Monday, November 11, 2013

Official languages of the Philippines

The official languages of the Philippines are Filipino and English.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Nouns in Greek

Nouns in Greek are either masculine, feminine, or neuter.

Official language of Greece

The official language of Greece is Greek.

Portuguese word televisão

You may already know the Portuguese word televisão. It is spelled television in English.

Portuguese alphabet

The Portuguese alphabet has 26 letters.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

Case distinction in Arabic

Arabic does not have a case distinction. There are no upper or lower case letters.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Polyglot

A polyglot is someone who can speak several languages.

Bilingual

A bilingual person is someone who speaks two languages fluently.

Official language of Turkey

The official language of Turkey is Turkish.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

North Germanic languages

North Germanic languages are known as Scandinavian languages. They are from Europe. Some of them are Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish.

Germanic languages

Germanic languages are from Europe. They are divided into North, West, and East Germanic. East Germanic languages are now extinct. Germanic languages have over 400 million speakers. Some of them are English, German, Danish, Swedish, and Dutch.

West Germanic languages

West Germanic languages are from Europe. Some of them are German, English, and Dutch.

Romance languages

The Romance languages are known as the Latin languages; languages that are from Latin. Some of them are Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Dutch word blauw

You may already know the Dutch word blauw. It is a color. It is spelled blue in English.

Dutch word banaan

You may already know the Dutch word banaan. It is a fruit. It is spelled banana in English.

Dutch word peer

You may already know the Dutch word peer. It is a fruit. It is spelled pear in English.

Dutch word appel

You may already know the Dutch word appel. It is a fruit. It is spelled apple in English.

Nouns in Dutch

Nouns in Dutch are either masculine or feminine.

Cyrillic script

The Cyrillic script is a writing system that is based on Early Cyrillic. The Belarusian language, Russian, Ukrainian, and many other languages use it.

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Aspirated letters

Aspirated letters are sounded with a puff of air when you make the sound.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Hangul syllabic block rule

Every Hangul syllabic block must have at least one consonant and one vowel.

Kanji kun’yomi reading

The kanji kun'yomi reading is the Japanese reading that closely approximates the meaning of the Chinese character; a Japanese equivalent word to that meaning would get associated with that character. As with on'yomi, there can be multiple kun'yomi readings for the same kanji. Some kanji may have no kun'yomi readings.

Kanji on’yomi reading

The kanji on’yomi reading is the Chinese reading of the character; the original sounds they make in the Chinese language at the time the character was introduced. The sound is also based on the area it was imported from. Since Japanese and Chinese languages have different sounds, the sounds that Japan gave to these characters are a close approximation of the original Chinese pronunciation. Some kanji were introduced from different parts of China at different times, and they have multiple on'yomi readings. They many also have different meanings. Almost all of the kanji characters have on'yomi readings except for most of the kanji that were developed in Japan.

Writing Hangul

The Korean Hangul alphabet is written in syllabic blocks. Each block must have at least two letters.

Monday, June 3, 2013

Top five languages

The top five languages by total number of speakers are: Mandarin Chinese, English, Spanish, Hindi, and Arabic.

Russian speakers

Russian has over 250 million speakers worldwide.

English speakers

English has over one billion speakers worldwide.

Mandarin Chinese speakers

Mandarin Chinese has almost 1.3 billion speakers worldwide.

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Chosongul

In North Korea, the Korean alphabet Hangul is called Chosongul.

Korean script

The Korean alphabet Hangul can be translated to mean "Korean script" or "great script".

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Hanzi

The Chinese characters are called hanzi. They are logograms used in the writing of the Chinese language.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Official language of Honduras

The official language of Honduras is Spanish.

Official language of Cuba

The official language of Cuba is Spanish.

Official language of Guatemala

The official language of Guatemala is Spanish.

Official language of Colombia

The official language of Colombia is Spanish.

Official language of the Dominican Republic

The official language of the Dominican Republic is Spanish.

Official language of Panama

The official language of Panama is Spanish.

Official language of Uruguay

The official language of Uruguay is Spanish.

Official language of Nicaragua

The official language of Nicaragua is Spanish.

Official language of Chile

The official language of Chile is Spanish.

Official language of Ecuador

The official language of Ecuador is Spanish.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Nouns in Ukrainian

Nouns in Ukrainian are either masculine, feminine, or neuter.

Nouns in Swedish

Nouns in Swedish are either common or neuter.

Nouns in Portuguese

Nouns in Portuguese are either masculine or feminine.

Nouns in Polish

Nouns in Polish are either masculine, feminine, or neuter.

Monday, May 27, 2013

Nouns in Korean

Nouns in Korean do not have any grammatical gender.

Nouns in Japanese

Nouns in Japanese do not have any grammatical gender.

Nouns in Italian

Nouns in Italian are either masculine or feminine.

Nouns in Hindi

Nouns in Hindi are either masculine or feminine.

Nouns in German

Nouns in German are either masculine, feminine, or neuter.

Nouns in French

Nouns in French are either masculine or feminine.

Nouns in Russian

Nouns in Russian are either masculine, feminine, or neuter.

Nouns in English

Nouns in English do not have any grammatical gender.

Nouns in Chinese

Nouns in Chinese do not have any grammatical gender.

Nouns in Arabic

Nouns in Arabic are either masculine or feminine.

Mandarin Chinese tones

In Mandarin Chinese, there are four tones. The examples for the Chinese word ma are below.

In the first tone, mā means mother
In the second tone, má means hemp
In the third tone, mǎ means horse
In the fourth tone, mà means scold

When there is no tone mark, it is sometimes referred to as a neutral tone or fifth tone. If there is no tone mark, ma means a question.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Official language of Egypt

The official language of Egypt is Arabic.

Official languages of Kenya

The official languages of Kenya are Swahili and English.

Official language of Ukraine

The official language of Ukraine is Ukrainian.

Official language of Spain

The official language of Spain is Spanish.

Official languages of India

The official languages of India are Hindi and English.

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Latin script

The Latin script is a writing system that is based on the classical Latin alphabet. The English language, French, German, Italian, and many other languages use it.

Simplified and traditional Chinese characters

Simplified and traditional Chinese characters are two sets of Chinese logographic characters. In the 1950s and 1960s, a number of characters were simplified by the Chinese government. This was done in order to make them easier to learn. The traditional Chinese characters require more strokes to write than the simplified ones. Taiwan and Hong Kong though still use the traditional Chinese characters.

Pinyin

Pinyin is the system for transcribing the sound of Chinese characters into the Latin script alphabet.

Chinese characters

The Chinese language does not have an alphabet. It uses Chinese characters (hanzi) which are logograms. These number in the tens of thousands. Only a few thousand though are necessary for reading.

Dutch alphabet

The Dutch alphabet has 26 letters.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

Swedish alphabet

The Swedish alphabet has 29 letters.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, Å, Ä, Ö

Polish alphabet

The Polish alphabet has 32 letters. There are 23 consonants and 9 vowels.

A, Ą, B, C, Ć, D, E, Ę, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, Ł, M, N, Ń, O, Ó, P, R, S, Ś, T, U, W, Y, Z, Ź, Ż,

Italian alphabet

The Italian alphabet has 21 letters. There are 16 consonants and 5 vowels.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, Z

Hebrew alphabet

The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters. They are all consonants.

Hebrew is written right to left

The Hebrew language is written from right to left, not left to right.

German alphabet

The German alphabet has 26 letters.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

French alphabet

The French alphabet has 26 letters.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

Arabic alphabet

The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters.

غ ,ظ ,ض ,ذ ,خ ,ث ,ت ,ش ,ر ,ق ,ص ,ف ,ع ,س ,ن ,م ,ل ,ك ,ي ,ط ,ح ,ز ,و ,ه ,د ,ج ,ب ,أ

Friday, May 24, 2013

Italian word spaghetti

You may already know the Italian word spaghetti. It is a long and thin pasta.

Korean word taekwondo

You may already know the Korean word taekwondo. It is a Korean martial art.

Spanish alphabet

The Spanish alphabet has 27 letters.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, Ñ, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

Nouns in Spanish

Nouns in Spanish are either masculine or feminine.

Spanish vowels

The strong vowels are A, E, O. The weak vowels are I, U.

Spanish language spacing

The Spanish language has spaces between words.

English alphabet

The English alphabet has 26 letters. There are 21 consonants and 5 vowels.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

English language spacing

The English language has spaces between words.

Japanese language spacing

The Japanese language does not have spaces between words.

Chinese language spacing

The Chinese language does not have spaces between words.

Korean language spacing

The Korean language has spaces between words.

Russian alphabet

The Russian alphabet has 33 letters. It uses the Cyrillic script.

А, Б, В, Г, Д, Е, Ё, Ж, З, И, Й, К, Л, М, Н, О, П, Р, С, Т, У, Ф, Х, Ц, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ъ, Ы, Ь, Э, Ю, Я

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Mandarin Chinese native speakers

Mandarin Chinese has almost one billion native speakers.

English native speakers

English has over 350 million native speakers.

Learning Japanese language

The best learn order for learning the Japanese language is: hiragana, katakana, and then kanji. Romaji is also sometimes used at first for non-speakers of the language.

Dakuten and handakuten

Dakuten (also called ten-ten ("dot dot") and handakuten (also called maru ("circle") are two signs that are used in the Japanese kana syllabaries hiragana and katakana to change the sounds of some of the characters. They are written after the character. Ten-ten is used more than maru.
An example is the katakana character ha.
It becomes ba with ten-ten added. It becomes pa with maru added.

Romaji

Using the Latin script alphabet to write Japanese is called romaji in Japan. Romaji is used for non Japanese speakers who can't read kanji or the kana scripts hiragana and katakana. It is used in dictionaries and textbooks and other places. It is also used to input text into computers.

Kanji

Kanji are adopted logographic (logograms are visual symbols that represent a part of a word or whole word) Chinese characters which are used in the Japanese language along with hiragana and katakana. Several thousand kanji are in regular use in Japan.

Japanese language scripts

The Japanese language uses two syllabic scripts; hiragana and katakana. These are known as kana and are modified Chinese characters. Kanji is also used. Kanji are adopted logographic Chinese characters. Several thousand kanji are in regular use in Japan. The Latin script alphabet is also used. Using the Latin script alphabet to write Japanese is called romaji in Japan. Romaji is used for non-Japanese speakers who can't read kanji or the kana scripts hiragana and katakana. It is used in dictionaries and textbooks and other places. It is also used to input text into computers.

Hiragana and katakana

The hiragana script is more curvy, the katakana script is more angular.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Official language of China

The official language of China is Standard Chinese. This is also known as Mandarin or Modern Standard Chinese.

Dialect

A dialect is a regional speech pattern of a language.

American Sign Language

American Sign Language is a language used by the deaf. It uses signs made by the hands along with facial expressions and posture. The language has a hand and finger position for every letter in the English language. It is mostly used in the United States and Canada.

Grammar

Grammar are rules that govern a language.

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language.

Official languages of Canada

The official languages of Canada are English and French.

Most Spanish speakers

Mexico has the most number of Spanish speakers in the world.

Official language of Brazil

The official language of Brazil is Portuguese.

Official language of Russia

The official language of Russia is Russian.

Official language of North Korea

The official language of North Korea is Korean.

Official language of South Korea

The official language of South Korea is Korean.

Official language of the United States

The United States does not have an official language, but English is the most spoken language followed by Spanish.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Hangul

The Korean alphabet is known as Hangul. It was invented in 1443.

Korean alphabet

The Korean alphabet has 24 letters. There are 14 consonants and 10 vowels.

Hello in Arabic

Hello in Arabic is مرحبا marhaban (mar ha ban).

Hello in Russian

Hello in Russian is privet (pre vyet).

Hello in Hebrew

Hello in Hebrew is shalom (sha lom).

Hello in German

Hello in German is hallo (hal lo).

Hello in French

Hello in French is salut (sa lu).

Hello in Spanish

Hello in Spanish is hola (o la).

Hello in Italian

Hello in Italian is ciao (chow).

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Hello in Polish

Hello in Polish is cześć (chye shch).

Hello in Chinese

Hello in Chinese is nǐ hǎo (nee haoww).

Hello in Swedish

Hello in Swedish is hej (hey).

Friday, March 22, 2013

Modern Standard Arabic

Modern Standard Arabic is used today in newspapers, magazines, television, modern literature, and formal speech. Modern Standard Arabic is easier than Classical Arabic. Modern Standard Arabic is based on the Classical Arabic language.

Classical Arabic

Classical Arabic is the language of the Quran. It is used in older literary texts. It is mostly a written language today than a spoken one. Classical Arabic is harder than Modern Standard Arabic. Modern Standard Arabic is the Arabic language in use today. It is based on the Classical Arabic language.

Official language of Germany

The official language of Germany is German.

Official language of France

The official language of France is French.

French phrase déjà vu

You may already know the French phrase déjà vu. It means already seen.

Spanish question mark

In questions, the question mark in Spanish is used at the beginning and end of sentences. ¿Qué hora es?

German word kindergarten

You may already know the German word kindergarten. It means children's garden.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Spanish language in UN

Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. The others are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, and Russian.

Russian language in UN

Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. The others are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, and Spanish.

French language in UN

French is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. The others are Arabic, Chinese, English, Russian, and Spanish.

English language in UN

English is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. The others are Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish.

Chinese language in UN

Chinese is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. The others are Arabic, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.

Arabic language in UN

Arabic is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. The others are Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.

Arabic is written right to left

The Arabic language is written from right to left, not left to right.

Arabic question mark

The question mark in Arabic is mirrored and looks like ؟

Arabic comma

The comma in Arabic is mirrored and looks like ،

Vowels

Vowels are sounds produced with an open vocal tract.

First language

A first language is a language that a person has learned from when they were born. A first language is also called a native language.

Native language

A native language is a language that a person has learned from when they were born. A native language is also called a first language.