This blog entry (https://blog.mangolanguages.com/are-some-languages-harder-to-learn) by Mango (an online language learning app) discussed different difficulty levels of new languages for English speakers. The article makes a reference to the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) language table, which is one of the most frequently cited information on the expected lengths to master different languages (for English monolingual speakers -- the chart may not work for bilingual and native speakers of a language other than English). In one version of the FSI tables, several languages are marked with asterisks, indicating it is particularly difficult in the same category.

This Pimsleur blog (https://blog.pimsleur.com/2021/07/20/differences-latin-american-and-spain_spanish/) discusses major differences between Latin American Spanish (e.g., Mexican Spanish) and Peninsular (European) Spanish, including differences in pronunciation (phonetics), the use of "vosotros," the use of "vos," and the lexicon (vocabulary). The blog summarizes the dialectual varieties in Spanish as following: "Luckily, if you learn one variety of Spanish, you will not have too many problems when traveling to another country. Within the most spoken languages in the world (Chinese, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Hindi), Spanish has the fewest differences among its dialects."

New Year is a major holiday in some culture. Here is a list of different ways to celebrate this holiday in different languages. See this Duolingo blog entry for more information about the new year toast in different languages and cultures (https://blog.duolingo.com/happy-new-year-translations/). سنة جديدة سعيدة (Arabic) Godt nytår (Danish) Gelukkig Nieuwjaar (Dutch) Happy New Year (English) Bonne Année (French) Frohes Neues Jahr (German) नववर्ष की शुभकामना (Hindi) Buon anno (Italian) あけましておめでとう (Japanese) 새해 복 많이 받으세요 (Korean) 新年快乐 (Mandarin) Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku (Polish) Feliz Ano Novo (Portuguese) С новым годом (Russian) ¡Feliz Año Nuevo! (Spanish) Gott nytt år (Swedish) Mutlu ...

Rosetta Stone presents a snapshot of their Dynamic Immersion lesson in Mandarin Chinese, which consists of practice in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation skills. This blog entry presents short introduction to the basic elements of their basic-level lesson, focusing on the following items. Pinyin (Chinese Phonetic Alphabet) Grammar Activities People Things Adjectives Numbers Phrases See https://blog.rosettastone.com/the-essentials-how-to-get-by-in-mandarin-chinese/ for more info.

Linguists often use the term "Romance language" to describe a group of languages such as Spanish, French, and Italian, but what does it really mean? Are they more romantic than English? You will find the answer in this Duolingo's blog post. Quote: "Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese might be the most familiar from the group, but there are many more -- even within Spain, France, Italy, and Portugal! Others include Asturian, spoken in the very north of Spain; Sicilian, spoken in Sicily; Occitan, spoken in France; and Ladino, also called Judeo-Spanish, which is spoken by some of the ...

Memrise, an online language learning app, summarizes their observation about language learning across the world in 2021. Quote: "Squid Game and the K-wave’s effect on language learning, Japanese, Yoruba and Finnish surge in popularity and ... people are studying later at night. Read more in this annual review of learning on Memrise."

This blog post by Mondly, an online language learning app, shows how to say "Merry Christmas" in different languages. Here is the list. Spanish: ¡Feliz Navidad! French: Joyeux Noël! German: Frohe Weihnachten! Italian: Buon Natale! Portuguese: Feliz Natal! Romanian: Crăciun Fericit! Russian: Счастливого Рождества! (Schastlivogo Rozhdestva!) Swedish: God Jul! Norwegian: God Jul! Danish: Glædelig Jul! Finnish: Hyvää Joulua! Icelandic: Gleðileg Jól! Polish: Wesołych Świąt! Dutch: Vrolijk Kerstfeest! Croatian: Sretan Božić! Czech: Veselé Vánoce! Read the blog entry to learn more about these expresssions above. Also, here are a few more expressions in Asian languages. Chinese (traditional): 聖誕快樂 Chinese (simplified): 圣诞快乐 Japanese: メリークリスマス Korean: 성탄을 축하드려요

Duolingo, the largest and fastest growing online language learning platform, has published its annual language learning report for 2021. Here is the summary of the report. In 2021, Asian languages—especially Japanese and Korean—attracted learners worldwide, building on the impressive growth observed in 2020. Japanese surpassed Italian globally to become the 5th most popular language to study, and it's the fastest-growing language in the U.S. and U.K. Korean—holding strong at the 7th most popular language to study around the world—is the fastest-growing language in Brazil, France, Germany, India, and Mexico, and it ranks as the second-fastest growing language in Japan! Chinese, which was the 10th most ...

This infograph of most commonly spoken languages in the U.S. (besides English & Spanish) shows very rich linguistic diversity of the United States. "There are over 7,000 different languages spoken around the world. While most of the U.S. population speaks either English or Spanish, many additional languages are spoken across the country too."

New York City has announced "Language Access for All," a new $4 million initiative to improve outreach and communication with multilingual families who need language access support. "The program will focus on multi-lingual “know your rights” campaigns, expanding communications outlets and tools to reach more families, building language access capacity of school staff and partnering with community-based organizations to provide multilingual family workshops and language support."