The Language Learning Specialists
South Africa’s cultural diversity is beautifully reflected in its linguistic landscape, boasting a remarkable 11 official languages. Beyond the well-known Afrikaans and English, learn more in this post about Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, and Sesotho, as well as some non-official languages that may be in danger of becoming extinct. Meet South Africa’s 11 official languages South … Read more
Happy Cappuccino Day! In today’s post, uTalk’s guest blogger Brian investigates the many different ways of saying ‘coffee’—and where the word used around the world actually originates! Forget about tea. Linguistically speaking, coffee is the one beverage whose name sounds the same in almost every language in the world today. Just landed in South Africa … Read more
Today is the day we celebrate ‘Mother’s day’ or ‘Mothering Sunday’ here in the UK. Mum is one of those words we start to use from a young age; perhaps you used ‘mumma’, ‘mother’, ‘mam’ or ‘mummy’ instead; there are many ways to say it! Some languages offer a similar word to English, like ‘la … Read more
The other day a colleague was telling someone his email address in French. He was halfway through and ran across a problem. He didn’t know the word for “the little ‘a’ in the circle”. In English we just say ‘at’, but that translates as ‘à’ in French and that sounds remarkably like the letter ‘a’. … Read more
‘It’s raining cats and dogs!’ is a common British phrase meaning that it’s raining particularly hard. There are various theories as to where the expression came from – although there’s no evidence that it’s ever actually happened! It may come from the Greek expression cata doxa. This means ‘contrary to experience or belief’ and might … Read more