It is increasingly common for parents to decide to raise their children in a language that is neither their native tongue nor the language of the society in which they live. For example, in Spain it is increasingly common to hear Spanish parents speaking to their children in English in the park or after school. Often, these […] … learn more→

Every year, millions of students from all parts of the globe study for a degree through a language other than their first, usually English. In 2023, 25% of all higher education students in the UK were international students. The understanding is that the incoming students will have, or develop, enough proficiency in English as a second language to study engineering, history, […] … learn more→

Even though it seems highly rule-bound, the English language changes all the time. Every year new words are added to the dictionary. These days a lot of new words come from popular culture and new technologies. And they spread online. New words are made by  changing existing words, adding to them, abbreviating them or they are spoken […] … learn more→

“Living”, “evolving” and “dead”: we often talk about languages as if they were living organisms. The reason for this use of a metaphor to talk about language lies in the deep complexity of language as a concept. But treating language in this way can have drawbacks: it can lead us to misunderstand the relationship between […] … learn more→

When carrying out administrative procedures, the user is often asked to authenticate or authenticate what is requested, indistinctly. By using both words, one can consider the influence of the English authenticate or authenticate in the use of these verbs. However, today the two words are included in the Dictionary of the Spanish language of the Royal Academy, the basis of the standard in terms of lexicon. In […] … learn more→

Although we don’t usually think about it, we have around us one of the fundamental wonders of which our species is capable, and whose invention should guide our idea of ​​what it is to create. Its existence confirms that a collective creation is possible, and a common and shared intelligence. That wonder is human language. Our global […] … learn more→

Do you remember being taught you should never start your sentences with “And” or “But”? What if I told you that your teachers were wrong and there are lots of other so-called grammar rules that we’ve probably been getting wrong in our English classrooms for years? How did grammar rules come about? To understand why […] … learn more→

While fiction writers have a special dispensation to scatter sentence fragments and comma splices throughout their ripping yarns, writers of academic prose are held to higher standards. Examiners of theses and reviewers of journal articles expect to see punctuation in the ‘right’ places; that is, correctly deployed according to the current conventions of formal writing. […] … learn more→

Like Shakespeare, Charles Dickens liked to invent new words. Along with flummox, abuzz, and whiz-bang, he is also often credited with ‘the growlery’, which he mentioned in passing in Bleak House. There is some debate about whether this word is his creation, and most dictionaries suggest it is an archaic term he adopted but that […] … learn more→