The Seven Types of Language Speaker
Native English speakers are a peculiar bunch. Blessed with the world’s dominant language, many of us will pass our entire lives without needing to use...
Tagged: languages
The Best Books for Learning Indonesian
As an intellectual friend, an intimidating chap who can be cerebral in several languages and do the basics in a handful more, observed, “Indonesian really...
Language Soup
So we’re back in Turkey, en route to Bali, by way of Malaysia, and my brain just turned to language soup. Like most Britons, I...
It’s All About The Cross-Hatching
“Bwahahaha,” I say. “Did you know the Chinese for ‘writer’ is, literally, ‘sit-at-home’?” “No,” says Zac. “NOOB! The ‘zuo’ in ‘zuo-jia’ is a different kind...
French Conversation
The resort beach at the far end of town has some rather fine windsurfing on offer, and I figured that, with the water relatively warm...
Learning Mandarin: Week 4
“If you finish this book,” Sophie reiterates, “You’ll be able to get all around China with no problems.” I wouldn’t have thought it possible when...
Learning Mandarin: Week 3
A week to go before we head out of Kunming into the great wide open, over 30 hours of language lessons in, and we are,...
Learning Mandarin: Week 2
So the boy and I have completed our second week learning Mandarin in China. We’ve only got a week’s more learning before we’re out on...
Learning Mandarin: Week 1
Learning from our experiences in Indonesia, I figured it would be wise to start our sojourn in China by actually studying a bit of Mandarin...
Me Singlish Damn Powerful One, Ah?
“You buy now,” says the girl in the shoe shop. “You buy now.” It’s less a question than a statement, less a statement than a...