Ramadan: What’s It All About?

Eid Mubarak! Today marks the start of the holy month of Ramadan, where millions of Muslims around the world will spend the month fasting and praying. It is believed that 1400 years ago the Quran was shown to the Prophet Muhammad in this month. The start of Ramadan varies around 11 days each year, as … Read more

Happy Baba Marta!

Today is “Baba Marta Day”. In Bulgaria the 1st of March marks a holiday that welcomes the upcoming spring. “Baba Marta” translates to “Grandma March”, the mythical character who brings the end of the bitter cold winter! On this day people exchange “Martenitsi”. These are red and white coloured bands or figurines that symbolise health and … Read more

What’s in a name?

Welcome to my family! My Grandma’s called Minnie, and my Granddad’s called Jack. Except, they’re not really. Because, in English, we have an eccentric tendency to distort names until they no longer resemble the original at all. My Gran’s actually called Mary and my Granddad, of course, is John. Now meet my Uncle Bob, cousins … 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

Junior Language Challenge: A Mum’s Perspective

by Anna Fawcett My children, Ben, Josh and Saskia, have all taken part in EuroTalk’s Junior Language Challenge. Ben was first – introduced to it by their language teacher, Mrs Susannah Stockton at their school, Oakwood Prep School in Chichester. Ben really embraced it and managed to win his semi-final… although this was bittersweet, as it … Read more

Going back to my roots to learn Polish

Alex Koszykowska is the newest member of the EuroTalk team, joining us last month as our new sales and marketing assistant. In today’s post she explains why she’s learning Polish. It is said that a million people in the UK class Poland as their ancestral home in some way. This is the case for my family; my Granddad … Read more

The ups and downs of coming home

When you work abroad as an English as a foreign language teacher, coming home for the occasional visit and obligatory Christmas festivities means there are a number of things to look forward to. Personally custard, gravy and drinkable tap water are pretty high up on my list, but that’s just me. Friends, family, Wetherspoons breakfast… … Read more

Which language are you learning? The results!

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

Will Online Translators Make Language Learning Redundant?

Microsoft have just unveiled the latest version of their Skype Translator, which will enable us to chat with people all over the world even if we don’t speak their language. This story ran in the Daily Mail here in the UK yesterday, under the rather depressing headline, ‘Don’t bother learning a foreign language! Skype will soon … Read more

Being bilingual: practice makes perfect

Last week’s post, which contained our top ten tips for learning a language, inspired a few members of the EuroTalk team to share their own thoughts. Here’s what Seb had to say about his experience of learning Spanish, after leaving Colombia and coming to England when he was very young. And come back tomorrow to … Read more