¿Sabías? – World Language Week Day 3

Posted on by Veronica Kiefaber

Slides: Benefits of Learning a 2nd Language

Video: 25 Crazy Language Facts

Learning another language is important. And even in the United States (where learning non-native language has typically been lagging a bit behind many other countries), nearly all students are studying another language.

Languages are a part of everyday life – whether you speak one or more, they are one of the main keys of communication. Other than being able to speak a language (or not being able to speak it) there are a lot of fun facts about languages more generally

Did You Know?

  • There are about 7,000 languages in the world.
  • There are 50,000 characters in the Chinese language. You’ll need to know about 2,000 to read a newspaper.
  • 12.44% of the world’s population speaks Mandarin as their first language.
  • There are about 2,200 languages in Asia.
  • 1/4 of the world’s population speaks at least some English.Learning another language is important
  • 50% of educational time in Luxembourg devoted to learning English, German, and French.
  • There are 13 ways to spell the ‘o’ sound in French.
  • There is a language in Botswana that consists of mainly 5 types of clicks.
  • There are 2,400 languages classified as being ‘endangered’.
  • 231 languages are now completely extinct.
  • One language dies about every 14 days.
  • Eastern Siberia, Northwest Pacific Plateau of North America, And Northern Australia are hotspots for endangered languages.
  • There are 12 imaginary languages in Lord of The Rings.
  • Esperanto is an artificial language, but is spoken by about 500,000 to 2,000,000 people, and 2 feature films have been done in the language.
  • There are 24 working languages of the EU.
  • There are 6 official UN languages.
  • The bible is available in 2454 languages.
  • The oldest written language was believed to be written in about 4500 BC.
  • South Africa has 11 official languages – the most for a single country.
  • The pope tweets in 9 languages.
  • The US has no official language.
  • You can use an ATM in Latin in the Vatican City.

fuente: http://www.edudemic.com/language-quiz/

HABLAR o ESCRIBIR

  1. ¿Cuál de los hechos es el más interesante para ti?
  2. Si pudieras aprender cualquier idioma, ¿cuál sería? ¿Por qué?

Trabajo extra:

Practica tu español y traduce los hechos a español.
world language week 2016