The dangers of fake news, misinformation and propaganda These days we regularly see the term ‘fake news’ being thrown about. Despite it seeming like a new phenomenon, it has actually been around for many years. Our exposure to fake news and misinformation has...
Today students are faced with many new challenges. But staying at home because of COVID-19, could be one the greatest. For students, teachers, and parents, remote learning has become the new normal. Schooling at home Firstly, it's vital to devote an at-home workspace...
Most of the world is contending with the menace of COVID-19. People are advised to stay at home, in self-isolation, to avoid catching COVID-19, or (more importantly) passing it on the those who are more vulnerable. For people who are already used to working from home...
Forty days and forty nights The idea of isolating the sick is very old. Hippocrates (460-370 BCE), known as the father of modern medicine, discussed the concept of quarantine in his three-volume work on epidemics. This is especially interesting when you consider that...
Learning at home Some of us are already under lockdown due to COVID-19. And it seems that many more of us may well be dealing with the same restrictions soon. So what are going to do with this time? Some DIY? Try every recipe in your favourite cookbook?! Or, why not...
On February 11, 2020 the World Health Organization announced an official name for the new disease first identified in Wuhan, China. The new name of this disease is coronavirus disease 2019, abbreviated to COVID-19. In COVID-19, ‘CO’ stands for ‘corona,’ ‘VI’ for...
There are around 6,000 languages in the world. You may wonder how all of these languages came into existence? Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Leipzig Research Centre for Early Childhood Development at Leipzig University,...
Gairaigo, Japanese loanwords, literally translates as, gai (outside) rai (come) go (language) – together this makes “language, that comes from the outside”.
The sponge-like brain of a baby has no issues with learning multiple languages It’s often said that babies and young children’s brains are like sponges when it comes to retaining information, and this is especially true when it comes to languages. Bilingual babies are...
Loanwords and their usage The Cambridge Dictionary defines a loanword as a word taken from one language and used in another. Such words can also be called ‘borrowings’. Although, there is no ‘returning’ of words. Using loanwords is not like taking a loan from a bank or borrowing a book from a friend! These terms just describe […]