Just for Fun

10 most spoken languages by ease of learning

January 28, 2020 by lingualift

Believe it or not, the phrase “most spoken languages in the world” is debatable to some. Why? You see, it’s actually an incredibly difficult task trying to determine what the most spoken languages in the world are. Sure, there’s a few that are right up there at the top that is not even in question. Yet, others may surprise you. That’s because this kind of hard data, different dialects, and “language” families, all play a part in making this task a little confusing.

Not all languages are created equal either. Some can be incredibly difficult to learn, while others can often be easier to pick up. Although, there are a number of other factors that play into the ability to acquire a new language, including mother tongue, exposure to languages at young ages, etc.

Here are the Top 10 Most Spoken Languages Sorted By Ease of Learning

Spanish

By all accounts, Spanish is an amazing language. It is easy to learn, write, and speak and is spoken by more than 557 million native and non-native speakers alike. In fact, Spanish is the “official language” of over 21 different countries. That includes Mexico, most of Central and South America, and of course, Spain.

The Spanish language actually originated in the Castilla region of Spain and has influences from both Latin and Arabic. Spanish is not just remarkable because of its relative ease to learn. The language is featured heavily these days. There are blockbuster Spanish language songs on the charts, Spanish language TV shows on streaming networks, and some of the most famous athletes and celebrities often have huge marketable fanbases in Spanish language speaking cities.

Portuguese

Spoken by over 260 million people, Portuguese has an over two-thousand-year-old history. It’s spoken in Brazil, Portugal, Macau, Angola, Mozambique, and half a dozen other countries too!

While the language can be moderately difficult to learn, including grammar and writing, there’s no denying the fact that Portuguese is becoming a valuable language to learn. Brazil’s economy is steadily growing and ranks in the Top 10 in the world. From a business perspective, Portuguese speakers may find themselves a hot commodity in the future.

The beautiful language has interrogatives, which are expressed by intonation, making learning slightly easier than other languages featured on this list. Some language learners may have difficulty with the nasal vowel sounds but practice makes perfect! Spanish speakers will have an arguably easier time picking up Portuguese.

Bengali

Spoken mostly in India and Bangladesh, Bengali has over 300 million speakers worldwide. Bengali, or sometimes Bangala, evolved from the languages Sanskrit and Pali and is mainly spoken in eastern South Asia. Bengali is the second most spoken language in India and the official language of Bangladesh.

Lahnda

Some of you may not have heard of Lahnda before and that’s OK. Spoken mostly in Pakistan and India, the language has about 120 million native speakers!

Now, if I said it’s also called Western Punjabi some may recognize that language. Like some of our other languages, Lahnda is made up of a group of Indo-Arayan dialects. In fact, locally, the language isn’t even referred to as Lahnda. Locals call it Hindko!

Hindi

With almost 500 million total speakers of the language, Hindi is a powerhouse of a language. Some may be surprised to know that there are many Hindi words commonly in use in America and other English speaking countries.

Those words include bungalow, karma, yoga, and even the word thug! Writing and Grammar are particularly difficult when it comes to learning Hindi, whereas speaking is often easier for learners.

Spoken primarily in India and Fiji, Hindi has different dialects as well, and Hindi communities can be found around the world.

Japanese

The Japanese language can be a mystery when looking at its origins. With over 128 million speakers, less than 150,000 of those speakers are non-native.

To make things more confusing, early Japanese books were actually written in Chinese, a completely different language, and while China and even Korea played an influence in Japanese as a language there’s still a significant mystery surrounding about 60% of the language. If you’re interested in learning more, check out our post entitled, The Origins of Japanese Language.

Japanese has gotten a bad rep when it comes to language learning. Its pronunciation is actually relatively easy and the five vowels are strikingly close to those used in the Spanish language. If you’re interested in learning Japanese, you can receive a free guide, or click the link below to grab your free lesson.

Russian

Mother Russia had a very long arm at one point in time, so it’s no surprise that over 264 million people speak the language!

Russian is the official language in a few countries but it’s also sort of an unofficial language in places like Ukraine and other former Soviet countries. As a Slavic language, it boasts around 2.3% of the population speaking its tongue. For more information, check out our post, 7 things you didn’t know about the Russian language.

Or click the link below to recieve your free lesson.

Arabic

WIth a total of over 420 million speakers, Arabic is the official language of over 20 countries including Iraq, Egypt, Qatar, and the UAE!

A fascinating language, Arabic likely originated with the nomadic tribes of the desert areas around the Arabian Peninsula.

Arabic is also unique in the way that it is written right to left and typically in cursive. Standard Arabic is taught in many schools and is quickly rising as a language of modern business.

Chinese

An extremely difficult language to both speak and write, the Chinese language can be especially challenging for English speakers.

With over 1.051 billion speakers, mostly in the People’s Republic of China, Republic of China, Singapore, Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong, Mandarin Chinese without a doubt has the most native speakers of any language on this list.

Chinese, however, is actually a large grouping of different regional dialects that make up most native Chinese speakers. Of the main dialects, Mandarin is the most commonly spoken language.

There are as many as thirteen different dialects of Chinese spoken in almost forty countries. Language learners often struggle with grammar and mastering tones. Pitch and intonation are extremely important when it comes to the meaning of different words.

If you’re interested in learning this language, we have a great post entitled, 100 top resources to learn Mandarin Chinese.

English

Boasting an astounding 1.5 billion speakers, with over 1 billion of those being Non-Native speakers, English as the main language is spoken in over thirty-five countries.

It’s the leading international language when it comes to business and trade, making it one of the top three spoken languages in the world. But definitely not one of the easiest to learn.

For any aspiring language learners out there, here are a couple of extra articles to check out:

Why learn a foreign language? Goals, aims and motivation

7 sure fire ways to dramatically improve your vocab

How to tell written Chinese, Japanese and Korean apart

December 1, 2018 by lingualift

How is the Korean alphabet different from Chinese? Is Japanese written with Chinese characters? To many Westerners, the three languages are all but indistinguishable on paper.

After reading this post, you should have no problem telling Korean, Japanese and Chinese apart.

The scripts

When it comes to computers, the Chinese, Japanese and Korean are often grouped together under the acronym CJK, and for a reason.

While they are linguistically unrelated, all three can be written borh horizontally and vertically, and all three use Chinese characters—hànzì in Chinese, kanji in Japanese, and hanja in Korean—which is one of the reasons for the confusion.

Let’s look at the difference between Japanese, Chinese and Korean and see how we can tell them apart without learning any one of the languages.

Chinese

The Chinese language is the only to rely on this script entirely, and even then, at least two different versions are in active use across the world; traditional and simplified.

Below is the first sentence of the Wikipedia article on colour orange in hànzì:

橙色，又稱橘色，為二次顏料色，是红色与黄色的混合，得名于橙的颜色。

Note how most of the Chinese characters are very square and dense.
Chinese characters are the oldest continuously-used system of writing in the world, so don’t be surprised to meet handwritten texts which at first sight don’t even resemble the example above.

Japanese

Moving on to Japanese, the language has the highest number of official scripts in the world.

Kanji—Chinese characters—are used for most words of Chinese and Japanese origins. Hiragana—the curvy, feminine script—was originally used by women, but is now the main building block of the Japanese language, employed both for vocabulary and grammar.

Katakana—the manly, more angular script—is used mainly for loan words, onomatopeia, and transliteration of foreign words. Finally, romaji—the familiar Latin script you are used to from English and other Western languages—can be found everywhere, from product packaging to company names.

Below is the description of colour orange, employing katakana, hiragana, and kanji, all in the same sentence:

オレンジ色は、果物のオレンジの実のような色。また、夕日に染まる茜雲のような色。

As you can see, due to its use of hiragana & katakana, Japanese is slightly more airy and spacious than Chinese.

As a general rule of thumb, unlike Chinese and Korean, Japanese also doesn’t use any form of question or exclamation marks, but you may still meet them in some situations.

Korean

The Korean language, in mid-15th century, transitioned to hangul—the only script in the world made by an individual, for which the theory and motives behind its creation have been fully set out and explained.

Hangul is known as one of the most scientific writing systems in the world, and is neither based on ancient written languages, nor an imitation of another set of characters.

In South Korea, you can still meet hanja—Chinese characters—every once in a while, but the script is quickly becoming obsolete.

주황(Orange)은 색 중 하나이다. 이 색은 빨강과 노랑의 중간색이며.

Notice the many circular shapes used in hangul—these are almost non-existent in the other two languages and so make the script easy to recognize.

Also, unlike Chinese and Japanese, Korean has completely adopted European punctuation marks, from commas to question marks, and space-delimits words and sentences.

Recap

A good strategy when it comes to distinguishing the written form of South-East-Asian languages is:

As you can see, you don’t really need to learn the individual languages to distinguish between them. As is often the case with linguistics, it’s all about pattern recognition, something we humans happen to be impressively good at!

9 things bilingual people do

December 13, 2016 by lingualift

They start the day by reciting poetry in two languages, doing 14 situps, and drinking a spinach smoothie with a dash of soy sauce. Then jumping out of a window onto a rainbow, they slide straight into their cool bilingual world.

Not really… they do what the rest of us do: get up (or not), work, make friends, do laundry, study, eat, travel on busses, and dream. And probably a lot more of the same usual, boring, utterly non-bilingual-specific activities 😜

A ton of articles are circulating the internet devoted to the “funny things” bilinguals do; their frustrations, and the problems “only bilingual people can understand”. Rather than imitate those lists, I thought it would be interesting to take a more scientific approach by trying to discover the neurological and societal factors that cause the, sometimes quirky, behaviour in bi- and multilinguals.

Don’t worry though, even if we’ll be referring to science, there can’t be a blog post from me without a dose of humour (and gifs)! 😬

Here are nine typical characteristics of bilinguals:

1. Have bilingual (dis)advantage

This may be a bit of a downer for some of you. You might have heard that people speaking multiple languages are better at what’s called “executive control”; that is the ability to efficiently switch between tasks, as well as maintain focus. If you’re a bilingual university student, it’s definitely a confidence booster to know you may have a natural advantage like this over your monolingual peers! 💪

However, despite a wealth of research on the topic, a meta-analysis of academic papers conducted by Angela de Bruin revealed that the claims of bilingual advantage are often overstated. While some studies do find that speakers of one or more languages do have certain advantages, these are “neither global nor pervasive”

So, contrary to the promise of the title of this post… “effective task switching” is NOT in fact what bilinguals do.

2. Mix languages

image source

Maybe you know the claim that bilinguals sometimes “accidentally speak in the wrong language”.

With more than one language in one’s head it may be hard to quickly decide which is appropriate for the moment. Bilinguals often mix languages in a process called code-switching or code-mixing — using two different languages in one conversation.

Bilinguals are often unaware of changing languages in the same conversation, and the spread and nature of these switches is investigated with curiosity by linguists 🤔 Sometimes changing the language comes with a change of topic. For instance, when you talk about family you would use a different language than when you talk about work.

Switching languages depends on the context and the language attitudes of the speakers.

Code-switching also depends who you’re talking to — but it’s not as simple as the obvious decision of not using Czech to speak to your German grandma. Speakers adjust their code-mixing, taking into consideration the perceived language attitude of their interlocutors. That is, if your mother is very particular about speaking grammatically correct language and never mixes Czech and German, even if she is bilingual, you would likely not mix those either. At the same time, if such mixing is pervasive among your school friends, you will unconsciously do the same as a way of signalling belonging to the group.

3. Think in mentalese

This actually applies to everyone, not just speakers of multiple languages. Many of us believe we think in a specific language, but it looks like the thinking process can be independent, and the language choice happens only when we decide to turn our thoughts into speech. Steven Pinker names this hypothetical language of thought mentalese.

We may all think in mentalese, but our inner speech happens in a specific language.

Thinking, however, is a process different from “inner speech”; it’s a more conscious practice of talking in our heads. You might have experienced it when waiting in anticipation for the teacher to reveal your grade. Your head might have been reverberating with the unspoken mantra “I wanna pass, just make me pass” — or maybe that was just me 😆

Jean-Marc Dewaele of University College London (UCL) investigated the choices that multilinguals make for inner speech. His study revealed that those choices could be governed by factors such as the context the speaker is in, the interlocutor, and the topic of the thoughts.

For instance, if your first language is Japanese, you study in Spanish, and shop in Italian, you are more likely to get internally angry in Japanese, think about your study topics in Spanish, and make a mental groceries’ list in Italian.

4. Use language creativistically

Languages and the metaphors they contain help us to see the world in different ways. Hence, speakers of multiple languages acquire more lenses through which to view the environment, and are consequently more creative.

This creativity doesn’t only apply to art but also to mathematical problem solving and the use of language itself. A deeper understanding of figurative language and metaphor can help make many bilinguals into poets and writers. British-Hungarian poet George Szirtes, writer Vladimir Nabokov, and author of the Notebook, Agota Kristof are just a few examples.

image source

This is not the kind of language creativity I mean…

5. Good at joking?

Well… this is a controversial one. You might have tried to tell a joke translated from Russian, which was hilarious in the original version, to receive (at best) a complete lack of response, (or rolling eyes). But this is only one facet of joke telling among bilinguals.

According to a study by Vaid, López and Martinez, bilinguals can distinguish between jokes and non-jokes much better than monolinguals. One can presume that would make them more sensitive to humour and, with adequate practice, better at joke telling.

6. Diversify speaking situations

Phone in Mandarin, books in Greek, TV in Portuguese. Linguistic diversity is the reality of multilinguals.

When you want to ensure you regularly use all the languages you know, you will purposefully seek out opportunities to practise them in your daily life. This will be in situations where it doesn’t matter which language you use because you do want to keep in touch with all the ones you speak.

It can get pretty annoying though when using the phone; changing keyboards, typing diacritics or using wrong autocorrect… When next time you see your bilingual friend shaking their phone in frustration, it may be because it has again auto-corrected their Spanish gracias to “grassy ass”.

source

6. Better at making friends

Doesn’t it seem like bilingual people tend to be the centre of social attention? Well, if it does, there is science behind it.

Because of an increased sensitivity to the meaning of words and the ability to detect nuances (like recognising jokes), speakers of more than one language have better interpersonal and communication skills, or at least that’s what the research on bilingual children has revealed.

The good news is, you don’t have to be bilingual from birth to gain that skill, and it’s enough to be raised in a linguistically diverse environment. Who knows, perhaps even learning a language or two later in life could have a positive impact? It definitely doesn’t hurt to try!

7. Lost in thought?

Have you ever asked a friend a simple question about their day at work only to be met with a blank stare and a five-second hesitant “eeeeeh”? If the answer is yes, it’s not that they didn’t understand you!

Sometimes bilinguals can take a longer time to respond or be hesitant in their choice of vocabulary. The reason can be that they often use a different language to talk about a particular topic and so having to change to another one can cause confusion.

In other words, changing gear into a different language may result in longer pauses or hesitations.

A 2011 study on Croatian-English bilinguals found the need to change languages also results in more frequent usage of conversation fillers like “eeeh” or even nervous laughter and coughing.

So your bilingual friends don’t have their heads in the clouds! They’re just trying to find the right words to make themselves understood.

8. Look confused

A common misconception, still popular a decade ago, was that bilingualism causes slower development in children, therefore making them less clever than their peers. While it is true that being brought up in a bilingual home can delay the onset of speech, science has also clearly proved that early bilingualism leads to a better ability to focus and can therefore enhance academic performance.

With two or more languages available to chose from, bi- and multilinguals can take a longer time to find the right words. Research shows they experience that tip-of-the-tongue feeling more often than monolinguals.

And that’s not all. Have you noticed that look of squint-eyed confusion when a bilingual is watching a subtitled film?

It’s not that they can’t understand it. Our brains are wired to always look at the subtitles, even if we understand the spoken language. If, because of the bad translation, the spoken and written texts don’t match… you can imagine it can cause a bit of a brain overheat.

9. Hate to be treated like machines

Oh, so you speak Macedonian? Say something! Can you translate this for me? Will you teach me!

Bilinguals are people too. And they want to be treated as normal beings not quirks of nature. While it’s sometimes flattering to feel like an expert or be able to utilise one’s language skill to help a friend, being treated like a circus animal or a translation machine is just a bit diminishing.

When you meet an accountant, do you immediately ask them to perform a calculation as proof of their expertise?

Even if it’s your first time to meet a bilingual or multilingual person, be sensitive. If you are kind and receptive then, trust me, if they want to talk about their multilingual lives they will. And maybe they’ll even tell you a joke 😝

7 gifts for language lovers

November 29, 2016 by lingualift

Do you know that moment mid-December when you realise you have zero gifts ready? Despite firm resolutions to start planning for the holidays earlier, it happens to me every year 🙈

Imagine the frenzy of pushing through crowds of other last-minute shoppers, navigating among overfilling carts, and fighting for the last scraps of packing paper. This mayhem is really not fun, and makes you question whether your friends and family are truly worth getting them any presents at all.

Trust me they are. There is nothing more pleasant than to see a smile brought by a carefully chosen gift, tailored to the person’s needs and interest. An effect like this is rarely achieved with a pair of discounted socks with reindeer.

You may have not realised you have a language fan among your loved ones. Give it a think… Does auntie Greta constantly read latg.org? Is your cousin’s Facebook riddled with posts about grammar? Is your friend using vocab apps at every work break? These may be the hidden language enthusiasts, whose hearts will sing once they unwrap a gift linked to their passion.

To make a gift choice easier I thought I’d compile a list of ideas for presents for language lovers.

You won’t find books here, because those are a pretty obvious bet, and you can pick some yourself. If you really think you have no one who would enjoy the below presents… feel free to send this post to your family and friends as a subtle suggestion of what to get for you 😜

1. Word magnets

A fun way to practice sentence building in foreign languages, as well as a tool to release your inner poet. These magnet sets are endless fun for word-lovers!

They could also easily become a part of your daily language learning routine. You could incorporate them to a morning learning habit, for example decide that each time you open the fridge you’ll compose a new sentence in Spanish 😁

2. Nerdy t-shirt

If your gift recipient has already completely embraced their love for the foreign tongues, they may want to indicate their belonging to the language tribe. The best way to do it is by wearing a nerdy t-shirt, like this one:

For more ideas, just search for “language t-shirts” or “polyglot t-shirts” on Amazon or Zazzle…

Now that I searched for them, I want these t-shirts myself! Does anyone wants to sponsor one for me? 😉

3. Box set

This is a good gift idea for pretty much anyone. If you are aiming to please a language lover the only caveat is that the show you pick has to be in the foreign language they are learning. This can require some investigatory work on your part.

The gift would be even better if you can find a series that also aligns with the interests of your gift’s recipient. This means no stories about drug dealers for your 12-year old niece, and no Bulgarian version of South Park for granddad. I mean… unless they do dig this sense of humour.

4. Language blocks

Ok, I know. The product description says they are meant to help bring up a bilingual baby. But, find me an adult Mandarin or Spanish beginner who would not enjoy playing with those!

If you need to buy a gift for toddler parents who you don’t like—even better. The little one will use the blocks to throw at their parents, and you can become a villain in your personal life-thriller ”The Revenge of a Language Freak”.

5. Sweet scrabble

A choice perfect for those language enthusiasts who also realise themselves in the kitchen. Behold here are molds for making chocolate letters which you can then use to… play Scrabble with? Hm, I think if it was me, all the chocolate letters would be gone before I even spelled my name.

If making your own chocolates is too complicated, there is also this cookie-cutting Scrabble set:

Why not get both and play a letter-matching game? Imagine the chocolate letters melting on hot cookies… an unworldly word-ly pleasure 😉

6. Poster

One tip: first make sure your recipients still have room on their walls. The language learner’s rooms tend to be plastered with conjugation tables and habit-reminding quotes.

This poster is a treat! A chart of 25 opening lines from famous works of fiction.

If the above is too nerdy or too literary, this one is more foreign language-y, illustrating the emigration of German words.

What on earth is oom pah pah music?!

7. An annual subscription to LinguaLift

This is a treasure among treasures.

An access to a full textbook for Japanese, Russian, and Hebrew full of interactive content, grammar and vocab drills, a wealth of cultural information, and of course cake videos 🍰

LinguaLift’s course structure removes the decision fatigue of what to study every day, and makes it effortless to fit language learning into even he busiest schedule. It’s an excellent way to get going with this New Year’s resolution to learn a language, right?

If you are interested in gifting someone with a yearly subscription, email us at [email protected] and we’ll make it happen!

So here we go. Christmas sorted, isn’t it? Do you have any other language related gifts ideas? Please share, I need to send my present list to Santa too! 😜

What is fluency in a language?

September 6, 2016 by lingualift

We did it. We took up the challenge of dipping our toes into another most controversial topics among language learners.

Nope, it’s not the question of about the best language to learn, nor about the most efficient way of learning a language. This time we reached out to famous polyglots and language experts to tickle their minds with the question about fluency.

Here’s what the language-learning community’s most respected linguists, polyglots, bloggers and app creators had to say.

What does ‘fluent’ mean to you?

It’s where friendships are possible

**Benny Lewis**, the Irish Polyglot, author of the book and blog [Fluent in 3 Months](http://jump.blinkist.com/SHW0)

You’re unlikely to ever get a consensus on what “fluent” or “fluency” means. It’s like asking people to tell you at what point someone can be said to be “beautiful” or to give a clearcut scale of where beauty begins. It’s truly in the eye of the beholder.

The language flows when you can function as an adult in it, in social situations especially. For me this “social equivalency” is where fluency begins. It’s were friendships are possible.

If I can talk to people confidently about normal things, at a normal speed, and understand their replies without them having to adjust to me as a beginner, then this seems like a reasonable place for us to assign “fluency”. Following the European Common Framework, you have to be at least a B2 level to be here.

On a more practical level, it’s important not to go overboard with perfectionism and equate fluency to being bilingual, or having no accent, or never making minor mistakes. The C-levels (Mastery) may well be of interest to those of us whose careers centre around language learning, but normal people who want to live through a language may have jobs that, while requiring skills and experience, may not require the linguistic precision of the C-levels. You are certainly a fluent speaker at those levels, but you are also one before you get there.

So, if you are smiling and enjoying yourself in a bar, restaurant or living room in another language, with native speaking friends who are glad to talk to you, an average Joe would raise an eyebrow at the suggestion that you weren’t a fluent speaker.

Read Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It

Chill out about it!

Lindsay Dow, language tutor and blogger at the colourful Lindsay Does Languages

Fluency is a mysterious word that is so often put on a pedestal as the ultimate language learning goal. We’ll add something to our bucket list like “be fluent in Spanish”, which is great, but fluent is so open to interpretation that “being fluent in Spanish” can mean something very different to each of us.

There are a couple of things I think about fluency. Number one – we need to chill out about it. Take the pressure off because as I said, it means different things to different people so how can you possibly measure it accurately?

Number two, following on from that – what if there’s different types of fluency? You’re ready for your holiday to Germany? You’re holiday fluent. You spend all day emailing Thai companies about Facebook? You’re business email fluent. I made a video about this a while back which explains my thoughts on this in more detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWfJrXQnpvA

A machine to cross the mighty ocean.

Malachi Ray Rempen, creator of Itchy Feet: the Travel and Language Comic

Imagine you’ve decided to build your own handmade flying machine. At first, all your crazy contraptions will crash and burn messily. You’ll learn a lot about air speed and wind resistance and lift, but you never quite manage to stay up in the air long enough to get anywhere useful, and people will stop and stare or even point and laugh at your failures. That’s language learning. But as you keep at it, the crashes become less frequent and less painful.

Becoming fluent in a foreign language is like when you’ve finally built a flying machine that might dip, might stutter, might not obey all your commands and flies upside-down, but holy hell, it’s actually staying up in the air, and you can finally use it to cross the mighty ocean, soar over the jungle canopy or take you wherever you like.

From the ItchyFeet site

It’s like driving a car.

Luca Sadurny, polyglot and co-founder of MosaLingua, a mobile flashcard app.

While learning to drive a car, you need to think step by step about what you need to do to keep going (hitting the brakes, changing gears…). You move slowly, make several pauses and feel quite uncertain. But after some training and practice, you end up being more confident and driving in a more automated way.

If you think about it, reaching fluency in a language is quite similar. Your first steps are uncertain and you speak slowly because you need to think about the words you want to use or how to combine them in sentences.

But after building up your vocabulary and practicing, you start to express your thoughts in a more automated, fast and spontaneous way, even if you make some mistakes.
Simply put, we could that fluency is the ability to express yourself in a language without even thinking about what you need to do to keep going.

Don’t leave the definition to certifications.

Siskia Lagomarsino, translator, language tutor and… the polyglotist

For me, fluency is a difficult thing to define because no matter how many C2 certificates tell you you’re fluent, it’s actually a very subjective issue. We all have different goals for the languages we’re learning, and while for me fluency generally means being conversational in (almost) any theme in a language, for others it may be something different.

Some people want to be able to communicate while travelling, yet others may want business fluency unrelated to a more social kind of language, and others may quite simply want to understand their spouse’s family at Thanksgiving and participate in the conversation.

Leaving the definition of fluency to official organizations and certifications is a very effective way to leave your personal goal-setting in other people’s hands.

So if you ask me what fluency is: it is communicational satisfaction—the feeling that you’re understanding and being understood in a context of your very own.

Make your language skills enjoyable and life-enhancing.

Olly Richards, blogger and podcaster I Will Teach You a Language

The are plenty of conflicting definitions of fluency out there, so it only seems to make sense for each person to have a personal definition that matches their ambition.

Fluency, for me, has always meant: “The ability to hold enjoyable conversations on any non-technical topic without any undue strain on either person.”

In other words, if I can talk to a native speaker about any topic that’s not too technical, we can both enjoy the conversation, and neither of us have to strain too much to understand or interact with the other person, then that’s good enough for me!

Now, you might reasonably argue that fluency should be defined more ambitiously than that. However, I would say that for the vast majority of people learning a foreign language, my definition is good enough to make their level in the language truly enjoyable and life-enhancing.

That green vegetable that looks like a little tree that George H. W. Bush refuses to eat.

Ellen Jovin, studies over 20 language and documents her adventures at Words and Worlds of New York

Language fluency for me is when my words have the consistency of a liquid rather than a solid. For example, if I suddenly can’t remember know how to say “broccoli,” I can replace it, as I continue talking along unimpeded, with “you know, that green vegetable that looks like a little tree that George H. W. Bush refuses to eat.”

Language fluency doesn’t have to be tidy or pretty, it might drip onto the floor and leave sticky spots at times, but overall it flows.

It generally means I will be confident enough to ask periodically, speedily, and without humiliation, “How do you say X in [insert language]?” Fluent people have the ability to reroute efficiently around the things they don’t know how to say and come up with alternative wordings to get a communication task done.

It’s about expressing your views, C2 isn’t necessary!

Uszula Gwaj, blogger and youtuber ulanguages

There are probably as many definitions of language fluency as language learners throughout the world. In my opinion language fluency is the ability of expressing your views, opinions and needs without bigger effort and hesitation. I think that you don’t need to have C2 level to call yourself fluent and be able to use the language on the daily basis effortlessly. It is also very general to say that you are a fluent speaker of a particular language. You may be fluent at speaking but you do not write with ease, you may be an expert at legal English but not really fluent at medical language.

Keep it flowing.

Kerstin Cable, language podcaster and blogger at Fluent Language

Fluency is such a core concept in language learning, and it means many things. For me, fluency is not about accuracy. I don’t mind making mistakes in language learning and I don’t need to feel that I’m perfect before I feel like I can have a conversation. It’s more to do with speed of production, and being able to process what I hear and reply back quickly. Many people think that fluency means confidence, but those two are not linked quite as closely. Instead, being confident is a requirement you need for becoming fluent.

In a nutshell, my definition of fluency goes like this: You’re fluent when you can have a conversation that doesn’t break down. You don’t have to understand or say 100%, but you need to keep things flowing. That’s what it’s all about – communication.

Read Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It

Can you talk about liver transplants in English?

Max Hodges, White Rabbit Press

People often ask me if I’m “fluent” in Japanese, but I answer that it depends on the conversation. Many of us would not be considered fluent even in our native language when trying to join conversations about breach of contract legal cases, preoperative immunological factors for liver transplant recipients, or a chat about a recent Kabaddi tournament. Fluency is domain dependant. The language lessons in a travel guide, for example, address specific activities, such as shopping, dining, and emergency situations. Similarly, even native Japanese speakers consider business fluency to be a separate domain from casual conversation.

Fluency is a spectrum.

Donovan Nagel, the face behind the Mezzofanti Guild

The term fluent in my mind is essentially meaningless because every person defines it very differently.

Fluency is better and more accurately thought of as a spectrum rather than an end state or achievement. In other words, it’s incorrect to ask a person “Are you fluent?” or to say “I’m fluent” since there’s really no general consensus on what that actually means.

Instead you should be asking “How fluent…”.

My personal opinion on what I would describe a functional fluency level is this: being able to learn or extrapolate more of the target language using only the target language. When your proficiency is high enough that you’re able to interact and improve without resorting to your native language, you can be confident that you’ve reached a satisfactory level of spoken fluency.

It’s not about being a silver tongued devil!

Bartosz Czekała, speaks 9 languages and blogs about memory, mnemonics, memorisation and mind at Universe of Memory

My definition of fluency is rather straightforward. I can call myself fluent if I can talk to a native speaker of a given language, regardless of circumstances, about almost any topic. Politics, adoption, superstitions, describing a medical procedure – you name it.

Typically, such a command of language requires about 10000 words which is an equivalent of about C1 level (according to the CEFR).

Don’t get me wrong – I am not talking about being a silver-tongued devil.

I would simply never think that I have reached fluency if I had to constantly punt on various questions. Nor would I believe it to be true if native speakers had to constantly dumb down their message in order to talk with me. Achieving such a level always takes time and a lot of effort. But it is definitely worth it!

No pauses and stumbles!

Kris Broholm, polyglot and creator of the Actual Fluency podcast and blog

Fluency for me means the ability to use the language without too many pauses or stumbles. I don’t subscribe to the school of thought that considers fluency as absolutely mastery of a language.

When considering spoken language I feel like you’ve reached fluency when you can speak in a natural pace. Additionally if there’s a word you don’t know, you’re able to explain it in the language itself.

In other words, when you can conduct yourself exclusively in that language, and not rely on other languages, then I would consider yourself fluent in the spoken language.

Fluency is communicating the meaning.

Simon Ager, founder of Omniglot

When you’re fluent in a language you can use it to talk about the things you need to, and the things that interest you. You may make mistakes, forget or not know words, and your pronunciation may not be perfect, but you can communicate your meaning well enough to be understood by native speakers. You can also understand others, even if you don’t know all the words.

Fluency doesn’t mean perfection.

Steve Kaufmann, founder of LingQ, speaks 15 languages

The meaning of fluency in a foreign language is clear. It refers to the ability to converse with a native speaker, on a wide variety of subjects, without much strain on either side. This presupposes a large vocabulary, strong listening comprehension skills, and a somewhat smaller active vocabulary. It doesn’t mean perfection, neither in word usage nor in pronunciation. Fluency corresponds to B2 on the European Common Framework of Reference. Fluency usually refers to oral communication.

Does your image of fluency include working as a secret agent?

Gabriel Wyner, Author of Fluent Forever, reached fluency in German in 14 weeks

Each of us will find a different answer to this question.

The term is imprecise, and it means a little less every time someone writes another book, article, or spam email with a title like “U Can B FLUENT in 7 DAY5!1!”

Still, we maintain an image of fluency in our minds: a summer afternoon in a Parisian café, casually chatting up the waitress without needing to worry about verb conjugations or missing words in our vocabularies. Beyond that café, we must decide individually how far we wish to go.

I would confidently describe myself as fluent in German. I’ve lived in Austria for six years and will happily discuss anything with anyone, but I certainly needed to dance around a few missing words to get out of a €200 fine for my rental car’s broken gas cap. (Apparently, the word for “gas cap” is Tankdeckel, and the words for “I don’t give a damn if I’m the first person to drive this car, the spring holding the gas cap closed was defective” start with “Das ist mir völlig Wurst . . .” and go on from there.)

You’ll have to determine for yourself whether your image of fluency includes political discussions with friends, attending poetry readings, working as a secret agent, or lecturing on quantum physics at the Sorbonne.

You think you struggle with vocabulary? You may be lacking cultural fluency.

Aaron Ralby, a linguist and scholar blogging about memory at Linguisticator

Total fluency in a language is comprised of three different types of fluency: ritual, structural, and cultural. Ritual fluency is the ability to handle ritualised interactions – like greetings, goodbyes, and common interactions – without hesitation and thought. A subset of ritual fluency is application fluency, which involves being able to handle a very specific scenario or application well. Doctors, for example, can learn to speak fluently in a medical context without being able to order a sandwich.

Structural fluency is the hardest type of fluency to gain as an adult, and involves understanding the structure of a language to a point where one can manipulate the parts and pieces of a language to create new utterances fluidly that are also grammatically correct.

Cultural fluency is often overlooked, and is the ability to handle cultural interactions, events, and habits, as well as recognise and use cultural references. Many learners believe they struggle with vocabulary when in fact they are actually missing references to key books, movies, songs, and events that would help them understand speech or text.

Total fluency is a combination of all three, involving the understanding, knowledge, and production of language necessary for one to be comfortable in any situation. For most learners, however, total fluency is not necessary; understanding the learning objective is key to helping students target the material they specifically want to learn.

Fluency requires months or years of practice.

Zackery Ngai, CEO of HelloTalk

One has attained language fluency, when he or she can communicate clearly and effectively with other people in that language. Foreign language fluency is difficult to achieve because it requires months or years of actual conversation practice with native speakers. HelloTalk language app’s mission is to help language learners worldwide attain language fluency.

Fluency is not free of misunderstandings.

Shannon Kennedy, Eurolinguiste

Fluency is one of those words that’s really hard to nail down and define, but it’s a word I’ve thought a lot about as I’ve studied different languages to varying degrees of “fluency”.

In my opinion, “fluency” is when you’re able to speak and understand a language enough that it doesn’t hinder your ability to communicate. This means that you might still make mistakes and misunderstand certain words or expressions (especially those that are steeped in cultural context) on occasion, but it doesn’t keep you from expressing yourself in the language or from having an good overall understanding of what is being said to you.

I also feel that there are also different degrees of fluency — one can have a fluent reading ability or they can be fluent in the language just for a specific industry (for example, they can talk about laws and contracts without hesitation but might not be able to talk about the weather) or they can even just be conversationally fluent (and unable to go too in-depth on really specific topics).

Lastly, your speaking when “fluent” should be without too much hesitation and have a natural flow.

Polyglot Gathering speakers reveal their insights from the event

June 20, 2016 by lingualift

How many languages do you have to speak to be a polyglot? Be careful with asking that, as you may cause a heated discussion! Number of languages used to be the only element of the definition of polyglottism, but there is a different angle that needs to be remembered.

Polyglots are people who simply can’t live without learning new languages, or engaging with the ones they know. To me it begs the question about the source of this passion, and where these individuals get their motivation from.

Like every group of passionate individuals polyglots too congregate online. In the recent years however, the community grew so strong that it transcended the online borders and started meeting in real life. Polyglot Gatherings are occasions to learn from each other during expert lectures, get inspired, and meet fellow language learners whom you might only have known from the internet.

The latest such gathering took place in Berlin, and it left me super-inspired to learn! It also made me curious about the lessons that the speakers brought back. Is there anything that surprised or amazed them? Could the event motivate them to learn even more languages? Read on, and find out that even those who made language learning into a profession sometimes need a motivational boost!

I asked the speakers to list one surprising fact they learned during the Gathering, and to reveal what the event has inspired them to do.

1. Luxembourgish was only recently considered it’s own language

Peter Carroll, Founder of RhinoSpike

One surprising fact I learned was that Luxembourgish was only recently considered it’s own language, and that most native speakers don’t learn to write in it, instead they write in German. The Gathering this year has really inspired me to more effort into RhinoSpike. It’s always been a side project, and while that won’t change, it deserves more of my attention than it has received lately. I want it to be one of the best resources available for language learners!

2. My Hungarian and Russian are better than I expected

Kris Broholm, Actual Fluency

My one surprising fact is that I’m not entirely useless in either Hungarian or Russian, even though I regularly beat myself up for the lack of effort I have put into these languages. I was able to take part in basic conversations in both languages and while I could definitely be further advanced at this point, the thought of having reached some kind of fundamental level a year or two after learning my first word in the language remains the most exciting and amazing part of language learning for me.

The gathering usually motivates me to simply study more, because it highlights where I’m currently at in my language skills.

I see the effect of the effort I’ve put in so far, and I immediately understand that if I want to achieve a higher level next year the work has to start now. Of course, the Gathering is merely a metaphor or excuse for what is truly important, namely to be able to speak to people and enjoy that language to the fullest. Being able to speak different languages with fellow learners once a year in a hostel in Berlin is just a casual and humorous mental way to stay on track.

As an aside, I’ve also become interested in learning how to speak Swedish and Norwegian. As a Dane I already more or less understand the languages, but I can’t say a word in them. After many Scandinavian conversations at the gathering I’ve decided to do a Scandinavian project, maybe going to Sweden/Norway for a few weeks in the future to see just: How hard can it be?

3. You can draw a human face with any expressons with two dots

Olly Richards, I Will Teach You a Language

I learnt that you can draw a human face with any expression under the sun with two dots, and two lines (curved or straight). I guess you had to be in Malachi’s* talk to understand this! Each time I go to the gathering, I spend time with lots of time socialising with new people (something I don’t do so much in London). This time, I spoke a lot of certain languages I haven’t spoken for some time, especially French. This inspired me to think about what extra things I can do in London to meet more people and get more language practice in every week.

*Malachi Rempen is the creator of the Itchy Feet Comic

4. Language learning is a personal journey

Ivan Batishchev, italki.com
The surprising fact that I learned, or, I guess, inferred from speaking to the polyglots and language learners is the degree to which language learning is an individual and personalised journey. The polyglots don’t see languages and language-learning as a commoditised good. Instead, each learner’s personal journey and experience is as important as the ability to say “I speak x language”. Coupled with this attitude, is the insistence on continuous improvement.

Although the question of “what is fluency” comes up in the Polyglot Community often, language isn’t seen as something one has, and therefore can buy. Language is seen as a journey, and experience, and a continuous path to learning more about the world and self.

I was truly inspired by listening and talking to Malachi Rempen and Chris Huff, both of whom are doing webcomics about language learning. Chris in particular gave a talk about the concept of minimalism as applied to language learning. It is easy to see learning a language, or starting a creative project as a large and intimidating task. Seeing how the polyglot community takes on challenges — bit by bit, but with consistent determination. This kind of attitude makes real progress in a tough task actually achievable.

The Gathering has inspired me to take on more languages, and more learning challenges, but it has also inspired me to try my hand at new creative projects, like video content creation.

5. I will start using more body language

Alex Rawlings, Rawlangs

I realised while watching Michael Levi Harris’s talk on acting that taking on new personalities and new identities had always been a huge draw for me when it came to learning languages. I’m going to start thinking a lot more about ways in which I speak and use body language when speaking foreign languages.

What is the best language to learn?

6. Next time I’m going to sing!

Dr. Jan Henrik Holst, linguist from the University of Hamburg

One surprising fact that I learned was that among the hyperpolyglots (with e.g. fifteen languages or beyond), I might be the one from Germany and with a German citizenship that holds the record. We will still have to check this more thoroughly, however. There may be other German hyperpolyglots which simply have not taken up contact with the scene.

On the cultural evening, I had nothing to present. I’m now having a look at the Zulu song Ibhola Lethu that I like very much. Maybe I’m going to practice it and sing it next time.

7. Next year I will have a conversation in Russian

Jana Fadness, Adventures of the Directionally Challenged

This isn’t so much a surprising fact, but I was really impressed by Lydia Machova’s talk on how to teach a language, or rather help people learn a language. I have some experience as an ESL teacher, so this topic was very relevant to me, and I thought I would like to try implementing some of Lydia’s ideas if I get a chance to teach again.

Last year’s Gathering inspired me to learn German, which I was quite proud to have gotten up to conversational fluency this year. It was very encouraging to be able to have conversations with fellow participants in German, and by next year I hope to be able to do the same in Russian!

Russian is tough but I’ll try my best.

8. It’s possible to learn several language at the same time

Simon Ager, Omniglot

One of the speakers talked about teaching several languages at the same time – up to 10 – and explained how she does this. I didn’t know that anybody did this, as most teachers recommend that you learn only one or two languages at the same time.

At Polyglot Gatherings I often learn about and hear languages that I think would be interesting to learn. This year, as last year, the language that most appealed to me was Finnish – I really like the way it sounds. I still haven’t got round to learning it though. I also think that I should try to improve my knowledge of the languages I don’t know so well. However, I also started to think about focus and how I’ve managed in the past to focus on one or two languages at a time, and I think I might try that over the next year or so.

How to self-learn a language: The complete guide

9.Sharing ideas is important

Fiel Sahir, Between 3 Worlds

One surprising fact from the gathering: (Not really) My beliefs of the connections between Music and language learning were only strengthened and confirmed from being around everyone. One thing that really stuck with me was Alex Rawling’s talk on the “Need” principle.

The gathering has inspired me to keep developing my ideas and share them. Whether it be podcasts, guest posts, or speaking.

10. No surprises!

Vladimir Skultety, Foreverastudent.com

It was not surprising at all that the Gathering was a great event! It motivated me to work more on my youtube channel and blog.

11.People in Luxembourg learn in four languages!

Lindsay Dow, lindsaydoeslanguages.com

It’s tough to pick just one! But I would have to go with the fact that everyone in Luxembourg has an education in four languages across the years. Incredible! I knew it was a multilingual country but that’s remarkable.

The Gathering has actually inspired me to learn multiple languages simultaneously – partly inspired by Elisa’s talk about learning and teaching multiple languages in one course and partly by all of the amazing stuff about Indonesian, which is just one of many Asian languages I’d like to get a basic grasp in.

Connecting with a group of people with similar interests can be a huge motivator. Have you heard of Online Language Learners Guild? If you haven’t joined it yet, check it out and learn how to become a polyglot yourself!

What language would you want as a mother tongue?

March 28, 2016 by lingualift

Have you ever wondered about the role of your mother tongue in forming your identity? If you changed your first language, the culture that comes with it would colour the way you see the world in a different way. It would also mean you might have an easier time learning other foreign languages. Imagine—if you were a native Chinese speaker, the tones wouldn’t be a problem, if your mother tongue was Arabic, how easy would it be to learn other Semitic languages?

People can “lose” their mother tongues for different reasons. Not keeping in touch with it after moving to a new country is probably the main one, but we can also mention people with selective aphasia or those whose first languages are endangered. I bet you wouldn’t willingly let go of your mother tongue, but what if you could change it? If a language fairy visited you on the 21st of February (International Mother Language Day) offering you a deal to swap your mother tongue for any language of your choice, would you say yes?

As a part of the Women’s History Month we decided to ask this question to a few prominent female writers, authors and polyglots. Let’s see what their perspective is.

Anne Merritt, MA in Applied Linguistics, is a Canadian ESL instructor and education writer who has taught in five countries on 3 continents.

I feel very lucky to have English as my mother tongue, as it’s the lingua franca of science, tourism, academia, the Internet, and so on. I’ve heard that Farsi is very poetic in its syntax, and that writing system is confoundingly fascinating to me. Could I be someone who learned Farsi and English growing up? In short, I want to be Christiane Amanpour.

Kerstin Cable is a language learner, teacher, and podcaster blogging at Fluent Language.

I would never choose a different mother tongue. German has served me very well as a native language, and in fact I feel quite lucky that I’ve grown up using the cases without having to come at that concept at a later age.

Judith Meyer speaks 9-13 languages and blogs at Learnlangs.

If I could have a different language as a mother tongue, I would probably choose Arabic or Russian, because these are the most useful among the languages that have resisted me the most—I have tried several times and always stopped sooner or later. Alternatively, any language that I would otherwise have to spend many years learning. I’m fluent in Chinese now, but what a journey…

Jana Fadness is an American language learning enthusiast and nomad who has spent much of her time in Japan.

My mother tongue is English, and I’m actually very grateful for that because there are a lot of advantages to being a native English speaker. It’s allowed me to have the lifestyle I’ve had living in different countries teaching English, for one thing! So I probably wouldn’t change my native language even if I could.

Yulia Amlinskaya is an enthusiastic online Russian teacher, a passionate language learner and the founder of 2 international online foreign language schools, Russificate and Language Life.

It’s a very difficult question for me because, being a Russian teacher, I love my mother tongue and the idea of sharing it with other people. I suppose I would choose German because it is so rich and precise. Also, what makes it special for me is, that I find it a hard one to learn.

Agnieszka Murdoch is a language coach and blogger at 5-Minute Language. Her mission is to help language learners find effective strategies, move on towards fluency and stay motivated. She tweets at @agamurdoch.

I think I’m quite lucky having Polish as my mother tongue. Some people say it’s a difficult language to learn and I would probably want to learn it if it was a foreign language to me, so I’ve got that one sorted!

Kirsten Winkler —an edtech writer, the founder of EDUKWEST and an education technology-focused online publication Fair Languages.

Italian would be nice (not necessarily “useful” but beautiful!).

Lindsay Dow learns, teaches, blogs, vlogs, eats, sleeps and breathe everything language related. You can follow her journey at Lindsay Does Languages.

What an interesting question! You know, it’s funny. I’ve always said I’m glad that English is my mother tongue because I couldn’t imagine learning it with all it’s crazy spelling and differences across the world. That said, there is a lot of English stuff out there in pop culture that would help to keep me inspired!

So if I had to pick…hmm..right now I’d say I’d love to be fluent in Arabic because it’s a huge language that I’ve yet to really study and one I’ve always been a little afraid of if I’m honest because of the diversity of dialects and how different to anything I currently know it seems. But I would love to be able to speak and understand Arabic, so a free pass would be awesome!

Anna Breslavskaya is a language coach and a blogger who writes about learning and teaching English on anna-edu.

If I could have any other but Russian language as my mother tongue, I’d choose Chinese. It would guarantee my ability to read fluently in this language, which is really hard to achieve learning it as a foreign language. Since my main interest in new languages lies in exploring the history and literature of its country, excellent reading skills are essential.

Susanna Zaraysky speaks eight languages and specializes in helping people learn foreign languages using music, TV, radio, movies and other media via her book, Language is Music.

Brazilian Portuguese. Now that is one mellifluous tongue, it tastes, feels and sounds like honey!

Shannon Kennedy is a professional musician and passionate language learner who writes about her adventures, love of food, and shares language learning tips over at Eurolinguiste.

I would choose any language other than English. I think, if I had the choice, I would prefer to learn English as a second language rather than have it as a first.

If you had to change your mother tongue, which one would you choose and why? Let us know on Twitter!

Wax tadpoles, and internet peckers: The hilarious translation mistakes big companies make

October 19, 2015 by lingualift

Few things translate perfectly from one language to another. That’s why we often have to reword or entirely rewrite when translating. It’s also why major companies work closely with native speakers for localization. A badly worded product or ad could turn the company into a laughingstock as these examples show.

Chinese

Pepsi the reanimator

There’s a popular urban legend that Pepsi’s slogan “Come alive with the Pepsi generation” was mistranslated into Chinese as “Pepsi brings your dead ancestors back to life.”

While I couldn’t find any solid sources for this (such as Chinese articles about it, which I surely would’ve found), it sheds light on the fact that Chinese characters are ideograms, so while translating product names into Chinese, companies have to be careful. Coca-Cola’s original name in Chinese was ke-kou-ke-la, which literally means “Bite the wax tadpole” or “Female horse stuffed with wax.” The company ended up choosing characters that read, “Brings joy to the mouth.”

Charlie bit my finger off

KFC also ran into some trouble in China with its slogan, “Finger lickin’ good.” Apparently the way it was worded, Chinese consumers misunderstood the slogan to mean, “Eat your fingers off.” KFC changed the slogan and now it’s 900 stores strong in the Middle Kingdom. For the record, the colloquialism hasn’t translated well into German, Thai or some other languages as well.

Spanish

Coors laxative

The Spanish market is important for American businesses and quite a few of them have made the Spanish speaking world laugh at their horrible translations. Coors originally translated its slogan “Turn it loose” directly into Spanish, in effect encouraging Spanish speaking consumers to suffer from diarrhea.

The car that didn’t go

Car companies have made some fairly famous mistakes in naming their products for Latin America. Probably the most famous is Chevrolet’s Nova, which in Spanish sounds like no va, or “Doesn’t go.” This Spanish 101 mistake led the company to pull the car off the market due to its lack of sales.

Another example is the Mitsubishi Pajero, whose name is a slang term for a man’s private part. It was later changed to Montero for Spanish markets.

Likewise, American Motor Corporation’s Matador didn’t do well in Puerto Rico, where the name can mean ‘killer.’

Pope the Spanish potato

A t-shirt manufacturer made an even simpler Spanish mistake that cost it big-time. It made t-shirts to commemorate the pope’s visit which read la papa (the potato) instead of el papa (the pope).

Lactating enough?

For our last Spanish slip-up, you’re surely familiar with the “Got Milk?” campaign. When translated directly into Spanish, it means, “Are you lactating?”

German

Tissues for whores

It must be tough for American companies to break into the markets of European countries. There are so many languages and so many opportunities for silly mistakes. American tissue brand Puffs discovered this the hard way. In German, “puff” is a slang term for whorehouse. In the U.K., it’s close to “pouf,” a derogatory term for homosexuals.

Cough cough drops

Vicks Cough Drops is another company that had to change its name or else face snickers in Germany. It changed its name to Wicks in Germany because “vicks” sounds a lot like a slang term for sexual penetration. Companies that use ‘mist’ in their names have to be careful in Germany as well, since the word sounds like a slang term for excrement. It makes Irish Mist or Mist Sticks sound like something else entirely.

The small car that didn’t fit

The Honda Fit (U.S.) or Jazz (Europe) was originally called the Fitta but changed after it was discovered that this is a very unflattering slang term for female genitalia in Norway and Sweden. The name would’ve made the slogan, “Small on the outside but big on the inside” much funnier.

English

Will it suck?

English speaking companies aren’t the only guilty parties. Scandinavian vacuum cleaner manufacturer Electrolux had to change its slogan “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux” before it could start selling on the American market.

The internet pecker

Japanese electronics manufacturer Panasonic must have been ecstatic when they got the license to use cartoon character Woody Woodpecker as the mascot and guide for their web browser. Luckily, someone stopped them before they launched the browser with its slogan, “Touch Woody – The Internet Pecker.”

F*** the diet

German food brand Unilever last year unrolled a new ad campaign whose slogan is “F*** the Diet.” I personally think that’s awesome, but I can see how it would rub many English speakers (like most of them) the wrong way. However, it should be noted that the campaign is directed at German consumers, who are not so offended by f-bombs.

Why travellers should study minority languages

October 14, 2014 by lingualift

I was stuck in the desert at midnight. Kilometers away from any civilized settlement, surrounded by sand, and with 10 armed policemen at the checkpoint. I had crossed the border between Iran and Pakistan just about 10 hours prior to this, hopped on a bus and was hoping to find myself in the next big town the following morning hours.

Photo by drymountains

However, at midnight we stopped at one of the checkpoints and the guards told me that due to Taliban activity in the area it would be not safe for me to travel beyond this point at night. ’No!’ the mustached man replied strictly to all my hectic objections. It was then when I realized that I would be spending the night at the police barracks.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. — Nelson Mandela

Baluchestan is the border region between Iran and Pakistan, a bit of a boogeyman in both countries: everybody tries to advise you against travelling there and tells you scary stories about terrorists and evil Baluchi people. In fact, I met some of the nicest friends on both sides of the border, despite going through many troubles with the local police. Baluchestan does not get too many tourists from within the country, not to mention the foreigners.

’Teach me how to speak Baluchi,’ I asked my friend Javad in Zahedan.

As it turned out later, at the checkpoint in Pakistan at midnight, Baluchi language was the key to everything. As I was standing there, tired and covered in road dust, watching the lights of my bus disappear into the night, the policemen were probably contemplating me as another annoying Westerner who came here for adrenalin and was instead just causing nothing but hassle.

‘Man lutin brayin Quetta,’ I said, as my brain was squeaking at remembering the few Baluchi phrases I learned. ‘I need to go to Quetta’.

As I attracted their attention, I decided to go on: ‘Man darin baluchi yata gerin. Man musaper be Lahore… – I am learning Baluchi. I am traveling to Lahore.’

This broke the ice. I was introduced to all the policemen at the station, then brought a pot of tea and a plateful of biscuits. ’Tidast dard makant! Thank you-thank you!’ I kept repeating as the men were smiling and apparently saying how cute it is that I am speaking Baluchi. In about an hour they spared the entire room for me to sleep and discreetly left to stretch their hammocks outside. This was the beginning of a great journey.

‘I am learning [insert the name of the language],’ is a good start for your language mission and breaking the ice.

There are about 7 000 languages spoken around the world, and their number is declining every year as not only foreign learners but even the native speakers give up their minority mother tongue in favour of bigger languages. The amount of ‘useful’ languages is being reduced to a few dozens that are used internationally in business and communications. While European nations are trying to control and preserve its minority languages, in many countries around the world they die with the last native speakers, new generations give in to the dominant and official languages of the country.

During my travels around Asia and Africa, I came in close contact with the speakers of many lesser-spoken languages, such as above mentioned Baluchi, Wakhi in the North of Pakistan, Uyghur in the West of China, Tibetan in the Himalayas, Rungus in Borneo, Fumbira in Uganda, Chuvash in Russia – and this is just a small fraction of all the minority languages in those countries. Of course, you can easily speak Swahili (or, for what matters, English) in East Africa, Mandarin in China, Urdu in Pakistan, Malay in Malaysia, Russian in Russia – and be understood. But if you want to show the people that you really care, to earn their respect and trust, there is no better way than learning the minority language of the region.

Moreover, each language opens a window into the history and culture of its speakers. Even more so – minority languages, touched less by the growing globalisation and uniformity of the languages of international communication.

‘I am learning [insert the name of the language],’ is a good start for your language mission and breaking the ice.

’Ta mé ag foghlaim na Gaeilge’ (I am learning Irish) was the phrase that got me through the immigration at Dublin airport on my first ever trip abroad. But that’s for another story…

Article by Anna Rudycheva

Tips on raising a bilingual child

September 25, 2014 by lingualift

This is a topic that’s a real and personal concern to me because I’m raising two little ones in Japan and as hard as I try, I still feel like they’re not learning English. That is, except when they really want something from grandma and grandpa. It’s amazing the words and phrases that come out of nowhere when they want something.

So, I’d like to share a few things from my own personal experience as well as some research I’ve done for myself about raising a bilingual child.

A few myths…

First of all, there are a few bilingualism myths that many people believe. One is that two or more languages will get mixed up in a kid’s brain. Kid brains aren’t like adult brains. They can learn multiple languages perfectly with little effort, and they do it in most parts of the world.

We also confuse kid minds with adult minds when we assume kids need to be exceptionally smart to learn multiple languages. Kids’ brains are like sponges and just like they soak up everything else they’re exposed to, they soak up language. No high IQ is needed.

Finally, there’s the idea that your kid will pick it up later. It probably depends on where you live in the world, but in my experience, they don’t just pick it up. This is especially true someplace like Japan where foreign languages are practically shunned. You need a plan for teaching English and you have to start early. Don’t get lazy and figure that it’ll be in their head somewhere and if they ever want to, they can learn to use it.

The language learning window

A great deal of research has shown that age 0 to about 6 or 7 is the window for effortless language learning. I’ve seen it with kids I’ve known. They simply absorb what they hear and figure it out. Older kids can learn a second language, but it takes much more effort. As you know if you’ve tried to learn a language post-childhood, it takes even more effort as you get older. If you want your kids to be bilingual, start teaching them early.

It’s all about mom

Especially in their early years, it’s all about mom. The language mom speaks is more likely to take hold than daddy’s. This is probably because of the amount of time spent with mom and maybe there are other reasons as well. If mom uses both languages with a small child, they’re much likelier to pick up both.

I saw this time and time again when I taught English in Japan. I noticed that a half an hour a week with me wasn’t enough for the English to stick, so I began teaching the mothers words and phrases to use and the kids picked it up much more easily.

At-home language and outside language

If you’re raising kids in a mostly monolingual culture, you can try speaking only the foreign language at home. I know some Japanese people who grew up with this kind of rule in their family. They spoke English only at home because they got virtually none outside the home. They grew up to be bilingual adults.

Patience

It sounds like a fluffy non-tip tip, but be patient. My son was much slower to pick up any English at all and it exasperated and frustrated me. Then, he suddenly started using English. With small kids especially, they may know more than they show.

Make it fun

Play games, watch shows, sing songs and do other fun stuff in the language you want to teach kids. Get them together with other kids who speak the language for play dates.

Fun is the candy coating that makes the pill of learning a language go down for kids. Actually, it’s not so different for adults as well. I guess in that way our brains are not so different after all.

Cover image by Praphol Chattharakul.