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Articles by Babbel Bytes
Celebrating a Milestone in Spelling History: Babbel Speaks to America’s Oldest Spelling Bee Champion
In 1954, a Norristown, Pennsylvania, eighth grader clinched victory with the word “transept’”at the 27th Scripps Spelling Bee Championships (held that year in Washington, D.C.).
The Role Of Social Impact At Babbel
At Babbel, we’re not just about business, we’re also about making a difference. The Babbel app itself strives to make a positive social impact in countries around the world, but we believe in going the extra mile. Thus, we have a devoted group of people who make up the Impact Team. This team is the embodiment of our corporate commitment to positive social engagement and sustainability.
The verbs ser and estar are notorious for giving Spanish learners a bit of trouble. Not only are they two of the most common Spanish verbs in existence, but they also don’t have similar counterparts in English. They both translate to the same verb: “to be.” Depending on the context, then, one English word can be translated entirely differently. The verbs in “She is tall.” and “She is tired.” are not the same. The good news is that the two “to be”s are not random.
Maybe you want to learn a language, but you don’t want to give up your social life by attending an evening class. Or you’d rather not spend an arm and a leg on a private tutor who’s determined to teach you according to his rules. So what’s the alternative? Is there a way for you to learn a language on your own time, learning topics that you want to learn? (Spoiler alert: Yes, there is.) One of the best ways to learn is to take control of your language learning journey.
Ramadan is a holy month in the Islamic lunar calendar. It is important to Muslims all over the world, and many observe it by fasting from sunrise until sunset. People who observe the fast may wake up before dawn to eat early, before abstaining from food and water until sunset. Then, at sunset, Muslims will break their fast, which is an occasion for family, friends and the community to get together.
What does it mean to have an American accent? The United States is a very large country, and there are a lot of people in it. Should an American sound like a midwestern newscaster? Or maybe have a strong southern twang? Or perhaps the American accent is located in the r-less cities of Boston and New York. As you can probably guess from these questions, to find out what people from the United States sound like, you have to explore multiple American accents.
California, if you didn’t know, is a very big state. It has the largest population of any state in the United States, and it’s the third biggest based on geographic size. And yet, if you asked someone what a Californian accent sounds like, there’s a good chance they’ll answer with something that sounds a bit like the voice in Moon Zappa’s “Valley Girl.” You’ve probably heard Valley girl, which is the stereotyped speech of upper-middle class teenage women who live on the outskirts of Los Angeles.
The Midwest is often treated by the coastal states as though it were one massive, homogeneous flatland. This isn’t true of course. The 12 states (more or less) that make up the Midwest are a unique tapestry, and they have the linguistic diversity to reflect that fact. To be fair, the Midwestern accent used to be pretty much the same throughout the region.
You probably have an idea of what a Southern accent sounds like. Southerners have a drawl, they say “y’all” and maybe even “howdy.” Surely not everyone in the South talks this way, but most of us are aware of the fact that Southerners don’t speak the same way as Northerners. But what is the Southern accent? You may have heard it a hundred times, but not really know what it is or where it comes from.
Ask yourself: Do you have an accent? If you said yes, it’s probably because you’ve encountered people who go up to you and say, “Hey, you have an accent.” If you said no, well — you’re wrong. There is a reason you might think that way, though, and that’s because of an accent commonly called General American. To dispel a common misconception: everyone has an accent, even those who think they don’t. Don’t believe us?
Announcing The Winner Of The Punniest Shop Name In The UK Contest
To celebrate a peculiarly British form of linguistic wordplay, Babbel launched a nationwide search to crown the punniest shop name in the United Kingdom at the end of 2023. Babbel’s linguists scoured the internet and social media to compile a shortlist of the top 120 most-shared shop pun names divided by region — from Scotland to the South East and West coast — and put it to the public to vote for their national and regional favourites.
AWS Lambda Runtime Migration: One Step Back, Two Steps Forward
The dynamic field of software engineering compels us to adapt and grow constantly. When the time arrived to update our Lambda functions from Node.js v14 to v18 and transition from AWS’s aws-sdk v2 to v3, we set out on an exciting journey filled with many learning opportunities. Using a phased approach, we effectively minimized the disruption while notably enhancing the performance.
Farewell Elmer And Wilma: The Once-Popular U.S. Baby Names That Went Extinct
“What’s in a name?” as the famous Shakespeare quote goes. But naming trends can actually provide a fascinating window into different cultures and time periods, revealing which influences were most impactful on new parents’ name choices at the time.
5 Tips To Learn Swedish From A Polyglot
Swedish is one of the easier languages for an English native speaker to learn, with a lot of vocabulary and grammar in common. Still, there are some tricky components, from the melodic rhythm to complicated compounds.
Language Learning Tips For Travel: Your Guide to Navigating Other Tongues
Travel can be an exhilarating whirlwind, with new sights, flavors and cultures to take in. But it can also be a trial by fire when you’re faced with obstacles that aren’t in your native language. From figuring out directions to ordering a meal or conversing with locals, the ability to communicate in the local language can be a game-changer for your travel experience. Here’s a quick guide to learning for travel. When Should I Start Learning A Language Before Travel?
Babbel Launches Search To Find Lost Gold Medal Awarded To America’s First Spelling Bee Champion
To coincide with this year’s Scripps Spelling Bee, Babbel is challenging Americans to search garages and attics to rediscover a lost piece of the nation’s cultural and race-relations history: the gold medal awarded to Marie C. Bolden, a 13-year-old African-American girl from Ohio, who in 1908 became champion of the first national Spelling Bee, causing outrage among racist politicians and the educational establishment.
Who Invented The First Printing Press?
The printing press ushered in one of the greatest shifts in human society. Finally, you could disseminate texts and ideas without relying on a monastery filled with scribes, who labored for hours simply to make a few copies of the Bible. It was the first in a long line of technologies that have helped globalize the world, for better or worse. If you were raised in an English-speaking school, you’ve probably heard one name associated with this marvelous device: Johannes Gutenberg.
A Guide To German Pronouns And How To Use Them
What kind of pronouns does German have? How and when are they used? This article has the answers to your questions. Pronouns, at their simplest, are words that replace a name or a noun to avoid repetition when used alongside multiple verbs. They’re a relatively small group of words, but like conjunctions and articles, they’re used all the time. German, like any other language (including English), has different types of pronouns: personal, possessive, reflexive, relative, demonstrative and many more.
The 10 Most Useful French Sayings For Everyday Life
There’s the French you learn in a textbook, and then there’s the French you learn from your new work friends after a couple drinks. Whether you’re trying to impress the locals or simply pepper your speech with some cute French sayings, here are a few phrases you’ll have plenty of chances to use in real life. French Expressions To Keep In Your Back Pocket 1.
Pig Latin, Dog Latin And The World Of Non-Latin ‘Latin’ Codes
Trying to mask your message or disguise your dialogue? Pig Latin is here to elp-hay. May 24, 2023 Ou-day ou-yay ow-knay at-whay is-thay ays-say? That might look like alien gobbledygook to the unfamiliar eye. But if you’ve ever played word games with kids or needed to communicate more covertly than usual, you might recognize this argot called Pig Latin.
How To Say ‘Cheers!’ In 10 Languages
Avoid seven years of bad luck, and some social awkwardness, by learning how to toast all over the world. Eating together is perhaps one of the most social activities there is, whether it be grabbing coffee with a friend or sitting down to a holiday dinner with the whole family. It only makes sense, then, that meals have also spawned a slew of traditions. One of the most widespread of these traditions is the toast. Not the burned bread kind, but the one where everyone clinks glasses.
Family Glossary: Defining The Different Ways We Live Together
A family can be many things. While there are certain “traditional” definitions of family — usually two parents and their children — the fact is that the concept of a nuclear family has always been limiting. A family can be one parent, three parents, a mixture of generations or even a group of people with no blood relations at all. It can differ from culture to culture, but even if you look at a single time and place, it’s unlikely every family will be organized the same way.
10 Argentinian Expressions That Define The Country
After several months away from Argentina, these expressions make me feel most at home. May 8, 2023 Being in a different country for a long time makes you think about your hometown more than you realize. For some, that might look like a certain outspoken pride in your home country, or a nostalgia for the things you miss. Whether you’re homesick or just interested in Argentinian culture, let’s take a look at the most common Argentinian words and expressions that will make you feel at home.
Where Do English Words Come From?
If you know anything at all about language and the way it evolves, then you know that there are no thoroughbred languages in existence — only mutts of varying degrees. English may belong to the Germanic language family, but it contains a multitude of words that come from French, Italian, Spanish, Greek and beyond. English word origins are far, and they are many. A brief synopsis of the history of English will tell you why. In the very beginning, there was Common Brittonic, spoke by British Celts.
How Does The Perfect Tense Work In Italian?
Learn to conjugate one of Italian’s past tenses. May 1, 2023 The Italian perfect tense is non-negotiable. You just can’t skip around it. In Italian, it’s called il passato prossimo. It’s used to talk about an action that happened recently or that still has a bearing on the present. Decided to learn Italian? Learn how to conjugate the Italian perfect tense below.
Here’s Why Storytelling Is One Of The Most Effective Ways To Learn A Language
Think back to when you were first learning your own native language. Your parents, teachers and caregivers probably ran their fair share of alphabet drills with you, yes. But for the most part, you learned through stories. Stories before bed, stories during preschool and stories in children’s books that you could follow along with if the adult reading to you traced the words with their finger.
Commemorating Haitian Heritage Month With The Le Flambeau Foundation
May is Haitian Heritage Month, a yearly celebration of Haiti’s history and diaspora. Throughout the month, communities hold events that laud Haiti and its descendants around the world. To mark the occasion, Babbel is highlighting its collaboration with the Le Flambeau Foundation, an organization that provides educational scholarships and programming to youth in Haiti, with an emphasis on English learning.
Would It Be Better To Learn A New Language Like A Child Does?
It might seem like children are natural language learners, but it’s not so simple. Learning a new language takes time, a good amount of effort, usually some money and sometimes a bit of nerve. It’d be much better and faster to learn like a child: somewhat passively and without having to really do a thing. “Intuitive” is the magic word here. But can language acquisition from a certain age really go as well as it would for someone who’s learning their first language? And do we even want that?
Hilarious French Animal Idioms You Should Learn
“As bored as a dead rat” and other weird and wonderful idioms. April 13, 2023 I remember vividly the first time I heard one of my favorite French animal idioms. I was sitting in a friend’s garden in the south-west of France enjoying some late summer sunshine and she was telling me about how the politicians were going to raise taxes again. C’est donner de la confiture aux cochons, she sighed sorrowfully, and poured herself another Ricard.
How To Talk About Clothes In Portuguese
Whether you’re dressing up or down, you’ll want to know these terms. We always say that the best way to learn a language is by starting with the vocab that you run into every day. The most obvious things are saying hello, introducing yourself and so on, but maybe you haven’t stopped to think about one thing you definitely use every day: clothing. Whether you’re making a packing list for your trip to Brazil or doing some shopping in Portugal, a little clothing vocabulary can go a long way.
Methods For Teaching The Latin Alphabet For German Learners
This article was the third in a series of guides and suggestions for German classes with refugees — by Babbel. The articles introduce useful methods for teaching the Latin alphabet for German learners, regardless of prior experience. Here, we summarize the experiences we’ve gained as part of our workshop for volunteer German teachers.
How To Conjugate Verbs In Russian
You, too, can become a master of Russian verbs. But first, you’ll have to get really clear on the ground rules. April 7, 2023 Congratulations! You’re feeling confident enough with your mastery of the Cyrillic alphabet to tackle the sprawling minefield that is Russian verb conjugation. Maybe you’ve even heard about the perfective and imperfective aspects, and you’re still not feeling phased. In fact, you smell a challenge, and you’re invigorated.
How To Talk About Clothes In Russian
When you’re learning a new language, the best thing you can do first is focus on the words and phrases you encounter on a day-to-day basis. Though clothes might not come to mind immediately as a necessity, they are definitely something you’re using every day (presumably). Tackling vocabulary for clothes in Russian is a good step to take early on. Here, we’ve collected some of the most basic Russian clothing vocabulary.
How To Understand Your German Yoga Teacher
You finally followed through on your dream of spending the summer in Berlin. You’ve made a tenuous alliance with the guy at your local Späti, and you’re so close to finally getting into Berghain, you can taste it. But can you last through a German yoga class?
Why Italians Talk With Their Hands (And Scandinavians Don’t)
Love. Fury. Passion. Italians are well known for expressing themselves through body language and hand gestures, as if the feelings bubbling up inside them can’t be expressed in mere words, but require an accusing finger, an appeal to the heavens, a shake of the fist. Scandinavians, on the other hand, are not. According to traditional stereotypes, people from northern Europe are more reasoning and reserved.
What Is A Syllable, And How Do You Count Syllables In English?
These building blocks of sound are a deceptively simple concept. There are a number of different ways to slice up a language. You can break down a sentence into phrases, words, sounds and letters. In addition, there’s a category slightly harder to define: syllables. These, too, are like atoms of language, but they’re not as easily defined in the sense of where one syllable ends and the other begins. Here, we’ve assembled a quick guide to what a syllable is, as well as how to count them.
Can You Learn A Language With The Army Method?
My grandmother learned French at school in Australia in the late 1950s. For years she studied it dutifully, and the one phrase that she recalls vividly to this day is: La plume de ma tante est dans le jardin avec le lion. For those who never had the pleasure or pain of learning French, it translates to “My aunt’s pen is in the garden with the lion.” Difficult to slip into casual conversation, to say the least.
15 Mexican Sayings That Will Make You Die Laughing
There’s no better example of Mexico’s inventive and folkloric language than its popular sayings. Even more so when there seems to be a different one for every situation in life… Have you ever wondered which mastermind could turn such these simple messages into such elaborate expressions? My favorites are 3, 7 and 14! These Mexican sayings are expressions, usually ironic and endearing, that have some hidden teaching, advice or folk wisdom.
Why Are German Words So Long?
The German language is a lot like a 900-page classical tome — daunting and intimidating to approach, but totally manageable in snack-size pieces. This is in part due to its complex grammar and its four noun cases, but most often, it’s because German is chock full of words that, on their own, seem 900 pages long.
5 Tricks To Learn Spanish, Or Any Other Language, From 2 People Who Speak 11
Spanish is the most studied second language in the United States. Many Americans start learning it in middle school or high school, but most of us never reach a level where we can really communicate in Spanish. I studied Spanish for all four years of high school and have almost nothing to show for it besides, Me llamo John-Erik. Yo nací en Los Angeles. Chicle en la basura, por favor. My relationship with the language never left the classroom and thus never really came to life. Where did I go wrong?
Is There A Link Between Dreaming And Language Learning?
Ever wondered about the link between dreaming and language learning? You’ve probably heard people talk about the moment when they started to dream in a different language. It’s often considered a sign of fluency, but is that just a myth? Let’s look at if there really is a link between the two. Dreaming And Language Learning In the 1980s, Canadian psychologist Joseph De Koninck observed that students of French who spoke French in their dreams earlier made progress faster than other students.
How German Immigrants Influenced American Culture And Language
Even if you’ve never studied German, you probably know a decent amount of vocabulary. March 13, 2023 Culture in the United States has been heavily influenced by Germany for centuries now. Did you think Christmas trees and Easter bunnies were traditions that originated in the United States? Sorry to crush your dreams here, they actually originated in Germany. Between 1820 and WWI, there were nearly six million Germans who immigrated to the United States, settling all over the country.
5 Hybrid Languages That Transcend Borders
What are interlanguages and why are they so fascinating? Interlanguages open up a whole new world of communication, cultural identity and trade. March 9, 2023 When neither one nor two languages are enough to make yourself understood, it is time to delve into the fascinating world of hybrid languages, a hybrid or macaronic concoction of two languages that share the same lexical, grammatical and syntactical elements.
How To Talk About Clothes In German
Time to get dressed in a new language. Whether you care about fashion or not, the clothes you wear say a lot about you. As RuPaul famously said, “We’re born naked and the rest is drag.” When you’re learning a new language, then, you probably want to cover the basic vocabulary. Whether you want to go clothes shopping in Berlin or discuss which outfit is most likely to get you into a club, this guide to German clothing vocabulary is a good first step.
Every Way To Use The French ‘Ça Va’
It means much more than just “how are you?” March 3, 2023 Every student who starts learning a new language will, at some point, encounter an obstacle that can be hard to overcome: expressions and figures of speech. Every language has their own unique expressions that aren’t always exactly intuitive and, as a result, often have to be memorized. Others are simple, easy-to-memorize expressions that have a ton of different meanings. This is especially true for the French expression ça va.
What’s The Meaning Of ‘Feminism’?
Feminism’s been in the news a lot in the past few years, from the Women’s March to the watershed #MeToo movement. But what does the word “feminism” really mean? March 6, 2023 For the past few years, feminism has been garnering significant attention in the limelight, and the meaning of feminism has been debated at length.
The Most Multilingual People Throughout History
Ever wondered what the most languages spoken by one person were? Truly, what is the limit on how many languages one human mind can master? Up until 1998, a Liberian man named Ziad Fazah held the Guinness World Record for most languages spoken by one person, capping in at a total of 58 languages. However, his mastery over some of these languages has since fallen into question.
How To Write A German Resume (And Ace Your Interview, Too)
The good news is that it’s not too different from an English one. February 27, 2023 Applying to a job in your native language is hard, but going through the process somewhere new to you can feel impossible. Don’t fret! English and German resumes and interviews are more similar than they are different, so you already know a lot of what you need. For the rest, we put together this guide on how to write a CV for a German job and prepare for an interview.
The War On Local Languages: How Linguistic Hegemony Threatens Education In The Developing World
New Delhi, India. I am waiting for a taxi in a dilapidated neighborhood near South Extension, surrounded by building sites filled with broken concrete blocks and curious goats. A 12-year-old Indian boy introduces himself to me. He takes out a dog-eared notebook and reads, haltingly: “Acids and bases are crucial components in the study of chemistry.” When I ask him, first in English and then in Hindi, what that means, he has no idea. He says the teacher wrote it on the board and he copied it down.
4 Phrases From Literature That Are Impossible To Translate
What, exactly, does ‘hwæt’ mean? February 22, 2023 Translation is often presented as an almost scientific process, in which a text is converted from one language to another in the most straightforward manner possible. Translators will be the first to tell you, however, that it’s far from that simple. Give any two people the same paragraph to translate, and the end result will never be exactly the same.
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