It’s World Emoji Day on 17th July! Although smiley faces are common features of text messages and social media posts, over a third of adults believe that emojis are ruining the English language. Researchers have suggested that emojis could be
The 2018 FIFA World Cup kicked off in Russia on Thursday 14th June. This is the first World Cup held in Europe since 2006 and the first ever to be held in Eastern Europe. It’s time for football vocabulary to enter the EFL classroom again and
The Duchess of Sussex has given birth to a baby girl! Lilibet “Lili” Diana Mountbatten-Windsor was born on Friday 4th June in Santa Barbara, California. Lili is little sister to Archie. The Duke and Duchess named their newborn after the
It’s the London Marathon this weekend! The big race is held annually in the spring and this year we’ll see over 55,000 people take to the streets of London for the 26.2 mile course. Whatever the weather, thousands will be
Amazon is exploring the possibility of adding real-time translation to Alexa’s range of capabilities. If the real-time translation technology is enabled, this will help Alexa to tackle cultural misunderstandings, subtle nuances of speech and complex language barriers. Although the popular voice-enabled
With Brexit on the horizon, there are many discussions about the future of international trade. Former Italian prime minister Mario Monti has declared that English is ‘one of the very best products of Britain’ and that it should continue to
Cambridge Assessment English (previously known as Cambridge English Language Assessment) has launched a new simplified test called Linguaskill. This is a multilevel online test, which can provide personalised results within 12 hours. Linguaskill can test the writing, reading and listening
The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle took place on Saturday 19th May at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. The fifth in line to the British throne became engaged to the American former actress in November last year
An English academic has claimed that many English adverbs are falling out of common usage. The classic understatement of English speakers means our language has always been peppered with phrases such as ‘rather difficult’, ‘quite likely’, ‘awfully expensive’ and ‘terribly
Hurricane Ophelia arrived in the British Isles on October 16th, leaving many homes in Ireland and Wales without power and schools temporarily closed. There were violently strong winds across parts of Scotland, Wales and England as the remnants of Hurricane