Day of Languages CHALLENGE
The European Day of Languages is on 26 September every year. In 2012 I set myself a challenge to make a video and say a little bit of something in 25 of those languages. In 2015, my podcast co-host Lindsay and I will host a LIVE podcast on 28 September. Look out for it right here.
Here are some other ideas for getting involved:
- Have a multilingual pub crawl (say hello in French for French beer, hello in German for German beer...)
- Go out for a Greek meal and pronounce the food name rather than pointing at the menu
- Listen to a foreign radio programme (Deutsche Welle and RFI are great for this!)
- Watch a European football match
- Pick your favourite out of all these languages
Update on 25 September
As
the big languages are covered and I'm beginning to come across more
unusual ones, the project is shown a lot more meat to it. We've now hit
number 15 with Luxembourgish, and I've had help from kind people all
over the world. Still not sure if I can make 25 languages in time, but
in the very least you will hear me attempt to pronounce them :D
Update on 23 September
Today I put together everything I've got so far and made the first video - 11 languages are in the bag, including BSL, Danish, Spanish and Russian. I'm worried that I may not make it up to 25 languages in time, because it's just difficult to find speakers who are able to help me pronounce all the words. Will you guys accept 24?
Update on 22 September
Phew, this is tough going. I think I've got the Greek down now, and more friendly people on Facebook are kindly offering to help me with Portuguese and Galician. I didn't even know Galician was a language, so this is looking good! I'm up to 13 then, which means plenty more languages outstanding but hopefully I'm halfway there.
Update on 21 September.
Well,
so far I have collected something to say in Polish, Italian and
Romanian. I'm seeing a Greek speaker this afternoon as well so I'll make
sure I've got Greek covered, and another friend is helping me out with
Flemish. That's nearly 10 but I'm missing Scandinavian languages so far. Keep checking back for more updates!T