Culture Phatic Expressions: The Importance of "Meaningless" Things In one of the dialogs from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit”, Gandalf, despite having lived on Middle Earth for over 3,000 years, failed to understand the meaning of a simple
Learn Esperanto Esperanto: The Birth (and Failure) of a Language In one of our previous articles, we stated that languages are living organisms. They get born, they live, grow, and change over time. Eventually, they pass away, making space for others. This happened
Learn Chinese 8 Great Movies to Learn Mandarin Chinese (plus quotes!) Many new language learners underestimate how much practice time they’ll need to master Chinese. You’re off to a great start if you’ve taken a course in Chinese or gone through
Culture Classical Guitar Throughout Spanish Culture: An Overview Among musical instruments that can represent the soul of a nation, nothing tops the Spanish guitar. Right up there with the red-dressed flamenco dancers and their castañuelas, the bullfighting of Seville, and the
Learn Russian A Russian's Perspective on LGBTQ+ in Russia With Russian parliamentary elections just around the corner, why not discuss a sensitive topic? Life for the LGBTQ+ community in Russia, for example. While Russia is generally more conservative than the West, and
