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What's New
New!
Oxford Language Web
From November 23rd 2009, this innovative new feature offers a rich language experience for anyone who is interested in learning and using new languages in today’s global society.
See, explore, discover, link, learn...
See at-a-glance translations in up to 13 languages for thousands of dictionary entries in Oxford Language Dictionaries Online
Explore multiple languages simultaneously: search and browse the Oxford Language Web in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Portugese, Polish, Japanese, Korean, Thai, and Arabic
Discover surprising similarities and differences between languages as you compare them side by side
Link directly between languages in Oxford Language Dictionaries Online without going through English*
Learn key vocabulary easily - get quick translations of over 7,500 words in 13 languages
*Depending on your subscription, this is available for key vocabulary in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and Chinese.
Play with the Language Web now
Interesting searches that explore relationships between languages
Loan words from English
New words for new technological concepts that originated in the English-speaking world are often assimilated into other languages. Some words like blog have been accepted into other languages as they are (see the German, Italian, Spanish translations), or adapted to fit in phonetically with the other language (see Chinese, Korean, Japanese). But for some words, such as email, computer, and Internet, certain languages have created their own equivalents – can you spot which ones?
Similarities between the Romance languages
The Romance languages (which include French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese) are all related, as they descended from Latin. Similarities can be seen between these four languages at the following entries: milk, read, write.
Some Latin words developed in different ways in different languages. For example, words that begin with pl, cl, or fl in Latin, often preserve this in Spanish but change to pi, ci, and fi in Italian, with pl changing to pr in Portuguese: try looking up plate, beach, square (paved area in a town centre), flower, and plain (easily understood).
Similarities between the Germanic languages
English and German are both Germanic languages. You can see how English and German are sometimes similar to each other, and different from the Romance languages, at the following entries for example: snow, church, book.
Similarities between the Slavic languages
Russian and Polish are both from the Slavic language family, even though Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet and Polish uses the Roman alphabet. Many words in Polish and Russian sound very similar, although they look different – to hear how a Russian word is pronounced, click through to the dictionary entry and click on the soundwave icon. Try comparing: house, snow, rain.
Relationship between Chinese, Japanese, and Korean
Although not considered by most linguistics to be in the same language family or related at all, Japanese and Korean have historically borrowed in writing features from Chinese much like English words are borrowed by a variety of languages today. In current usage, Chinese and Japanese do ‘share’ a large number of characters, although the meanings and pronunciations have mutated and changed over time. Historically, Korean also used characters borrowed originally from Chinese, and in cases some of these characters made their way into Japanese via Korean as well as directly from Chinese. Try comparing: student, country, home, book (noun), newspaper.
How Arabic has influenced English
Some English words can be traced back to Arabic words originally: see alcohol, coffee, orange.
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