Blog

Discover the language of 40 million Poles, home of scientist Marie Curie and the famous English novelist Joseph Conrad, whose real name was Teodor Józef Konrad Nałęcz-Korzeniowski! Polish is a West Slavic language spoken in Poland and is the native language of the Poles. The native name for Polish is polski (Polish), język polski (the Polish language), or more formally, polszczyzna (Polish). D...

Portuguese is the sixth most widely spoken language in the world. It is spoken across Europe, South America, Africa and Asia and is the official language of eight countries. By learning the language you will be able to communicate with over 200 million people worldwide. The language is spoken widely in four continents and can give you unlimited opportunities to enhance your travel experience. Disc...

Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by over 100 million native speakers worldwide, making it the 10th most widely spoken language in the world. Spoken mainly in Punjab,the land famously referred to as ‘The Land of Five Rivers’, the language also has a significant presence in the United Arab Emirates, United States, Saudi Arabia, and Australia! Punjabi is a descendent of a language of nort...

Romanian is the only Romance language in the Eastern Block, spoken by around 24 million people mostly in Romania and Moldova. It has its roots in Latin, and in fact, the name Romania, and its derivatives, come from the Latin word 'Romanus' (citizen of Rome), a legacy of the Roman Empire who took control of ancient Dacia (today Romania) in 106 A.D. So where does Walachia, ruled by the infamous Vlad...

Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) is a language rich in culture and history, crafted from the mountains, lochs and majestic landscapes of the Highlands and Western Isles. It existed long before English, and is experiencing a real revival as part of the preservation of the Scottish heritage. Dating back centuries, Gaelic is the founding language of Scotland, the principle language of the medieval Kingdom...

Serbian is a South Slavic language spoken mainly in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and Macedonia by about 11 million people. It's the official language of Serbia, spoken by 95% of the population, and the main one used in this country of stunning national parks and mountains. Virtually identical to Croatian, Serbian is written in the Cyrillic (or Russian) alphabet, and Croatia...

Shona is a national language of Zimbabwe, along with Ndebele and the official business language, English. There are also clusters of Shona in Zambia, Mozambique and Botswana. Nearly 80% of people in Zimbabwe speak the Bantu language of Shona, or chiShona, so this is definitely the language to learn if you are thinking of visiting that country! Despite movement to urban areas, the traditional Shona...

It's easy for one to confuse Slovak with Slovene but you would be quite wrong. While Slovene is a South Slavic language, Slovak is a West Slavic language with a complex relationship with the Czech language. Czech had a strong influence on Slovakia, as they were essentially one nation before the separation in 1993. Slovaks spoke a Slovakized version of the language, and today Slovak, or Slovakian a...

Don't be fooled by how similar the name of this language looks to Slovak. While they are both Slavic languages, they are quite mutually unintelligible. Whereas both languages derive the Slov in their names from Slav, Slovenian, or Slovene, is considered to be a South Slavic language along with languages such as Croatian, Serbian, Bulgarian and Macedonian. Slovenians consider Slovene to be a langua...

Swahili is a hugely popular language in Africa, spoken by over 50 million people. The initial spread of the language across Africa is owed to the traders from the Arab region that carried the language as far west as Congo and North to Uganda. Later when the Germans colonized parts of Africa, they chose to use Swahili as the administrative language. The Tanganyika and the English standardized the l...