Hmong Minor at Fresno State

10/16/2026

How to respond with YES-NO answers.

10/15/2026

🎃 Halloween Meets Hmong Traditions! 🐅👻

Halloween is not a traditional Hmong celebration, but it has become a new cultural tradition embraced by many Hmong Americans, especially younger generations. Through costumes, decorations, and trick-or-treating, Hmong families participate in American society while bringing their own cultural imagination into the celebration.

In Hmong cosmology, the word dab has a much broader meaning than the English word ghost. It can refer to ghosts, guardian spirits, supernatural beings, and celestial beings. Some dab protect humans, while others may frighten or harm them. Thus, not all dab are evil!

And why is a tiger carrying a beautiful Hmong female ghost? 🐅

In Hmong supernatural traditions, the tiger is associated with tus poj ntxoog, a female ghostly being. In this playful Halloween illustration, the tiger becomes her boyfriend, carrying his mysterious sweetheart through the haunted village! ❤️

By combining Halloween imagery with Hmong supernatural traditions, we can teach language while exploring how cultures encounter, reinterpret, and enrich one another.

Learning Hmong is also learning how people imagine the visible and invisible worlds!

10/14/2026

Il faut connaître la complexité pour pouvoir enseigner avec simplicité.

Depuis de nombreuses années, je consacre une grande partie de mon travail à l'étude et à l'enseignement de la grammaire hmong. Ma formation universitaire en linguistique française et mes dix années d'enseignement de la grammaire française au niveau avancé m'ont fourni des outils théoriques et méthodologiques précieux pour analyser le fonctionnement de la langue hmong.

En m'appuyant sur mes connaissances de la grammaire française, j'ai progressivement développé une approche comparative qui me permet d'examiner les structures grammaticales du hmong, notamment l'expression du temps, de la durée, de la continuité, de l'habitude et de l'achèvement d'une action.

Il ne s'agit surtout pas d'appliquer les règles du français au hmong. Chaque langue possède sa propre logique et sa manière particulière d'organiser et d'exprimer la pensée. L'enjeu consiste à trouver un terrain conceptuel commun entre les langues, tout en respectant leurs spécificités linguistiques.

Cette démarche nourrit également mes recherches sur la tradition orale hmong, notamment sur les relations entre les structures grammaticales, la temporalité et l'organisation du récit.

Aujourd'hui, en approfondissant le système grammatical anglais pour mes enseignements, je découvre de nouvelles perspectives de comparaison entre le français, l'anglais et le hmong.

Mais avant tout, je pense en pédagogue. Mon objectif n'est pas d'impressionner les étudiants avec des terminologies savantes, mais de leur rendre accessibles des concepts parfois très complexes.

C'est pourquoi je ne cesse d'insister sur l'importance d'étudier la grammaire au niveau avancé. Pour simplifier une explication sans la dénaturer, il faut d'abord maîtriser les mécanismes qui la sous-tendent.

Après tant d'années d'enseignement, je continue à apprendre, à observer, à comparer et à remettre mes analyses en question. Car enseigner, c'est aussi continuer à s'instruire.

La simplicité pédagogique n'est pas le contraire de la complexité scientifique. Elle est le fruit d'une compréhension approfondie.

10/13/2026

Our faces and hands speak even without words! 😊 From smiling and laughing to waving and whispering, everyday gestures are part of how we communicate. Let's learn 20 common expressions in Hmong.

Learning Hmong can be fun, colorful, and culturally meaningful! 🌸

10/13/2026

Understanding Complexity to Teach with Simplicity

For many years, I have devoted myself to studying and teaching Hmong grammar, drawing upon my extensive training in French linguistics and my ten years of experience teaching advanced French grammar at the university level.

My knowledge of French grammar has provided me with a strong analytical foundation for examining the grammatical structures of Hmong. By comparing the two languages, I have been able to explore how different linguistic systems express similar concepts, such as time, aspect, duration, continuation, and completion.

However, my objective is not to impose French grammatical rules on Hmong. Each language has its own internal logic, and understanding that logic requires rigorous linguistic analysis.

As I prepare to teach English linguistics to teachers, I am discovering new reseach opportunities to compare French, English, and Hmong. These comparisons also enrich my ongoing research on Hmong oral traditions, particularly the relationship between verbal structures and narration.

Above all, I think as an educator. My goal is not to overwhelm students with complicated linguistic terminology, but to make difficult grammatical concepts understandable and accessible.

This is why I continually emphasize the importance of studying grammar at an advanced level. The deeper our understanding, the better we can simplify our explanations without sacrificing accuracy.

After decades of teaching, I am still learning, questioning, comparing, and discovering.

To teach with simplicity, we must first understand complexity.

10/12/2026

Inspirational story: Kawm ntawv mus ua ib tug xib fwb qhia ntawv.

Ma Thi Mai, the top-scoring student in the entrance exam for the Primary and Preschool Education department at the University of Education - Da Nang University, with 28.04 points, used to go to school as early as 2-3 AM with her father. Having left home to study, she chose a different path for her f...

10/12/2026

🌾 One Grain of Rice, Six Delicious Creations: The Art of Hmong Cuisine! 🍚

Imagine taking a handful of raw rice and transforming it into steaming bowls of rice, comforting porridge, chewy rice cakes, golden pancakes, and silky noodles! One humble ingredient, yet so many possibilities!

This is the beauty of culinary creativity: transforming something simple into a remarkable variety of foods through imagination, knowledge, and skill.

From a single agricultural product, rice (txhuv), Hmong people have developed a variety of dishes through different cooking techniques, transformations, and combinations of ingredients.

Rice can be steamed, cooked with charcoal heat, boiled into porridge, ground into flour, shaped into cakes, or transformed into noodles.

Each preparation reflects practical knowledge, culinary skills, and creativity passed down through generations.

The richness of a cuisine does not necessarily depend on the number of ingredients available, but on people's ability to transform them into different foods.

Learning about Hmong cuisine is therefore also learning about the ingenuity, adaptability, and cultural knowledge of Hmong people.

One grain, many possibilities! 🌾

10/12/2026

🌸 DISCOVER HMONG CULTURE BEYOND THE SURFACE!

LING 121: Hmong Culture and Identity
Spring 2027 | Fresno State

Hmong culture is more than colorful clothing, traditional dances, festivals, and celebrations. Behind these visible expressions lies a rich system of knowledge, values, beliefs, social relationships, and cultural meanings.

Why do Hmong people maintain certain traditions? How do language, family, migration, and history shape Hmong identity? How do Hmong communities preserve, adapt, and reinvent their cultural heritage across generations and continents?

LING 121 invites students to explore these questions through a comparative, anthropological, and interdisciplinary approach.

Learn to appreciate Hmong cultural diversity, understand the meanings behind traditions, and examine the relationship between culture, identity, and social change.

📚 Spring 2027
💻 Live on Zoom
📅 Tuesday and Thursday
🕓 4:00–5:15 PM

Instructor: Dr. Kao-Ly Yang
Email: [email protected]

If you need a permission number to enroll, please contact me.

Don't just admire a culture. Learn to understand it!

10/12/2026

Learning to Fly: The Power of Independence

The stage of flying (Ya) represents a significant milestone in a woman's journey through life.

After learning to crawl, stand, walk, run, and climb, she has acquired the knowledge, skills, experience, and confidence necessary to spread her wings.

Flying symbolizes three important accomplishments:

🦋 Autonomy: She can think independently, make informed decisions, and choose her own direction in life.

🌱 Self-sufficiency: She has developed the abilities and resources to support herself, meet her needs, and navigate life's challenges without unnecessary dependence on others.

🌟 Achievement: In traditional Hmong society, a woman's transition into adulthood was closely associated with marriage and the assumption of her social and familial roles as a wife, mother, and member of her husband's household. In modern society, education, perseverance, and experience have expanded her opportunities to develop her potential, pursue personal aspirations, and achieve accomplishments beyond traditional expectations.

Flying does not mean that she no longer needs others. It means that she can stand on her own while choosing when and how to collaborate, contribute, and support her community.

The ability to fly is not given at birth. It is developed through learning, effort, experience, and determination.

And even when age eventually slows her steps, the knowledge, wisdom, and achievements she has gained remain part of her legacy.

True empowerment is not simply giving a girl wings. It is providing her with the education and opportunities to develop the strength, confidence, and freedom to fly on her own.

10/11/2026

Quel site pour apprendre le hmong en français.

Les Fondations Vocabulaire & Finesse de la Langue Contes, Légendes et Cosmogonie Bienvenue sur la plateforme d'apprentissage développée par les Éditions du Bambou des Montagnes. La langue hmong repose sur une profonde tradition orale. Notre méthode associe l'apprentissage de la langue (alphabet...