Mum’s the word! How different languages say ‘mother’

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

To tip or not to tip?

A social dilemma you’re bound to fall into at some point is whether or not to tip – and how much! Tip too little and you risk the waiter chasing you down the street shouting abuse; tip too much and you might gravely offend the staff. Tipping customs vary all over the world, between different countries … Read more

Lost, drowned, in a shirt… how do you like your eggs?

Happy World Egg Day! English is quite a boring language when it comes to eggs. We boil them, scramble them, poach them, fry them. All very ordinary. Which is why we were delighted to discover that other languages are more dramatic in their approach to eggs! Over to Italy: For Italians, poached eggs are literally ‘eggs … Read more

How Do You Choose Which Language to Learn?

Everyone’s always talking about how useful it is to speak another language – and they’re right, for so many reasons. There’s lots of advice too on how to get started and how to stay motivated when it gets tough. But the first question any aspiring language learner should ask themselves is, ‘Which language do I … Read more

10 Sports Stars Who Speak Other Languages

It can often feel like life is all about sport, whether we like it or not. But have you ever wondered how good sports stars are at languages? It turns out, pretty good. Like anyone who has to travel a lot for their work, athletes often find knowing only their native language isn’t enough. Here … Read more

Where it’s at – how to say @ in different languages

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

The challenges of translation

Over the last six months we’ve had our new free app uTalk translated into over 30 languages, and dealt with over 120 native language speakers who’ve either translated or performed the scripts. Along the way we’ve confronted many challenges which really emphasise how one language can be ambiguous whilst another is precise, and vice versa. In … Read more