Lingotopia

Photo by  Baher Khairy  on  Unsplash  (Graffiti in Cairo) So, yesterday (16.06.2018) was the second day of the World Cup 2018. The matches were Egypt vs. Uruguay (0:1), Morocco vs. Iran (0:1) and Portugal vs. Spain (2:3). Egypt (Arabic) vs. Uruguay (Spanish)  Of all the countries participating in the World Cup I know the least about Uruguay. The only things that come to my mind are Montevideo, Luis Suarez and José Alberto "Pepe" Mujica. Mujica has a video column on DW world: Conciencia Sur . He speaks slowly and there are Spanish subtitles, so it's perfect for learners. I know a little bit more about Egypt but of course, the usual pictures come first to my mind: pyramides, the sphinx, hieroglyphes and the pharaohs. Just clichés but not much about life in modern Egypt (apart from political developments in recent years of course).  I tried to find something to connect Egypt and Uruguay and stumbled upon tango. Tango originat...

Today, the 14th of June 2018 marks the start of the Soccer World Cup in Russia. I'm looking forward to exciting matches, I love learning languages, I'm interested in other cultures and I enjoy taking part in challenges. So, why not combine all of that and take up a World Cup challenge? Starting from today I want to post every day a couple of sentences in the languages of the participating countries, some fun facts about them and of course links to music and resources in those languages. I know it's a tad crazy but I won't write whole essays but keep the blog posts rather short. And a lot of countries share the same official languages so I can group them together. My knowledge in the following languages goes from tiny little bit (Serbian), basic (Arabic, Portuguese) over intermediate (French, Spanish) to advanced (English). Spanish : Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Spain, Panama, Peru, Uruguay. Arabic : Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia French : B...