Happy St George’s Day! 6 reasons to love England

Ioana has been living in London for 2 and a half years. She believes moving to London was the best decision she ever took, and here she shares some of the reason why England is amazing. Happy St George’s Day! I vividly remember one of the first times I went by myself to the supermarket … Read more

‘Something I’ll always be very proud of’: Shane’s JLC story

Shane came in 3rd in The Junior Language Challenge in 2014 and is now in year 7 studying German and Latin. Below he talks about the wonderful JLC experience and why any teacher/parent should register their kids.  If you’re a parent or teacher of children aged 10 and under in the UK, visit juniorlanguagechallenge.com to find out more about … Read more

Stop thinking about it and get going!

In the spirit of ‘Linguists Anonymous’, I am Felicity Jones, 45, and I am mildly addicted to learning other languages. I speak French, German, Spanish, Italian and some Mandarin. I have used uTalk to learn some Danish, and my January challenge is Greek. Even as a child I would listen under the bed cover to … Read more

Español en Florida? Por supuesto!

This year in November I went for my first trip in the USA. I was lucky enough to spend my birthday in sunny Florida and it was wonderful! But the story I want to share with you starts earlier than that, on our way. After a 10 hour long flight spiced with excitement, plans and … Read more

Why learning Persian made me feel Fanta-stic

Nancy Reynolds is a freelance writer from the USA, who’s currently working on a novel.  In her spare time she studies Persian and has vocabulary contests with her teenaged daughter who has studied Latin, German, Mandarin and Ancient Greek. Here’s her language story… For some people, learning a foreign language is good for business, a school … Read more

Why I think languages are Lingotastic

Sarah Barrett from Lingotastic runs language classes for children and families, using music, crafts, puppets and bubbles – it sounds so much fun we might have to go and check it out ourselves! Here’s Sarah’s language story… On my first visit to Germany to visit my husband Maik’s parents, I had a few language misunderstandings. One … Read more

Who needs football? I’d rather learn a language…

What’s your inspiration for learning a language? Today we’re hearing from Jack, a student and blogger at LangLearningBlog, on how he got addicted… What inspired you to start learning French? I never really was fond of languages, and I only studied French at school for a GCSE in a language – but bear with me! Soon I became almost addicted … Read more

Help to choose your loo – and you won’t need to spend a penny

We’ve all had that moment, haven’t we? That moment when you’re in another country, you don’t speak the language, and suddenly realise you don’t know which loo is the men’s and which is the women’s. Do you guess, and risk getting it wrong? Or do you just cross your legs and convince yourself you didn’t … Read more

Putting Flemish to good use in Ghent

For me, the big glacé cherry on top of the holiday cake is seizing the opportunity to say something in the local language. There is nothing – nothing! – more dispiriting than shying away from an opportunity to test your language skills, forcing someone else to speak your language instead. When I went to Ghent this month, … Read more

You never know until you try…

More years ago than I care to remember, I did a degree in Hispanic Studies at the University of Nottingham. I loved the course, but there was one part of it that filled me with terror from the very first day. The Year Abroad. This is a pretty standard element of a modern languages degree – … Read more