Enter the Year of the Dragon

The greatest festival in China, the Lunar New Year, will begin this Saturday 10th February. On this day, the year of the Wood Dragon begins. You’re probably asking yourself, why do the Chinese name years after animals? And why is this year the year of the Wood Dragon? What’s going on? The 12 animals of … Read more

Which Languages Are Spoken in Singapore?

Which Languages Are Spoken in Singapore

Do you know how many official languages Singapore has? What about the name of the creole used by many different Singaporeans? Learn more about the multilingual wonders of Singapore today by reading our latest blog post! Languages spoken in Singapore Singapore, which is an independent island country and formerly part of Malaysia, is home to … Read more

How Many Languages Are Spoken in China?

Over one billion people around the world speak Mandarin Chinese, the national language of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). But did you know there are other languages spoken there – almost 300 of them, in fact! Join us as we take a brief look at some of the languages of China and how they’re … Read more

How to Say ‘Hot’ in Chinese (And How to Complain About the Weather!)

With temperatures relentlessly rising in some parts of the world, and massive floods wreaking havoc in others, it’s high time we learnt how to complain about the weather in the language with the highest number of native speakers: Mandarin Chinese. After all, odds are, if you grumble dramatically in Mandarin, someone somewhere will understand you. … Read more

The uTalk Guide to Mandarin Pronunciation

If you’ve started learning Mandarin Chinese and don’t have any knowledge of any other east Asian languages, you might have noticed that there’s a bit of a learning curve when it comes to good pronunciation. In fact, at first glance, it might not be clear what’s going on at all! Read this post, the first … Read more

More Than Just Chinese: A Guide to Tonal Languages

This week’s language of the week is Punjabi, so, just like many of you, we’ve been learning more about it. Turns out, we discovered something quite interesting: Punjabi, the same as Mandarin, Cantonese and even Yoruba, is a tonal language! Not sure what that means? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Let’s start with what … Read more

The Story of the Chinese Zodiac: Why 2020 is the Year of the Rat

Here at uTalk, we’ve spoken a little before about the traditions surrounding the Chinese New Year, which involve all kinds of things, chief among them wearing red, eating a reunion dinner with your family, and not washing your hair. But what about the origins of Chinese New Year—and why are there so many animals involved? … Read more

Counting the days: Reuben can’t wait for his 4th Junior Language Challenge

In today’s blog post, father and son Joseph and Reuben share with us their JLC story and how learning made fun got them counting the days until this year’s competition. If you’re a parent or teacher of children aged 10 and under in the UK, visit juniorlanguagechallenge.com to find out more about our annual competition, … Read more

The Year of the Monkey

Happy Chinese New Year! 恭喜发财! Today is the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year. The period before Chinese New Year is one of the biggest annual migrations of people, all going home to their families to celebrate together. This is for the New Years Eve dinner, also known as the reunion dinner, normally … 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