10 reasons to learn Swedish on Duolingo

The Swedish for English speakers course is currently (as of the 12th of October) in the Duolingo incubator and 93% complete. It is estimated that it will be released on the 21st of October, this year. There are many people already excited about the release of this free course and here are ten reasons why. 

1. Pewdiepie
If you are part of the 'bro army', you can now understand what pewdie says in Swedish without looking at the subtitles. 

Creative Common by Sophie Fielding

2. Schengen Area
Sweden (Spain, France and Germany just to name a few) are part of the Schengen area, meaning they have abolished passport and other types of border control at their common borders. This means you can walk to Sweden from Norway or Finland without a passport. Now, that I made you want to travel to Sweden, start preparing by taking the Swedish for English speakers course.  

Creative Common by European Parliament

3. IKEA
Learn what the IKEA labels say in Swedish.

Creative Common by Gerald Stolk

4. Swedish meatballs
Learn to say delicious. 

Creative Common by Adam Kuban

What living language is the closest to Latin?

Em Português

The Roman Empire conquered a large portion of Europe, they brought their language, Latin along with them. It was spoken throughout the empire but over the centuries, local, popular, nonstandard forms of Latin called 'Vulgar Latin' evolved into today's Romance languages. 

Image by KayYen

There are 5 major Romance languages (Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian) and several minority Romance languages (such as Sardinian, Sicilian and Occitan). Romance languages are split into two groups, Western and Eastern. Western Romance languages include Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese, while Romanian is an Eastern Romance language.  

2013 in 10 Events

Ten events in 2013 that made headlines in Australia. 

Image by Simon

1. Benedict XVI resigns as Pope, being the first since 1415 and the first to do so voluntarily since 1294. 

Image by Catholic Church (England and Wales)

2. Margaret Thatcher, the longest serving British Prime Minister, died at 87 years.

Memorial outside The British Embassy in Santiago.
Image by Rivera Notario

3. Edward Snowden was given temporary asylum in Russia.

Street art portrait of Snowden
Image by Thierry Ehrmann

4. Prince George of Cambridge was born. 

Image by Christopher Neve

5. Australia had three Prime Ministers in one year: Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott. 

Tony Abbott, the current Prime Minister of Australia.
Image by Troy Constable Photography™

Christmas Tip #1: Gothic Calligraphy

Image by Juan Manuel

Despite my terrible handwriting, I take the time to write (at least the names of) Christmas cards in Gothic calligraphy. Here are 5 reasons why you should do the same:

1. Writing in Gothic script preserves history.

Writings in blackletter have been done since the 12th Century AD. 


2. You don't necessarily need to have a calligraphy pen to write in the script.

Though a calligraphy or a fountain pen would be ideal, you still have a similar effect with a fine-liner. 

3. German-speaking areas used blackletter the longest.

Though, it did not originate in Germany, the Gothic script was used for the German language until the 20th Century, this is where the association of the Gothic script with Germany came from. Things associated with German culture (or come from Germany) often relate to the Christmas theme, for example: pfefferkuchen, Christmas carols (many are German in origin), Christmas trees and stollen.

10 reasons not to use statistics as evidence

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain or Benjamin Disraeli (Contestability)

Warning, do not read if you are a statistician. 

#1. 100% of all people who drink water die. Therefore, water is poisonous. (Definition of a poisonous substance is "causing or capable of causing death or illness if taken into the body")

#2. 100% of all male platypus are semi-aquatic, this means they partially live in water. Male platypuses are born with a venomous spur. Water is indeed poisonous and is capable of making you venomous. 

Creative Common by Leo (0ystercatcher)

#3. 100% of all mass murders consumed water within three days before killing someone and 100% of people who start fights consume within three days of starting a fight. Therefore, water makes you violent. 

#4. 100% of all tsunami are made of water. Water is indeed violent.

#5. 100% of cane toads drink water, adult cane toads are dangerous because they are toxic. Therefore, water is also capable of making you toxic and dangerous.

Creative Common by Ken-ichi Ueda

The do's and don'ts of the Melbourne Show

Recently, I went to the Melbourne Show 2013. I have been to the Melbourne Show each year for as long as I can remember and I will share some tips I have learnt over the years.

Do: Visit exhibitions there
This year, Masterchef Australia was filmed in Melbourne, on the show grounds. As a Masterchef fan, it was opportunity not to be missed. 

Rutherglen 2013

Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to stay at a farm in Rutherglen for a week.
Rutherglen is a small town near Albury and the Victoria/New South Wales border. 
I have been to Rutherglen a couple of times, during summer and winter and under the impression that the weather is only very hot or very cold. I learnt that spring and autumn are the best seasons to visit, the weather is warm during midday, cool in the afternoon and not too cold at night.

While I was there, I did some jobs around the farm and explored the town. The farm that I stayed at is called Mt Ophir which has bed-and-breakfast facilities, a winery and livestock. The area has great country scenery which makes excellent photos.

Youth Alive 2013

After an amazing experience last year, I was motivated to go to Youth Alive 2013. 

Youth Alive in Melbourne City is the final event of several smaller youth alive concerts hosted in several regional churches across Victoria. The concert has two other performers apart from the Youth Alive band; this year it was New Empire and Young Chozen (who also attended last year). 

New Empire is a Christian pop-rock band from Sydney. They have performed with other Christian artists in the past, such as Hillsong and Owl City. It happened to be the lead singer's (Jeremy Fowler) birthday and the audience sang 'Happy Birthday' to him before they performed. "Thanks, you made my 42nd birthday great", he joked afterwards. 


Here's some photos of the event:

The sunset

Fluent Indonesian in 3 months in Australia

Image by Nicolas Raymond

Since 2010, I have been 'studying' Indonesian and have gotten A's on my reports, assignments and tests. But I still can't speak it fluently. Around August 2012, I started 'learning' Indonesian; speaking it on Skype, learning vocabulary on Memrise1 and other resources outside of the classroom. 

For the last couple of years, I have been reading Benny Lewis' blog 'Fluent in 3 months'2 and learnt some key points about languages such as:

• 'Fluent in 3 Months' is not a guarantee, but a challenge.
• You are more likely to succeed in the challenge if you tell a large number of people about it. (I did announce on FaceBook that my new year's resolution is to be fluent in Indonesian)
• Your target language should be part of your daily schedule. (I am working out how to balance assignments with learning Indonesian)
• You learn more from speaking that writing. (Indonesian uses a phonetic Latin alphabet, so each word is written how you speak it)
• Whether you were good at languages at school or not is irrelevant: your commitment is. (I did have the advantage of very enthusiastic teachers who focused on speaking) 
• You don't need to be in the country to become fluent. (He learnt Egyptian Arabic in Brazil)
• All languages are hard, with the exception of Esperanto for some people. 

Image by zsoolt

Travel Review: Melbourne CBD

About three weeks ago, I went to Melbourne City for five days. As I live outside the metro area and used to seeing farmland, this was an interesting experience for me. This is a journal of what I did. 

Day 1: 

I travelled into the city via train and exited at Southern Cross Station. I was with a group of other country-people who were also exploring the city. We started the day by doing an amazing race-like challenge where we given clues of what we have to photograph. 

For lunch, I ate at Your Thai restaurant. I ordered vegetable dumplings and a green tea milkshake (I had no idea that existed). Then to finish the day, we walked to the Eureka Tower (tallest tower in Melbourne and 2nd tallest residential building in Australia). This gave us a better understanding of how the city is set out. Many people in the group went on the edge, an experience where you a put in a glass box that extends out of the building, this gives you a stronger sense of how high the building is because it has a glass floor. I didn't want to do this for two reasons: I am not fond of heights and I didn't want to pay $10 for a glass floor.
Going on the terrace was scary, because it was so high up, the winds were very strong and when I was taking photos I was worried that my phone would fall out the guard.