Do you feel like listening to something nice and summery but your Spotify queue is approaching its end and you’re out of ideas? No worries, this post is going to save your playlist! Below, you’ll find a mix of awesome summer songs in four different languages. Put together the sweetest and most international playlist of the summer – for that long roadtrip or an evening with friends. Rediscover the old classics and explore the exciting new arrivals! The best English…
Imagine you’re having a conversation in a foreign language and simply can’t understand what somebody just said to you. What do you do then? At least I often find myself blurting out something slightly rude like “What?” or “Huh?” instead of a nicer, more sensible reaction. In very informal speech, such as with close friends, it may be alright to use expressions like “Huh?” or “What?” in English, German or Spanish when you couldn’t hear or understand somebody, but in…
Do you like films? Would you like to improve your Spanish, German, French or Swedish listening and speaking skills? If you said yes to both, this post is for you! We asked WordDive team members for their favourite non-Hollywood films. Watch and enjoy while learning new things about the film’s language and country of origin. Spanish films Volver, 2006 (Volver) This sweet comedy is directed by Almodóvar and stars the charming Penélope Cruz. Y Tu Mamá También, 2001…
Admit it: Most of us spend hours staring at a screen on a daily basis. Even if we’re just reading the news on our mobile phone, browsing Facebook for a few minutes or watching two or three episodes of our favourite series on Netflix, we are consuming multiple hours of screen time each week. Social media makes up most of this time, but luckily, it’s possible to take advantage of it. Many social media platforms are available globally, which means…
I bet you’ve encountered articles and funny pictures on social media concerning ‘difficult’ languages which appear impossible to learn. Languages with no prepositions (e.g. Finnish, Estonian) are often considered difficult. Tonal languages, languages in which stress and pitch change the meaning of a word (e.g. Chinese, Japanese), languages with many strict rules (e.g. German) or languages with a completely different alphabet (e.g. Russian) are also regarded as being difficult. But the truth is that no language is too difficult to…
Cultures and languages are constantly changing and interacting with each other. On the level of language, the interaction can be seen in loanwords, which are found in every language in the world. A loanword is a word borrowed from another language that has not been translated to the target language. It also has its own special meaning, usually not found in the target language’s own, original vocabulary. In some cases, loanwords are spelled or pronounced a bit differently in the…
