The other day Daniele and I were talking about languages as we let ourselves get distracted from our task at hand. We sometimes go over the Michel Thomas Mandarin lessons together as we've found it useful for me to explain or clarify certain parts of the lessons. Before long I sent him a link to one of my favorite sites for language introduction, the BBC Language page. I was happy to see they've expanded past the usual romance languages and now include many of the world's major languages. We got a kick out of each language's language fact page, zeroing in especially on tongue twisters, longest words, and false language friends (words that sound like something words in English but have a completely different meaning). Another fact we liked to see for each language was the jokes section, it's interesting to take a peak at how each culture looks at humor.
Here are a few facts from the BBC, check out their page for more language lessons, who knows, you may find yourself in love with learning about a language you never considered before.
FRENCH
The French would probably tell you their longest word is
anticonstitutionnellement, a long adverb meaning ‘in a very unconstitutional way’. It contains 25 letters but is hardly ever used!
In a foreign language, you can easily find yourself in embarrassing or funny situations. For example, if you want to thank someone, you could say Merci beaucoup, Thank you very much. Take care with the ou and try not to pronounce it u, otherwise you could be complimenting somebody on their ‘beautiful bottom’!
ITALIAN
If you ask Italians, they would probably tell you that the longest Italian word is precipitevolissimevolmente, extremely quickly, with 26 letters
Arguably this is the most difficult tongue twister in Italian:
Trentatré trentini entrarono a Trento tutti e trentatré trotterellando
Thirty three people from Trento entered the city, all thirty three waddling
If you’d like pepperoni on your pizza, don’t be too surprised if you end up with peppers instead. The Italian word peperoni is the plural of peperone, which is a pepper, so to make sure that you get the spicy sausage that you’re after, ask for salame piccante
CHINESE
This is a great tongue twister for practising the tones, which are marked above the vowels. (I remember this from my childhood!)
吃葡萄不吐葡萄皮，不吃葡萄倒吐葡萄皮。
Chī pútao bù tǔ pútao pí, bù chī pútao dào tǔ pútao pí.
When you are eating grapes, you don’t spit out the skin, but when you are not eating grapes, you do spit out the skin.
ARABIC
Tongue twister
مشمشنا مش مشمشكم ومشمشكم مش مشمشنا، لما مشمش مشمشكم، ما كان مشمش مشمشنا
[Mishmishna mish mishmishkom w mishmishkom mish mishmishna, lamma mashmash mishmishkom, ma kan mashmash mishmishna.]
Our apricots are not the same as your apricots, and your apricots are not the same as our apricots. When your apricots were ripe, our apricots were not ripe yet
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