14-year-old British schoolgirl set to top Japanese charts

A 14-year-old British schoolgirl is set to top the Japanese charts after becoming an internet sensation.

Rebecca Flint from the Isle of Man shot to fame after uploading clips of herself dancing to Japanese pop music on the video sharing website YouTube.

Yahoo

It's time to end our linguistic ineptitude and make language study compulsory once again

"Bonjour, avez-vous le… ermmm… je voudrais… ermmm," I started. "Mon amis est malade," I tried, unable to think of the French for cold or flu. I moved on to mime: faking a cough, wrapping my arms around myself and pretending to shiver. The woman behind the counter held out some tablets but I shook my head.

Then it was tearing open an imaginary sachet, pouring it into a cup, adding water and drinking – blowing occasionally to indicate heat. She looked bemused. "Le flu?" I pleaded.

The Observer

The tragedy of dying languages

Linguist K David Harrison argues that we still have much to learn from vanishing languages.

BBC website

Last fluent speaker of Bo language dies

Death of Boa Sr, last person fluent in the Bo language of the Andaman Islands, breaks link with 65,000-year-old culture

The Guardian

The rise of the extreme language exchange

In two weeks, Matthew Hodgson is going to Spain for six months. He has never been there before and does not speak the language. But this is no adventurous gap-year student: Matthew is 10 and still at primary school.

The Independent

NHS may be breaking law on GPs English language skills

Some NHS trusts are breaking the law by failing to check whether foreign GPs can speak English well, according to the review which was set up after a patient was killed by a German locum on his first UK job.

The Guardian

English language lecturers win better pay in Italy

A court ruling last week awarded seven British lecturers at the University of Padua about £300,000 each in back wages plus interest following a 12-year legal battle.

The Guardian