Breaking down barriers with The Broke Backpacker

Meet Will. He’s the writer and adventurer behind travel blog The Broke Backpacker, and he just embarked on an epic two-year journey from home in the UK to Papua New Guinea.     The twist? He’s not taking any flights. Oh, and he’s travelling on a daily budget of $30. Will’s been on the road already for two … 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

How learning a language earned me a free jar of seaweed

Hello, goodbye, yes, no, please, thank you – and ‘can I have a glass of wine, please?’ You may well wonder what connects the words and phrase above. It’s quite simple: for me, these are the bare essentials of foreign language knowledge when visiting another country. You may of course prefer beer or water, but … Read more

10 of the Strangest Festivals From Around the World

Today marks the 70th anniversary of La Tomatina, the famous tomato-throwing festival in Buñol, Spain. La Tomatina began in 1945 but didn’t become an official event until twelve years later. Today, about 30,000 people attend the festival, which begins at around 11 am on the last Wednesday of August. Traditionally, the tomato fight can only … Read more

A couple of days in Berlin

After volunteering in a hostel in Riga for six weeks, I decided to take the long way home via a series of overnight buses. With everyone raving about how beautiful a city Berlin is, I decided to make it my next stop on my journey home. It is easy to see why people like it … Read more

Language of the Week: Italian

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

Breaking the ice: overcoming language nerves

So apparently a quarter of Brits are nervous about speaking another language when they’re abroad, and 40% of us are embarrassed by our language skills. These conclusions come from a study by the British Council, which surveyed 2,000 British adults. While 67% of respondents believed it’s important to learn a few words of the local language … Read more

The language of beer

‘Two beers, please’ is perhaps one of the most useful phrases you can learn at the start of your language-learning journey (and, incidentally, one of the first items you learn with uTalk Essentials). You’ve made it to the country, you’ve struggled with buses from the airport and fought with taxi drivers over the fare. Now … Read more

A trip to Riga

At the risk of sounding like a Eurovision host… greetings from Latvia! I don’t have the sparkly outfit or the slightly dodgy English accent (although some may disagree with that), nor am I looking for my five minutes of fame. So perhaps less Eurovision host, more lazy wanderer. I find myself in the beautiful city … Read more