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Language Reference

Brush up on essential verbs, grammar and vocabulary with our selection of reference books.

Reference series:

LIVING IN...
Invaluable language guides for every step of buying a new home abroad.

50 WAYS TO IMPROVE 
For those with a working knowledge of a language who want to improve by avoiding common pitfalls.

ESSENTIAL DICTIONARIES
With thousands of translations, including everyday idioms and expressions, these are perfect tools to support your language learning.

ESSENTIAL GRAMMARS
Useful grammar in everyday contexts, with plenty of opportunity to practise and examples throughout.

ESSENTIAL VERBS
Find the right verb forms quickly and get to grips with tenses.

ESSENTIAL VOCABULARY
5,000 words - at your fingertips!

READ AND WRITE SCRIPTS
Master your chosen script with these straightforward guides covering Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Greek, Russian and Urdu scripts.

Related Articles

50 Ways to Improve Your German: German daily life - customs and traditions around the calendar Silvester (New Year’s Eve) announces the birth of the New Year: church bells ring, ships’ sirens howl, fireworks hiss and lucky charms, like marzipan pigs and lady birds, accompany good wishes of Prosit Neujahr!
50 Ways to Improve Your German: German and English - What’s the difference? Talk about colours in English and German, and not everything is black and white. The confusion starts as soon as you cross the Channel.
Essential German Grammar: German grammar and agreements A common feature of most Indo-European languages is that a singular subject of a sentence agrees with the appropriate singular form of the verb, and a plural subject agrees with the appropriate plural form of the verb.
Essential German Grammar: German grammar and compound word formation As the German name die Zusammensetzung (literally, ‘putting together’) implies, a compound comprises words that have been put together. German has a reputation for some of the longest word formations, and compound nouns occur most frequently.
Essential German Grammar: German grammar and punctuation Punctuation (die Zeichensetzung) is a set of symbols to show sentence structure in the written language. It helps us to distinguish between statements, commands and questions in oral language, and signals when to make pauses. Its use is regulated by firmer rules in German than in English. For example, a missing comma in some contexts constitutes a serious spelling mistake in German schoolwork.
Essential German Grammar: German grammar and the sentence There are both simple and complex sentences in German:
•    The simple sentence contains one verb:
Das Kind isst den Kuchen. (The child eats the cake.)
•    The complex sentence has two verbs and comprises a main clause and a subordinate clause:
Das Kind isst den Kuchen, weil er heute Geburtstag hat. (The child eats the cake because it’s his/her birthday today.)
Essential German Grammar: German grammar and active/passive voices The active voice
Although we are probably not consciously familiar with the grammatical term voice, we will certainly be very familiar with the active voice in practice. When we start to learn a foreign language, we always learn the active voice first because most sentences are in the active voice.
Essential German Grammar: German grammar and cases German uses the case system to show the different functions of the nouns in a sentence, but in English there are only remnants of a case system in words such as who/whom, he/him and she/her. There are four cases in German: the nominative, the accusative, the dative and the genitive.
Essential German Grammar: German grammar and genders In German, three grammatical genders are distinguished in the noun phrase: masculine, feminine and neuter. The form of the noun itself does not usually show grammatical gender, e.g. Maus (mouse) is feminine and Haus (house) is neuter, although there are some suffixes that help to show gender (see below).
Essential German Grammar: German grammar and pronoun As the name suggests, a pronoun (Pronomen) can be used as a substitute for a noun, for example ‘he’ instead of ‘the professor’.

German uses the following pronouns in the nominative form, i.e. as you will find them in front of the various forms of a verb:
ich    I
du    you (familiar singular)
er     he
sie     she
es     it
wir    we
ihr    you (familiar plural)
Sie    you (polite singular or plural)
sie    they
Essential German Grammar: German grammar and syntax The most helpful way to understand the concept of syntax is to look at the derivation of the word. It comes from two Greek words: the first word means ‘together’ and the second means ‘arrangement’. So when we use the term ‘syntax’, we mean the formal study of the grammatical arrangement of words or patterns of words in a phrase, clause or sentence. When I was at school, this was known as ‘parsing’.
Essential German Grammar: German grammar and moods and tenses Moods of the verb
Three grammatical moods of the verb are used in German:

The indicative mood
This is the most frequently used mood of the verb. It is used to express factual meaning, and is the one we normally use to make statements or ask questions:
Wir müssen die Tür zumachen. (We have to close the door.)

The subjunctive mood
This is used in conditional sentences and when the content of the sentence is doubted or unlikely, when expressing unreal or hypothetical conditions, and in indirect speech:
Er sagte, sie müssten die Tür zumachen. (He said they had to close the door.)

The imperative mood
This is used to give an order or command:
Machen Sie die Tür zu, bitte! (Close the door, please.)
50 Ways to Improve Your German: German children’s classics - was Struwwelpeter the first punk? Tangle-haired and talon-fingered, Struwwelpeter stands on his plinth like the embodiment of rebellious infancy. Potentate or punk? Neither. Rather, a pathetic outcast of the German bourgeoisie: "Pfui! Ruft da ein jeder: / Garst’ger Struwwelpeter!"

And he is not alone.
50 Ways to Improve Your German: German food - ‘bread and wine’, Brot und Wein Every German baker sweats over what Heinrich Böll sighed over, Goethe wept over and Schubert sang about: Brot.
50 Ways to Improve Your German - German songs: Lieder The term Lied covers different genres in German; above all the Volkslied (folk song) and Kunstlied (art song).

The Volkslied evolved from dances and songs in the 14th century, when processions of penitent flagellants tried to avert the Black Death. It has an exclusively oral tradition; it is sung unaccompanied and expresses the life of ordinary people, particularly those linked with nature (hunters, ferry-men, etc.).
50 Ways to Improve Your German: The many faces of Germany - been there, done that, got the beer mug? Tall, dark and handsome, fresh and sporty, seductive or mysterious - whatever your predilection, you will find it among the landscapes, towns and regional cuisine of Germany.
50 Ways to Improve Your German: German and Austrian national costume - Loden, Lederhosen and dainty Dirndls Long before the von Trapps traipsed across the world’s stages in Trachten costume, (Trachten are any kind of national costume; deriving from tragen, to wear), European kings and queens had discovered their appeal and usefulness.
50 Ways to Improve Your German: German daily life - cafés, Kaffee, Kuchen and a portion of Klatsch Though café society seems to many British people to be quintessentially European, the first coffee house, the forerunner of the German Café, Konditorei or Kaffeehaus (a name only retained in Austria) was actually established in Oxford in 1650, whereas the first German Kaffeehaus only appeared in Hamburg in 1677.
50 Ways to Improve Your German: German mythology - from Valkyrie to Wagner In the mists of time, long before Richard Wagner was a twinkle in his father’s eye, radiant heroes twinkled in the eyes of the Norse and Germanic gods. Prominent among these is Sigurd (also Siegfried: Sieg, victory; Friede, peace), as celebrated in the ‘Edda’, a Norse collection of ancient songs.
50 Ways to Improve Your German: German university culture - student associations, Deutsche Studentenverbindungen Should you ever encounter a gaggle of men or women belting out ‘O alte Burschenherrlichkeit’ (roughly: ‘Oh for the old student days!’), you have stumbled on nostalgic academics reliving their days in a student fraternity.
50 Ways to Improve Your German: Biography - Sieglinde Klövekorn-Ward Sieglinde Klövekorn-Ward was born and educated in Goch, Germany. After graduating from the Berlitz School of Languages in English and French, she worked as a technical interpreter in the Department of Public Buildings and Works for the Royal Air Force in Laarbruch, Germany.
50 Ways to Improve Your German: Multiple Choice Quiz Questions (Answers to follow) -

1   When introducing yourself to someone, which would you say?
a) Meine Name ist Alexander Bean.
b) Mein Name ist Alexander Bean.
c) Sein Name ist Alexander Bean.

2   When greeting a German female doctor, which would you say?
a) Hallo, Doktor.
b) Guten Tag, Doktor.
c) Guten Tag, Frau Doktor.

3   When asked how you are, how would you reply?
a) Danke, gut und Sie?
b) Ich bin gut, und Sie?
c) Danke, gut und Ihnen?
Essential German Vocabulary: German vocabulary and literature German literature can be divided into many categories including belletristic literature (Belletristik), specialist literature (Fachliteratur), women’s literature (Frauenliteratur), children’s and young adult literature (Kinder- und Jugendliteratur), light reading (Unterhaltungsliteratur), popular novels (Trivialliteratur) and world literature (Weltliteratur), to name just a few. The German vocabulary used in literature depends, therefore, on the time it was written and into which category it falls.
Essential German Vocabulary: German vocabulary and philosophy Deutsche Vokabeln und Philosophie is a fascinating topic and to find out more about it I had the privilege of talking to Keith Hammond, Philosopher, of the University of Glasgow. The way he spoke about Geist, Bildung, Wissenschaft and Vernunft with total enthusiasm inspired me. For those readers who are familiar with philosophical English texts, it is of no surprise that philosophical words such as these are not translated into English but left in German.
Essential German Vocabulary: German vocabulary and songs For anybody who is interested in learning German, I recommend listening to songs in German.

There is a wide variety of songs which will increase your German vocabulary. The word for song in German is Lied (singular), Lieder (plural).
Essential Spanish Vocabulary: German vocabulary on hobbies German vocabulary in connection with hobbies and recreation is often very similar to English or even the same, especially in connection with sport (der Sport). Pay attention to German nouns as they are all written with a capital letter – such as sport (der Sport), which is one of the favourite leisure-time activities in Germany. Germans’ favourite sport (der Lieblingssport) is football (der Fußball).
Essential German Vocabulary: Anglo-German vocabulary English and German belong to the same family of languages. Although many words have their roots in Latin, Greek, French and Italian, the basic words are Germanic. 

As an English speaker you already know some Anglo-German vocabulary. Think of the words used in English which are actually German, such as autobahn, bratwurst, Fahrenheit and rucksack, to name just a few.
Essential Spanish Vocabulary: Spanish dialects Spanish is itself a term which can cause controversy, since what we know as ‘Spanish’ is actually Castilian. This is the language of the Spanish kingdom which eventually gained control over most of the rest of Spain towards the end of the reconquest of Spain from Muslim or Moorish domination, which began with their invasion in 711 AD.
Essential Spanish Vocabulary: Spanish language learning There are several aspects of Spanish which make it one of the most straightforward languages for beginners. First and foremost, there is the reliable and predictable relationship between spelling and pronunciation: Spanish is a phonetic language, and once you have mastered the handful of spelling quirks you can rely on being able to write out accurately the sounds of the words you hear, and pronounce the words you see for the first time in written form. More of that later!
Essential Spanish Vocabulary: Spanish vocabulary alongside Portuguese Naturally, Castilian (which is what we know as Spanish today) and Portuguese have a common origin in Latin. What seems odd is how different they sound; there is a wide range of styles of Spanish pronunciation, depending on the region and indeed the country. By contrast, Portuguese as spoken in Portugal is very harsh and nasal, or so it sounds to a Spanish speaker.
Essential French Vocabulary: French vocabulary and journals The word ‘journal’ in both contemporary English and French is the perfect illustration of the long-standing relationship between English and French – a relationship that started in the late 11th century when Guillaume le Conquérant, duc de Normandie, became William I, King of England.
Essential French Vocabulary: French vocabulary and lexical range The adjective ‘lexical’ corresponds to the noun ‘lexis’ – a direct import from Greek into English, which means ‘word’. Consequently, ‘lexical range’ may refer to two things, depending on the perspective adopted. It may refer to the extent of the knowledge, by an individual, of the words of a given language; a synonym would be, in this case, the word ‘lexicon’ – one speaks of a person’s lexicon.
Essential French Vocabulary: French vocabulary and slang Slang in French is usually called argot. It refers to the tongue spoken by a particular social group; it is a specific feature of the group, and acts as a ‘bond’. It must not be confused, in modern French, with the word jargon, which refers to a technical, insiders’ language used in a specific industry, or within a particular company, or group of companies, for example.
Essential French Vocabulary: French vocabulary and songs ‘Songs’ in French are called chansons or chants, sung on a variety of occasions: by lovers - chansons d’amour; by seamen, friends and family around the fire in the open - chansons de marins, chansons traditionnelles or chants populaires; and in church - chants de messe or religieux, etc.
Read and Write Greek Script: Biography - Dennis Couniacis Dennis Couniacis was born in Greece and has lived, at the last count, in four countries and on two continents. A business journalist who loves languages, he has spent time teaching both English and Greek as a foreign language to examination level.
Read and Write Greek Script: Biography - Sheila Hunt Sheila Hunt’s career has been spent in teaching – initially primary school children, and then three- to sixteen-year-olds on a one-to-one basis in a London hospital. For the last 25 years she has specialized in teaching maths individually to students of all ages and abilities, including adults, and has had several maths self-help and revision guides published.
Read and Write Greek Script: Attic, Hellenistic and Modern Greek script Modern Greek, in all its forms, is descended directly from Attic Greek, which, by stint of its power over most of western Greece, imposed its own sense of culture upon its neighbouring city-states. The script was enthusiastically adopted by the Greeks, who adapted it to their own phonetics and turned it into a much more utilitarian language than its Semitic origins.
Read and Write Greek Script: Greek script alongside Albanian Albanian is an Indo-European language which forms its own branch in the Indo-European family and has no real close relatives. It is informed by Greek the same way as most European languages are and it has been influenced by virtue of the proximity of Albania to Greece. The two languages however share no common points and their writing is entirely different.
Read and Write Greek Script: Greek script and calligraphy Calligraphy (from the Greek καλλός ‘beauty’ + γραφή ‘writing’) is a type of visual art. To the Greeks, script was an amost magical form of transmission of knowledge and they regarded it with a certain amount of awe which lasted until well into the Middle Ages, which gave rise to two distinct but related sacred art forms: Hagiography and Sacred Calligraphy.
Read and Write Greek Script: Greek script and common speech habits The development of the Greek script both in ancient and modern times points to a dichotomy of the language and a struggle between the establishment (kings, emperors and government) and the ordinary people. Traditionally, Greek has been split between the ‘High Greek’ spoken by authority and used as the official language of governance and the ‘popular’, bastardized Greek spoken by the peasant class.
Read and Write Greek Script: Greek script and dialects The victor does not just get to write history but also, it appears, to decide on the alphabet. For long centuries the traditional Greek script co-existed alongside local dialects whose roots went back to tribal origins predating even the arrival of the Phoenician traders to the Greek mainland.
Read and Write Greek Script: Greek script and mathematics Probably the most famous Greek letter used in mathematics is π – enjoyed or endured by school children for generations. The diameter of any circle would fit round its circumference three ‘and a bit’ times, but there is no number which exactly measures the ‘and a bit’.
Read and Write Greek Script: Greek script and numerals The earliest Greek numerals, consisting of fairly crude and random symbols, date back to around 1000 BC. However, by around 500 BC. the ‘Attic’ or ‘Herodianic’ system was popular.

Some of the symbols are still obvious to us.
Read and Write Greek Script: Greek script and orthography The orthography of any language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write it. This is of particular interest when there is more than one writing system which can be used for the language, for example in Kurdish, there can be more than one acceptable orthography. Orthography is derived from Greek ὀρθός (correct) and γράφειν (to write).
Essential Latin Dictionary: Biography - Valentina Asciutti Valentina Asciutti is a Classicist by education and devotion with a particular focus on Latin language. She has been studying Classics since 1993 when she entered the Liceo Classico D’Annunzio in her hometown, Pescara, in Italy. She then enrolled as an undergraduate at the University of Chieti where she took her first degree in Classics, specialising in Latin Literature and Language.
Essential Latin Dictionary: Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin ‘Classical Latin’ in simplest terms is what was regarded as good Latin. It was spoken as well as written, was the language taught by the schools and prescriptive rules applied to it. On the other hand, ‘Vulgar Latin’ is a spoken language; it is the Latin used by the mass (vulgus) daily (quotidianus). However, the educated population might also have spoken it in familiar circles.
Essential Latin Dictionary: Latin - a “dead language” Latin is anything but a dead language. It survived the fall of the Roman Empire, as the centuries passed it continued to be an international language of the educated and social elite, it has been the official language of the Catholic Church and all scholarly work has been written in it for ages.
Essential German Grammar: Latin and Internationalism Latin is at the basis of many modern languages; it represented in the past what English may be today, the ‘Interlingua’ of the world.

Latin is an Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. As the Roman power expanded, it gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire.
Essential Latin Dictionary: Latin and literature The Romans produced many works of poetry, comedy, tragedy, satire, history, and rhetoric, drawing heavily on the traditions of other cultures and particularly on the more matured literary tradition of Greece, creating what is known as Latin literature.
Essential Latin Dictionary: Latin and liturgy The language used in the Christian liturgy has often been a source of debate in the Church. Numerous works have been written to address this issue. Opinions range from employing an all-Latin ritual, an all-Greek ritual, an all-local-language ritual, or even a mix of these languages.
Essential Welsh Dictionary: Welsh food Almost all the population of Wales in the twelfth century lived on its flocks and on oats, milk, cheese and butter. This situation prevailed well into the nineteenth century. Welsh society was largely self-supporting, with sugar, salt, tea, rice and currants being the main items to be purchased.
Essential Welsh Dictionary: Welsh grammar As with most modern languages, Welsh has its own particular rules and structure comprising of nouns, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and grammar. In addition, and different from English grammar, are rules on consonantal mutation.
Essential Welsh Dictionary: Welsh learning (institutional archives/online resources) ‘Learning Welsh’ is a long established and popular adult education activity in Wales. The Universities of Cardiff, Swansea, Trinity Saint David – Lampeter, Aberystwyth, Bangor, Glamorgan and the Open University are all eager to enrol students.
Essential Welsh Dictionary: Welsh people Welsh people are recognized the world over by their accent when they speak in English. The Welsh vowel sounds a, e, i, o, u, w, y are different from their English counterparts. Another distinguishing feature that cannot be overlooked is the Welsh surname. A very large number of unrelated families share a small number of names: Bowen, Davies, Evans, Francis, Griffiths.......
Essential Welsh Dictionary: Welsh songs In Dylan Thomas’s drama, Under Milk Wood, the Reverend Eli Jenkins utters, ‘Praise the Lord, we are a musical nation.’ No collection of Welsh songs may be compiled without the inclusion of the National Anthem, ‘Land of my Fathers’, and if fervour is a measure of popularity, the nonsense song 'Sosban Fach’ sung enthusiastically by crowds of rugby fans must be near the top of the Richter Scale! 
French for Primary School Teachers: Why teach French at primary school? Language learning is so much more than simply learning a language. It allows us to explore and discover other ways of being, of living, of thinking and of communicating. The French language, the countries where it is spoken, and the lives and cultures of the people who speak it, provide a rich and fertile ground for nurturing in children a genuine interest in the wider world.
Read and Write Greek Script: Greek script and the Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet and writing, in general, the very tools through which knowledge has been recorded, preserved and transmitted down the centuries, owe their existence to international trade. It was the Phoenicians who, upon establishing a brisk trade with the Greek colonies, felt the need to also establish a common language of communication.
Essential French Grammar: Biography - Robin Adamson A life long passion for the French language, and particularly for its grammar, led Robin Adamson to share his love of French with students of all ages in a wide variety of situations. His conviction that you can only speak and write a foreign language confidently and accurately if you feel at home with its grammar – and even enjoy it! – took him into research into second language learning, discourse analysis, French for special purposes and the defence of the French language.
Essential French Grammar: French grammar and agreements The web of agreements that supports French sentences is perhaps the most important feature of French syntax (see article on Syntax).

The basic features of the system are the gender (feminine or masculine) of nouns and pronouns (see Pronouns) and their number (singular or plural). They retain these grammatical features wherever they are found in the text.
Essential French Grammar: French grammar and gender All French nouns have a gender, i.e. they are either masculine or feminine, and this is indicated by the article that accompanies each noun. Articles can be:

Definite (article défini) = the (le, la, l', les)
Indefinite (article indéfini) = a/an (un, une), some (des)
Partitive (article partitif) = some/any (du, de la, d’, des)
Essential French Grammar: French grammar and plurals The plural of nouns

A noun (nom) can be:
-concrete (things, people, animals, anything tangible)
-abstract (concepts, ideas or feelings)
-proper (a person’s name, a city).

All French nouns have a gender, i.e. they are either masculine or feminine (see Gender) and they can be either singular or plural.
Essential French Grammar: French grammar and pronouns Pronouns are words that replace or stand in for nouns. In French they retain some features of the nouns they replace – gender, number – and so create a strong pattern of agreements in a text.

In reading, always identify what a pronoun stands for, and in speaking make sure you keep track of pronouns and their agreements (see article on Agreement).
Essential French Grammar: French grammar and punctuation The main punctuation marks – comma (virgule), colon (deux points), semi-colon (point-virgule), suspension point (points de suspension – plural in French), question mark (point d’interrogation), exclamation mark (point d’exclamation), inverted commas (guillemets), brackets (parentheses), dash (tiret), full stop (point), capital letters (les majuscules) – are used in a broadly similar way in French and in English.
Essential French Grammar: French grammar and syntax Learning some French words is only the first step in mastering the language. To be able to use the language, we need to know how to put the words together – this is syntax and this is when things get interesting.
Essential French Grammar: Tenses and moods Tenses in French are either:

simple (one word: je fais; je faisais; je ferai; je ferias; je fis)
or compound (j’ai fait; j’avais fait; j’aurai fait; j’aurais fait).

Compound tenses are formed from the appropriate tense of an auxiliary verb (avoir or être) and the past participle.
French for Primary School Teachers: How children of different year-groups respond to French at primary school It’s generally accepted that children across the primary years enjoy learning French. Certainly, what we consider to be key language teaching strategies such as games, interactive and participatory activities, the use of songs and rhyme, are in themselves enjoyable, making learning fun.
French for Primary School Teachers: How primary-aged children learn French In common with all curriculum areas, primary French works best when children have as many opportunities as possible to engage with it. In primary French, practice really does make perfect – we simply can’t expect children to progress in their French if we don’t allow them the time to embed it, and build on it.
French for Primary School Teachers: If French at primary school, why not Spanish, German…Mandarin We are seeing an increase in the range of languages offered by primary schools, moving beyond the borders of Europe and into the wider world. All language learning can contribute meaningfully to children’s overall learning, particularly in terms of their literacy and oracy skills, but clearly we are not able to introduce an unlimited number of languages into the timetable.
French for Primary School Teachers: Job opportunities for teachers of primary French Until recently, many primary schools opted to bring in external linguists, often from secondary schools, to teach primary French lessons. As we move towards a real integration of languages into the primary curriculum, Headteachers are increasingly seeking to ensure a more sustainable model of provision within the school staff itself.
French for Primary School Teachers: My experience of teaching French at primary school Many years ago, I started a French Saturday school for primary-aged children. This very soon grew into evening schools too, as the popularity of learning French became more widespread amongst younger children. I was delighted by their enthusiasm for learning French, and by their inquisitive minds and genuine interest in all things ‘French’!
French for Primary School Teachers: The relationship between French at primary and secondary levels The advent of primary French has raised some interesting issues in language teaching and learning. French remains the most popular language in primary schools for a number of reasons. One of these is the fact that many primary teachers have at least some knowledge of French simply because French was – and still is – the most widely-taught language in secondary schools.
French for Primary School Teachers: What special resources do we need to teach French at primary school? The most important resource in the primary French classroom is you, the teacher. Teachers can have a profound impact on children’s learning, not only in the immediate-term, but also in the longer-term as children progress throughout their school life.
French for Primary School Teachers: What special skills do teachers need to teach French in the primary school? Central to the effective teacher’s repertoire is a sufficient mastery of, and interest in, the subject they are teaching and sharing with their pupils. This doesn’t mean that we all have to have multiple degrees which cover all the disciplines (clearly an impossibility!).
Essential Latin Dictionary: Latin in the King James Bible The King James Bible is an English translation of the Christian Bible begun in 1604 and completed in 1611 by the Church of England. Before this version, there had already been two other official translations in England: The Great Bible commissioned by the Church of England in the reign of King Henry VIII and the Bishop's Bible dated to1568.
Essential Latin Dictionary: Latin in the Renaissance In the Renaissance many Classical authors were re-discovered and their style consciously imitated. Cicero, above all, was emulated and his style was praised as the pinnacle of Latin style.

The Renaissance briefly reinforced the position of Latin as a spoken language, through its adoption by the Renaissance Humanists.
Essential Latin Dictionary: Latin in the Roman Empire Latin was the empire's official language. With the foundation of the Roman Empire, a large portion of the western world came to speak various forms of Latin or have it intermingled with their own tongues. While classical Latin developed in and around the city of Rome, Vulgar Latin was carried by the Legions throughout the Roman provinces.
Essential Latin Dictionary: Latin in the Vulgate The Vulgate is an early 5th century Latin version of the Bible; it is a compound work, some parts of which are attributed to Jerome.

Since there were many Latin versions of the Bible, collectively referred to as Vetus Latina, or ‘Old Latin Bible’, Jerome was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to produce one standard Latin text.
Essential Latin Dictionary: Latin modern usage Latin is still alive today in many forms.

The largest organization that still uses Latin is the Roman Catholic Church. Ecclesiastical Latin, indeed, is still the formal language of the Roman Catholic Church today and thus the official national language of the Vatican.
Essential Welsh Dictionary: Biography - Edwin Lewis Edwin Lewis was born next door to his maternal Grandfather, who hailed from Herefordshire and persistently refused to utter one word of Welsh. As a child, Edwin grew up unaware that he was bilingual. Later, he entered Trinity College, Carmarthen, trained as a teacher, was claimed by the Army and taught for some two years with the Royal Army Education Corps as a Warrant Officer.
Essential Welsh Dictionary: Popular Welsh vocabulary – common speech habits These phrases are exchanged dozens of times a day in conversation. They open or close the occasion, rebuke or praise, and are the very ‘stuff’ of chatter.

Bore  da    Good morning
Prynhawn da    Good afternoon
Noswaith dda    Good evening
Essential Welsh Dictionary: Sport in Wales Sport in all its forms is alive and flourishing in Wales. Golf is well catered for and draws international attention. Boxing, even without considering Joe Calzaghe’s fantastic achievement, has been popular ever since the days of Tommy Farr (1913–86). Glamorgan Cricket Club’s long history recounts its illustrious record to date.
Essential Welsh Dictionary: Welsh and Celtic languages The Welsh language, Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Cornish, Manx and Breton together form the Celtic group of languages. These were related to Gaulish and other Western European Iron Age languages.
Essential Welsh Dictionary: Welsh animals There is a high degree of interest in the propagation and preservation of the many Welsh animal breeds. The Pembrokeshire Corgi, so well loved by Queen Elizabeth II, is a prime example. The Welsh Sheep-dog is highly acclaimed as a valuable working animal on most Welsh farms. Other Welsh dog breeds include the Welsh Hunting Dog, the Welsh Terrier and the Welsh Hunting Spaniel.
50 Ways to Improve Your French: Biography - Lorna Wright Lorna Wright is a tutor of French in the Department of Languages and Translation Studies at the University of Surrey. In her teaching career, Lorna has taught French and English at all levels. Her first posts in France were at a nursery school and at IBM France, followed by appointments at a number of state primary and secondary schools in England, and finally at the university.
50 Ways to Improve Your French: Biography - Marie-Jo Morelle Marie-Jo Morelle is an experienced teacher of French language and culture in secondary, further, and higher education, currently working for the Department of Languages and Translation Studies at the University of Surrey.
50 Ways to Improve Your French: Familiar language Colloquial French is peppered, or truffé (much more tasty!), with words which are more familiar than the standard dictionary version and which everybody uses in conversation without sounding at all improper. Your French friends will be amused and impressed if you use these words when you are chatting and writing emails, but they have no place in business letters or essays.
50 Ways to Improve Your French: French slang Unlike familiar language [LINK], which is casual, inoffensive and in general use, argot (slang) is not so easy for the outsider to adopt. By its very nature it is often designed to identify the user with a particular social group, and aims to exclude everyone else. It is like an oral code which accompanies a visual look so that members of the group can instantly communicate their affinity with each other.
50 Ways to Improve Your French: Keeping the French language French All languages are living and organic, and in a constant state of evolution. Words are invented from within to describe new phenomena; foreign words arrive like aliens from the outside, landing unchanged or in a modified form; old words are recycled with altered meaning, but all can be incorporated into the existing framework and grammatical patterns. This is how language changes and develops over time and becomes richer, more varied and expressive.
50 Ways to Improve Your French: Texting Sending text messages is all about taking short cuts to speed up the composition of a message and a new form of language is evolving based on phonetic spelling rather than the spelling of standard dictionary French. A text message is referred to as un texto or un SMS.
50 Ways to Improve Your French: What the French and English languages have in common For someone whose first language is English it is a comfort to know that he has a head start on the vocabulary front when he sets about the task of learning French. Over 3,000 of the words we use in English are words which the two languages share, being spelt and meaning almost the same – for example, forêt (forest); these are the bons amis.
50 Ways to Improve Your French: Learning French through cinema If you are interested in the French language and culture, it is difficult to ignore French cinema. There is so much one can learn by watching a French film, with or without subtitles. However experienced and proficient a teacher is, it is so hard to present all aspects of a language and culture in a weekly two hour slot – not only because time is short but also because language and culture change constantly.
50 Ways to Improve Your French: French for fashion Fashion, perfumes and nicely dressed ladies walking their dogs in romantic and opulent Paris have become a cliché. Rural life may have modified or even diminished the idea you had of France, the land of elegance and sophistication. Have less fashionably dressed provinciaux (country people) left you wondering what that myth was all about?
50 Ways to Improve Your French: French for fashion Fashion, perfumes and nicely dressed ladies walking their dogs in romantic and opulent Paris have become a cliché. Rural life may have modified or even diminished the idea you had of France, the land of elegance and sophistication. Have less fashionably dressed provinciaux (country people) left you wondering what that myth was all about?
50 Ways to Improve Your French: The French on wine Would France be the country we all know without its legendary vins (wines)? Imagine a culture where food and wine cannot be dissociated, a culture within which every drink has its own specific glass and every course is accompanied by a boisson (drink) to complement the food!
50 Ways to Improve Your French: Tu versus vous Choosing vous or tu (you) to address a French person is the cause of many frustrations for French language learners. Although the concepts of formal and informal forms of address are not alien to most learners, deciding on which you to use is a minefield. Learners generally decide to use tu, which they consider a more appropriate way of translating a perceived egalitarian you.
50 Ways to Improve Your Italian: Biography -Valeria Mandra Valeria Malandra was born in a village in Abruzzo not far from the Adriatic coast. The Abruzzo region is better known for the wine Montepulciano d’Abruzzo and attracts many foreign tourists who come for the sea as well as the mountains.
50 Ways to Improve Your Italian: 'I'm going to' in Italian Many students unwittingly make their life more complicated by attempting to translate some English verb structures literally. I'm going to + verb is one of them. In Italian there is no direct equivalence (unlike in French, where you would say: je vais + verb), unless of course you are literally going from A to B.
50 Ways to Improve Your Italian: How to say 'stop!' ‘To stop’ can typically be translated as smettere or fermare. There are of course other possible translations, but we'll concentrate on these two, which are the most common and also the most commonly mixed up.
50 Ways to Improve Your Italian: Is the Italian subjunctive on its way to extinction? My answer to this question is a resounding no. The subjunctive, the mood of uncertainty and politeness, is still very much in use, particularly in formal and written registers, and to some extent it serves to distinguish those who have had a good education from those who haven't.
50 Ways to Improve Your Italian: Italian 'in' In generates many mistakes in Italian, in particular when students use this preposition with towns and cities and say for instance ‘in Roma’ instead of a Roma or ‘in Parigi’, instead of a Parigi.
50 Ways to Improve Your Italian: On the subject of subjects The most common subject pronouns are io, tu, lui, lei, noi, voi, loro. These are the pronouns you are most likely to need. There are a few more that you still occasionally might come across. I say occasionally, as they are relegated to formal and written style. The most important are egli (he) and esso/essa (it), essi/esse (them).
50 Ways to Improve Your Italian: Titles in politics If you have a look at the Italian press or listen to the news, you’ll notice that politicians and other personalities are all referred to by their surname or by name and surname: no title such as signor or signora is added.
50 Ways to Improve Your Italian: The good, the bad and the ugly Have you noticed that buono (good) is often translated as bravo in Italian? Bravo is a multi-faceted word with a variety of meanings, for instance skilled, clever or well-behaved: It is of course also used to show our delight at a performance (and should agree in gender and number): Bravo! Brava! Bravi! Brave!
50 Ways to Improve Your Italian: False friends Should subject be translated as soggetto? It really all depends on what you are trying to say. If the subject you mean is a grammar concept, then by all means. But if what you are referring to is topic, than the answer is no, in that case the translation is argomento.
50 Ways to Improve Your Italian: Carpets and walls Many houses in the UK have carpets, but this is rare in Italy. That's probably why we borrowed a French word for carpet, la moquette. I’ve noticed that the vast majority of students, when they are looking for the translation of carpet, resort to tappeto, perhaps because they are misled by their dictionary. But tappeto means rug not carpet!
50 Ways to Improve Your Italian: Is the Italian subjunctive on its way to extinction? My answer to this question is a resounding no. The subjunctive, the mood of uncertainty and politeness, is still very much in use, particularly in formal and written registers, and to some extent it serves to distinguish those who have had a good education from those who haven't.
50 Ways to Improve Your Italian: Metà or mezzo? I have many students who tell me that they are half and half, for instance half English and half French. They say, Sono mezzo inglese e mezzo francese. I correct them and say, Sono metà inglese e metà francese. Even better would be to say, Sono per metà inglese e per metà francese, but let's not complicate things too much.
50 Ways to Improve Your Italian: Prepositions Prepositions are a sticky point in Italian: which ones should you use, when, and when should you not use them? Let’s think of one common mistake:

Vengo da Francia. (incorrect)
50 Ways to Improve Your Spanish: Biography - Keith Chambers Keith Chambers studied languages at school and university, where he later carried out research in Spanish. Academic pursuits include comparative linguistics and modern literature. More recently he has been a tutor in Spanish and Translation in the University of Surrey.
50 Ways to Improve Your Spanish: The Pronunciation of Spanish When most people talk about the Spanish language, what they are in fact referring to is Castilian, el castellano. This is the language of the area of Spain known today as Castilla-La Mancha. This includes the capital, Madrid, the ancient cities of Toledo to the south, and Segovia and Avila to the west.
50 Ways to Improve Your Spanish: The Languages of Spain Castilian, el castellano, is the modern form of Latin that evolved in the Spanish peninsula.  Most of the languages of Spain are derived from Latin and have common roots with Italian, French, Portuguese and Romanian.
50 Ways to Improve Your Spanish: Tapas and paella Tapas are to many visitors to Spain one of the delights of that country. So-called tapas bars – some more authentic than others - are now to be found in many UK high streets.
50 Ways to Improve Your Spanish: Being polite A Spanish journalist once wrote that an Englishman’s mission was to avoid acknowledging the existence of anyone else! But keeping oneself to oneself as in colder climates can be considered rude in Spanish contexts.
50 Ways to Improve Your Spanish: Tú or usted? Spanish is somewhat tricky when it comes to deciding how to refer to someone as you. Unlike English, which makes do with just one form – you –, or French with two forms tu and vous, Spanish needs up to five: tú, vosotros, vosotras, usted, and ustedes.
50 Ways to Improve Your Spanish: I thought you were my friend! Language is funny. Quite often we think we are saying one thing, though we end up meaning another, even when we think there can be no room for doubt. Like the American who came to London and announced to quizzical looks that he liked to wear pants and suspenders to work, sometimes we think we know a Spanish word or expression, but get it wrong.
50 Ways to Improve Your Spanish: Coffee and café The bar or café is a central part of Spanish life, open from early morning to late into the night. A place where you meet your friends, nip out to during working hours, or grab a desayuno (breakfast) on the way to the office.
50 Ways to Improve Your Spanish: Spanish newspapers Mainly because of the distances which would be involved in distributing newspapers nationwide, Spain has traditionally had rather fewer national newspapers than the UK. Most of the geographical or political regions of Spain have long-established titles, such as Diario del Sur, La Voz de Galicia and so on.
50 Ways to Improve Your Spanish: The Spanish timetable Newcomers to Spain are often disoriented by the pattern of the Spanish day. Just when many of us are contemplating going to bed, Spaniards are preparing for a night out. Madrid, like New York, is sometimes called the city that never sleeps. Certainly it is one place where you can get traffic jams in the early hours of the morning, or la madrugada.
50 Ways to Improve Your Spanish: Anyone for sherry? Sometimes thought of only as something to offer the vicar, or a maiden aunt at Christmas, sherry is deservedly enjoying a comeback both in the UK and Spain – though some would say it never really went away!
French for Primary School Teachers: Biography: Angela McLachlan Angela McLachlan is the Programme Leader for Languages in the Primary PGCE and Teach First programmes in the School of Education, University of Manchester. 

During her career, she has worked in primary, secondary and adult language teaching and language teacher education, both in the UK and overseas. 
Essential German Grammar: Biography - Jenny Russ After being awarded an upper second class degree in German Language and Literature from Hull University, Jenny Russ obtained a Postgraduate Certificate in Education with distinction. She was offered a teaching post at Wintringham Girls’ Grammar School, Grimsby, to which she had been sent on teaching practice, then moved to a post in the Language Centre at Southampton University upon her marriage.
Essential German Grammar: German grammar and active/passive voices The active voice

Although we are probably not consciously familiar with the grammatical term voice, we will certainly be very familiar with the active voice in practice. When we start to learn a foreign language, we always learn the active voice first because most sentences are in the active voice.
Essential German Vocabulary: Biography - Lisa Kahlen Lisa Kahlen was born in 1951 near Dortmund in Germany. She spent most of her youth in the north of Germany in Braunschweig where she studied child education. At 26 she moved to West Berlin where she worked for many years with children, as an educator and German teacher.
Essential German Vocabulary: German vocabulary and contemporary speech habits More and more people in Germany are replacing German vocabulary and common speech habits with Anglicisms. Not only young Germans, but also academics use an enormous number of English words in their spoken language. While words such as ‘OK’ or ‘sorry’ have been integrated into the German language for many years now, new English words and expressions are becoming more and more common.
Essential German Vocabulary: German vocabulary and dialects Hochdeutsch (High German) is the language spoken or understood throughout Germany but there are also many other dialects present depending on the region. The best Hochdeutsch is generally considered to be that spoken in and around Hanover in the north of Germany and that is the German vocabulary you will find in your dictionary.
Essential German Vocabulary: German vocabulary and food Most people have heard of German Sauerkraut and Bratwurst, and Currywurst mit Pommes (curry sausage with chips), but German food has so much more to offer.

Germany has 16 regions and every region has its own traditional food (traditionelles Essen) and its own vocabulary for food. Here are a few specialities which are named after their region.
Essential German Vocabulary: German vocabulary and language learning I would like to share with you my personal view of German vocabulary and language learning and invite you to participate in a humorous work by the artist Professor Wolf Kahlen on this topic.

‘Um eine Sprache wirklich zu verstehen, muss man jedes Wort auf der Zunge zergehen lassen.’

 ‘If you really want to understand a language, let every word melt on your tongue.’
Essential French Grammar: French grammar and the sentence A sentence (une phrase) is a meaningful sequence of words which contains at least one verb. A phrase does not contain a verb. Note that the English word ‘phrase’ (une expression; un groupe de mots) and the French la phrase (the sentence) are not equivalent.
Essential French Grammar: Transitive and intransitive verbs You may not realize it, but you are an expert in using transitive and intransitive verbs in English. This will help you to master the two types of verb in French. It will also help you when you come to look at the rules about verbs with pronoun objects (see article on Agreement).
Essential French Vocabulary: Biography - Noël Saint-Thomas Noël Saint-Thomas was born over forty years ago in Paris, France, to a truly European family that provided for a multilingual upbringing; an early disposition for shuttling easily from one culture and one language to another; and summers spent in different countries at cousins’, grandparents’, uncles’ and aunts’ houses.
Essential French Vocabulary: French dialects Originally, French was the dialect spoken in the Île-de-France region, i.e. the region around Paris. Following a path through the 16th to the 19th century  it took French no less than 9 centuries to become a language – that is to say, a dialect that eventually comes to represent a cultural and political arena, and a country, or countries, in an official capacity.
Essential French Vocabulary: French hobbies and recreational activities The French hobby, or recreational activity, par excellence is cooking, including anything remotely associated with cooking and eating – faire la cuisine and manger. (Please note: not eating ready-made food, but eating, or rather, savouring, food that has been cooked in a particular way is the subject of intensive and numerous discussions.)
Essential French Vocabulary: French literature The 16th century in France is known as Le siècle de la Renaissance. In this period, artistic currents from Italy, the Reformation and the Wars of Religion all influenced literary production. Theology became a subject of debate within literature, the Bible a source of inspiration, and the poets of La Pléiade gave humanism a new dimension.
Essential French Vocabulary: French vocabulary and common speech habits One finds among French politicians a series of rather annoying speech habits – which tend to make you feel as if you were somewhat dim-witted. The worst among them is Il faut bien savoir que… or a variation of it Ce qu’il faut (bien) savoir, c’est que… which could be translated as ‘It is important that you know that…’.
Essential French Vocabulary: French vocabulary and cuisine Some say that la cuisine – which in effect refers in French to the general activity taking place in the room called by the same name, namely preparing, cooking, trying out, tasting, eating, savouring and, last but not least, talking about cooking and eating while doing all of these! – is le sport national français.
Essential French Vocabulary: French vocabulary and French–American vocabulary French–American vocabulary is called franglais in French, a word that dates back to the 1950s when it was known as un mot valise – a suitcase-word – the contraction of français and anglais. It is different from ‘anglicismes’, which refer to direct imports into French of idiomatic English sentence structures and phrases.
Essential Spanish Vocabulary: Spanish vocabulary and bathroom facilities Spain has a wide variety of words and expressions for bathroom facilities, reflecting lots of foreign terms imported into Spanish, as well as the many home-grown euphemisms! So, where do we begin? Naturally by asking where the loos are!
Essential Spanish Vocabulary: Spanish vocabulary and cuisine Of course one fascinating and pleasurable aspect of a foreign culture is its cuisine: most of us enjoy eating, and most of us like to try new and different tastes and textures. The majority of Spanish learners should already know a handful of words and expressions used commonly in English but emanating from la cocina española.
Essential Spanish Vocabulary: Spanish vocabulary and leisure time The Spanish word for ‘leisure’ is el ocio, derived directly from the Latin word otium. In English we only use the opposite of this word (albeit with modified meaning), which in Latin is negotium which means work; so you can see that the word for work only has significance as the negation of leisure. As in English, negocio in Spanish means business. 
Essential Spanish Vocabulary: Spanish vocabulary and literature Spain is well known for its visual art, its music and its cinema. However, its literature is little known outside of Spain other than to those who have studied it at school or university. There are two exceptions to this. The first is Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes, which is about a minor nobleman who read so many novels of chivalry that he decided to set off on his own chivalresque adventures.
Essential Spanish Vocabulary: Spanish vocabulary and sport Spain used not to be a country famed for its sporting prowess, except in football. However, notably since the 1992 Olympic Games held in Barcelona, in which Spanish athletes did well, Spaniards have excelled in many fields, and some have become household names even in the UK, at least as far as fans of their sport are concerned.
Essential Spanish Vocabulary: Spanish vocabulary and time OK, so we have all heard of the mañana syndrome, but what really is the attitude of Spanish people to time? Well, first let’s deal with that myth: it’s just that, compared with the British, who like to have things ready in good time, Spanish people have a more ‘laid-back’ approach. You might think nothing is happening, when what usually happens is that everything comes together at the last minute.
Essential Spanish Vocabulary: Spanish vocabulary and common speech habits Like all languages, Spanish is a constantly changing phenomenon, abandoning out-of-fashion elements, whilst new words and phrases – often from other languages and sources – come into fashion. Many of the new elements either come from English or are based on turns of phrase used in one or another form of English.
Essential Spanish Vocabulary: Biography - Mike Zollo
Mike Zollo is an experienced teacher, author and examiner in languages at every level; he has taught languages for 37 years. He graduated in Modern Languages from the University of Oxford.

After 16 years teaching from beginners to Advanced level in 11-18 comprehensive schools, seven of them as Head of Languages Faculty, he moved to the tertiary vocational sector as Senior Lecturer in Italian, Spanish, French and at Britannia Royal Naval College.
Essential French Grammar: Biography - Brigitte Edelston Over many years Brigitte Edelston has combined her teaching expertise and administrative experience and helped develop and strengthen a widely popular language programme at the University of Dundee. She has taught French to a great variety of groups: children, undergraduates, postgraduates, professionals and members of the public from all walks of life.
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