthead for the first ten years of its publication. He is mentioned by name in a -penned lyric in the song 'Broadway Melody of 1974'. This song appears on the, from band. The lyric is: 'Marshall McLuhan, casual viewin' head buried in the sand.'

McLuhan is also jokingly referred to during an episode of entitled '. Despite his death in 1980, someone claiming to be McLuhan was posting on a Wired mailing list in 1996. The information this individual provided convinced one writer for Wired that 'if the poster was not McLuhan himself, it was a bot programmed with an eerie command of McLuhan's life and inimitable perspective.' A new centre known as the, formed soon after his death in 1980, was the successor to McLuhan's Centre for Culture and Technology at the. Since 1994, it has been part of the and in 2008 the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology incorporated in the Coach House Institute. The first director was literacy scholar and Professor David R. From 1983 until 2008, the McLuhan Program was under the direction of Dr.

Who was McLuhan's student and translator. From 2008 through 2015 Professor Dominique Scheffel-Dunand of served Director of the Program. In 2011 at the time of his centenary the Coach House Institute established a Marshall McLuhan Centenary Fellowship program in his honor, and each year appoints up to four fellows for a maximum of two years. In May 2016 the Coach House Institute was renamed the McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology; its Interim Director was (2015–16). Sarah Sharma, an Associate Professor of Media Theory from the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology (ICCIT) and the Faculty of Information (St. George), began a five-year term as director of the Coach House (2017- ).

Professor Sharma's research and teaching focuses on feminist approaches to technology, including issues related to temporality and media. Professor Sharma's thematic for the 2017-2018 Monday Night Seminars at the McLuhan Centre is MsUnderstanding Media which extends and introduces feminist approaches to technology to McLuhan's formulations of technology and culture. In Toronto, is named after him. Works cited This is a partial list of works cited in this article. See for a more comprehensive list of works by and about McLuhan. By McLuhan.

1951; 1st ed.: The Vanguard Press, NY; reissued by Gingko Press, 2002. 1962; 1st ed.:; reissued by Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1964; 1st ed. McGraw Hill, NY; reissued by MIT Press, 1994, with introduction by Lewis H. Lapham; reissued by Gingko Press, 2003. 1967 with Quentin Fiore, produced by; 1st ed.: Random House; reissued by Gingko Press, 2001.

1968 design/layout by Quentin Fiore, produced by Jerome Agel; 1st ed.: Bantam, NY; reissued by Gingko Press, 2001. 1970 with Wilfred Watson; Viking, NY. 1988 McLuhan, Marshall and Eric. Laws of Media. University of Toronto Press.

2016 Marshall McLuhan and Robert K. 'The Future of the Library: From Electronic Media to Digital Media.' About McLuhan. Penguin Canada, 2009; US edition: Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of my Work! Atlas & Company, 2011.

Marshall McLuhan: Escape into Understanding: A Biography. Basic Books, 1997. McLuhan Misunderstood: Setting the Record Straight. Toronto: Key Publishing House, 2013. Marchand, Philip. Random House, 1989; Vintage, 1990; The MIT Press; Revised edition, 1998.

Molinaro, Matie; Corinne McLuhan; and William Toye, eds. Letters of Marshall McLuhan. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1987, References.