My sites
Categories
- Afrikaans
- Animal communication
- Arabic
- Basque
- Bilingualism
- Breton
- Brighton
- Catalan
- Chinese
- Conlangs
- Cornish
- Czech
- Danish
- Dictionaries
- Dutch
- Education
- Endangered languages
- English
- Esperanto
- Estonian
- Etymology
- Evolution
- Finnish
- French
- Galician
- General
- German
- Grammar
- Greek
- Gujarati
- Hawaiian
- Hebrew
- Hindi
- Hungarian
- Identity
- Idioms
- Inuktitut
- Irish
- Italian
- Japanese
- Javanese
- Korean
- Language
- Language acquisition
- Language exchange
- Language learning
- Language revival
- Latin
- Linguistics
- Literacy
- Literature
- Luxembourgish
- Malay
- Manx
- Maori
- Memory
- Music
- Norwegian
- Old Norse
- Persian (FarsI)
- Poetry
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Pronunciation
- Proto-Indo-European
- Puzzles
- Quiz questions
- Romanian
- Russian
- Sanskrit
- Scots
- Scottish Gaelic
- Serbian
- Sign language
- Similes
- Slovak
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Taiwanese
- Technology
- Tibetan
- Translation
- Travel
- Turkish
- Typography
- Uncategorized
- Vietnamese
- Welsh
- Words and phrases
- Writing
- Zulu
- Zulu
Archives
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
Meta
Monthly Archives: February 2007
Websites that speak
The Welsh Language Board / Bwrdd yr Iaith Gymraeg recently added a text-to-speech facility to their website which reads out the text in either Welsh or English. They are using a system called ReadSpeaker, which can make your website talk in various languages, including Japanese, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, English (US and UK), French, German, Dutch, […]
Terracotta bureaucrats
According to a report I heard on the radio this morning, the British Museum is going to stage a major exhibition of the terracotta warriors who guard the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇), who unified China and was its first emperor from 221-210 BC. The exhibition will include not just some of the warriors, […]
Welsh and Gaelic education
According to an article on Eurolang, education through the medium of Welsh is becoming so popular in Wales that there aren’t sufficient places in Welsh medium schools for all those who would like to attend them. As a result, the growth of Welsh medium education is being held up. Increasing numbers of parents are wanting […]
Chinese and Arabic to be taught in UK schools?
According to British Education Secretary, Alan Johnson, UK schools should have more flexibility in the choice of languages they teach. He believes “it is right to vary the curriculum to add languages which might be economically useful or help community cohesion.” The languages he’s talking about include Arabic, Mandarin and Urdu. I wonder where they […]
Language quiz
Here’s a recording of a mystery language. Can you work out which language it is? This language is spoken in Asia and has its own alphabet.
Language quiz
In which country might you find the following dishes on the menu, and which of them is the odd one out? Zupa ogórkowa Śledź w śmietanie Kurczak de volaille Sztuka mięsa w sosie chrzanowym Kasza gryczana z kwaśnym mlekiem Księgarnia Placki kartoflane Makowiec Bonus points if you can translate them into English as well.
How long does it take to learn a language?
There’s no single answer to the question posed by the title of this post. It depends on number of factors, including what hope to do with the language, how often and how intensively you study, which language you’re learning, and which language(s) you already know. Some language learners find it helpful to set themselves targets […]
Yiddish in Lithuania
According to an article on the BBC, Jews in Lithuania are trying to revive Yiddish, which was spoken by around 250,000 people before the Second World War. Today there are about 5,000 Jews in Lithuania and only a few hundred still speak Yiddish. Children at the only Jewish nursery school in Lithuania are being taught […]