A Brief Introduction to the Bantu Languages

Bantu languages are spoken by hundreds of millions of people around the world, including up to 30% of the population of Africa. In fact, you probably even know some Bantu words without realising it – like ‘safari’ from Swahili, or ‘banana’ from Wolof. So we’re really pleased that, when we added Kirundi to the uTalk … 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

Learning New Languages

When it comes to learning new languages, it’s not all about being fluent. Language company founder, Richard Howeson, shares his do’s and don’ts on language learning for beginners. When you’re preparing for an overseas trip, language learning is often lucky to scrap in at the bottom of your ‘to-do’ list. But, thanks to digital downloads … Read more

Meet Our Speakers: Rachel Bortnick (Ladino)

We’ve all heard of Yiddish, right? But have you heard of another Jewish language, Ladino? It’s the language historically spoken by Jews whose ancestors once lived in Spain and Portugal and is classified as endangered by UNESCO. It was also our most recent addition to the uTalk app, with the help of digital archive Ladino … Read more

uTalk’s Ladino Journey

After months of hard work, we’ve just added our 144th language to the uTalk app—Ladino! In this blog post, we share how we go about adding new languages, as well as the unique issues that arise when it comes to adding languages that are endangered.  Way back at the beginning of 2019, two individuals met … Read more

My Week Learning Scottish Gaelic with uTalk

With over 2,500 basic words and phrases in more than 150 languages, there’s plenty the uTalk app offers for you to learn. But as we all find ourselves getting busier and busier, how much time do we realistically have to spend on language learning? We decided to find out by having Charlotte, our Marketing and … Read more

Dracula: The Fang-tastic Story of a Romanian Prince

Romania is famous for plenty of things: the Carpathian Mountains, medieval fortresses, Sebastian Stan… But when most people think of Romania, they think of Transylvania and, you’ve guessed it, Count Dracula! In today’s post, we explore the origins of vampires, how Dracula helped boost Romania’s tourism industry, and we’ll teach you some words and phrases … Read more

Eur-invited!: European Day of Languages at Europe House

Like languages? Then you’ll probably know that every year on 26th September, it’s European Day of Languages! Last week, some of us from uTalk went to Europe House for the European Commission’s annual event and learnt a bunch of fascinating new facts about languages from all over the world. The event was supposed to start … Read more