Lingua news ...

Language training for groups

Increasingly companies are choosing group training to boost employees' language skills. Blue chip companies continue to take one-to-one training for the 'must-have' employees with business contact abroad. But training in small groups is also an option which cash-pressed organizations are finding more beneficial than a mere cost save. Learners find it rewarding to work together with colleagues on something 'un peu different'.

   Caesar chat

New recordings don't quite prove that a dead language is still a living one, but experts have recreated the sound of Latin here.

Readings and film-clips recover voices from the ancient world, and fans of the language can explore the pronunciation in detail.

Test for Lingua's medieval language skills

In February the BBC asked Lingua to advise on the pronunciation of medieval Latin for the Shakespeare Season to be broadcast during the Olympics. Henry IV, played by Jeremy Irons, is on the point of death and given the Last Rites in Latin - which says Latinist George Sharpley is not so easy to recover. "Church Latin is of limited use, as it has a relatively recent provenance. But there are enough clues to get over most of the hurdles. To some extent we're in the dark, but we are too with the sound of English of the time, never mind Latin."

Murder in deepest France sharpens up the listening skills.

This short was filmed in October to give our French learners the chance to test their French comprehension.

Anna Beyeler on the case, and (right) the police see the remains of the victim. See film here

From Roman sewer slave to Broadway

Tom Morris, Bristol Old Vic Artistic Director appears in Lingua's Latin film, AD 61, as a sewer slave .... and a few months later the Latin-speaking toilet-cleaner is in New York accepting a Tony for his directing of the international theatre hit, War Horse. Perhaps Tom, 47, has inspired other Roman sewer slaves to raise their hopes, though the sad truth is most ended up living brief, brutal and smelly lives.

Watch Tom receive a Tony in New York for War Horse

See Tom as a sewer slave with his Roman colleagues in AD 61

a new film spoken in Latin

[See YouTube clip]

Tom Morris, the man behind The War Horse, Cold Feet star Robert Bathurst and Italy rugby giant Marco Bortolami join forces in this spoof documentary which recreates the sound of spoken Latin in ancient Rome.

Actor Rober Bathurst plays the senator in this Latin-speaking role

Lingua's George Sharpley has filmed a series of interviews with different characters living in Rome in AD 61. On their minds is the impending mass execution of 400 slaves, all condemned because one of their number murdered their master. Months earlier there’d been trouble in a rough province in the north of the empire - Britannia - where a queen called Boudicca had run riot.

Bathurst appears as a senator, Morris as a sewer slave and Bortolami offers some post-match thoughts as a gladiator. The Roman version of the X-Factor proves rather more brutal, and you see life as it was lived, shared WC and all.

Sharpley is behind many of the films Lingua has created for learners of English, French, Spanish and other languages: “The idiom and sound of Latin speech is not so easy to recreate," he says. " It is a dark room and to some extent we are fumbling in it. But there is a good deal that you can pick up, from all sorts of sources, including jokes about people’s speech habits, spelling mistakes, graffiti, how words are said in other languages, from the poetry, from prescriptive guides written by the Romans themselves and from the languages that this spoken Latin became – French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian.”

See webpage and preview

Your webpage

Lingua's corporate clients have their own dedicated webpages with specific resources and other supports to help their staff learn languages. Check with us for access: info@lingua.co.uk

UK bosses of French factory cause strike by not speaking French

Where is the 'glamour' in grammar ?

Harry Bowles sells egg and chips to the French

Learning a language is good for your prospects now - and for a happy old age ...

... so says

The Daily Telegraph

The Independent

The National Geographic

Language training - French the most popular language in 2010

Leaving aside English - which remains the world language and the one most spoken in business - French once again tops the list of most learned languages in Lingua's courses in the UK.

Even when business meetings in France are conducted in English, French is spoken too, perhaps to explain a point between French colleagues or to settle something under dispute. Learners are finding a little goes a long way as they build relationships the other side of the channel.

Downloadable learning supports

Flexible worksheets, business language resources, and more audios are now online for our students

Do you have access? Contact us if not - sarah.phillips@lingua.co.uk

Learning resources

Lingua's French, Spanish and English learning resources are now available online.

Learners can download books and audio files - or hear them online.

View filmclips page