Learn A Foreign Language By Yourself
China is the most populous country on the planet with some 1,4 billion inhabitants. We all know that the Chinese speak Chinese. In reality, however, there are several (probably hundreds) forms of Chinese, Wu, Yue (Cantonese), and Mandarin being some of the big ones. In addition to that, a lot of other languages are spoken … Read more
Bengali is a language spoken by some 260 million people in Bangladesh and Northern India. It’s an Indo-European language, meaning that it’s (remotely) related to English, but it’s closer to other Indo-Aryan languages spoken in the region, such as Hindi, and even more so to languages such as Assamese. But how old is the Bengali … Read more
Of all the languages spoken in Algeria, Derja is the most common. It’s sometimes referred to as Algerian Arabic, and even among Algerians, many consider the language a dialect of Arabic. Yet, it is, in many ways, different from Arabic, and I, personally, think that Algerian should be considered a language apart. If you’re interested … Read more
Arabic and Farsi (or Persian) are two very different languages. Some people assume the two languages to be related, but they aren’t, not except for a few loanwords that Farsi has borrowed from Arabic. You want to learn one of them, but don’t know which one to pick. In this article, I’ll try shedding a … Read more
Vietnamese is a language of the Austroasiatic language family spoken by 90 million people. While Vietnamese is mostly spoken in Vietnam, there are important Vietnamese-speaking communities all over the world. The language is quite an interesting one and it might surprise you that in terms of grammar and vocabulary, Vietnamese is quite simple and easy … Read more
The Ukrainian language is a Slavic language spoken by close to 40 million people around the world (but mostly in Ukraine). It’s a language that most foreigners don’t bother to learn. Since the Russian language is spoken everywhere in Ukraine and also opens up the doors to a lot of other countries in the world, … Read more
Turkey is a country that geographically borders both Europe and Asia. Culturally, most people consider Turkey a Middle-Eastern country, and there certainly is no doubt that Turkish culture has similarities with the culture of many of the other countries of the region, such as Arabic-speaking Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and Jordan. Turkey does indeed have a … Read more
Thai is a language spoken by close to 40 million people as a first language and by over 80 million people in total. The great majority of Thai speakers living in Thailand. The Thai language used to have another name. During colonial times, it was referred to as “Siamese” which was the language of the … Read more
The Philippines was a Spanish colony from 1565 to 1898 – a period in which the Spanish language was extremely important and, in the later period, very common all throughout the country. Spanish remained an official language until 1987, but with the departure of the Spanish colonizers, the Spanish language has become gradually less wide-spread … Read more
You might have heard what they say about the Scandinavian languages: That they’re so closely related that a Dane can just speak his own language and be understood by a Norwegian or a Swede and that pretty much everyone understands everything? Well, the reality is a little more complicated. The Scandinavian languages are close. But … Read more
