European Day of Languages

Saturday 26 September was the European Day of Languages. To mark the occasion, Head of Languages Miss Wenham gave an entertaining assembly on idioms. Emilia, UIV, tells us more:

Idioms are phrases which express things in a more interesting way than just saying them directly. Miss Wenham spoke about how they are a very easy place to stumble when translating from another language, because if you translate them literally, you can get some very strange results! One example was “vai a farti friggere” (Italian) translating word for word as “go and fry yourself”, when the true meaning is “go away”, or, if you want the equivalent English idiom, “buzz off”. This was a very interesting assembly which reminded us of the importance and fun of language learning.