European Day of Languages; is it even worth the paper it’s written on?

Last week saw the 10th anniversary of the European Day of Languages “celebrated” throughout the European Union. If you didn’t realise, don’t worry you probably weren’t the only one. The day which is officially organised by the Council of Europe and has a budget of 30 million euros was launched in 2001 to alert the [...]

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Munich’s First International IT Networking Event

Social networking is the talk of the town and more and more companies are jumping on the metaphorical bandwagon to reach customers in new, innovative ways. Whether it is via Twitter or Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube, the methods are constantly diversifying. But while we support the social networking revolution and its importance in relationship building, [...]

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What better reason to learn French – to win the X Factor of course!

When we came across this story at Euro London, we couldn’t help but read on. A British student winning the French X Factor?! It sounds absurd, but Matthew Raymond-Barker touched the European nation’s hearts with his renditions of pop classics in the native language. Although admitting being less than perfect at the language when he [...]

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German appeal

Why did the English speaker from Canada come to Germany to learn about North America in English? Sounds like the start of a corny joke, but many English-speaking students are flocking to German universities as a range of English language courses prove more appealing than those in the UK and the States. Germany was recently [...]

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Battle of the bands

Once a year, there is a battle in Europe. Every country carefully and democratically selects their warriors well in advance, subjecting them to rounds of gruelling competition and then months of strenuous training. The pride of every European nation falls on their contestants coming out on top, as there is no greater measure of success [...]

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Germany produces another psychic – just in time for the Oscars

We’re only just getting over the tragic demise of Paul the Octopus, the famous eight-legged German who correctly predicted the World Cup results last summer. But it seems a new psychic has taken his place.  Her critics have called her a ‘dumb blonde’ and a ‘bit of fluff’ – but that’s only because she’s a [...]

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Beards for Belgium

It’s not the first time a celebrity has got involved with politics – we’ve had Arnold Schwarzenegger in California and Wyclef Jean in Haiti. But this time, there’s a bit of a twist involved. Belgian actor Benoit Poelvoorde is urging his fellow countrymen to grow beards until Belgium forms a government. A caretaker government has [...]

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Battle of the booze

Next time you have an occasion to celebrate, will you be popping some champagne? Well, maybe not. Wine experts say that for the first time, Italian sparkling wine is outselling its French rival, with the British equivalent not too far behind. As of New Year’s Eve it was estimated that Italian bubby outsold champagne by [...]

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Longer hours in France?

How long is your working day? As the song goes, a lot of people work 9-5, although here in the UK it’s not unusual for people to be in the office until 6pm or 7pm. However our neighbours in France are renowned for their 35 hour week. Could this be set to change? A potential [...]

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No GCSE in languages, No place in our sixth form!

Is this the way forward? Simply not allowing pupils into a particular sixth form if they have not studied a language at GCSE? Well according to two schools in Essex it is the very answer! Both schools have claimed that from 2012 no pupils will be accepted into their sixth form unless they have at [...]

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