News
The Importance of Learning a Language
Dan Ednie, founder of Language Connection, draws on personal experience to talk about why learning languages is so important.
Language learning makes you smarter!
Well, yes, obviously, after all you acquire new language skills.
Language learning made easy
Well, not sure about easy, but certainly easier. Matthew Youlden is a Brit who speaks nine languages fluently and understands many more.
Carrum Primary School students learn German while caring for chickens
You will have heard of bilingual programs where school subjects are taught in a 'foreign' language. Well, at Carrum Primary School they do their gardening and chook rearing program in German. And it works!
Languages in fashion
Calling all Fashionistas! Not just on the catwalks of Paris and Milano, but also in all other aspects of the fashion industry, knowledge of other languages comes in handy.
A cat is un gatto is mačka
How do you say 'cat', 'dog', 'hunger' or 'star' in various European languages?
The Great Language Game
How many languages can you distinguish? Play the Great Language Game online. Listen to the sounds of eighty languages and see how many you recognize.
Where did that word come from?
All languages borrow words from each other and English has been particularly good at this. Wanna take a quiz about loanwords in English and test yourself?
What we learned from 5 million books
5 million books, 500 billion words, so much you can learn about language, people and culture...
What our language habits reveal
Steven Pinker is a word famous linguist - he talks to us about language and about how we make it and it makes us.
An ode to envy
You need language to express and feel emotion - and that's why we have literature from Homer to Proust and beyond: the novel has a lot to tell us about jealousy.
Txtng is killing language. JK!!
Does texting mean the death of good writing skills? John McWhorter posits that there's much more to texting - linguistically, culturally - than it seems, and it's all good news
Why is 'x' the unknown? Well, you might be surprised: it's all about language.
Why is 'x' the symbol for an unknown? Well, Terry Moore had to learn Arabic to work out why....
Hindi is India's new English
It's easy to think everyone in India speaks English. Nothing could be further from the truth - relatively few speak it and it is concentrated amongst the educated elite.
Gotye speaks Japanese to his fans. Go Gotye!
Gotye is a man of many talents. Not only is he Australia's most successful musician in recent years he is also a language whizz and role model for Australians.
Miranda Kerr - Australian supermodel - makes it big in Japan by speaking Japanese.
Miranda Kerr is not only beautiful, but she's savvy too. She's made big bucks selling detergent in Japanese to the Japanese market.
NAB goes language mad
NAB goes language mad - trying to footify Australia - by teaching speakers of ten different languages to call the Aussie Rules grand final - how fantastic is that! The ads NAB made about it are a hoot.
Lupita Nyong'o - Hollywood star and global language champion
Lupita Nyong'o, star of 'Twelve years a slave' and Oscar winner is intelligent, beautiful and glamorous
The Prime Minister tries out his French on the locals in France.
The Prime Minister tries out his French on the locals in France. Good on him for giving it a go. We need more people at the top to do the same.
The unexpected star of The Voice of Italy
The unexpected star of The Voice of Italy: Suor Cristina goes viral around the world. And millions get to hear Italian when they least expected it.
