Learn A Foreign Language By Yourself
Tagalog and Filipino are two languages of the Philippines of the Austronesian language family. Or are they actually one and the same? That’s an often debated subject that people can’t seem to agree on. The reality is that the two languages are practically the same thing. The names are also used interchangeably by most Filipinos … Read more
Swedish and German are two languages that both belong to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language tree. This means that they are related. It doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that they’re mutually intelligible. English, too, is a Germanic language after all. To be more precise, German is a West-Germanic language. So are English and Dutch, … Read more
Russian and Ukrainian are two East Slavic languages spoken in Russia and Ukraine in Eastern Europe and the Northern part of the Eurasian continent. The two languages have many things in common, partly because of their shared history from the middle ages, through the epoch of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and finally, the … Read more
Italian and Spanish are two Mediterranean languages that both came from Latin, the language spoken in the Roman Empire. They’re the languages spoken in Italy and Spain – two countries known for a rich culture, a tourist-friendly climate and great cuisine. And the two languages are among the most popular to learn for English speakers … Read more
Hindi and Urdu are two Indo-Aryan languages that both developed from Sanskrit in Northern India beginning some 2700 years ago. While both Hindi and Urdu exists in many dialects, there were no distinction between them up until the 19th century. Before then, they were referred to as “Hindustani” which was a language derived from Sanskrit, … Read more
Greek and Latin are two of the most important languages in the history of ancient Europe and even some parts of Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa (to a somewhat lesser extent). Most people know that Greek and Latin have influenced most European languages English included – but some get confused about the relationship … Read more
French and Italian are two European languages with similar origins. The languages have a lot in common and they’ve both got a reputation for being languages of beauty, passion and warm-bloodedness. But how similar are French and Italian really? French and Italian, despite similarities in grammar, vocabulary and origins, are not mutually intelligible. While they … Read more
As a native Dane, something that I’ve noticed when speaking to people from far and wide (and especially the US.. Sorry, Americans!) is that people tend to be confused about my nationality and my language. I’ve lost count of how many times people assumed that the Danish speak Dutch. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t … Read more
Whenever people speak of language learning, or more specifically, difficult languages, two languages are almost always mentioned more than others. Chinese and Japanese. Everybody and their aunt know that these two languages are two of the most complicated tongues out there, at least from the perspective of an English speaker. They are notoriously difficult to … Read more
Arabic and Hebrew are two languages from the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They’re the two most well-known languages in the Middle-East and they’re both the liturgical languages of two important world religions. (That’s Judaism and Islam, in case you’ve been living under a rock!) And finally, in a way, they were both … Read more
