1. Chinese is the native language for well over 1 billion people

2. Mandarin Chinese is spoken in 13 countries
3. A ‘red envelope’ or ‘red packet’ usually means money ???? and luck!
4. Chinese New Year never happens on 1st January
5. Chinese New Year is also known as the ‘Spring Festival’
6. Mandarin is the most popular Chinese dialect
7. Mandarin Chinese is not the official language in Hong Kong nor in Macau
8. Delicious dim sum can come in the cutest forms
9. Being ‘tone-deaf’ can cause problems when learning Mandarin
10. Mandarin Chinese is a major language in Southeast Asian countries
11. The humble fortune cookie is actually a Japanese treat
12. Mandarin is the official language in 3 countries
13. Mandarin Chinese is now the number one dialect in New York’s Chinatown
14. Once upon a time…epic tales are written from top right to bottom left
15. There are 50,000 written Chinese characters
16. Still baffled by Chinese characters? Get familiar with pinyin
17. Game-playing is for all ages in China
18. Chop suey is American, not Chinese
19. The Mid-Autumn (Moon) Festival is Almost As Important as Chinese New Year
20. Understanding Chinese culture can enhance your language learning experience dramatically

1) Chinese is one of the most ancient languages still in use today.
2) Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world.
3) The word “Mandarin” originates from Sanskrit.
4) Mandarin isn’t the only “Chinese language”.
5) Chinese is a major language in numerous Southeast Asian countries.
6) It’s the only modern pictographic language.
7) The Chinese language doesn’t have an alphabet.
8) There are over 50,000 distinct Chinese characters.
9) You don’t need to learn all 50,000 characters!
10) Chinese has no articles, verb inflections, or plurals.
11) There are two sets of Chinese characters.
12) New Chinese characters are being added every year.
13) Chinese is an official UN language.
14) Challenging but not hard to learn.
15) Chinese is a tonal language.
16) Chinese follows different calligraphy styles.
17) There is no gender in Chinese!
18) The most complicated Chinese character is biang.
19) Chinese characters aren’t exclusive to the Chinese.
20) Chinese has borrowed words from English.
21) The world’s most famous people are learning Chinese as a second language!
22) Ancient Chinese texts were written from top right to bottom left.
23) The Chinese language has number symbols.
24) Learning Chinese makes you smart!

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French is the fifth most widely spoken language in the world

French is spoken in 51 countries around the world

French is an official language in 29 countries

The French are wonderfully obsessed with bread and pastry

Learning French gives you a head start for learning the other romance languages

French is the ‘language of love’

Patisseries are a major part of French foodie culture

French is the second most popular language for people around the world to learn (after English)

The English language is full of French words

French is officially spoken on every continent in the world

Over half of the English language comes from French and Latin

French is the most taught language in the UK

French is the fourth most widely spoken language in the USA

‘Popping out for dinner’ in France can take hours

A business dinner in France is not the time for business

May Day is always on the 1st of May in France

France’s May Day is also known as Fête du Muguet

Watch out for French ‘false friends’
The band ‘Depeche Mode’ may be named after a French fashion magazine
French is one of the British Council’s essential ‘Languages for the Future’

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1. German is the 11th most widely spoken language
2. German is the official language of 5 EU countries
3. Some dialects are almost unintelligible to one another
4. The Bavarian dialect is considered the hardest to understand
5. There are also accent differences between countries that speak German
6. German was once a lingua franca of Central Europe
7. German has lots of compound words
8. German has a special letter
9. The German language and the English language are closely related
10. Like English, German has a lot of homonyms
11. Some letters sound different in German
12. German spelling rules changed in 1996
13. German used to be written in a different script than other languages
14. There are three periods in German language history
15. Low German still exists today
16. The Brothers Grimm wrote the first comprehensive German dictionary
17. Every noun is capitalized
18. German has 3 genders
19. German doesn’t distinguish between the habitual present and the present progressive
20. The German keyboard is slightly different than the English one
21. There are 6 ways to say ‘why’
22. There are also multiple ways to say ‘what’ and ‘where’
23. Compound nouns in German have gotten famously long
24. A survey was conducted to find the most beautiful German word
25. German is called the language of poets and thinkers
26. There are some pretty cool German words without an English equivalent
27. German has some pretty fun colloquialisms

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1. Spanish is Spoken Worldwide by Approximately 500 Million People
2. Spanish is the Second Most Studied Language in the World
3. Spanish is the Official Language in 21 Countries
4. The Third Most Used Language on the Internet is Spanish
5. Mexico is the Country with the Largest Spanish-speaking Population
6. In the United States, Almost 41 Million People Speak Spanish
7. Spanish is the Only Official Language Spoken in All 5 Continents
8. One Language with Two Names
9. Spanish is One of the Most Fast-spoken Languages in the World
10. Spanish Comes from Latin and is a Romance Language
11. Spanish is a Phonetic Language
12. Spanish has Arabic Influences
13. The Spanish Language has an Institute Dedicated Specifically to its Regulation
14. Some Unique Words in Spanish can’t Be Translated to English
15. Spanish has Over 100,000 Different Words
16. It’s the Only Language that Uses Two Exclamation Signs and Question Marks
17. The Pronunciation of the Letter Ñ is Not Exclusive to the Spanish Language
18. The First Spanish Texts were Written More Than 1,000 Years Ago
19. There are over 40,000 Words in Spanish that Have All the Vowels
20. Many English Words Have Been Adapted to Spanish
21. The First Spanish Grammar Texts were Published When Christopher Columbus came to America
22. Spanish Used to be a Diplomatic and Divine Language
23. Spanish has Plenty of Homophone Words
24. Spanish has Nouns that Are Spelled the Same but Have a Different Meaning According to Genre
25. There’s Two Different Types of the Verb “To Be”
26. Two Words in Spanish Can Be Spelled the Same but Have a Different Meaning
27. You Can Express your Love in Different Ways
28. Spanish has Plenty of Words that Are Considered “False Friends”
29. The Letter X has been replaced by the letter J in many countries
30. The Pronunciation of the Letters Y and Ll Will Vary According to the Country
31. The Longest Word in Spanish has 23 Letters
32. The letters CH and Ll were removed from the Spanish Alphabet
33. Spanish-language Cinema, Music and Television are Currently Prospering
34. Spanish is Considered the Number One Language for the Future

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Turkish Facts
1. The Turkish language is part of the Turkic languages
2. Turkish has around 75 million native speakers
3. Before 1928, Turkish was written using a specific form of Arabic writing
4. Some Turkish words made it to the English Language
5. The Turkish language has some tongue twisters
1. Istanbul is on two continents
2. Ankara, not Istanbul, is the capital of Turkey
3. The original name of Istanbul is “Byzantium”
4. The story of Santa Claus originated in Turkey
5. The Turks love tea
6. Turkey has a young demographic
7. Istanbul (Old Constantinople) was founded on seven hills
8. The name “turquoise” actually comes from Turkey
9. The national sport of Turkey is oil wrestling
10. There are 82,693 mosques in Turkey
11. Turkey is the largest producer of hazelnuts
12. Turkey has an impressive self-sufficient agriculture
13. The Turks love their bread
14. There are more than 30 ethnic languages in Turkey
15. The “Evil Eye” is the best-selling souvenir
16. We owe coffee to the Turks
17. Turkish women could leave their husbands for coffee
18. The Grand Bazaar has more than 3000 stores
19. Istanbul Airport is a major aviation hub
20. Noah’s Ark allegedly landed on Mount Ararat

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1 THERE ARE THREE “TYPES” OF ARABIC
Classical Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA)
Colloquial Arabic

2 PEOPLE WRITE WORDS FROM RIGHT TO LEFT AND NUMBERS FROM LEFT TO RIGHT
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3️ THE ARABIC ALPHABET ISN’T ACTUALLY AN ALPHABET

4️ ARABIC IS THE FIFTH MOST SPOKEN LANGUAGE IN THE WORLD

5️ YOU NEED AN AVERAGE OF 1.69 YEARS TO LEARN ARABIC

Around 420 million people speak Arabic. It ranks as the 5th most spoken language in the whole world after Mandarin, Spanish, English and Hindi!
• Many of the most popular languages in the world have been influenced by Arabic. For example, English, Spanish, Indonesian, French, Persian, Urdu, Kurdish, Bengali, Hindu, Malay, Tagalog, Portuguese and Turkish.
• Speaking of influence, Arabic is a member of the Semitic languages family. It was also influenced by other languages such as Aramaic, Hebrew, Persian, and Hellenistic Greek. For example, the word “madina” (meaning city) is of Hebrew origin.
• The Maltese language is considered a branch of Arabic and is also the only Arabic dialect written in Latin alphabet!
• While it’s true that classical Arabic only dates back to the 6th century, the Arabic language is, in fact, at least 1,500 years old. Older versions of the language and dialects exist. This is before the emergence of Islam dating as far back as the 2nd century BCE when the Nabataeans. They lived in what is known as Jordan today. They wrote a cursive Aramaic which developed into the Arabic alphabet.
• The Arabic language has an “abjad” system and not an alphabet. The Arabic abjad is made up of 28 letters, written from right to left. All of the letters are consonants, since the vowels in Arabic are denoted by diacritics. These are marks that can be added either on top or underneath the letters.
• Each Arabic alphabet letter can be written in four different ways when writing a word. Either stand-alone or isolated, when it is at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of the word.
• The Arabic alphabet includes letters or sounds that other languages do not have. For example, you have Haa, Kha, Ayn, Ghain, Dad, Haa, Saa, Taa, Thaa, Qaf, and some unique sounds like the rolled “r” which is similar to Spanish r. Then there’s also the raspy Kh, the gargling GH and the glottal stop “ayn” which doesn’t have an equivalent in English.

• Arabic language is a cursive language. Remember, however, that each letter has four different forms depending on its position in the word.
• Arabic language has almost unlimited vocabulary, with no exact or verified number of words. Sources are conflicting and claim it can be between 100,000 to 500 million; nevertheless, there is no definitive answer.
• While you write words from right to left in Arabic, numbers are the opposite, from left to right.
• Arabic uses punctuation marks like other languages. However, they are backwards! Since Arabic is from write to left, doesn’t that make sense؟
• In case you’re wondering, “Does Arabic use capital letters?” the answer is no.
• There is no verb “to be” in the Arabic language.
• There are at least 11 words for “love” (Hubb, حب), and a 100 for “camel” (Jamal, جمل).
• It will take you between 1,000 and 1,500 hours to reach the high intermediate level in Arabic.
• People often consider Arabic as one of the hardest languages to learn after Chinese. However, recent studies have shown that it’s actually not really that much harder to learn than other languages. Just the approach is different because of the way the letters and the root system of words. So it’s not the language, it’s the approach to it that is difficult.

• Arabic calligraphy started as a tool of communication. It started as an artistic expression such as construction, design, currency. In fact, modern artists consider Arabic calligraphy its own separate area of the arts.
• Many students in the Arab world treat the language as “inferior” or “outdated”. Even more so, they treat it as an “uncool” language and opting to rely on English for self-expression. However, as it is now the fourth largest language in the world.