Johnson
Our correspondents consider the use and abuse of languages around the world, in a blog named after the dictionary-maker Samuel Johnson
Wordplay for the Chinese New Year
Punnest weekend ever
A pun is a pun is a pun but is not always fun
Home news
Johnson becomes a column once again
For three years, we've blogged about language. We now (re)turn Johnson to a weekly column format
Teenage hyperpolyglot
Shrug like a Frenchman and frown like a Russian
Timothy Doner, an enormously accomplished language learner at age 17, talks with us in French, Mandarin and Russian, explains how each language "feels" to him, and shares some of his tips
Language identity in India
One state, many worlds, now what?
Karnataka state in India struggles with its multilingual and multireligious identity
Language-learning software
Review: Babbel and Duolingo
One free and one inexpensive bit of language-learning software to compete with the pricier stuff
Nordic languages
Crazy long words
Long words do not make the Germanic languages especially difficult
Learning Dutch, ctd
Growing pains
Some languages consider digraphs—two letters that form a single sound—to be a single letter, confusing learners
Language borrowing
Why so little Chinese in English?
The booming country is contributing fairly little to the English language
Brazilians, ctd
More perplexing Portuguese
Additions to our glossary of Brazilian speech for foreigners
Learning Dutch
Schibboleth
The Dutch make it difficult to learn their language by speaking such excellent English