Everyone who wants to learn a language that has a different alphabet will need three things: patience, practice and a good plan. If you want to learn Hindi, for example, trying to memorise all 48 letters in one day is a big mistake and might end up with you throwing things across the room. Now, how(…)

When you learn Arabic, it’s tempting to devote all your time to mastering the Arabic alphabet. However, you’ll soon find that those strange symbols might not be the hardest part about Arabic after all. For speakers of any language that does not belong to the same language family, Arabic pronunciation can be the most challenging aspect of this(…)

Cảm ơn bạn đã ghé thăm blog của chúng tôi  – Thank you for visiting our blog. It seems easy to dismiss Vietnamese as a minor language. But did you know that tiếng Việt is spoken by almost 100 million people all over the globe? In fact, it’s currently the 16th most widely spoken language in the world. Formerly known as Annamese, Vietnamese is(…)

There are languages that make even the geekiest language-lovers gasp in fear. Hebrew, the holy language of the Bible, is definitely one of them. This is partly because it’s a biblical language, but also because its alphabet looks absolutely alien to Western eyes. Consisting of 22 letters, none of which are vowels or lowercase, the Hebrew letters can(…)

Are you learning a foreign language and want to become proficient and sound native-like after dedicating so much time and hard work to your studies? Language learning is not only about acquiring grammar knowledge and vocabulary, but also developing your productive and receptive skills and, crucially, practising them! The most effective way to learn a(…)

Is Polish hard to learn? For many reasons, some more valid than others, there is a widespread belief that it is actually extremely hard. If you’ve ever told a fellow language-lover that you’ve taken up Polish lessons, you must know what we are talking about. That pat on the shoulder? The compassionate look that seems to(…)

One of the pleasures of being a traveller in a new and exotic place is not understanding the language. Of course, being an English speaker you will always find a person with whom you can communicate. However, being oblivious to conversations on the streets and in the shops, to the television blathering away, or the radio gibbering(…)

Have you ever wondered where the Yiddish language comes from? The answer is not difficult to find, as Yiddish /(j)ɪdɪʃ/ literally means ‘Jewish’. Indeed, this is an Indo-European language derived from a High German variety originally spoken by the Ashkenazi Jews. Despite its growing recognition, many foreign language learners sometimes stay away from Yiddish because(…)

As you’d expect for the most widely spoken language in the world, Netflix has a huge amount of films, shows, and dramas available in Mandarin. There is so much to choose from that you might be either overwhelmed or spoilt for choice! Here are five of our favourites to get you started.  A Love(…)

If your friend sent you this meme, how would you answer? The most likely options are “haha” or “LOL” (which means “Laughing Out Loud”, if you didn’t know). But if you found this meme hilarious, you may want to laugh hard and use “HAHA”, “hahahahaha”, or “ROFL” (Rolling On the Floor Laughing). The problem is(…)