The Language Learning Specialists
Did you know that you speak Italian? No, really – you do. And we don’t just mean that time you ordered a pizza. Here are a few words you’ve probably used at some point, but might not have realised were Italian: Novella Longer than a short story, but not quite a full novel. Well-known novellas include … Read more
Buongiorno! Italian is our language of the week, in celebration of an annual tradition, Il Palio, which dates back to the 12th century and is held on the 16th of August. This is a horse race unlike any other and is all over in 90 seconds. It’s held in the beautiful city of Siena, where the … Read more
Ever wondered what us language geeks do for fun in our spare time? Reading books about languages, of course! Well, not all the time – but I recently read the very interesting Through the Language Glass by Guy Deutscher, and would recommend it to anyone else who is interested in how different languages work, and … Read more
Back in March, over 1,100 primary school children from around the UK joined our annual competition, the Junior Language Challenge, learning Italian online. Over the next three months, they scored points in the language games, and then in June the top scorers from each region of the country progressed to the second round. Not wanting … Read more
We had a great response to our recent language learning survey; thank you to everyone who took the time to complete it. First things first: we’re delighted to announce that the winner of the iPad mini prize draw is Konstantia Sakellariou. Congratulations, Konstantia – your iPad is on its way! We wanted also to share a … Read more
As you’ll know if you saw my earlier post about Italian habits, I have just come back from living in Rome for four months as part of a compulsory year abroad for my university degree (a.k.a. second gap year). Before departing for adventure no.2 of the year, I was excited to see old stuff, learn some crazy … Read more
When I tell people that I lived in Geneva for five months during my Erasmus year, most say ‘Geneva, yeah…I’ve been to the airport,’ and I have to confess that I was once amongst them. The city as far as I was concerned was a necessary stop on the way towards my most adored pastime … Read more
Today we’re excited to share our first ever bilingual post, written by Lucy, who’s just returned from four months in Rome as part of her university studies. In this post, she talks about a few typical Italian habits she noticed during her time in the city and some of the (slightly surprising) questions she had to … Read more
Why do people give up on learning a language? There are many answers to this question, of course. Recently, we’ve been running a survey (which you can still complete, if you have two minutes), about language learning, reasons for learning and things that might get in the way. According to the results so far, two … Read more
Sometimes one word is all you need… With the World Cup getting underway today, here’s how each national team says that all-important word, ‘goal’. You can find this and lots more in our language learning app, uTalk – available to download and start learning right now from the App Store. So whether you’re watching the … Read more