Introducing the man who ‘simplified’ Chinese
Students trying to learn Chinese might be surprised to read this, but one man helped simplify the language by creating Pinyin. Pinyin is the writing system that turns Chinese characters into words...
View ArticleVisualising London’s Twitter languages
London is a very diverse city, as showcased during this year’s Olympic Games. Just how diverse is shown by a visualisation of language communities, as revealed by Twitter. There are limitations to this...
View ArticleDo you live in a happy place?
A new study analysing tweets has found that Napa, California is the happiest city in the US. Researchers found that tweets originating in the city had more happy words than other places, including...
View ArticleUntranslatable words
Have you ever felt really lazy, so lazy you can’t be bothered to do anything, go anywhere? Well, that feeling has a word – viitsima. But only in Estonian. A former student at the Royal College of Art...
View ArticleEarworms
Earworms are those catchy tunes you hear and then can’t get out of your head. What if this could be applied to language learning? Well, a company called Earworms MBT (musical brain trainer) has done...
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Dance dictionary
Sometimes the spoken word just isn’t enough. Which is why Puma has got some of the world’s top freestyle dancers together to create a Dance Dictionary. The dancers have translated words into moves, and...
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Spelling bee controversy
You wouldn’t think a spelling bee could be controversial… The winning word at America’s annual spelling contest, Scripps Spelling Bee, was the Yiddish word knaidel, spelled by thirteen year old Arvind...
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How to Learn Chinese in 5 Minutes Per Day
We live in a hectic world today, where it’s common to relegate activities because we are too busy. This is true when learning a language such as Mandarin Chinese. Although being bilingual brings about...
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What Are the Top 4 Languages for Business?
Have you ever wondered “what are the top 4 languages for business?” With the globalization of the economy and the prevalence of technology in the global market, more and more businesses are conducted...
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How Difficult Is It to Learn Mandarin Chinese?
Many people find the idea of learning Mandarin Chinese intimidating, primarily due to its complex writing system. It is true that Mandarin is considered a fairly challenging language to master....
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