Why
Spanish accents can be so different
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Words
that English has borrowed from Spanish
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The
origins of Spanish place names in the USA
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Animal sounds in lots of languages
0-10 in lots of languages
In almost every country that uses the Roman Alphabet, the word for Mother begins with an "M".
The Chinese alphabet comprises of 40,000 different characters.
There are no swearwords in the Japanese language.
The brand name LEGO, derives from the Danish words LEg GOdt, which means "play well"
There are more Chinese speakers than English speakers in America.
There are only 12 characters in the Hawaiian alphabet.
Spanish
in the Westerns
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Celebrity foreign language speakers
More than
95% of us who call ourselves English are in fact descended from foreign
people.
From ‘royal’ to ‘roast beef’, many of the words
most associated with English traditions come from the French language.
Most spoken
world languages 2002
1. Chinese (Mandarin) 1,075,000,000
2. English 514,000,000
3. Hindustani 496,000,000
4. Spanish 425,000,000
5. Russian 275,000,000
6. Arabic 256,000,000
7. Bengali 215,000,000
8. Portuguese 194,000,000
9. Malay-Indonesian 176,000,000
10. French 129,000,000
There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today. However, about 2,000 of those languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers.
How to say "Merry Christmas" in lots of languages
English words with Spanish origins
How to say "Thank you" in lots of languages
Why French is better than chocolate:
Speaking
French won't make you gain weight
French doesn't melt in your mouth or in your hands
French isn't bad for your teeth
You never run out of French
You can speak French before, during, and after meals
Too much French won't make you sick
French is free
You don't need to hide French from the kids
French won't make you hyper
Sharing French is better than speaking it alone
There are 46 languages with just one speaker each, and 357 languages with fewer then 50 speakers. 90% of all languages have fewer than 100,000 speakers. An estimated 438 languages (7.1%) are on the verge of extinction, in comparison with 182 species of bird (1.9%) and 180 types of mammal (4.1%).
Typically, countries with mountainous or tropical geography have many different languages. Each community will have its own tongue, but the difficulty of travel will prohibit much contact between them. Papua New Guinea has 832 different languages.
New research shows that languages may be facing a greater threat of extinction than rare wildlife. There are an estimated 6809 "living", or actively spoken, languages in the world. Since 1600, 306 languages have become extinct - 4.5% of the total. In the same period, 125 species of bird (1.3% of the total) and 87 mammals (1.9% of the total) have become extinct.
On average, people who use languages in their jobs earn 8% more.
A customer on the Internet is 3 times more likely to buy when addressed in his own language.
75% of the world's population does not speak English at all.
About 30%
of foreign visitors in Spain come from Britain. More than 13 million British
tourists visit Spain every year.
Why you shouldn't use Internet translators !
Speaking Chinese may take more brainpower than speaking English, a study suggests. Researchers in Britain have found that people who speak Mandarin Chinese use both sides of their brain to understand the language. This compares to English-language speakers who only need to use one side of their brain. The researchers said the findings could boost understanding of how the brain processes languages.
Why learn
French ? Europe is the world's largest market; France is Europe's second
largest market.
Analysing
Inter-European trade, British, French and German companies cited language
and cultural barriers as the main barrier to trade, with companies in
those countries ranking Spanish high as a necessary language and culture
to learn. http://www.interactint.com/elucidate/english.htm