European Languages Day celebrated in Cardiff

European Languages Day is marked each year on 26 September and aims to promote language learning and highlight the range of diverse languages spoken across the continent.

Cardiff’s School of Modern Languages is the embodiment of that ethos with more than 16 different languages being spoken by its staff members across the School. To highlight their multilingualism and to celebrate European Language Day, the School held the event ‘Sounds of Europe (and Beyond)’ on 24 September.

Using the theme of ‘Childhood’, staff and students enthusiastically performed lullabies, poems and songs in a range of languages including Sardinian and Venetian dialects, Serbian, Hindi, German, Haitian Creole, Chinese, French, Polish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, Spanish and Welsh. In order for the audience to follow and understand each performance an English translation was displayed on the screen.

On European Language Day itself, staff within the School went out into the community; spreading their message of language learning at Cardiff Central Library where they ran taster sessions in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Russian and Arabic throughout the day. Each session was full and those that participated enthused after the event. Rob Davies of the Europe Direct Information Centre who organised the celebration said, “Feedback from attendees of the taster sessions was fantastic and all thoroughly enjoyed themselves.”