Be Fluent Today

Hi there! In the previous post, I tried to cover the main differences between Chinese, Japanese and Korean (I hope this helped you), and today we continue to talk about these languages. I've prepared for you the most interesting facts about them that will either blow your mind or convince you to start learning the language yourself! Grab Coca-Cola, and some sweets, settle down in your comfiest chair, and let's start😉! Chinese 1) "Mandarin" origin The English word "Mandarin" originally referred to an official of the Chinese empire. It comes from the Portuguese word mandarim, which is derived from the Malay word menteri, which in turn originates from the Sanskrit word mantrin, which means "minister". Among Chinese speakers, Mandarin Chinese is often called Guóyǔ (国语), which means "national language", or Pǔtōnghuà (普通话), which means "common speech". 2) Chinese as a Second Language Chinese is the new English! The language has becom...

Hi there! Today we are going to talk about an extremely interesting topic. If you've never studied an Asian language, it's easy to mix up Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Despite some similarities, these three languages are very different, and each one has its own set of challenges that may differ from the next. There is so much we can talk about when analysing them, however in this post I will focus on a brief history and the basic features of these unique languages, plus how they can be discerned from each other. I'll do all my best to help you to wrap your head around all this. So let's start! Language history Chinese Chinese is the most widely spoken language with over 1.3 billion native speakers. In fact, the land of the red dragon has the oldest spoken language currently being used in the world. We are talking about a language that dates back to over 3,000 years ago😮!  China has several spoken languages, hundreds of dialects, and only one written system. The standa...

Hi there! Today we are going to talk about Ukrainian and Russian languages and why they are not as similar as a lot of people think. I'm full of beans to make a coherent explanation regarding this issue, as  if there are origin names of these languages, indeed there must be any difference. And this difference is enough to dispel all russian propaganda around the Ukrainian language😉. Because if it wasn't russian propaganda, we would have no such thing as this question. No one is asked if there are differences between the Spanish and Italian or between Portuguese and French languages. But the distance between Ukrainian and Russian is the same as between French and Portuguese. The differences exist, otherwise why would russians pay so much attention to the Ukrainian language and are so afraid of the it? Only one fact with prohibition Ukrainian language worth more than thousands words that describes this question and attitude to Ukrainian. But after all distortions and attempts to...