"N'importe quoi" is an important, commonly-used expression. First meaning: anything, but it has more playful uses...

Whichever foreign language you are studying, you may or may not be familiar with the nomenclature of English Sunday-league football. Voilà

Humour: one of the best tools of the linguist, whether to understand the target language/culture or to laugh at ourselves - and with others

Reflections, skimming stones on a Swedish lake, the silence is total.

Learning birds' names in foreign languages is considered 'next level' vocabulary. Here's a start...

how to type accents on foreign words, special characters, “diacritics”. Here is a range of options for how to do it

Learn Japanese online. Beginners course for anyone who would like to get a basic grounding in how to speak Japanese.

There is no such thing as a synonym, says the poet. The language teacher respectfully disagrees...

Learning idiomatic expressions in a foreign language can pose a series of challenges, but feels great when you get it right

Happy Polar Bear Day. A cute chiste (joke) about polar bears, but first a few facts. And has anyone ever heard of a Kodiak bear before?

A cute joke about polar bears, but first a few facts. And by the way, has anyone ever heard of a Kodiak bear before?

Are you learning Spanish? Of the four main skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking, which do you find the most difficult to make...

An effective translation between languages is rarely word for word. A great translation is never word for word, especially when...

Ten Spanish weather expressions - good for small talk “El clima es lo que se espera y el tiempo es lo que ocurre.” Climate is what you...

Quick answers: Spanish: ¡Feliz Año Nuevo! French: Bonne année ! German: Gutes neues Jahr! However, you have more options... In Spain The...

There was recently an online discussion in which non-native speakers shared their thoughts on the hardest aspect of learning English. The...

Out for a walk with my young son a while ago and he stated boldly: “The best time to see the sunrise is in the morning.” Undeniable....

There are some expressions that sound wise but are actually nonsense. The “darkest hour” is really not “just before dawn”, it’s at...

Do you know the origin of the word "posh"? Well-read people (which is of course not the same thing as posh people) will tell you the...

At one of our recent Thursdays QUILT sessions, we discussed the German film, “The Lives of Others”, which contained a line about whether...