THE Wall Street Journal last week had a sweet article about non-Nordic Europeans learning languages like Norwegian and Finnish, the better to be able to sing along with their favorite Nordic metal bands: “It’s quite a well-known phenomenon that students in Italy study Norwegian because they’re interested in metal,” Ms. [Siri] Nergaard [,a teacher,] said. Irene Burdese, […]

LANGUAGE learners must resign themselves to making very public, very silly mistakes sooner or later. It’s an occupational hazard. Regular readers will remember that I’ve begun dipping my feet in Dutch. After a few weeks, I can now get my most basic wants and needs across with little trouble. I’m only just starting, but I’m […]

THANKS to all those who commented on my post about foreigners’ most common misunderstandings in Brazil, which generated some media interest here. A few pointed out that several of my observations would hold equally well elsewhere in Latin America, or indeed further afield, in particular the relaxed approach to appointments and deadlines and the physical […]

STORIES say that during the second world war, Dutch soldiers used the name of the seaside resort Scheveningen as a shibboleth to identify German soldiers in their midst. German soldiers would pronounce the first three letters “sch” as “sh”, following German sound rules. (English speakers might do the same, partly on account of our familiarity […]

READERS who missed it may be interested to check out this week’s review of Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoît Nadeau’s “Story of Spanish”.  In other home notes, Johnson has been nominated as a Top Language Professional Blog, and bab.la is hosting a vote for number one. If internet contests are your kind of thing, the voting […]

DID Joe Biden insult China?  The American vice-president has a habit of sticking his foot into his mouth, and in this case, the recent graduation speech he gave at the University of Pennsylvania inspired a viral rant by a “disappointed” Chinese student at Penn, Zhang Tianpu. What was Mr Biden’s sin? Was it Mr Biden’s […]