80 articles
Every article we have published on Languages — how these apps work, the decisions behind them, and where their limits are.
Beginner-first guides to the languages our courses teach: how their scripts, tones and grammar work, which phrases to learn first, and study methods such as shadowing and spaced repetition that apply to any language.
Where usage varies by region or register, the articles say so. None has been reviewed by a native speaker unless one is named on the article.
Covering 10 apps in this category.
The articles in this category that other articles link to most often.
Spaced repetition rests on two findings, not one. Here is what the research supports, what it does not, and how to use it without a scheduling algorithm.
What the Thai writing system asks of a beginner: consonant classes, vowels that surround the letter, and five tones that are spelled rather than marked.
Malay gives beginners a Latin alphabet, no tones and no verb conjugation. Here is what that buys you, and where the real difficulty actually hides.
Grammatically correct Cantonese still sounds wrong without particles. What sentence-final particles do, why they are not tones, and how to start using them.
Dictation is the one drill that joins listening to an unfamiliar script. What it tests, what the research supports, and how to run it in ten minutes a day.
A heritage learner arrives with listening ahead of reading and gaps in between. Why that profile needs a different study plan, with Shanghainese as the case.
Lao numerals, the words from one to a hundred, the irregular twenty, and the thousand-and-above units that carry prices when you are buying something.
What changes when a bilingual course is switched round: explanations in Marathi, a new script to decode, and the specific gaps a Marathi speaker starts with.
Repeating a Malay word can mark plurality, signal variety, or form a word with no single half. Telling the three apart, with dictionary-checked examples.
A character on the page is a written unit, not a pronunciation. What happens when you can read a Shanghainese sentence in Mandarin but cannot say it in Wu.
Cantonese learners meet three systems, not one: what you say, colloquial Cantonese written down, and Standard Written Chinese read aloud in Cantonese.
Tracing teaches the stroke path for Khmer letters, but research suggests it is a scaffold, not the finish line. A sequence that moves you past it.
Marathi's official standing, the region it belongs to, and an honest account of the situations where speaking it changes the interaction and where it does not.
What it takes to build a Lao course when the big language apps do not offer one, and the decisions we made about script, sequencing and scope.
A practical way to pick between aspect pairs based on what you mean, rather than translating from English tense and hoping for the best.
Khmer has no tones, which helps, but the script and vowel system do not. Here is what is genuinely hard and what is easier than expected.
What makes Lao difficult for English speakers, what makes it easier than you would expect, and which parts take the longest to get comfortable with.
Malay is often called one of the easier languages for English speakers. Here is where that is fair and where it quietly stops being true.
What makes Marathi demanding for English speakers, where it is more forgiving than expected, and roughly how long the early stages take.
Why Shanghainese gets called a dialect, why linguists usually do not, and what the answer changes for someone trying to learn it.
Khmer text that renders as boxes, stacks marks in the wrong place or clips subscripts usually points at font fallback. Here is what to check.
Chum reap suor, suosdei and the sampeah, plus the honorifics that decide which greeting is appropriate for the person in front of you.
The Khmer phrases that actually come up on a trip to Cambodia, grouped by situation, with notes on where English will not get you there.
Khmer and Thai writing come from the same ancestor but diverge on tone marking, vowel placement and consonant series. What transfers and what does not.
Sabaidee and the greetings around it, how the nop gesture works, and the politeness particles that change how a Lao greeting lands.
A short list of Lao phrases that earn their place on a trip, grouped by the situation you will need them in rather than by grammar topic.
How a Lao syllable gets its tone from consonant class, tone mark and vowel length together, and why you cannot read tone off the mark alone.
A starting route into Marathi for complete beginners: the script first, then the vocabulary and grammar that unlock everyday conversation.
How to start Shanghainese when almost every resource assumes Mandarin: what to learn first, what to ignore, and where the real difficulty sits.
Malay builds most of its verbs and nouns with affixes. What each common prefix and suffix does, and how the sound changes actually work.
A practical set of Malay phrases for arriving, eating, shopping and getting around, plus an honest note on where English is already enough.
How Devanagari works for Marathi: vowels, consonants, the matras that attach to them, and the letters Marathi uses that Hindi does not.
Marathi numbers are largely irregular up to 100, which is why rote counting fails. How the system works and how to practise it sensibly.
A short set of Marathi phrases for greetings, food, transport and shopping, each with its literal sense so the grammar starts making sense early.
What a realistic first month of Marathi looks like, how to split time between script and speech, and what you can honestly expect at the end of it.
How Marathi verbs agree with gender and number, what the present and past look like, and the minimum you need for a working sentence.
Marathi and Hindi share Devanagari but split on grammar, gender, vocabulary and pronunciation. What transfers between them and what does not.
Russian cursive looks nothing like the printed alphabet. Which letters cause the trouble, how to read them, and how to practise writing them.
The unidirectional and multidirectional pairs, what the prefixes add, and a way to keep the whole system straight without memorising a table.
Unstressed Russian vowels change sound, which is why words never sound the way they look. The rules, in the order worth learning them.
Cases let Russian move words around, but position still carries meaning. How word order signals emphasis, and the defaults worth starting from.
A short set of Shanghainese greetings and everyday phrases, with notes on where the pronunciation departs from what Mandarin would lead you to expect.
Shanghainese has several competing romanisations and no single standard. How we chose one for the course and what that choice costs learners.
Shanghainese tone counts vary by source because sandhi reshapes tones across a whole phrase. What that means for a learner in practice.
Shanghainese and Mandarin share a writing system and little else. Tones, consonants, vocabulary and grammar compared without the dialect shorthand.
Which of the two to study depends on where you are going and what resources exist. An honest look, including where Malay is the harder option to resource.
Wu is one of the major Chinese language groups. Where Shanghainese sits inside it, which neighbours it resembles, and how far intelligibility reaches.
What the six Cantonese tones are, why some references say nine, which contrasts actually cause beginner errors, and how to practise tone without perfect pitch.
Cantonese and Mandarin are not mutually intelligible. Here is what differs in sound, romanisation, script and everyday vocabulary, and how to pick one.
What A1 through C2 actually describe, why the framework measures what you can do rather than what you know, and how to use it to set a study target.
What comprehensible input means, why difficulty level matters more than material choice, and where the strong version of the claim outruns the evidence.
The one public institutional figure for Russian study time is FSI's, and it describes full-time diplomatic training. Here is what it means and what it does not.
Why hour estimates for learning Italian vary so much, what CEFR levels actually describe, and how to set a target you can measure honestly.
Why word-count targets mislead, what text coverage research actually shows, and why the words you choose matter far more than how many you learn.
Thai difficulty is not evenly spread. Here is what the script and tones really cost, what the grammar gives back free, and what published guidance says.
An honest breakdown of what is genuinely difficult in Vietnamese, what is unexpectedly easy, and why the usual difficulty rankings mislead learners.
Why Italian has so many words for 'the', how noun gender is usually predictable from the ending, and how to make agreement automatic rather than effortful.
The three conjugation families, why the irregular verbs are the ones you need most, and a prioritised order for learning Italian verbs that actually works.
Khmer has 33 consonants in two series, subscripts that stack downward and vowel signs on all four sides. Here is how a Khmer syllable is put together.
How to choose a language app when your language is not one of the big ones: availability, official courses versus community word lists, tones and script.
Why progress slows at the intermediate stage, why it is structural rather than a motivation problem, and which changes actually restart movement.
How the Lao script works: consonant classes, vowels that surround the consonant, tone marks, and why there are no spaces between words.
The relationship between Lao and Thai — shared vocabulary, related scripts, asymmetric comprehension — and what it means if you are choosing which to learn.
Italian for English speakers: what transparent spelling gives you for free, where gender and verbs cost you, and a realistic first-month plan.
What Lao asks of a beginner — its script, tones and vocabulary — and a realistic first-month plan for a language with very few learning resources.
What Vietnamese actually asks of a beginner — tones, the Latin-based alphabet, pronouns — and a realistic plan for the first four weeks of study.
What self-study does well, the three things it genuinely cannot do, and how to build a routine that compensates for the missing feedback loop.
Why listening is harder than reading, what segmentation actually is, and a practical routine that builds comprehension instead of just accumulating hours.
Malay spelling is nearly phonemic, so pronunciation is mostly rhythm plus five rules. Here are the vowels, the digraphs and the habits English speakers import.
What shadowing is, why it targets rhythm and timing rather than vocabulary, how to do it without reinforcing errors, and what it will not fix.
Thai has five tones and only four tone marks. Here is how consonant class, vowel length and syllable ending combine to decide the tone of a written word.
Chữ Quốc ngữ from the outside in: which letters exist, what the vowel marks do, why đ is a separate letter, and why typing it needs a special input method.
Why Vietnamese has no neutral 'I' or 'you', how kinship terms became the pronoun system, and how a beginner can navigate it without causing offence.
The six tones of standard Vietnamese, the diacritics that mark them, why northern and southern varieties differ, and how to practise them without a teacher.
How tone distinguishes words, why English speakers find it hard, what tone is not, and a practical way to train tonal perception before production.
Malay and Indonesian share most of their grammar and core vocabulary, then diverge in loanwords and false friends. Here is what differs and which one to study.
The six Russian cases, organised by the job each one does, with the animacy rule, the motion-versus-location split, and what beginners reliably get wrong.
Spaced repetition rests on two findings, not one. Here is what the research supports, what it does not, and how to use it without a scheduling algorithm.
How Cantonese tones really work, why Jyutping and traditional characters matter, and what a realistic first month of study looks like for an adult beginner.
Khmer has no tones, which removes the barrier most beginners fear. The writing system replaces it — here is what the Khmer script actually asks of you.
Malay gives beginners a Latin alphabet, no tones and no verb conjugation. Here is what that buys you, and where the real difficulty actually hides.
The 33 letters of Russian sorted into what you already read, what will trick you and what is new, plus the stress and cursive problems nobody warns you about.
What the Thai writing system asks of a beginner: consonant classes, vowels that surround the letter, and five tones that are spelled rather than marked.