The traditional Chinese character for horse features four legs and a tail – later chopped off during the simplification process. Image: ShaoLan/Chineasy In Singapore, students are mandated by law to learn a second language, their ‘mother tongue’ language. But for most students, rather than being a cultural education, learning their ‘mother tongue’ language is a […]
The French language has been known to be confusing to foreign language learners, especially student’s whose first language is English. This is because in the English language, the general rule is that sentences require a definite or indefinite article. Articles behave in the same way as adjectives in that they modify nouns. However, in the […]
Which would be easier for you to memorize? The entire Singapore telephone book (yes, they still exist). A short nursery rhyme. Scientific studies have shown that we learn best by absorbing small morsels of information, applying them in a practical manner, then building on what we know. As we add more chunks of information our […]
Most people would agree on the absolute necessity of learning a foreign language in today’s society. But what is the most adequate and most effective way to do it? This is where things get a little bit more complicated. Different answers to this question have guided the various methods employed in the language classrooms throughout […]
Korean is spoken by over 63 million people in South Korea, North Korea, China, Japan, and even Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia! Grammatically, the Korean language has many similarities to the Japanese language while 70% of its vocabulary is a derivative of the Chinese language. The key to learning Korean is Hangul, the Korean alphabet. Although […]
Even if you don’t know a single word of German, you can probably read and understand the following German text. Did you know that the English and German languages descended from the same Proto-Germanic tongue? Many words in both languages are the same or similar. For example, can you read this story in German? Guten […]