The Best Languages to Learn for English Speakers by Jack White

Believe it or not, English is one of the hardest languages to learn. Most of us are either native speakers or have learned it at a young age. Because of this, we don’t notice these difficulties due to the everyday role of English in our lives.

While being difficult for beginners, English is a gateway to learning other languages and mastering them with ease. As language enthusiasts, we’ve discussed this topic with many linguists and grammar experts.

After doing some research, we’ve determined that these nine languages are the best English speakers to learn. While some may surprise you, but all of them are useful and entertaining.

1. Norwegian

As surprising as it sounds, Norwegian is by far the easiest language for English speakers to learn. A member of the Germanic family, Norwegian shares many of the same grammatical mechanics and words with English.

The word order closely mimics that of English. An also interesting fact is that Norwegian has many different accents and there aren’t strict rules about pronunciation. Under the Vikings, Norwegians ruled England for a certain period of time so a lot of English words originated in Norwegian.

2. Swedish

Norwegian’s close cousin and Scandinavian neighbor Swedish is also incredibly easy for English speakers to learn and master.

First of all, Swedish and English share a lot of cognates. A cognate is a word that a language shares with another, mostly due to a common ancestor.

If you’re interested in immersing yourself in a vibrant and interesting culture, Sweden is the country you want to focus on. Also, there are a lot of summer schools for Swedish learners of all levels.

3. Spanish

While we all know that Spanish has an incredibly wide reach and is practical to study, there are even more benefits. For a couple of centuries, Britain was ruled by the Romans. Most of the legal systems, the administrative rules, and even some towns are leftovers from that period.

The Romans spoke Latin, an ancestor of all Romance languages, amongst which we have Spanish. Used by many cultures, Spanish has a lot in common with English in terms of mechanisms and vocabulary.

4. Dutch

Because English is a Germanic language, it’s not surprising that Dutch is the 3rd Germanic language in our top 4. After German and English, it’s the third most spoken language in the family.

The shared vocabulary along with the similar grammatical characteristics is why it features in this list.

Why are Danish and German left out?

German has some of the most difficult grammar in the world and Danish pronunciation is even scary for some Danes.

Dutch is challenging, but more in an entertaining way.

5. Portuguese

One of the most popular languages for English speakers is, of course, Portuguese. Another Romance language, Portuguese is spoken by hundreds of millions of people in Portugal Brazil, the Portuguese port of Goa in India, and many other places.

The one thing to be wary of is that there’s a difference in dialects. At certain times, Portuguese and Brazilian people might not understand each other, but knowing one dialect will allow you to master the other. The cultural diversity is also astonishing.

6. Indonesian

Surprise! For language enthusiasts, Indonesian is a bit of an unknown. If you are proficient in English, you will find Indonesian a great choice. Most choose to learn it because it’s one of the rare Asian languages that use a Latin script.

Furthermore, 23 million people speak it so you can utilize it in the country any way you want. There are almost no grammatical rules. For example, you don’t have to remember cases if you want to use the plural – repeat the same word twice, and you’re good to go.

7. Italian

Even though isn't as widely spoken as Portuguese or Spanish, there are 63 million native speakers, plus even more non-native speakers. Perhaps the most enticing property of Italian is that it’s the closest living relative to Latin, mostly because it’s considered its direct descendant.

A lot of Italian and English words share the same roots while the grammatical rules aren't too hard. Additionally, you will get to experience one of the most amazing cultures in the world.

8. French

French is perhaps the favorite Romance language of all English speakers. Even though it’s not easier than the others, it has a distinct sound that gives the speaker a sophisticated sound. The Norman conquest of England resulted in English and French sharing many words.

Another benefit of learning French is that it’s spoken on every continent and by an incredibly large number of people. The easy vocabulary and an incredible culture make it a popular learning choice.

9. Swahili

A bit less conventional than other languages on this list, Swahili is an excellent option for those looking to learn something different. The easiest African language, Swahili shares a lot of words with English and is used as a lingua franca between different African tribes and countries.

Many linguists have concluded that it’s one of the most logical languages in existence. If you’re looking for an interesting cultural experience, start learning Swahili.

Learning new languages is a key factor in becoming a more knowledgeable and happier person. Getting to know different cultures through these easy languages is an incredible privilege and pleasure. If you want, you can combine several and challenge yourself like never before.

Jack White is optimistic that he will carry his past success into the future. He managed to work his way up from the bottom and today he is an excellent writer who also works at EssaysScholarAdvisor in the PR department.

Pseudo-Anglicisms: Loanwords English Doesn't Need Back

A great bit of footing.

In the past, we've looked at loanwords that have made their way into English from many different languages, including Russian, Hawaiian, and Malay. Of course, plenty of languages have also borrowed English words with varying degrees of success. These words sometimes remain unchanged from the original English version and keep the same spelling and meaning. However, there are also loanwords that have nothing to do with their English incarnations, which are known as pseudo-anglicisms.

Today we're going to show you a few of our favourite words that went from English into another language and got a bit lost along the way.

If you speak German, you might be familiar with the world Air-Condition. While it's clear that this word means "air-conditioning", it still sounds very peculiar if you speak English as your first language. The same goes for shampooing in French, which is not a verb, but rather the noun for "shampoo".

French, just like Romanian, likes to use baskets to refer to trainers or sneakers, whereas Spanish and Portuguese borrowed the English word "tennis" and changed it to tenis and tênis respectively.

While basketball is quite popular, borrowing the word in its entirety is not. Several languages, including French, have taken "basket" to refer to the sport. Footing is also a popular pursuit in French, Italian and Spanish... Never heard of it? In English, we call it "jogging".

Some tents in a camping.

When you go camping, you stay in a campsite. If you go camping in a country that speaks Croatian, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, or Spanish, you stay in a camping. Do you want to park your car in a "car park" or a "parking lot"? In Arabic, Flemish, French, Swiss German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and Spanish, it can sometimes simply be called a parking.

The trend of adding the -ing suffix to English words doesn't end there. Lifting actually refers to a "facelift" in a number of different languages. Arabic, German, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, and Spanish also sometimes use marketing to refer to "advertising", which is of course related to marketing, but doesn't cover all types of marketing.

A number of a languages like to call a tuxedo or suit jacket a smoking. This comes from the English term "smoking jacket", but does away with the most important part for English speakers, with "smoking" developing its own meaning in its new language.

My last pseudo-anglicism is zapping, I absolutely love this word. It means channel-hopping or channel-surfing in Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, and Swedish and has given rise to a number of TV shows that replicate that very idea without you ever having to touch the remote!

What are your favourite pseudo-anglicisms? Are there any words from your language that English has borrowed in a nonsensical way? Tell us about them all in the comments below!

Why I Love Italian, Italians, and Italy

Continuing on from our discussion of Germany, its locals, and its language, today we're looking at the same stuff, but in Italy. While our travels didn't take us directly to Italy from Germany, we are going to skip talking about Croatia and Slovenia for now as it'll us take much longer to do these lesser-known cultures justice in the form of a post.

Venice is certainly beautiful, but it's only a small part of Italy.

Even though our time in Italy was brief, it's easy to gain a fondness for the nation, its people, and its language. Sadly, Venice was the only Italian destination on our itinerary. Fortunately, Venice was the destination on the itinerary. I've been to Italy before, so I hope Italians don't think I'm basing my entire opinion of them on one city.

The weather in Venice is certainly preferable to that of the UK. However, I try not to consider a country's geographical position in my opinion of it. That said, it's hard for a Brit not to enjoy a November day without needing a coat.

It would be silly of me to write a post on Italy without mentioning the amazing food. Sure, Venice can be expensive, but the food across the length and breadth of Italy is fantastic. It's hard to argue with the cuisine of a country that includes pizza, pasta, and gelato.

Food and weather is all well and good, but what really makes Italy is the people. I obviously haven't met every Italian in the world, but many of the Italians I've met throughout my life have been friendly, passionate, and enthusiastic.

Great people, great cuisine, great weather, and a great country are just the base of my opinion. The delicious topping is definitely the language. While Italian is not as widely spoken as Spanish, Portuguese, or French, it can easily be argued to be the "favourite son" of Latin, and easily one of my favourite languages to listen to.

While my Italian is certainly terrible, I can't help but enjoy listening to it. You don't learn to speak Italian, you learn to sing. The melody of Italian is one of the most wonderful things in the world and if you already know a Romance language, what are you waiting for? I know I can't get enough of it!

Throughout my trip I've been rediscovering a love for a number of languages. Upon my return I'm going to set about learning them. Do you speak Italian? Or do you prefer Dutch or German? Which do you think I should learn? Leave your thoughts in the comments below! Grazie!

Why I Love German, Germans, and Germany

After recently visiting the Netherlands and becoming rather fond of the country, its people, and its language as part of an ongoing railway trek around Europe, I made my way to Germany. 

My first destination in Germany was Hamburg, which I got to with relative ease despite an absence of national rail services that day due to a strike. As a Brit this amused me greatly since we're always complaining about the lacklustre rail service in our country.

I've only been fortunate enough to visit Germany once before during a previous Europe-wide expedition over half a decade ago when I visited Berlin for two nights. Despite being turned away from a club without any given reason, I enjoyed my time there. Armed with nothing but a phrasebook, I did my utmost to remember the year of German I took when I was 14 years old.

German is not one of my spoken languages and the amount I learnt in school accounts for little more than simple greetings, numbers, and how to ask for directions. Despite this, using the same outdated phrasebook and the internet, I managed to find the missing vocabulary I needed in most situations.

Much like in the Netherlands, I was lucky enough to enjoy some local hospitality. After making my way to Münster via Bremen, I sampled some fantastic German baked goods and beers, of course. From there it was a long but pleasant train journey to Munich, where I was told to prepare for a very different (in a good way) variety of German.

While making the mistake of overindulging in one of Munich's most popular pursuits, drinking, I was treated very kindly by everyone I met, who were more than willing to humour me as I attempted to speak their language, patiently listening as I horrendously butchered it.

I'll admit that I don't learn languages very well from reading verb tables, and as a result find myself eavesdropping on anyone and everyone in public spaces. Thanks to this seemingly rude practice, I'd like to debunk the myth that German is an aggressive and harsh-sounding language. While admittedly not as melodic as Italian, perhaps, I found the phonemes to be rather soothing.

I was also fascinated by the prevalence of compound nouns in German. While I had also noticed this in Dutch, in German it seemed so much more mind-boggling, perhaps due to the diacritic marks used, and therefore more interesting.

Now I'm not sure whether to learn Dutch or German upon my return home. Have you learnt or do you speak either of these languages? If so, make your case for which one I should focus on in the comments below.

Why I Love Dutch, the Dutch, and the Netherlands

Until recently, I was never a huge fan of Amsterdam and hadn't really visited anywhere else in the Netherlands (with the exception of the Efteling theme park), so I'd never really had an experience to write home about.

I'd visited Amsterdam with my parents when I was at an age when I still thought girls were disgusting. This meant that during an accidental trip into the red-light district (which is right by a beautiful church I was visiting), the view of scantily-clad prostitutes in the window made me cry.

On a later trip around Europe I ended up partaking in a small amount of Amsterdam's other popular pursuit, cannabis, and the ensuing paranoia coupled with again accidentally finding the red-light district led to a wholly unpleasant time.

As they say, the third time's the charm, and upon my arrival in Amsterdam, the first destination in a trip around Europe, I was adamant that I was going to enjoy myself and change my poor opinion of the city and, by extension, the country. I made sure to find the beautiful parts of the city and subsequently the beautiful people of the Netherlands.

Even though I was hoping to learn some Dutch and had quickly consulted a couple of web pages on the matter, when I stumbled with the longer words and seemingly endless number of vocalic phonemes, the locals were all very friendly while they put me to shame with their flawless mastery of my mother tongue.

From Amsterdam, I headed eastwards to the city of Zwolle to meet a good friend and exceptional English teacher. In Zwolle I was treated to the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the city, as well as travelling on a typically-Dutch bicycle that was kindly provided for me.

The Netherlands, and Zwolle in particular, is a wonderful place for cyclists and while it seemed odd to me that nobody wears a helmet when cycling, it became abundantly clear that with all the cycle paths, cyclist-friendly road layouts, and drivers that are very familiar with being surrounded by bikes, there was little danger of ever encountering any trouble.

I was lucky enough to be able to sit in on a couple of English lessons at the school where my friend taught and was left completely astounded by the level of English on display. The older children were discussing Jewish-American Literature and not only providing exceptional insight into the passages they had read, but doing so in impeccable English.

So it might be pretty clear that I think the Netherlands is a wonderful place, since the people were friendly and happy to converse with us in English without being upset that my Dutch is abysmal. While I don't speak Dutch and the words I know could be written on a postage stamp, I love the look, feel, and sound of the language.

One particular highlight was sitting in on a lesson on English accents. As a special guest, I was allowed to provide a sample of my finest Geordie. The children then had to ascertain, given my accent, where I came from. Sadly, they were more familiar with the accents of those on the reality tv show Geordie Shore (which I was shocked to find the Netherlands is also subjected to) than a typical Geordie accent, and struggled to pinpoint my city of origin. Nevertheless, it was an incredibly fun and eye-opening experience, putting my foreign language education in the United Kingdom to shame.

The Dutch Language

Since large portions of my time in the Netherlands were spent speaking English, I did my best to learn as much as I could about the language from native speakers while trying to pick up as much vocabulary as possible from every example of the written language.

While the phonetic differences between Dutch and English are vast, the language is similar enough to English to make my ears hone in on speech. This left me confused as my brain clearly felt it could understand the language but never quite managed.

While other languages have left their mark on the Dutch language, you can certainly tell that English and Dutch are cousins as many words have shared roots that become apparent when you hear or read them.

Despite struggling with the pronunciation of countless phonemes, I would certainly recommend learning Dutch. While you could argue that it may not vastly increase your career prospects, I found the language both beautiful and fascinating, and am very keen to learn more.

My only criticism of the whole experience is that any English speaker may find it hard to have an entire conversation in Dutch with the natives. I got the impression from the Dutch people I met that they are not only masters of English, but also very keen to use their foreign language skills. I'm sure once I reach the level of basic communication I will enjoy many wonderful conversations in Dutch, if I could just get a chance to practice!

The Etymology of Colours: Part 3

Last Wednesday and Friday, we looked at the etymologies of the colours of the rainbow. Today we're back with a few colours that people often consider, at least in film and television, to not be worthy of the term "colour".

Black

The darkest colour has had an interesting journey into the English language. While its origins are found in the Proto-Indo European (PIE) term *bhleg- which means "to burn, gleam, or flash", it inspired a number of related terms in other languages before its current incarnation in English.

The PIE word *bhleg- became the Proto-Germanic term *blakkaz meaning "burnt" and inspired the Old English term blæc, which gave us the term we use today, black. In addition to meaning "black", it also meant "ink" and "dark".

Grey

While grey is commonly considered a dull colour, its etymology is far from dull. The Proto-Germanic term for grey was *grewa-, which evolved into græg in Old English and grei in the Mercian dialect. The word's Proto-Germanic roots are also shared by terms in Dutch, German, Middle Dutch, Old High German, Old Frisian, and Old Norse.

White

While complete opposites, black and white are the oldest colour terms to have been used by humans. As a result, it's hardly surprising that the origins of white date back to PIE. The PIE term *kwid- also meant "to shine" in addition to referring to the colour. This meaning remained connected to the word as it evolved into the Old English term hwit, whose meanings of "clear", "fair", "bright", and "radiant" all point to its PIE origins.

With all the colours, hues, and shades in the world, we certainly haven't covered all the colours. If we've missed your favourite colour, please tell us its etymology in the comments below. We'll be back on Wednesday with this week's country profile.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

The Etymology of Colours: Part 2

On Wednesday we looked at the origins of words we use for colours, focusing on the first three colours of the visible light spectrum: red, orange, and yellow. Today we'll be going through the remaining colours.

Green

In Middle English and Old English, the colour green was grene. In Proto-Germanic *gronja- was the root of green, grass, and grow, as well as the root of the word for green in a number of other related languages such as Dutch, Danish, Old Frisian, Old High German, Old Norse, and Old Saxon.

Earlier, the term in Proto-Indo European (PIE) languages is thought to have been *ghre-, which means grow, since green is the colour of most vegetation.

Blue

The story of blue is fascinating. The word comes from the Old French term blo, which generally referred to a range of colours and shades including what we would now consider blues, greys, blonds, and other pale colours. The term is thought to have evolved from the Proto Germanic term *blæwaz, which gave rise to the term in a huge number of languages.

While in PIE languages the term for blue is fairly widespread, what really makes the colour fascinating is the lacunae it has left in other world languages. While in English the colours green and blue are fairly distinct, there are plenty of languages where the two colours are referred to by one term. Several languages in Asia, including Old Chinese, Old Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese did not distinguish between the two and refer to a concept of a blue-green range that doesn't really exist in English.

The term for blue is thought to be a latecomer to the vocabularies of many languages since the dye is so difficult to make, while autumnal shades such as reds, oranges, and yellows were easier to make and therefore required terms sooner.

Indigo

For many English speakers, designating the colour between blue and violet seems arbitrary and difficult to define. Its presence in the spectrum is thought to be a result of Sir Isaac Newton's superstition against the number six.

The colour chosen by Newton was none other than indigo, a term whose origins can be found in the Greek name for the colour dye which came from India. The Greek word indikon (ινδικόν) became indicum in Latin before inspiring indico in Spanish and endego in Portuguese, which are considered to be the root of the Dutch word indigo. The Dutch term entered the English language in the 16th century.

Violet

The last colour in the rainbow is violet. The term came from Old French by way of Latin where it was viola in reference to both the colour and the flower. It is thought to have come from a PIE language somewhere in the Mediterranean. During the 14th century, the term came to Middle English from the diminutive of the Old French viole.

After the weekend, we'll be back to look at the terms for some of the colours outside of the visible light spectrum.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

The Etymology of Colours: Part 1

Today we're taking a trip through the rainbow as we look at the etymology and origins of the names we use for colours. For simplicity, we're going to start today with the classic "rainbow" colours, which Sir Isaac Newton dubbed the spectrum, from the Latin for "apparition". The term later became used to reference the visible light split through a prism, another Latin word meaning "sawed", which originated as the Greek term prisma.

Red

The first colour of the rainbow has origins in several languages and unfortunately can't be traced back to one single language. The word red was written as rēad in Old English. In fact, the British surname Reed is from the Old English for red, and is pronounced in a similar manner to how it was said before vowel shortening occurred in Middle English.

Before Old English, the word was rauthaz in Proto-Germanic, from rewdʰ, a Proto-Indo European (PIE) word. As a result of this origin, a large number of languages have similar words for the colour.

Orange

The word, colour, and fruit called orange, is often subject to a large degree of debate. While many people claim that it is one of the only words that rhymes with no other word, this is not actually true. The word sporange, a sac where spores are made, is one of the few words that rhyme with it that isn't a proper noun.

Rhyming aside, there is also a debate as to whether the fruit was named because of the colour or whether the colour was named after the fruit. Etymologists consider the colour to be named after the fruit since the word's origins are from the Sanskrit word for the tree. नारङ्ग or nāraṅga made its way into Persian as نارنگ, or nārang, before reaching European languages.

While the word nārang remained fairly true to its roots in a number of European languages, when it reached Old French it is thought to have lost its initial "n" due to rebracketing, whereby the initial "n" was thought to be part of the indefinite article "une" so that "une norenge" was heard as "une orenge".

Yellow

Yellow has an interesting etymology that is similar to that of the colour red. Yellow's roots begin with PIE languages. The root of yellow in PIE has retained the same root as yell for several millennia, as both words originate from the PIE root gʰel-. This shared root has resulted in a number of European languages, particularly the Germanic languages, having similar words for yellow. The words for yellow in Dutch, East Frisian, German, Swedish, and West Frisian all have similar origins.

The term ended up in Proto-Germanic as gelwaz before it became geolu in Old English. This Old English term gave us the word we use today for yellow. However, it should be noted that in Middle English, the term also referred to colours and tones that we wouldn't consider yellow by today's standards, including a number of blue and grey colours.

We'll finish the remainder of the rainbow on Friday when we'll cover the colours with shorter wavelengths.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

The Languages of Separatists in Europe: Part 1

Yesterday Scotland went to the polls to vote on their independence from the United Kingdom. We don't write this blog to promote a political agenda, just the agenda that languages are awesome and we love them. Since there are plenty of separatist movements in Europe, we thought we'd take a look at which ones speak a language different to the prominent language or languages spoken in the country that they are seeking to separate from.

While we're trying to keep language and politics apart, you'll quickly see how difficult defining a language is when politics gets involved. For the most part, we have attempted to go with a linguistic consensus rather than a political one, but if we've slipped up and missed something, please tell us in the comments. We're not indicating that every speaker of these languages is a separatist either. Finally, we're only covering a few select separatist movement in Europe with languages that fascinate us.

Albania

Northern Epirus is part of a historical region that is currently part of Albania. The people in this region speak Greek, which as you can guess, is not the majority language of Albania. That title belongs to the Albanian language.

The canal in Brussels, a battleground for Belgium's two separatist groups.

Belgium

As you may know, Belgium has two main languages. 56% of the population speaks Dutch or Flemish, while 38% speak French. However, the "separatist" movements in Belgium have another element to them: some wish to join other countries.

The Walloons, the French-speaking inhabitants of Wallonia, have a movement to join with France or to make Wallonia its own state. On the other hand, the Flemish and Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Flanders wish to separate from Belgium and make Flanders its own state, with a small minority wishing for the region to become part of the Netherlands.

Cyprus

The separatist movement in Cyprus already has its own sovereign state, if you happen to be the Turkish government. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is primarily inhabited by the ethnically-Turkish peoples of the region and considers Turkish its official language. The region declared its independence from Cyprus in 1983, though Turkey was the only nation to recognise it.

Denmark

The Faroe Islands are inhabited by the Faroese people, who also happen to have their own language, Faroese. There are around 66,000 speakers of Faroese in the world, with nearly three quarters of them residing on the Faroe Islands.

France

It appears that almost every minority language spoken in France has its own separatist movement. The movement to make the Basque Country a sovereign nation is complicated as it is currently an international region that is part of both France and Spain. Of course, Basque, the language isolate, is the main language of this movement.

The separatist movement in Brittany has the Breton language, a Celtic language more closely related to Scottish Gaelic and Irish than the national language of France, French.

The official language of the Catalan separatism movement is Catalan, a Romance language. The proposed nation that unites Catalans in this group is made up of the Països Catalans, an international region in northeast Spain and southwest France, the Rousillon region in particular.

Germany

The Bavarians in Germany have a separatist movement to make the Freistaat Bayern its own sovereign state. The Bavarians also have a few dialects and languages of their own: Bavarian, Swabian, and East Franconian German.

East Frisia has ambitions of becoming its own nation. The native language of the region is Saterland Frisian, a language in decline with an estimated 1,000 native speakers.

Italy

There is a movement for independence on Italy's island of Sardinia. The island is home to the Sardinian language, which while being a Romance language, is incomprehensible to speakers of Italian.

Certain people in Veneto also feel the region would be better off if it was its own sovereign state. The Venetian language has around 2 million native speakers in Veneto, the surrounding regions, Slovenia, and Croatia.

Netherlands

Much like East Frisia in Germany, Frisia in the Netherlands has both a language and a separatist movement that seeks to make the region independent from the Netherlands. In addition to the Saterland Frisian language spoken in East Frisia, the Frisians in the Netherlands speak the other closely-related varieties of the Frisian language: North Frisian and West Frisian.

We'll be back after the weekend with more separatist movements and their languages. If there are any fascinating languages favored by European separatist groups that we missed, please tell us about them in the comments below.

The Best Multilingual Cities In Mexico And The Caribbean

After exploring the best multilingual cities in Europe, we headed to Canada and then onto the US in search of the best places to go for those who love languages.

Today we're heading south of the border into Mexico and then onward to the Caribbean. First stop, Tijuana...

Tijuana, Mexico - The city of Tijuana is basically San Diego's Mexican cousin. Excluding the US-Mexico border, the two cities are joined. When joined with San Diego, the conurbation is the third largest bi-national metropolitan area in the world, and is home to many Spanish and English speakers.

Whilst Tijuana may not offer the best entertainment for everyone, it certainly attracts a certain type of crowd and if that's your thing, enjoy it!

Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City

Mexico City, Mexico - The capital of Mexico, known in Spanish as Ciudad de México, was originally an Aztec city known as Tenochtitlan until Spanish settlers came along and effectively flattened the place. It is now home to nearly 9 million people and houses people from many walks of life.

Aside from the obvious presence of Spanish, there are speakers of other languages from Spain, such as Basque, Catalan, and Galician. More popular languages spoken in Mexico City include English, French, and German from Europe, Asian languages such as Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, and due to religious ethnicities, Hebrew and Arabic are also prominent.

Oranjestad, Aruba - Although Aruba is technically in South America, we've decided to include a couple of Caribbean islands in our list for today since they're not a part of the mainland and make a good place to stop off before we dive straight into the best of South America.

With Dutch and Papiamento as the official languages of Aruba, Oranjestad also has prominent numbers of English, French, and Spanish speakers. Plus it's on a Caribbean island, what more could you ask for?

Willemstad, Curaçao - The capital city of Willemstad is another multilingual city which features Dutch and Papiamento as its official languages. Willemstad also features a good number of Spanish speakers.

Tomorrow we'll be continuing our journey into South America!

The EU And Its Languages: Part 1

Since today is Europe Day, the celebration of the EU and Europe, we felt it would be an apt time to celebrate our thirst for language knowledge. Today we'll be looking at how the political entity of the EU has affected languages over the last six decades.

The Treaty of Rome was signed in this room
in the Palazzo dei Conservatori.

Our story begins with the Treaty of Rome and the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957. This helped create the earliest form of what can now be called the EU. The EEC wasn't actually the EU, but many consider it to be the precursor for it. Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands were the founding nations of the EEC.

If you're even vaguely culturally aware, you will notice that these six countries don't all speak the same language. Belgium's main languages include Flemish and French, while German is used in Germany, Italian in Italy, and French in France. It's also spoken in Luxembourg, where Flemish and Luxembourgish are also used, while Dutch and other languages we mentioned last week for Queen's Day are spoken in the Netherlands.

Four main languages from these countries were assigned official status. These were French, Italian, German and Dutch, three of which would later be considered by marketers as the most important languages in Europe, known as EFIGS (English, French, Italian, German and Spanish).

Charles de Gaulle clearly wasn't a fan
of his British neighbours.

It wasn't until 1973 that more nations joined the EEC. The United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark were added to the roster despite previous vetoes from France's president, Charles de Gaulle. As if the British and the French needed more political tension!

With their accession came English and Danish as official languages. Ireland's native language, Irish, would not be added as an official language until New Year's Day 2007.

The early 80s brought with it horrendous fashion and a galvanised music scene (some of the best and worst music is from this decade), as well as newly democratic states in the Mediterranean such as Spain, Portugal and Greece, all of which lost their dictators in the 70s.

The common agricultural policy was too good for the Mediterranean states to turn down and membership put a huge seal of approval on the fledgling democracies. Spanish, Portuguese and Greek were all added to the ever-growing list of official languages.

Having already covered all the enlargements of the EEC, tomorrow we'll be covering the history following the Maastricht Treaty, which created what we now know as the EU.

Read Part 2.

Queen's Day: The Languages Of The Netherlands

The Dutch are famous for tulips...
Not to mention another plant.

Yesterday the Netherlands crowned a new king, its first in over 100 years. It was also Queen's Day in the Netherlands, and the coronation of Willem-Alexander being held on this date was no coincidence. As of next year though, Queen's Day, or Koninginnedag in Dutch, will be moved a few days forward to Willem-Alexander's birthday, the 27th April, and appropriately renamed to Koningsdag, which of course means King's Day.

In honour of the Dutch, we thought we'd look at the languages of the Netherlands. We won't be looking at Dutch however, since we will have a language profile for it in the coming weeks. Instead, we'll take a look at some of the lesser-known "native" languages of the Netherlands.

Limburgish

With roughly 825,000 speakers, Limburgish is the second most-spoken minority language in the Netherlands. The language has no official status in Belgium or Germany, where it is also spoken, but does hold regional language status in the Netherlands.

Due to political reasons, Limburgish was not granted any official status in Belgium because it met with resistance from Flemish groups due to fears that it would weaken their political power. The Dutch were much more relaxed about the situation. Well done!

West Frisian

The language of Friesland is a Germanic language like German, English and Dutch. There are around 350,000 speakers in the Netherlands and the language holds official status in the region of Friesland.

There are also speakers of the language in Germany, where it also holds an official status. In the Netherlands the language is regulated by the Fryske Academy, whereas in Germany there is no official regulatory body.

Frisian and English were once closely related and still remain so. The only living language more closely related to English is Scots.

The Netherlands is also home to large numbers of speakers of other languages, but as we like to feature languages in their native settings, we'll save those for our language profiles or country-specific posts!

Top Language Universities: Europe

Since we've already looked at the best language universities in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia, we're now turning our eye to Europe as a whole. You don't need to study languages from within an English-speaking country... in fact, you may be better off elsewhere! We've got the best options from Europe, and if you're an EU citizen, consider these options without a visa requirement.

A graduation at Leiden University, circa 1650.

Leiden University, Netherlands

Obviously, the courses at Leiden University are in Dutch, so make sure you brush up. Leiden University is the only Dutch institution that makes our list so if you're in the Netherlands, make sure this is the place you're going.

Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany

The first German entrant on our list offers a vast range of languages and linguistics courses for all you linguaphiles out there. Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Latin are some of the many languages offered.

École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France

The first of two French universities to feature, the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris has an outstanding reputation and is in Paris, after all. If you need a reason to move to one the world's greatest cities (though some Parisians like to say otherwise), the ENS may be the right choice.

Aarhus University, Denmark

Throughout the years, Denmark has been no stranger to intellectual superiority. It is the birthplace of Lego after all. Though not in Billund, Lego's hometown, Aarhus University, unsurprisingly in Aarhus, would be a fantastic place to study languages. It should be noted that the cost of living in Denmark is rather high but most universities on this list are in cities where the cost of living can hardly be considered cheap.

University of Vienna, Austria

It's very difficult to say anything bad about Vienna, and it's even more difficult to say anything bad about the quality of the language education provided by the University of Vienna. It's also the oldest university in the German-speaking world.

Piazza Maggiore, Bologna

University of Bologna, Italy

The only Italian university on our list. If Denmark, Germany, Austria and France are too cold for you, perhaps a better climate and a highly-rated Italian university may be the one for you. It's the oldest continuous university in the world, so you can expect the quality that comes from nearly 1,000 years of educating. You can study languages including Finnish, Japanese, Dutch, and Polish.

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany

The courses at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) are taught in German, so make sure you have a good grasp of the language. The language faculty is the biggest of any of the faculties at LMU and a good range of linguistic courses are on offer.

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany

Aside from being a great place to be, Berlin boasts two of Europe's best language-learning institutions. The first, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, is just over 200 years old. That's fairly young given the heritage of some of the others universities in this list. That said, these whipper-snappers sure can teach languages!

Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

Berlin's other great university offers programmes for English, French, German, Greek, Latin, Italian and Spanish. It's also the largest research university in Berlin and even younger than the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, but don't let that put you off. It ranks higher than its older brother in this list.

The buildings at Paris IV are pretty nice, too.

Université Paris Sorbonne, Paris IV, France

Though heavily populated by German institutions, it's the French who have the last laugh when it comes to having the best university for languages. As one of the oldest universities in the world, dating back to the 13th century, Paris IV has had plenty of years to hone their trade, especially when it comes to language education.

If you're looking to study languages in Europe but you think you'd get sick of Oxbridge students, Paris IV is the place to be.

Have you attended any of the universities on our list? Are there any that you think should have been included? Tell us in the comments below.

Film Club: Césars 2013

We're now knee-deep into awards season and only days away from the Oscars, but before we get to the Academy Awards we have to pay a visit to France's Césars, so expect a lot of films in French!

Best Film

Versailles is nice when it's not being invaded by revolutionaries.

Farewell, My Queen (Les Adieux à la reine)

The French drama tells the tale of a young servant, Sidonie, who refuses to abandon Queen Marie Antoinette as the French Revolution reaches the Palace of Versailles.

Amour

The French-language film Amour has already won a BAFTA and is looking to add a few more awards to its trophy cabinet at both the Césars and the Oscars this weekend.

Camille Rewinds (Camille redouble)

The drama follows the story of Camille, a woman in the midst of a divorce who wakes from a drunken night to find herself a teenager in high school in the '80s once again. She attempts to change the course of her life and avoid her future husband, but things are never that easy.

In The House (Dans la maison)

Nominated for a Goya, In The House eventually lost out to Untouchable. It is based on the Spanish play The Boy in the Last Row by Juan Mayorga. Perhaps it will fare better tonight!

Rust and Bone (De rouille et d'os)

A film that has been getting lots of nominations, including both the BAFTAs and the Goyas. We really needn't say more. The protagonist moves to France with his son and falls in love with a killer whale trainer.

Holy Motors

A drama about a man who transcends multiple realities and lives is garnering a lot of positive praise and may very well be rewarded with a César this evening. There's not much more we can say about it except that you should probably watch it!

What's in a name (Le Prénom)

A comedy about the naming of a child. Yes, you're not mistaken... in France, comedies can get the nod for awards, even when they're about the naming of a child. The word prénom is French for "first name". What's more, the child in question isn't even born yet!

Best Foreign Film

We've covered the French and French-language films, so what are the opinions in France when it comes to films from around the world?

One of the rarest sentiments to ever be expressed on a sign.

Argo - United States

Ben Affleck's political thriller about the "Canadian Caper" has gained widespread approval and has been nominated for seven Oscars. It has already won the BAFTA for Best Film and a couple of Golden Globes. Could it add a couple of Césars to the trophy case as well?

Bullhead (Rundskop) - Belgium

This Dutch-language film is centred on the story of a young cattle farmer from Limburg. He's encouraged by a vet to make an unusual deal with a West-Flemish beef (and possibly horse-meat) trader. Everything goes awry following the murder of a policeman.

The film was nominated at last year's Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film but eventually lost to A Separation.

Laurence Anyways - Canada

The Franco-Canadian film Laurence Anyways covers the story of Fred (who happens to be a woman) and Laurence (who happens to be a man who wants to be a woman). As the film is Québécois, it will be no surprise that this is film is in French.

Oslo, August 31st (Oslo, 31. august) - Norway

This Norwegian drama covers a day in the life of Anders, a recovering drug addict, as he encounters people from his past. Ironically, the events of the film take place on August 30th. The film was also on the shortlist of Norway's submissions for the Oscars.

The Angels' Share - United Kingdom

The story of a Glaswegian man on community service who attempts to turn his life around following a visit to a whisky distillery has received favourable reviews and earned director Ken Loach the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

He may be king but his missus
is shagging another bloke.

A Royal Affair (En kongelig affære) - Denmark

The historical drama has already been nominated for a Golden Globe, where it lost to Amour, as well as being nominated for an Academy Award.

The film covers the story of Christian VII of Denmark and the romance between his Queen and the royal physician Struensee. The 1935 film The Dictator, not to be confused with the Sacha Baron Cohen film of the same name, covered the same events as A Royal Affair.

Our Children (À perdre la raison) - Belgium

The Belgian drama has already won Émilie Dequenne the Un Certain Regard Award for Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival. Though it didn't make the shortlist for the Academy Awards, it has been nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Césars. It covers the true story of a woman who killed her five children.

As we approach the end of awards season, we can look forward to the Academy Awards on Sunday night before we have to wait another year to find out what is considered good according to the upper echelons of cinematic society.

The Easiest Languages To Learn

If you're hoping to learn another language and you're lazy, busy or just don't want to overexert yourself, we have a list of a few of the languages considered to be the easiest for speakers of English to learn.

Dutch

Often rated as the easiest language for any English speaker, Dutch enjoys a lexicon with many similarities to English. These Germanic languages share a large number of cognates, and unlike the French, the Dutch haven't resisted the adoption of English words, which makes your job that much easier! They also share similar stress and intonation patterns as well as sound systems. Best of all, Dutch is said to have simple and consistent spelling rules, unlike our ridiculous language. Just think about the English words knife and through.

Norwegian

Some argue that Norwegian is much easier for English speakers to learn than other Germanic languages. It also has many lexical similarities. Its grammar is easier to learn, plus its word order is more similar to that of English than Dutch or German, for example. Norwegian is also full of words that are not quite the same, but with a bit of creative thought you can uncover their meaning. A great example is snikskytter. Try saying it out loud, and you might find that it sounds a bit like "sneakshooter"... and what is the English word for a person who shoots sneakily? An assassin. Fun, right?

Learning Norwegian will also give you an excuse
to visit Norway and see its beautiful fjords!

French

Since the Normans came to Britain and started throwing their words all over the place, English has taken on board many words of either Latin or French origin. The shared lexicon means that a good number of French words will already be familiar to English speakers. Especially if you like food.

Afrikaans

Dutch's cousin in Africa is supposedly very easy for English speakers. Both Dutch and Afrikaans share a good number of similarities with English. In fact, the sentence "my pen was in my hand" is written exactly the same in Afrikaans and means exactly the same thing. It is, of course, pronounced differently.

There's no gender in Afrikaans either, so that makes it a little easier than Romance languages.

Spanish

Fans of Rolf Harris will enjoy the "say what you see" approach to the orthography of Spanish. Rarely does a word not sound how it looks. If you learn how to say each letter, you can pretty much say every word you come across. It makes it very easy for understanding people when they speak Spanish as well, with the added bonus that you'll immediately be able to spell any word they say and jot it into a notebook to look up or use later.

Drinking sangria will make the learning process
much more enjoyable as well!

If you haven't worked it out, there's a pattern here. The more similar a language is to your native tongue (in this case English), the easier it is to learn. Stick with any language similar to your own and you're on for an easy ride. If English is your native tongue, your best bet is to learn either a Germanic language (such as Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and German) or a Romance language (such as Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian). English speakers are lucky to have so many options given the great number of similarities shared between Germanic and Romance languages in the past!

Endonyms And Exonyms: When In Roma

Did you spend your summer in Rome or Roma? Paris or Paree? Why are there different names for places? You wouldn't translate your own name... unless you're a pretentious arse, of course!

This is the Piazza Venezia in Roma. Or is it Venice Square in Rome?

In linguistics we have endonyms and exonyms. If you recall high school chemistry you may remember endothermic and exothermic. Endo being inner and exo being outer. If not, you've just learnt something!

So an endonym is an "inner name" (the -onym being "name" or "word"... the second o is omitted for simplicity), it's what the locals call a place. An exonym is the opposite, the "outer name", as it is known to foreigners, outsiders or in different languages. A simple example is England. In England it's called England, obviously, but in France it's called Angleterre. Countries generally have several exonyms.

This is England when it really was Angleterre...
land of the Angles.

If your hometown has an exonym, you should consider yourself lucky. It suggests that the place was important enough for foreign people to talk about it and create their own word for it. French to English examples of exonyms include: Londres (London), Edimbourg (Edinburgh).

We have exonyms in English for Rome (Roma), Seville (Sevilla) and Munich (München) as well as many, many others.

Proximity appears to help create exonyms. French has a lot of exonyms for places in Spain. Barcelone (Barcelona) is in Catalogne (Catalonia, which is Catalunya in Catalan and Cataluña in Spanish). Lisboa is Lisbon in English. Due to pronunciation differences, many French places are spelt differently in Spanish. Whereas Tolosa for Toulouse comes from the original endonym in Occitan.

Endonyms and exonyms are not necessarily restricted to languages. Monolingual examples include Blighty as an endonym for England. It's not commonly used by Americans, Australians, Canadians, South Africans or pretty much anyone else who speaks English.

Our personal favourite, the Toon, is a nickname commonly used by residents of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne (also known as Geordies) for both their hometown and football team. Although technically a nickname, it's used so frequently as the proper noun by the locals that it could and should be considered an endonym.

Some exonyms are similar to their corresponding endonyms, due to a simple case of being misheard or butchered. Sometimes they are translations of the meaning of the word, such as United Kingdom being Royaume Uni in French, and sometimes, in the unfortunate case of Germany, they're seemingly unrelated.

We're not going back to calling it perfume!

Germany (Deutschland in German) only really has similarities in Dutch and a few other Germanic languages. Across the Romance languages, however, it's known as Allemagne in French, Alemania in Spanish, Germania in Italian and Alemanha in Portuguese. At least Germans can take solace in the fact that they've probably been called far worse!