Going travelling? You might even have a chance to put your new language to use before you get off the plane. A clever pilot, with the help of his passengers, managed to thwart a hijacking attempt. He realised when talking to the hijacker that he didn’t speak French, despite trying to force the plane to [...]
Posts under ‘Funny’
Love and language learning
97% of woman would learn a language to better communicate with a partner according to research by Rosetta Stone software company. How many men? 71%.
However, how many men would learn a language to impress a partner on a romantic getaway? 64% compared to only 22% of women.
Who would have thought that men would put being romantic [...]
Culturally insensitive, but funny
Check out this post, and the subsequent Catherine Tate video. Osman talks about the differences in the tonality and expression of other languages as highlighted in the video. So what does English sound like to other people? Where are the videos making fun of English accents for non-English speakers? If anyone’s seen one, let me [...]
When language use goes bad
When language falls into the wrong hands it can be used for pure evil. Ok, so maybe that’s a little extreme but language can definitely be misused to the speakers benefit. Take a few examples from the article below:
The debate over the national language turned into a debate about what to actually call the “national [...]
And then I just feel pride for my country
At the same time as the US tries to ban other languages. New Zealand goes and takes a step forward by trying to include the Maori language on road signs. It was all sparked off by a school principal trying to use the Maori word for bus, ‘Kura’, on their school buses.
The problem is that the [...]
The language of elephants
Every wondered how elephants dated? Well, you’re not the only one and some folks have got together to figure the whole thing out. Since 1999 the Elephant Listening Project has been, funnily enough, listening to elephants.
They’ve learned that elephants use infrasonic calls – calls too low in frequency to be heard by the human ear [...]
Chinglish to be banned from Beijing Olympics
I found this article a while ago and use it for a laugh in my English classes. For those that don’t know, Chinglish is when Chinese gets poorly translated into English. It’s quite prevalent when you’re travelling round China and always amusing. Here is the BBC article about the preparation for the Beijing Olympics and also [...]
Lithuanian Frank Zappa fan club
Adding to the power of music I was talking about last week, even in a different language, is the story of the Frank Zappa fan club in Lithuania. If you visit Vilnius, you will see the only sculpture erected in celebration of the musician. The following article will tell you the entire story and I recommend stopping [...]
Cultural differences
Ok, so how truly liberal is your country? Would you ever find a politician, an elected politician even, with quite high standing in the party, pose nude? I was quite shocked when I saw this had happened in Spain, and the most amazing thing? No-one cares. It was a story that lasted one day. The [...]
When languages mix…badly
Words are often taken from other languages and imported into your own, sometimes with funny results. In Mexico, I’ve been told that it’s become increasing common to say “vacunar la carpeta.” Now to English speakers, you might not be surprised by this, thinking it simply means to “vacuum the carpet” and that is indeed what [...]