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Meta
Monthly Archives: March 2007
Language quiz
Here’s a recording of someone speaking in a mystery language. Can you work out which language it is?
Word of the day – pendramwnwgl
Today’s word, pendramwnwgl [pɛndram'ʊnʊgl], is the Welsh word for headlong, topsy-turvy or pell-mell. This word is made up of three parts: pen (head), dra – a mutated form of tra (beyond) and mwnwgl (instep/neck). I came across it the other day and just liked the sound of it. Related words include pendraphen (head beyond head) […]
Phrases on Omniglot
Today I put together a new page of useful phrases in Arabic. They all come from the multilingual pages, but I thought it would be handy to have the phrases for one language all together on one page. I know some of you have asked for this. I’ll add other languages when I have a […]
Fluenz
The other day I stumbled on an interesting new language course called Fluenz. At the moment it’s only available for Mandarin Chinese, but a Spanish version is planned. The course comes on a DVD-ROM and consists about 110 hours of interactive and video instruction. An American instructor, who studied Mandarin in China, explains everything in […]
Tourism and minority languages
The other day, I came across an article that discusses the impact of tourism and migration on minority languages, particularly on the Welsh language. While tourism brings a significant amount of money to Welsh-speaking areas, it can also have a negative impact on the language. When relatively large numbers of non-Welsh speakers visit or move […]
Regional variations
Last week’s language quizzes got me thinking about how the pronunciation of languages varies from region to region and country to country. When I hear someone speaking English, I can usually work out or guess which country they come from, and possibly which region. I don’t always get it right – I’m not very good […]
Language quiz
Today we have recordings of a number of people from different countries speaking Spanish. Can you work out which countries they come from? Recording 1 Recording 2 Recording 3 Recording 4 Recording 5
Language quiz
Here are a number of recordings of people from different countries speaking English. Can you work out which countries they come from? Recording 1 Recording 2 Recording 3 Recording 4 Recording 5 Recording 6
The joy of phonemes
I’ve been listening to Scottish Gaelic radio all day today. I don’t understand a lot yet, though can get the gist if I concentrate. As I listen, I often repeat some of the words and phrases I’m hearing – it’s a good thing I work at home most of the time, or my colleagues might […]
Thanking you
This week I’ve been improving the thank you page in the phrases section on Omniglot. I’ve added replies like ‘you’re welcome’ and the equivalents in as many languages as possible. Could you check the new phrases and maybe fill in some of the gaps? The use of the phrase ‘thank you’ and related phrases varies […]