Quote of the week: 27 Dec 2014
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language, And next year’s words await another voice.” T.S. Eliot
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Why I’m Learning Slovak in January
Today we’ve got a guest post from Charlotte Donnelly, who’s taking part in the uTalk challenge this January, on why she chose to learn Slovak. Charlotte also has a fantastic blog of her own, all about her language adventures.
When I decided I wanted to do this challenge, I went through the uTalk app and looked at all of the languages that are on offer – but I didn’t spend a long time deciding. I’ve studied a few languages before, so I didn’t want to pick any of those; and there are some languages on the app that look really exciting, but I didn’t want to learn anything I wouldn’t be able to use soon, either.
So, why Slovak? Well, at the end of October I visited Bratislava for the first time with my friends and absolutely fell in love with the place, the people, the food… However, it was one of the few trips I’ve made where I knew nothing of the language. Obviously, a lot of people in Bratislava speak good English, but it felt a little odd to me, to not understand what was going on or to be able to explain myself.
Conveniently, I’m living in Vienna at the moment, so I’m lucky enough to have Bratislava (and the rest of Slovakia) more or less right on my doorstep – the capital is an hour away by train, so I can visit when I like. Plus, I’m excited to learn a Slavic language for the very first time! If this challenge ends up setting me off on a 2015 quest to learn Slovak, then so much the better – I’m really looking forward to it.
Who else is doing the challenge?
Charlotte
@luna_moonsilver
xuexisprachen.wordpress.com
If you’d like to share your own reasons for choosing a particular language, we’d love to hear from you, so please drop us an email!
Why I’m learning Romanian in January
In case Liz, Steve and Nat think we’re letting them have all the fun, I thought I’d chip in with my reasons for taking part in the EuroTalk New Year uTalk challenge!
I initially thought about learning Welsh, as I was born in Wales, so I thought it’d be a nice way to re-connect with my roots. However, having been informed that Welsh wasn’t added to uTalk yet (although it will be soon!), I ended up changing my mind, and decided on Romanian for my language.
So why did I choose Romanian? Well, I have to say the main reason is that I can try out my newly learned phrases on our reception superstar, Ioana! Everyone in the EuroTalk office knows that I like learning random words and phrases in their language and trying them out. I always like to greet Ioana with ‘noroc’ (cheers) if we have a drink together, but I thought perhaps I could manage a little better than that and at least add some basic conversational phrases to my repertoire.
Plus, I’m hoping that I can make a trip to Romania in the not too distant future, and would definitely like to be able to get around without embarrassing myself too much.
How about you? Which language will you be learning this new year?
Alex
Can uTalk a new language in one month?
Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends in the USA, and around the world! Before we know it, it’ll be Christmas, and then we’ll be into 2015. Time flies!
Here in the EuroTalk office, we enjoy a bit of healthy competition, and with the new year approaching, we’ve decided it’s a good time to take some of our own advice and try learning a new language, using our uTalk app. We’ll all be taking on different languages, and competing against each other to see who can learn the most in the 31 days of January. What could possibly go wrong?
The rules are simple:
1. The winner will be the first person to score maximum points on uTalk in the language of their choice, or the person with the highest score on 31st January.
2. The language chosen can’t be one we already speak.
3. Competitors must start from zero points on 1st January.
4. To join the challenge, we’ll need to have access to an iPhone or iPad with the free uTalk app installed.
Through regular check-ins, we’ll be keeping an eye on and reporting our progress both here and on our Facebook and Twitter, and we hope you’ll be there too, cheering us on.
If you fancy taking up the uTalk challenge for yourself, we’ll be very glad of the company, so drop us an email with the language you’ve chosen, and we’ll send you over a code to unlock the Essentials upgrade (worth £6.99) so you can get started completely free on January 1st.
And in the meantime why not let your friends know which language you’re planning to learn? (There are 100 to choose from, but don’t panic – you’ve got a month to think about it!)
So far, our competitors include:
Ioana, who’ll be learning French
Nat, taking on Icelandic
Steve, who fancies a go at Thai
Al, tackling Chinese (Mandarin)
Symeon, who’s torn between Greek and Turkish
… and Liz, who took a while to decide but eventually settled on German.
Wish us luck!
