Linguistics

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TWO MORE FROM OXFORD.

languagehat.com

languagehat

26 Jan 2012 | 7:33 pm

OUP, bless them, keeps sending me review copies of language-related books, and even though I haven't had time to actually read these with the thoroughness they deserve, I can tell from the introductions and from dipping into them that they are well worth it, and I thought I'd provide a timely alert here, with the likelihood of further posts later: 1) Sophocles and the Language of Tragedy, by Simon Goldhill. I suspect the more classics-minded of you are rolling your eyes based on the title alone—Christ, not another book on Sophocles as master tragedian? Well, for one thing, Sophocles is…
Coffee is culture

Paleoglot

10 Jan 2012 | 4:00 pm

Yasemin extolls the virtues of coffee and the culture surrounding it in Turkey on her blog Yasemin's Kitchen. I'm not Turkish but I do relate. She's got it right. Coffee isn't just the drink; it's the self-reflection, the contemplation, and especially the company you're with to enjoy it. There's an entire philosophy behind that cup. She shares a lot of other delicious recipes from the
Religion helps us gain self-control, study suggests

ScienceDaily: Language Acquisition News

24 Jan 2012 | 10:30 am

Thinking about religion gives people more self-control on later, unrelated tasks, according to results from a series of recent studies.
Learning to 'talk things through in your head' may help people with autism

ScienceDaily: Language Acquisition News

24 Jan 2012 | 7:01 pm

Teaching children with autism to "talk things through in their head" may help them to solve complex day-to-day tasks, which could increase the chances of independent, flexible living later in life, according to new research.
The best global websites of 2012

Global by Design

John Yunker

25 Jan 2012 | 11:43 am

TweetI’m happy to announce the publication of the 2012 Web Globalization Report Card. This year, we reviewed 105 websites across 17 industries; the websites comprise 70% of the Interbrand Best Global Brands of 2011. This year, we also reviewed mobile … Continue reading →

linguistics - Google News
For energy industry, 'fracking' is like a four-letter word - Houma Courier

27 Jan 2012 | 5:59 pm

For energy industry, 'fracking' is like a four-letter wordHouma CourierAP Energy Writer NEW YORK — A different kind of F-word is stirring a linguistic and political debate as controversial as what it defines. The word is "fracking" — as in hydraulic fracturing, a technique long used by the oil and gas industry to free and more »
Editorial | Taking signs seriously - The Daily Pennsylvanian

27 Jan 2012 | 12:55 am

Editorial | Taking signs seriouslyThe Daily PennsylvanianNext month, a proposal to create an ASL and Deaf Studies minor through the Linguistics department will be re-evaluated by the College's curriculum committee. This is the very committee that — just last semester — rejected the idea to create an and more »
High school students to compete in linguistics competition at UNT - North Texas e-News

26 Jan 2012 | 10:53 pm

High school students to compete in linguistics competition at UNTNorth Texas e-NewsParticipation in NACLO requires no previous knowledge of linguistics, languages or computing; the puzzles can be solved by analytic reasoning alone. The competition serves as an introduction for many high school students to computational linguistics
Ayo Bamgbose at 80 - Daily Sun

26 Jan 2012 | 5:23 pm

Ayo Bamgbose at 80Daily SunBy Oluwole Adejare Ayo Bamgbose, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics (the scientific study of language) turns 80 today 27 January, 2012. An international intellectual giant, Prof. Bamgbose has for almost half a century remained one of the few home-based
With the verve of words: Learning foreign languages in Iran - Tehran Times

25 Jan 2012 | 9:03 am

With the verve of words: Learning foreign languages in IranTehran TimesDr. Azita Afrashi (born 1972) is an Iranian linguist who is an assistant professor at the Linguistics Department, Center for Humanities and Cultural Studies. She has three books on language and semantics and many research articles in national and and more »

ScienceDaily: Language Acquisition News
Prenatal testosterone linked to increased risk of language delay for male infants, study shows

25 Jan 2012 | 6:55 pm

New research by Australian scientists reveals that males who are exposed to high levels of testosterone before birth are twice as likely to experience delays in language development compared to females. The research, published in Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, focused on umbilical cord blood to explore the presence of testosterone when the language-related regions of a fetus' brain are undergoing a critical period of growth.
Adolescents with autism spend free time using solitary, screen-based media

25 Jan 2012 | 1:31 pm

Children with autism spectrum disorders tend to be fascinated by screen-based technology. A new study found that adolescents with autism (64.2 percent) spend most of their free time using solitary, or non-social, screen-based media (television and video games) while only 13.2 percent spend time on socially interactive media (e-mail, Internet chatting).
How kids with autism spend screen time

25 Jan 2012 | 1:22 pm

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) tend to be preoccupied with screen-based media. A new study looks at how children with ASDs spend their “screen time.” Researchers found a very high rate of use of solitary screen-based media such as video games and television with a markedly lower rate of use of social interactive media, including email.
Learning to 'talk things through in your head' may help people with autism

24 Jan 2012 | 7:01 pm

Teaching children with autism to "talk things through in their head" may help them to solve complex day-to-day tasks, which could increase the chances of independent, flexible living later in life, according to new research.
Religion helps us gain self-control, study suggests

24 Jan 2012 | 10:30 am

Thinking about religion gives people more self-control on later, unrelated tasks, according to results from a series of recent studies.

LANGUAGE NEWS - Google News
Ottawa: Immigrants need minimum language skills - TheChronicleHerald.ca

28 Jan 2012 | 4:45 am

South Asian LinkOttawa: Immigrants need minimum language skillsTheChronicleHerald.caKenney said another problem is that too many of those coming to Canada have little or no proficiency in either official language. He wants a minimum language standard for all provincial nominees and stronger links between their occupations and local Kenney Continues On Immigration Busting Path With “Minimum Language Skills South Asian LinkKenney pushes for language proficiencyCalgary HeraldImmigration minister says immigrant language proficiency must be a requirementMontreal GazetteCalgary Sun -Yahoo!
Everest pilots Chinese language program - Wausau Daily Herald

28 Jan 2012 | 4:30 am

Everest pilots Chinese language programWausau Daily Herald"We've been looking at how we can improve our world language program, and UW-Madison was looking for high schools that would be willing to offer Mandarin," said Jennifer Rauscher, language arts curriculum coordinator. "It was a perfect fit for us.and more »
Diné language conference draws dozens - Farmington Daily Times

28 Jan 2012 | 2:13 am

Diné language conference draws dozensFarmington Daily TimesBy Ryan Boetel rboetel@daily-times.com FARMINGTON — A two-day conference to brainstorm how teachers can save the Navajo language started Friday at San Juan College. San Juan College and Diné Language Teachers Association co-sponsored the conference.
Body language helped Romney, experts say - The Tennessean

28 Jan 2012 | 2:10 am

Globe and MailBody language helped Romney, experts sayThe TennesseanConfident and forceful, Romney's debate performance scores points with body-language experts. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) / Matt Rourke/AP Associated Press NEW YORK — The hands came out of the pockets. The gaze was intense.Romney's forceful body language scores in debateFox Newsall 17,427 news articles »
Kids turn over new language leaf - Northern Rivers Echo

28 Jan 2012 | 2:00 am

Kids turn over new language leafNorthern Rivers Echo"There are many advantages to speaking a second language and research shows that children are more susceptible to learning a new language at a young age," Mrs Watson said. She said the centre already had offered specialist lessons in other areas such and more »

English Experts
Desafio: This tie doesn’t combine with your shirt

Mark Nash

27 Jan 2012 | 5:05 am

O desafio de hoje está relacionado com uma palavra muito utilizada: combinar. Você já falou para alguém em inglês que o seu sapato combina ou não com o cinto? A pista está aqui: combinar em inglês. Agora vamos ao desafio. Frase em Português: “Esta gravata não combina com a sua camisa.” Erro comum em inglês: “This tie doesn’t combine with your shirt.” Identifique o erro na frase em inglês e envie nos comentários, se possível envie também uma justificativa. A resposta será publicada amanhã neste post. Aguardo sua participação. Good luck! Nota: Desafio extraído do…
#52 Boletim do Fórum de Inglês

Alessandro

26 Jan 2012 | 5:00 am

Olá, amigos do English Experts! Na última semana fizemos algumas melhorias no fórum. Ficou mais fácil incluir um avatar e editar a sua apresentação. Quando essas duas informações estão pendentes, uma mensagem é exibida na barra lateral. A novidade fica por conta do chat. Para acessar, basta logar e clicar na opção “mini-chat” que fica ao lado do link “FAQ”. Mas atenção, somente usuários não-moderados podem participar. Os membros novos podem apenas assistir. Para ganhar o direito de participar do chat, basta ter algumas mensagens aprovadas no fórum. O objetivo disso…
O significado de Big Brother

Donay Mendonça

25 Jan 2012 | 3:25 am

Há mais ou menos dez anos, passamos a ouvir a expressão “big brother” com frequencia. Sempre que o programa com este nome está sendo exibido na Rede Globo, querendo ou não, as pessoas acabam comentando alguma coisa. O interessante é que a conversa sempre gira em torno do caráter dos personagens: amizade, fidelidade, traição, egoísmo e por aí vai. As opiniões se dividem, e há quem diga: “Esse programa é perda de tempo, acho melhor ler um livro.” Bom, mas vamos ao que realmente interessa aqui: o inglês. Qual o verdadeiro significado de “big brother”? Será que a…
Entreviste o presidente Obama no Google+ Hangout

Alessandro

24 Jan 2012 | 3:40 am

Se você pudesse conversar com o presidente Obama, o que você perguntaria para ele? Você teria interesse de saber mais sobre as mudanças na política de imigração dos Estados Unidos? Talvez, saber a opinião do presidente sobre a ameaça das armas nucleares. Seja qual for a sua pergunta, você terá a oportunidade de perguntar diretamente para o Obama em uma entrevista especial através do Google+ Hangout, direto da Casa Branca. Para participar, envie um vídeo para o canal do Youtube da Casa Branca. As suas questões irão guiar a entrevista e alguns participantes com as perguntas mais…
10 celebridades que dominam o inglês

Alessandro

23 Jan 2012 | 4:35 am

As celebridades têm um poder de influência muito grande sobre seus fãs. Tudo aquilo que os artistas fazem ganha uma projeção muito grande. É inegável que um fã, ao ver o seu ídolo falando inglês, ganhe uma motivação a mais para também praticar e dominar o idioma. Essa inspiração é um dos objetivos da série “olha quem está falando inglês”. Com base no tópico criado pelo leitor Eternal Learner, selecionamos 10 vídeos de celebridades brasileiras que dominam o inglês. Walter Salles Alice Braga Luciana Gimenez Jô Soares Rodrigo Santoro Gisele Bundchen Angel Isabeli…

The English Blog
Mac Cartoon: Look on the Bright Side

Jeffrey Hill

28 Jan 2012 | 12:57 am

This cartoon by Mac from The Daily Mail combines two news stories: the spiralling cost of the Olympics and the growing number of pensioners facing fuel poverty. A couple of pensioners are trying to keep warm in their living room. The man is studying a pile of bills. The woman, who is reading a paper with the headline "True Cost of Olympics £24 billion", tells him: "Look on the bright side—we've got tickets for the ladies' synchronised swimming." The joke is that synchronised swimming has the reputation for being one of the most boring Olympic events, so…
Reuters Video: Facebook set for $10b IPO reports WSJ

Jeffrey Hill

28 Jan 2012 | 12:14 am

Facebook, the leading social network, is expected to file for an initial public offering as early as Wednesday, February 1, the Wall Street Journal reported. Conway G. Gittens reports. TRANSCRIPTREPORTER: Facebook wants to be friends with Wall Street. The world's leading social network is preparing to file an initial public offering as early as Wednesday, according to the Wall Street Journal. The IPO would value Facebook at between $75 billion and $100 billion, the report, citing unidentified sources, stated. The report also noted Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are expected to play…
Words in the News: Archbishop

Jeffrey Hill

28 Jan 2012 | 12:06 am

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, the Archbishop of York says that marriage must remain a union between a man and a woman, and David Cameron will be acting like a “dictator” if he allows homosexual couples to wed. Full story >> VOCABULARYIn Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches, an archbishop is a bishop of the highest rank, who is in charge of all the bishops and priests in a particular country of region. • Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday appointed Joseph Coutts as archbishop of Karachi.
Interactive: European Stereotypes

Jeffrey Hill

27 Jan 2012 | 2:15 am

As part of the Europa project, newspapers from six European countries (Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Spain, and Italy) were asked to stereotype each other, and then asked cultural commentators in each country to assess how accurate they are. You can read the resulting articles on The Guardian website. Here's an extract from the one about the British: The stereotype is itself a stereotype. The European image of the Brit – either pukingly drunk football fan or snooty City gent, both living off past imperial glories, sullenly resenting being in Europe rather than ruling the world –…
Reuters Video: Google at your own risk

Jeffrey Hill

27 Jan 2012 | 1:29 am

Google's revised privacy policy is raising new concerns about consumers rights to their information on the internet and other connected products. Bobbi Rebell reports. TRANSCRIPT REPORTER: A new warning for consumers: Google at your own risk. Earlier this week, in an online post, the company unveiled its new privacy policy, linking all its online offerings- including its widely used search engine, Gmail, Google +, and YouTube. It also ties into the Android mobile operating system. And with the exception of a few tweaks, consumers cannot opt out. When the full policy goes into effect on…

Mission to Learn - Lifelong Learning Blog
Don’t let the wrong mindset trap get you!

Jeff Cobb

26 Jan 2012 | 8:51 am

I’ve mentioned Stanford Professor Carol Dweck before here on Mission to Learn. I think her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success is a must-read for every serious lifelong learner. Last week, Dweck was interviewed for an HBR Ideacast episode, and I was struck by a segment early in the interview when Dweck highlights a trap I think we can all fall into if we aren’t careful. In case you are not familiar with Mindset, the core point of the book is that consistently successful people embrace a growth mindset – a belief that they can always learn, grow, and become better at…
A Treasure Trove of Free Documentaries

Jeff Cobb

16 Jan 2012 | 8:24 am

Ever wonder what it takes to make a samurai sword? Or what the heck the Salton Sea is? Or what it might take to end poverty? Check out Documentary.net for a wealth of documentary footage on these and a wide range of other topics. And for you audiophiles in the Mission to Learn readership, here’s a short documentary on how vinyl records are made (click through if you don’t see it): No related posts.
Top 10 Posts on Mission to Learn in 2011 – and Some Personal Favorites

Jeff Cobb

20 Dec 2011 | 8:19 am

In 2011, more than a quarter million unique visitors landed here on Mission to Learn. I’d like to thank everyone of them, and also highlight some of the resources that were most popular among them. Here’s the top 10 for 2011 based on unique page visits: 10. 15 Language Learning Tools for Lifelong Learners (2,991 unique views) Ready to get started on that New Year’s resolution to learn another language? 9. 25 Free Online Resources and Web Apps for Lifelong Learners (3,181 unique views) Great stuff to support your lifelong learning habit in 2012 and beyond. 8. How to Improve…
The 1% Solution for Learning Growth

Jeff Cobb

12 Dec 2011 | 4:40 am

One of my mentors is fond of pointing out that, just like money in a savings account, the “returns” from learning tend to compound over time. As a result, if we make the effort to improve by just one percent each day, in seventy days we will be twice as good.* As we turn the corner to a new year, this is a perspective that every dedicated lifelong learner would do well to adopt both for looking back and for looking forward. First, look back on your efforts in 2011. If you made some big leaps, congratulations. But also consider where you have made smaller, incremental progress. Have you…
Looking for Blurbs in All the Right Places

Jeff Cobb

7 Dec 2011 | 7:54 am

Interested in getting a free book in exchange for your thoughts? I’ve been working on converting my “10 Ways to Be a Better Learner” series into a brief book. After a good bit of updating, rewriting, and editing, I now have what is very close to a final draft. Before I send it off to be converted into various formats, I am hoping to get a few kind folks to take a look at it and, if they like it, offer some words of praise that I can include on the back cover, etc. So, here’s the deal: You can either comment here or contact me using the Mission to Learn Web form.

Language Log
OMG moments induced by allegro forms in Pekingese

Victor Mair

26 Jan 2012 | 8:58 pm

This afternoon I passed by a group of high school kids from China going down the street outside of Williams Hall, the office building in which I work. One of the girls said merrily, "Bur'ao", by which she meant Modern Standard Mandarin (MSM) bù zhīdào 不知道 ("[I] don't know"). The retroflex final -r is well known for northern varieties of Mandarin, but in Pekingese it seems that the mighty R has the ability to swallow up whole syllables, as in the example quoted in the previous paragraph. Here are a couple more instances: "O gao'r ni" for MSM wǒ gàosu nǐ 我告诉你 ("I tell…
Write new speeches, don't borrow from Hollywood

Geoffrey K. Pullum

26 Jan 2012 | 12:54 pm

The Australian minister of transport and infrastructure, Anthony Albanese, recently plunged himself into an embarrassing situation that will probably stain his reputation permanently (see the Daily Mail's coverage here). He delivered a speech in which one passage, a piece of nicely honed rhetoric about the leader of the opposition (the Liberal party), was lifted with hardly any alteration from a speech that Michael Douglas was seen giving in a 1995 American romantic comedy, The American President (script by Aaron Sorkin). Naturally the two speech segments are now available side by side on…
The "dance of the p's and b's": truth or noise?

Mark Liberman

26 Jan 2012 | 10:24 am

Stanley Fish asks ("Mind Your P’s and B’s: The Digital Humanities and Interpretation", NYT 1/23/2011): [H]ow do the technologies wielded by digital humanities practitioners either facilitate the work of the humanities, as it has been traditionally understood, or bring about an entirely new conception of what work in the humanities can and should be? After a couple of lengthy detours, he concludes that neither any facilitation nor any worthwhile new conception is likely: the digital humanities … will have little place for the likes of me and for the kind of criticism I practice: a…
Prophylactic over-negation

David Beaver

26 Jan 2012 | 1:09 am

Almost the end of January, and not a single Language Log reader hasn't failed to complain about the lack of over-negation in any of this year's posts. But here's some naughtily nutty negation anyway: "It's not that I don't doubt the sincerity of their desire to protect the talent. And believe it or not, we have the same ambition," Christian Mann, general manager of Evil Angel Productions who also serves on the porn industry's Free Speech Coalition, said last week after the council's vote. "We just don't believe their way is the best way." (Associated Press, LA mayor signs law requiring…
The running man

Geoffrey K. Pullum

25 Jan 2012 | 4:45 pm

Near my hotel on the Plaça Imperial Tarraco in Tarragona, the indicators to tell pedestrians when they can cross the street have a countdown in seconds to the next green: a minute ticks by, the lights go yellow for the vehicular traffic at 6 seconds, then red at 3 seconds, and finally — 3, 2, 1, liftoff — the little green man is displayed and you can walk across. Only in Tarragona the little green man figure does not just pose in a walking sort of shape: he moves. Those little green arms and legs are working away: he seems to be race-walking. And that's not all: when…

GoodWord from alphaDictionary.com
1/28/12 - malversation

27 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pm

Misconduct or malfeasance in public office, at one time also known as 'jobbery'.
1/27/12 - frowsty

26 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pm

1. Stale-smelling, musty, dirty-smelling. 2. Disheveled, unkempt, mussy; dressed in frowsty clothing.
1/26/12 - android

25 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pm

1. (Adjective) Resembling a man or a human being. 2. (Noun) Automaton resembling a man or a human being. 3. (Capitalized: 'Android') The trade name of the Google operating system for mobile devices.
1/25/12 - faggot

24 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pm

1. A bundle of switches or twigs bound together to be used as fuel or kindling; a bundle of anything. 2. The stake at which women were burned as witches. 3. (Offensive) A disparaging term for "woman". 4. (Offensive) A disparaging term for male homosexuals.
1/24/12 - knack

23 Jan 2012 | 11:00 pm

A special, inexplicable skill or talent for carrying out a specific action.

Paleoglot
A resting place

25 Jan 2012 | 4:00 pm

Recently I've been investigating the Etruscan word hupni. Looking at the word, I had assumed a native formation in -ni which normally seems to mark persons elsewhere. I shrugged off the slightly awkward use of -ni, open to the possibility that the suffix might have a broader usage than I thought. Through this analysis, one must assume a root *hup-. In turn, with the apparent meaning of the full
The holy goddess of sewers

20 Jan 2012 | 5:30 pm

It started with looking up North African terms for 'rainbow' in Berber and Arabic. I confirmed that one Arabic expression is similar to the hypothetical Etruscan expression *Tluscval arcam that might lie behind the aforementioned abbreviation tlusc arc inscribed on the Piacenza Liver where its religious significance might have something to do with a role as messenger between sky and earth. That
Explaining away "tlusc arc"

15 Jan 2012 | 5:00 pm

A commenter reminded me of some unresolved issues regarding tlusc arc, written on the Liver of Piacenza artifact. The inscription in question can be seen inside the blue box in the picture above. To get to properly solving this inscription, we must overcome a few lazy misanalyses that still stifle any progress in the field. First, there's the persistent misanalysis of Tluschva as a "plurality of
Coffee is culture

10 Jan 2012 | 4:00 pm

Yasemin extolls the virtues of coffee and the culture surrounding it in Turkey on her blog Yasemin's Kitchen. I'm not Turkish but I do relate. She's got it right. Coffee isn't just the drink; it's the self-reflection, the contemplation, and especially the company you're with to enjoy it. There's an entire philosophy behind that cup. She shares a lot of other delicious recipes from the
Ghost words and anti-dictionaries

8 Jan 2012 | 4:00 pm

I've mused before that what we need is an Etruscan "anti-dictionary" to reference all the words that have been made up over the decades out of thin air due to misanalyses by various scholars. Lazy authors spread these infectious memes the most, of course, but even careful scholars can overlook things. These words end up being taken as 100% fact by more naive readers and it's difficult sometimes

Fritinancy
Fewer Calories

Nancy Friedman

27 Jan 2012 | 10:44 am

We’ve been seeing a lot of this: Spotted at Costco and on the StriVectin website And this: From the Economist’s Johnson blog, Jan. 12, 2012 And let’s not forget the Mercedes “less doors” ad, which I wrote about in November. So it was mildly amazing (as presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is fond of saying) to see this ad in the New York Times today: Not less calories: fewer. Courageous trend-bucking and traditional-rules-of-grammar-obeying, American Beverage Association! Of course, as count nouns go—nouns that can be modified by a numeral and which occur in both singular and…
"To Contact" in 1918?

Nancy Friedman

26 Jan 2012 | 9:00 am

Like millions of TV viewers in the US and the UK, I’ve been under the spell of Downton Abbey, the period drama originally produced for Britain’s ITV and rebroadcast in the US on PBS. We’re now three episodes into Season 2, which opens in the middle of World War I and shuttles between a grand Yorkshire estate and the trenches of war-torn France. The attention to detail in clothing, automobiles, home furnishings, and telephones is extraordinary. The dialogue, however, isn’t always quite as authentic. One out-of-place usage caught my attention in Episode 3, which aired last Sunday:…
That Word

Nancy Friedman

25 Jan 2012 | 11:13 am

It does not mean what they think it means. Liquid Gold Twined Necklace by Alexis Bittar, from alexisbittar.com. Jack the Ripper was infamous. Bernie Madoff is infamous. Alexis Bittar—a charming and talented jewelry designer whom I once met at a Saks Fifth Avenue trunk show—is not infamous. What he is is famous (First Lady Michelle Obama is a fan) if not yet quite a household word. The Bittar copywriter made a surprisingly common error: assuming that the addition of in- to famous would create a superlative meaning “intensely famous.”* As I wrote in a May 2008 post, infamous is never a…
"X Just Got Better"

Nancy Friedman

24 Jan 2012 | 11:06 am

Here’s a twofer: a full-page ad from Corning in the January 22 New York Times Sunday Magazine that features a snowclone and a nouning. (For new visitors to Fritinancy: a snowclone is a particular type of formulaic cliché, the original of which was “If Eskimos have N words for snow, X surely have Y words for Z.” Scores of snowclones have been documented; for a comprehensive list, see the Snowclone Database. I’ve written from time to time about snowclones in advertising.) The snowclone here is “X just got better,” a formula frequently employed by headline writers short on time and…
Word of the Week: Grandiosity

Nancy Friedman

23 Jan 2012 | 9:58 am

Grandiosity: Greatness of scope or intent; feigned or affective grandeur or pomposity; excessive use of verbal ornamentation. In the mental-health disciplines, grandiosity is a disorder: “an unrealistic sense of superiority, a sustained view of oneself as better than others that causes the narcissist to view others with disdain or as inferior. It also refers to a sense of uniqueness, the belief that few others have anything in common with oneself and that one can only be understood by a few or very special people.” (Source: the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and…

languagehat.com
AND SO A GOES TO HEAVEN.

languagehat

27 Jan 2012 | 7:22 pm

A post at bradshaw of the future investigates the Gloucestershire epicene pronoun ou, which "derives from Middle English a, which in turn derives from Old English he 'he' and heo 'she'":So was Middle English a really an epicene pronoun? Well, we have examples of it from Trevisa standing for both "he" and "she", as in these cites from the OED [...] It's in Shakespeare too. Here Hamlet is talking about Polonius.1604 Shakespeare Hamlet iii. iii. 73 Now might I doe it, but now a is a praying, And now Ile doo't, and so a goes to heauen.Modern versions haveNow might I do it pat, now he is praying;…
TWO MORE FROM OXFORD.

languagehat

26 Jan 2012 | 7:33 pm

OUP, bless them, keeps sending me review copies of language-related books, and even though I haven't had time to actually read these with the thoroughness they deserve, I can tell from the introductions and from dipping into them that they are well worth it, and I thought I'd provide a timely alert here, with the likelihood of further posts later: 1) Sophocles and the Language of Tragedy, by Simon Goldhill. I suspect the more classics-minded of you are rolling your eyes based on the title alone—Christ, not another book on Sophocles as master tragedian? Well, for one thing, Sophocles is…
A KASERNE IS NOT A CASERN.

languagehat

25 Jan 2012 | 7:10 pm

Sometimes you wonder how people get work as translators. A couple of years ago I wrote several posts about the hapless Isidor Schneider and his butchery of Gorky's autobiography (1, 2, 3); now, reading a recent NYRB, I find Ian Buruma complaining (more decorously than I) about what appears to be almost as bad a job of translating Harry Kessler's diaries:Then, in 1891, the diary suddenly switches from English to German. Kessler was of course as much a master of his native tongue as he was of English. Alas, the translation leaves a different impression. The grammar is often mangled, the…
SOMETHING BLUE, SOMETHING NEW.

languagehat

24 Jan 2012 | 7:37 pm

A couple of words that surprised me today: 1) Via Jan Freeman's latest post, an odd bit of obsolete slang: apparently, people used to say "to blue all his savings" and "I blued it all on booze" where we would say "to blow" and "I blew." I asked Jan if there were etymologies that would indicate whether it was an independent verb, and she replied "Both Green and OED present 'blue/blued/blued' as a variation on the (already slang) 'blow/blew/blown,' which makes me think it was probably an intentional language joke that caught on for a while." 2) Via Stan Carey's latest post, a new sense of…
THE BOOKSHELF: FAITH & HUMOR.

languagehat

23 Jan 2012 | 6:56 pm

It's hard to know how to describe Faith & Humor: Notes from Muscovy, by Maya Kucherskaya (profile), translated by Alexei Bayer (of which the publisher, Russian Life, was kind enough to send me an advance copy in uncorrected proofs). The Russian title, which translates as A Contemporary Paterikon, is more descriptive, or at least more specific, but since "Paterikon" means nothing to the vast majority of English speakers, I decided "Faith & Humor" was as good an English title as any. The book is sort of a "Lives of the Fathers" crossed with Daniil Kharms; it consists of (often acerbic)…

A Way with Words
Secret Gibberish (full episode)

Grant Barrett

27 Jan 2012 | 2:16 pm

What do pigs have to do with piggyback rides? We get a lesson from a listener in the fine art of speaking gibberish. What’s the correct way to pronounce pecan, puh-KAHN, PEE-can, or something else? The French have the Academie Française, but what authority do we have for the English language? Also, what you should do when someone yells, “Hold ‘er Newt! She’s headed for the barn!” This episode first aired Friday, January 27, 2012. It will be available here for downloading and online listening Monday, January 30, 2012. Download the MP3 here To be…
By Jingo! (full episode)

Grant Barrett

24 Jan 2012 | 1:14 pm

If your friend says she’s coming to town “Sunday week,” exactly when should you expect to see her? And what do you call those typographical symbols cartoonists use in place of profanity? Plus grass widows, the linguistic phenomenon called creaky voice, the difference between insure and ensure, the roots of the term jingoism and what it means if someone says “You don’t believe fatmeat is greasy.” Also, is it okay to make a noun out of a verb? This episode first aired January 21, 2012. Download audio file (120123-AWWW-By-Jingo.mp3) Download the MP3 here To be…
Like a Boss (full episode)

Grant Barrett

16 Jan 2012 | 5:13 pm

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s witches’ knickers! What do you call stray plastic bags that litter the landscape? Also, what it means to do something “like a boss,” how to hyphenate correctly, and why we say we have a crush on someone. Also, similes from the 1800s, a rule on hyphens, and the truth about what happens when you turn loose a bull in a china shop. This episode first aired January 14, 2012. Download audio file (120116-AWWW-Like-a-Boss.mp3) Download the MP3 here To be automatically notified when audio is available, subscribe to the podcast using…
Pickles and Ice Cream (full episode)

Grant Barrett

7 Jan 2012 | 9:15 am

How about some wind pudding with a dollop of air sauce? What’s in a tavern sandwich? Do pregnant women really crave pickles and ice cream? Grant and Martha dig in to colorful language from the world of food. Plus, ever think of publishing a novel? Be warned: The snarky literary agent from SlushPile Hell shows no mercy when it comes to rejections. Also, piggy banks, children vs. kids, hand vs. foot dexterity, and a bi-coastal quiz. Plus, those flipped sentences known as antimetabole, such as “It’s not the men in your life that counts, it’s the life in your men.”…
Who You Callin’ a Jabroni? (full episode)

Grant Barrett

31 Dec 2011 | 9:01 am

Yo! Who you callin’ a jabroni? And what exactly is a jabroni, anyway? Also, what do vintage school buses and hack writers have in common? Grant and Martha trace the origins of famous quotes, and a listener offers a clever new way to say “not my problem.” All that, plus winklehawks, motherwit, oxymorons, word mash-ups, and a quiz about palindromes. This episode originally aired May 14, 2011. Download audio file (120102-AWWW-Who-You-Callin-a-Jabronie-rebroadcast.mp3) Download the MP3 here (23.5 MB). To be automatically notified when audio is available, subscribe to the podcast…

The Linguist On Language - Having Fun Learning Languages
Learn the basics in the language first? Really?

Steve Kaufmann

26 Jan 2012 | 12:28 pm

Can we even learn the basics first? I find that I cannot do it. I just forge ahead and learn words and get used to the language? I think we need to cover a lot of ground, some new, some old. We need to explore new things, pushing the boundaries, while regularly reviewing the basics, many times during the learning process. The basics take a long time to learn. We need to go back to them over and over. I do not think they can be learned up front. I think trying to force learners to learn the basics first discourages many learners, since it is very hard to do, and for most people very boring.
"Babel No More" by Michael Erard, a book review

Steve Kaufmann

18 Jan 2012 | 1:13 am

Babel No More by Michael Erard is described on the front cover as “the search for the world’s most extraordinary language learners.” The book is well written, like an adventure or treasure hunt. A number of well known speakers of many languages, hyperglots as Erard calls them, from history to the present day, are described or interviewed. “What makes them tick” is the question and there are no simple answers. Many things are left deliberately unclear. Why call some language learners extraordinary, and others not? Why draw an arbitrary line? Is three 3 languages enough,…
Is Pimsleur effective?

Steve Kaufmann

12 Jan 2012 | 1:10 am

Many people like using Pimsleur. I consider it a poor investment of time. I think the difference is in how different people study and what their goals are. My goal is to acquire as many words as possible, in the shortest period of time, so that I can understand what I read, and what I hear on radio etc. I am less concerned about speaking right away. I am confident that I will be able to speak once I have enough words. Pimsleur does not cover a lot of words, but tries to get you speaking from the beginning. I find it useful to measure the time I spend on a language in hours rather than in…
Pimsleur or talk like a native in 10 days.

Steve Kaufmann

10 Jan 2012 | 2:03 pm

Pimleur promises that you will talk like a native in 10 days. Pimsleur does not even specify the language, Spanish? Chinese? Hungarian? Who knows? Pimsleur is a venerable name in language learning. Why this "snake-oil salesman" approach to promoting their product.
Online educational badges a new form of credential.

Steve Kaufmann

10 Jan 2012 | 2:00 pm

Will online badges replace diplomas one day? Here is an article on the subject. Right now students have to go to college to earn diplomas, the tickets they need for success in the work place. Studies show that many of these students learn little, at least in the humanities, and of course the cost of universities is enormous, whether paid for by the student or someone else. Could it be that in the future people can learn wherever they want, including on the Internet, and still get a form of recognition that will be recognized in society? These are just the early days in the dismantling of an…

Sinosplice » Life
Personal Experience with the Other Particle “ma”

John Pasden

24 Jan 2012 | 7:06 pm

I remember quite distinctly the way I learned the sentence-final particle . I had only been studying Chinese for a little over a year, and thus was quite familiar with the yes/no question particle , but not this new , which seemed a bit more complex. I might have studied it before and just ignored it, but once I was on the streets of Hangzhou and hearing it all the time, I knew it was time to start figuring out what this was all about. So I broke out my trusty old Oxford dictionary (we still learned Chinese from actual books in those days), and looked up . Here’s what I found: : ma…
A New Resource for Chinese Grammar

John Pasden

21 Jan 2012 | 9:45 pm

It’s hard to believe I’ve been working on this project for a whole year, and also thinking about it, in some form or another, ever since founding AllSet Learning. Today, I’m quite happy to finally release the AllSet Learning Grammar Wiki. What is it? Well, in a nutshell, it’s a mini-Wikipedia devoted entirely to Chinese grammar. Think comprehensive, think interlinked, think referenced. I’ve felt for a while that Chinese grammar has needed its own champion online, and since forming AllSet Learning, I’ve finally got both the need and the means to make it…
2012, Year of the Dragon

John Pasden

19 Jan 2012 | 7:26 pm

Well, it’s almost Chinese New Year, and this new one is the year of the dragon. It didn’t escape too many Chinese designers’ notice that it’s pretty easy to turn a “2″ into a dragon, so lately we’re seeing a lot of designs like these: Here’s one that’s a little different: Not as fun as last year, though! I’m still not a huge fan of this holiday, and it’s getting harder and harder for this country’s residents to go home to it celebrate it properly, but it’s still an interesting time of year. Happy Chinese New Year!
Shanghai’s “Fake Collars”

John Pasden

16 Jan 2012 | 7:10 pm

I’ve been living in Shanghai a while now, but it wasn’t until just recently that I ever heard of Shanghai’s “fake collar” shirts (). Technically, the collar is not fake at all; the collar helps to create the illusion that the wearer has on a full shirt under a sweater, when in fact he/she does not. They even have little straps on the sides to keep them in place! Naturally, this calls for pictures: According to this website, these “fake collars” are a Shanghai creation. My mother-in-law (a Shanghai native) proudly explained to me that they were…
Dashan on Why Foreigners Hate Dashan

John Pasden

9 Jan 2012 | 6:57 pm

After reading this post on Quora, I’m now quite convinced that no one has given the question of “why (western) foreigners hate Dashan so much” as much thought as Mark Rowswell, the man behind Dashan (). I should warn you: the entire answer is quite long, but it’s worth a read. Mark breaks it down into these parts: Overuse – People are sick and tired of hearing the name “Dashan”; Resentment (Part A) – Dashan’s not the only Westerner who speaks Chinese fluently; Resentment (Part B) – Being a foreign resident in China is not easy and Dashan gets all the…

babelhut.com
Exporting Terms to Anki from Learning With Texts

Peter

27 Jan 2012 | 1:16 am

If you’ve been keeping up with the language learning scene online, you have probably heard of Learning With Texts (LWT), which is software to assist you in studying foreign language text. If this is the first you’ve heard of it, then I recommend checking out Benny’s excellent introduction to Learning With Texts, because the rest of this post won’t mean much to you if you are unfamiliar with it. This article also assumes you are aware of Anki, so if you’re not then you should read this introduction to Anki and Spaced Repetition and forget about forgetting ever…
Tadoku – Read More or Die – April 2011 Edition

thomas

29 Mar 2011 | 8:47 am

The Tadoku contest, also known as the Read More or Die contest is about to start again. If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s a twitter-based contest designed to motivate you to read more in your target language. For one month, you try to read as much as you can. You read on your own and then tweet your page counts to a bot on twitter. At the end of the month, whoever read the most pages is the winner. There’s no prize except for bragging rights, but really the contest isn’t about winning at all. It’s about improving your literacy in your target language by…
The Wonder of Critical Frequency

Peter

6 Jan 2011 | 8:18 pm

About two weeks ago, in an effort to increase my Esperanto vocabulary, I signed up for lernu.net’s Vorto de la Tago (Word of the Day) service, which sends a daily email with, you guessed it, the word of the day. These emails are great for SRS because they include quite a few example sentences. The definitions are also monolingual (Esperanto-only, no English translations), which I think is a good thing because I notice that when I read Esperanto text I translate it to English mentally, thus slowing me down. So now I have these great daily reminders to add some new sentences to my SRS,…
January 2011 Tadoku contest will start very soon

thomas

30 Dec 2010 | 8:37 pm

The first Tadoku contest is set to start at midnight on January 1st (your time). If you haven’t signed up yet you only have a few hours to do so, so if you are interested in participating, jump on it! What’s Tadoku? Tadoku (多読 – Japanese for “read a lot”) is a foreign language reading contest. You try to read as much as you can in your target language in one month. You record your daily progress by tweeting your page counts to a bot on twitter. At the end of the month, the person with the most pages read is the winner. I don’t think there is a prize…
Jes, Mi Lernas Esperanton – Yes, I’m Learning Esperanto

Peter

31 Aug 2010 | 1:47 pm

Consider this an admission of guilt. I am learning Esperanto. Esperanto has both its critics and proponents in the language learning community, which initially bothered me. Nobody has criticized me for wanting to learn Spanish, nor has anyone (including myself) felt the need to defend that desire. I expect that the same would be true if I suddenly decided to learn German, Hindi, Arabic, or Navajo. Yet, for some reason, Esperanto draws in critics and defenders. This has kept me from posting about it here, but now I’ve decided that my decisions don’t need to be defended, and…

AJATT | All Japanese All The Time
AJATT Twitter Tweets for Week Of 2012-01-22

21 Jan 2012 | 9:26 am

Binge studying would be fine if it left you better off and feeling better afterwards. But it doesn't. #SRS #kanji # "Maintenance of foreign language vocabulary and the spacing effect" t.co/scnXxl9b #SRS # To Cram or Not to Cram? That Is the Question | Psychology Today "the benefits of self-testing" t.co/scnXxl9b #SRS # J・K・ローリングの 'オーディオブック「ハリー・ポッターと賢者の石」' を Amazon でチェック！ t.co/PgrYIA2J @さんから #harrypotter #japanese #audiobook # J・K・ローリングの…
AJATT Twitter Tweets for Week Of 2012-01-22

21 Jan 2012 | 9:26 am

Binge studying would be fine if it left you better off and feeling better afterwards. But it doesn't. #SRS #kanji # "Maintenance of foreign language vocabulary and the spacing effect" t.co/scnXxl9b #SRS # To Cram or Not to Cram? That Is the Question | Psychology Today "the benefits of self-testing" t.co/scnXxl9b #SRS # J・K・ローリングの 'オーディオブック「ハリー・ポッターと賢者の石」' を Amazon でチェック！ t.co/PgrYIA2J @さんから #harrypotter #japanese #audiobook # J・K・ローリングの…
Using Music Videos To Learn Spanish

khatzumoto

21 Jan 2012 | 8:59 am

This is a guest post by Andrew, the handsome man behind How to Learn Spanish Online for Free. But enough from me…let’s let Andrew tell his story! By the way — unlike me, Andy actually answers his comments, so feel free to bombard him with questions . Hey guys! This is Andrew! Let me tell you a little bit about me: I’ve been fascinated with learning languages since I was 12 and got ahold of a Berlitz French book from the 1950s. Since then I’ve worked on, to varying degrees: German, Swedish, Japanese, Spanish, and now French (again). I’ve been mostly focused…
AJATT Twitter Tweets for Week Of 2012-01-15

14 Jan 2012 | 9:26 am

[KTV] 方大同 – 蘇麗珍 – YouTube t.co/O1Ymyr45 # 方大同 – 狂潮 MV – YouTube t.co/G49LwCVM #khalil #fong #cantonese # 首頁 | 壹電視 Next TV t.co/oSr9fjdQ # "Your sources should be so cool that you will look forward to reading, watching or listening to them." t.co/ipjRwwTL # Why your input should be fun | Antimoon t.co/ipjRwwTL # "There are people who live their whole lives on the default settings, never realizing you can customize." t.co/TyosHXWl # 娛樂 | 壹電視 Next TV t.co/MKAdBwMC # "Doing a bad job is better than doing…
AJATT Twitter Tweets for Week Of 2012-01-15

14 Jan 2012 | 9:26 am

[KTV] 方大同 – 蘇麗珍 – YouTube t.co/O1Ymyr45 # 方大同 – 狂潮 MV – YouTube t.co/G49LwCVM #khalil #fong #cantonese # 首頁 | 壹電視 Next TV t.co/oSr9fjdQ # "Your sources should be so cool that you will look forward to reading, watching or listening to them." t.co/ipjRwwTL # Why your input should be fun | Antimoon t.co/ipjRwwTL # "There are people who live their whole lives on the default settings, never realizing you can customize." t.co/TyosHXWl # 娛樂 | 壹電視 Next TV t.co/MKAdBwMC # "Doing a bad job is better than doing…

Speaking English Podcast
#170 - to use vs. used to

6 Jan 2012 | 1:36 am

Check out the great archive at http://www.speakingenglishpodcast.com.
#169 - How to pronounce "mobile"

8 Dec 2011 | 4:41 am

Find more episodes at http://www.speakingenglishpodcast.com
#168 - Thank you & belief vs. believe

20 Nov 2011 | 3:55 pm

Find more podcasts in the archives at http://www.speakingenglishpodcast.com.
#167 - phrasal verbs: to take

21 Sep 2011 | 9:30 am

Lot's of takes on 'take'. Also, have a look at the show notes at www.speakingenglishpodcast.com to see all the links I talk about.
#166 - pair vs. pear / pier vs. peer

9 Aug 2011 | 4:23 am

Welcome back, thanks for watching, have a great day. And have a look at the other episodes here: http://www.speakingenglishpodcast.com.

separated by a common language
just about

lynneguist

12 Jan 2012 | 6:25 pm

Continuing on the backlog of emailed requests, Ron Shields writes (well, wrote--in August) with: I have noticed football commentators in Britain using the phrase just about when a player is successful as in "He just about made that pass". In AmE just about would mean "close but no cigar". Indeed, for the 'did make it, but only by a small margin' meaning, AmE could just use just: He just made it into the goal. But we might even avoid that, since that could also mean 'a moment ago'. This ambiguity is probably more of a problem in AmE than in BrE because of the differences in past-tense marking.
haste makes waste / more haste, less speed

lynneguist

7 Jan 2012 | 7:02 pm

Robert W. M. Greaves wrote to me (in July 2010--my [seemingly orig. AmE] backlog is huge!): I was somewhat surprised yesterday to be asked by an American woman (mid 70s from Montana) what more haste, less speed meant. She had never heard the expression before. I checked with another American friend (woman from Kentucky, in her late 50s) who also didn't really know what it meant but was aware of some younger people occasionally using it. For me (and I would have thought most people in the UK) this is a piece of folk wisdom parents and grandparents use to admonish children. (In case you haven't…
zee and zed

lynneguist

28 Dec 2011 | 8:14 pm

Now that the Term from Hell has finished, I'd like to get back to blogging on an at-least-weekly basis. Toward(s) this end, I've stuck my cursor into the e-mailbox that holds the 'potential bloggables'. Since it's nearly midnight as I start this, I consider myself very lucky to have blindly picked one that I've mostly done before. [Editor's note: but since it was interrupted by a conversation about applying for primary school places for my daughter and some laundry, I'm still getting to bed after 2. Typical me, typical me, typical me.] Since I feel like it should have had its own post,…
2011 US-to-UK Word of the Year: FTW

lynneguist

21 Dec 2011 | 8:42 pm

Many thanks to the intrepid readers who have nominated words and phrases for SbaCL Words of the Year this year. Yesterday, kettling was announced as the BrE-to-AmE WotY. Tonight's post does the other (AmE-to-BrE) half of the job. Unusually, both Words of the Year come from readers' nominations. Am I getting less bossy and opinionated and more generous in my old age? We can only hope so. And so the AmE-to-BrE Word of the Year is (you're going to hate this): FTW Yes, you are going to hate it. And you will hate it for one or more of the following reactions: "WTF does it mean?" "That's…
2011 UK-to-US Word of the Year: kettling

lynneguist

20 Dec 2011 | 8:28 pm

This year, I'm spreading the SbaCL Words-of Year announcement into two posts -- partly to make up for hardly blogging at all this autumn and partly so that I can go to bed tonight. So, starting with the BrE-to-AmE import of the year, I give you: kettling I'm thinking of it here mostly as a gerund (a verb made into a noun by adding -ing), but, of course, the verb itself has been imported too: to kettle - '(for police) to herd protesters/demonstrators into a restricted, exitless area in order to restrain them'. Now, this is fairly new to BrE too, and Michael Quinion wrote…

Mr. Verb
For-profits and the gutting of public higher ed

15 Jan 2012 | 7:53 am

I've been pointing out constantly for the last year that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is working hard to destroy the University of Wisconsin System, including UW–Madison. An amazing number of people, of various political stripes, have been asking me why he would want to do something so drastic. They think I've gone all lefty paranoid on them.My answer has been this: Walker and his ilk want the University of Phoenix and Kaplan to replace UW. Every single thing in the world is an opportunity for profit, and there is no pretense of concern for actually educating people and no interest in…
No relation

14 Jan 2012 | 10:05 am

"He's a quarterback, he's a winner, he's a TV draw, he's a verb." But he's not related.(Mr. Fiskers image from here.)
Gotta go!

12 Jan 2012 | 10:00 pm

Portland rocks! Plus its residents have a great sense of humor. In case you can't read it, above the figures it says "phlush". But I mostly love the little icons.
Occupy

6 Jan 2012 | 8:35 pm

Votes are being counted, but it's gonna win. Take it to the bank.
Word of the Year

6 Jan 2012 | 6:20 pm

I'll be tweeting WOTY activities. For the moment, a list of nominees has been provided by Ben Zimmer, here.Right now, listening to incredible presentations about the Dictionary of American Regional English by Michael Paul Adams, Grant Barrett and Tom Purnell. I have now seen a copy of the last volume of DARE, touched it, and looked at it. Wow.

Learning the Language - Education Week
Tweak to Texas Tuition Law Puts Pressure on Undocumented Students

Lesli Maxwell

27 Jan 2012 | 1:15 pm

Texas policymakers are putting the onus on the state's colleges and universities to notify undocumented students who pay in-state tuition rates that they must hold up their end of the deal and seek legal status. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board ruled yesterday that the state's higher education institutions must send annual notices to undocumented students reminding them to pursue legal status by contacting federal authorities. Those notices will start going out as early as this summer. The change comes more than a decade after Texas became the first state to pass "Dream Act"…
GOP Candidates Court Voters in Spanish; Support English-Only Policies

Lesli Maxwell

24 Jan 2012 | 2:05 pm

For a few minutes during last night's debate in Florida, three of the four GOP presidential candidates explained why they believe English should be the official language of the United States. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney were asked specifically why they support a policy of printing government documents—and potentially election ballots—only in English, but have no qualms about running Spanish television and radio advertisements seeking votes. Gingrich's answer was to point out that while Spanish is the most widely-spoken language in…
Researchers to Work on Improving Science Instruction for ELLs

Lesli Maxwell

23 Jan 2012 | 12:50 pm

More than 60 elementary schools in Florida are the focus of a new research project that will examine how English-language learners fare after receiving a new science curriculum that is designed to also reinforce their language development. Okhee Lee, an education professor at New York University and a well-known expert on ELLs and science, is working on the project with two other NYU colleagues. A $4.5 million National Science Foundation grant is paying for the four-year study that seeks to illuminate how science achievement can be improved for ELLs. Science achievement for students learning…
San Diego State Scholar to Oversee California's ELL Efforts

Lesli Maxwell

19 Jan 2012 | 2:30 pm

As of this month, California has a new honcho to oversee statewide efforts to improve education for the state's 1.5 million English-language learners. State schools chief Tom Torlakson has tapped Karen Cadiero-Kaplan, a professor at San Diego State University, to lead the California Department of Education's English Learner Support Division. Cadiero-Kaplan, who chairs the Department of Policy Studies in Language and Cross Cultural Education at San Diego State, has also been a classroom teacher and taught ESL at the community college level. Cadiero-Kaplan has published a great deal on literacy…
Pointing Out Inequities for English-Language Learners

Lesli Maxwell

17 Jan 2012 | 9:31 am

Good morning readers. Let's kick off this short work week with a long post on English learners from a former Los Angeles elementary school teacher who is guest blogging over at Rick Hess Straight Up. Patricia Dickenson, who writes mostly about the ELL experience in California, uses the occasion of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday to highlight the policies and practices she sees as inequitable in public schooling for English learners. Among her major points: Many ELL teachers are new to the profession and lack the seasoning that comes from years of experience; Too many English learners…

Learn French with daily podcasts
1336 – Un clou de 8.25cm (A 8.25cm nail)

contact@dailyfrenchpod.com (Dailyfrenchpod)

27 Jan 2012 | 10:34 pm

Learning Guide | PDF Transcript Des docteurs ont enlevé avec succès un clou de 8.25cm planté dans le cerveau d’un homme après … Learn French now ! Listen to today’s lesson :
Video Vocabulary #197

contact@dailyfrenchpod.com (Dailyfrenchpod)

27 Jan 2012 | 10:17 pm
1335 – Un véritable dialogue (A genuine dialogue)

contact@dailyfrenchpod.com (Dailyfrenchpod)

27 Jan 2012 | 9:50 pm

Learning Guide | PDF Transcript La ligue arabe a demandé à la Syrie d’entamer un véritable dialogue politique avec l’opposition ainsi… Learn French now ! Listen to today’s lesson :
1334 – La plus jeune (The youngest)

contact@dailyfrenchpod.com (Dailyfrenchpod)

27 Jan 2012 | 9:47 pm

Learning Guide | PDF Transcript Une adolescente néerlandaise est devenue le plus jeune marin en solitaire autour du monde après avoir… Learn French now ! Listen to today’s lesson :
1333 – Un nouveau corps (A new body)

contact@dailyfrenchpod.com (Dailyfrenchpod)

27 Jan 2012 | 9:45 pm

Learning Guide | PDF Transcript Les équipes de secours ont trouvé le corps d’une femme à bord du bateau de croisières, le Costa Concordia… Learn French now ! Listen to today’s lesson :

Learn Languages Now
Stop Procrastinating And Start Learning French With These Quick Hints

languagesama

18 Jan 2012 | 5:07 am

The different ways to learn a new language are more in number than ever before. Each person’s learning style may be better suited for one learning technique over another. Listening to audio courses may be what you react to best when it comes to learning a language. Perhaps you are someone who learns most easily from books and teachers. The methods available comes in many formats and target different processes. The good news is that this means that, no matter what your learning style, you will probably find at least one method that works for you. To avoid the frustration of choosing one…
Amusing Learning Spanish Secrets

languagesama

10 Jan 2012 | 4:47 am

When looking at studying Spanish Software, there are actually quite a few things to take into consideration. You need to take into account your operating system. You also desire to be sure that your understanding Spanish software program is user friendly and also a solid program. Buenos dias. ¿ tu¡ If you fully grasp this and are able to give an answer in Spanish, probabilities are that you have already believed about learning Spanish. Possibly you could have given up. Perhaps you could have succeeded. In that case, hasta luego! Why understand Spanish? In the last 20 years or so there have…
Some Good Reasons For Mastering The Mandarin Language

languagesama

8 Sep 2011 | 5:35 am

China is now the dominant manufacturing nation in the world. Many of the products that we use everyday were manufactured or assembled in China. The low cost of labor in China has created an incentive for corporations to move their manufacturing operations to China. For this reason there is a great demand for employees who can Speak Chinese. There are fantastic career opportunities for those who learning to speak Chinese. There is not a single Chinese language. Chinese is a group of languages with many dialects. Mandarin is the version of Chinese spoken the most. Approximately 900 million…
A Brief Guide To Different Techniques For Learning French

languagesama

29 Aug 2011 | 4:59 am

There are a multitude of ways for you to learn French today. Learning another language is never easy, but it is valuable. It can help with finding work in specific fields and can enrich your life in many different ways. Here are a few suggestions that can help you learning French online. The most obvious way people start learning another language with is through books and CDs or tapes. You can find a large selection of books in any bookstore or library that will help you learn a foreign language. If you decide to try learning this way, make sure you choose books that come with audio. This…
Beginners, Intermediate And Advanced French Course

languagesama

2 Jan 2011 | 3:46 pm

Thinking of learning French from the comfort of your own home? Then this Rocket French Review is just the guide for you. Learning French has been made easy with the launch of Rocket French by Marie-Claire Riviere. It is one of the best programs in the market. This program is developed under the Rocket Languages label, a popular name in the learn from home industry. This was developed by two native speakers of French and English which served as collaborators for the authentic program. Rocket French is all-encompassing, covering all the aspects involved in learning a language. The program’s…

learn Italian language
Basic Italian

Monica Corrias

5 Jan 2012 | 4:24 am

Are you an absolute beginner in Italian language? Do you want to enjoy Italian and learn some verbs and nouns? Before learning “The Basic Italian” remember 3 important rules: 1) daily practice is very important! 2) Do not worry about making mistakes! 3) Be confident because more you use Italian the better your Italian will become! Do not forget: my online lessons are aimed at everyone so everyone could enjoy this funny song (advanced Italian language level too) Now let’s listen to this Italian song: sing along with it to learn how to pronounce Italian! The verbs are:…
Italian pronominal verbs

Monica

28 Nov 2011 | 9:48 am

Yesterday I posted a little note on the Italian “pronominal verbs”. I recommend that everyone read it only after learning the main meanings of “CI” and “NE“. The note is in Italian because to begin using pronominal verbs you must have a good understanding of Italian. Of course, some verbs are easier than others, and you can use it easily, but in general you need a good knowledge of the language to be able to use them. Verbs such as “farcela”, “avercela”, “prendersela” and “andarsene” (“make it”, “be angry”, “get angry/pick on sb.”…
Italian imperfetto – a new song

Monica

13 Nov 2011 | 5:06 am

Naturalmente avete già studiato le mie note sull’imperfetto, ma oggi vorrei aggiungere un’altra canzone utile per imparare i suoni di questo tempo verbale utilissimo per parlare del passato, per raccontare … e non solo E’ una canzone di De Gregori e il titolo ovviamente è … “L’imperfetto”! questo è il testo: .. Era, pioveva C’era qualcosa che non si vedeva Respirava qualcosa respirava Nella stanza della sposa si nascondeva Eppure si muoveva Ancora, dimmelo ancora Che tutto ritornava così com’era Come bruciava e si disperdeva E…
a new Italian expression

Monica

8 Nov 2011 | 11:14 am

tratto da: Treccani, l’enciclopedia italiana Vita, Qualita Della Enciclopedie on line vita, qualità della Livello di benessere percepito e sperimentato abitualmente da un individuo o da una comunità sociale, non riducibile ai tradizionali parametri di tipo economico, connessi al concetto di sviluppo (in primis il PIL), ma misurabile attraverso un insieme di indicatori sociali, atti a valutare, sul piano dei singoli soggetti, la garanzia di opportunità reali di autorealizzazione individuale; sul piano generale, la sostenibilità degli investimenti volti a garantire il progresso…
Help the Cinque terre – Italy

Monica

29 Oct 2011 | 3:18 am

Before the Devastating flooding, the eastern Ligurian Riviera between Cinque Terre and Porto Venere was a cultural site of outstanding value, representing the harmonious interaction between man and nature to produce a landscape of exceptional scenic quality that illustrates a traditional way of life that has existed for 1,000 years and continues to play an important socio-economic role in the life of the community. Please, help the Cinque Terre to be the Unesco World Heritage again IF YOU LIVE OUTSIDE OF ITALY AND WOULD LIKE TO DONATE- -The town of Monterosso has set up an account:…

Brave New Words
Market Research

27 Jan 2012 | 6:41 pm

Short Fiction is a literary magazine devoted to, well, short fiction. The magazine accepts translated short stories.
Top 10 Blogs on Translation

22 Jan 2012 | 6:38 pm

’Tis the season for blog and website awards! Brave New Words has been listed as one of the top 10 blogs on translation. See the list here, and ignore the fact that I’ve been referred to as male, even though I’m actually female.All these nominations and awards are much appreciated. Thanks so much to all my readers for reading, commenting, and nominating this blog!
Reading Before/After Vacationing

17 Jan 2012 | 6:27 pm

I have a friend who loves to read novels set in the city or country he’s about to travel to. For example, last year, we both attended a conference in San Francisco, and he prepared in part by reading novels (and also watching films) set in that city. I know other people who like to do the same thing as a way of entering holiday mode.As for me, I actually prefer reading such novels after I’ve been on the vacation. That’s because then I can picture the scenes and I can understand the interaction of setting with plot and character better. Also, it keeps that holiday mode going a bit…
Market Research

12 Jan 2012 | 6:12 pm

Transcript Review is a literary magazine devoted to smaller languages. I only just learned about it, but it sounds interesting, so check it out.
Best Blog Award

7 Jan 2012 | 6:24 pm

Brave New Words has been nominated for the best blog about the English language by Macmillan dictionary. Please vote for BNW here (on the second page of the list).

Translation Blog
How to lose your job as an interpreter

celine@nakedtranslations.com

16 Jan 2012 | 12:18 pm

The story of a BBC sign language interpreter being sacked for her “creative” approach to interpreting (reporting, amongst other things, that radioactive zombies had been sighted near the nuclear reactor in Japan after the earthquake there) reminded me of an old post where I talk about being tempted to use my all-powerful position as an interpreter to turn a situation to my advantage. Indeed, it can be really difficult to remain a neutral conversion hub and not get personally involved. During projects that I have worked on for some time, and which I know inside out, I am sometimes tempted…
Translators and business plans

celine@nakedtranslations.com

10 Jan 2012 | 5:51 am

Jill made me smile with her post I don't have a plan and that's okay too. I completely understand where she’s coming from, even if I find it useful to take some time to reflect on how my work is going, and how I could improve it. For me, this is a way to focus and ensure that I do whatever I can to succeed in my work, like when I gave myself vague pointers in January 2010, which was useful. Some were good for me in terms of career progression (attending webinars and workshops, getting two more direct clients in the field of international development, keeping up to date with developments in…
Mox's illustrated guide to freelance translation

celine@nakedtranslations.com

7 Dec 2011 | 6:57 am

Do you know a freelance translator? Are you struggling to think of a suitable Christmas present for them? Struggle no more! Mox's Illustrated Guide to Freelance Translation is now out, with the cartoons all translators know and love and even contributions from many translation bloggers. Can’t wait to receive mine.
Damp squib

celine@nakedtranslations.com

2 Dec 2011 | 3:38 am

So it’s not “damp squid”, as I’d always thought. This is another one to put in my little box of misunderstood phrases (see “country pumpkin” in the comments of my post on accents). What led me to look into this expression, used by David Cameron to describe the biggest public sector strike since the 70s, was that I heard it translated as un pétard mouillé (a damp banger) on the French radio. I was all pleased. Nothing like a lovely translation on the news to make me smile. In fact, this was an example of a French translation far surpassing the quality of the original English…
Hey newbie translator!

celine@nakedtranslations.com

4 Nov 2011 | 7:58 am

This post is for you. You’re probably here because you sent me an email asking for advice on starting a career in translation, and you’ve received a short email containing a link, which you clicked on. Don’t think that I don’t care, because I do, but my narrow vision of things wouldn’t necessarily help you, as I think it’s best to get info from different sources to work out what’s best for you. These links contain all the best advice and resources that I can think of. You’re welcome and good luck in your new fabulous career. Posts (and their comments) on this blog How to…

Ryan's linguistics blog
language as technology

21 Jan 2012 | 8:56 am

My friend and erstwhile colleague Josh Birchall posted a link on Facebook to an interesting TED talk by Mark Pagel entitled How Language Transformed Humanity, on the development of language as a communicative tool and how it presented a huge evolutionary advantage over non-linguistic species. It isn't difficult to see how language, an infinitely productive system capable of expressing ideas that are not tied to a specific time and location, confers a greater benefit than other forms of communication. Language can be used to transfer abstract ideas and share a much wider range of information…
allophones and marginal phonemes

14 Jan 2012 | 2:45 pm

One of the most basic concerns of phonology is determining what phonemes constitute the phonological inventory of a given language, i.e., which sounds are used contrastively. Sounds are used contrastively if switching one pronunciation for another could result in a change in meaning (it may not be the case that a new word thus formed actually exists, but I think the point still holds for pairs like brick~blick). I can pronounce the word "atom" with an alveolar flap or with an alveolar stop, but the choice does not produce a difference in meaning. At worst I sound British if I use an alveolar…
thinking scientifically about language

17 Dec 2011 | 9:17 am

I just submitted my grades for my fall LING 101 course, and I'm busy preparing for my spring LING 101 course, so the question of how to get people to think scientifically about language has been much on my mind recently. I've found that one of the most useful entry-level questions is "How is human language difference from other forms of animal communication?" The media loves animal language stories, and so the uniqueness and complexity of human language is one of the first things I cover. One of the most important things about discussing such topics is not "Is human language unique?", but…
nominal tense

10 Dec 2011 | 12:48 pm

I read a headline the other day that gave me pause: "Cleveland to demolish serial killer's home". The reading I got initially was that someone charged with murder was living in a house, and the city of Cleveland was getting ready to tear it down, perhaps as additional punishment for the man's heinous crime. Of course, in reality the article was about the demolition of the house where the serial killer had lived and disposed of the bodies of his victims. It would be rather strange to demolish a home just because a criminal had formerly occupied it, but it makes perfect sense to demolish a home…
some, or all?

3 Dec 2011 | 3:52 pm

I ran into some difficulty during a LING 101 lecture the other day. I was talking about entailments, and focusing specifically on superset/subset relations. I started with some simple examples: "I eat bacon" entails "I eat meat", because bacon is a type of meat. I then moved on to what I considered were essentially identical statements. One of these was "John hates music" entails "John hates country music". Here I started getting blank looks. Several people didn't understand why this was the case, since John could hate some other type of music. After a second of musing, I found the problem:…

Free Language
Web de Aprendizaje de Lengua Inglesa Integrada, Aplicación iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad, Red Social, Flashcards y más

travelinguist

25 Jan 2012 | 9:06 pm

Aprenda Inglés con Babbel Babbel combina aprendizaje multimedia sonoro y visual, la interactividad en red social, una metodología educativa basada en el sonido, aplicaciones móviles (para iPhone, iPod Touch e iPad – Babbel Móvil) y extras en el escritorio (Babbel Refresh) en una plataforma integrada todo en uno para aprender inglés. Recientemente han expandido su plataforma añadiendo grandes cantidades de nuevas características a la interfaz de la Web, así como aplicaciones móviles y de escritorio para mejorar sus esfuerzos al aprender inglés online y las llevan al móvil. read…
O Site Babbel de Aprendizagem Integrada de Inglês, a Aplicação iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad, Rede Social, Foto Flashcards, e Mais

travelinguist

24 Jan 2012 | 6:56 pm

Aprenda Inglês com Babbel O Babbel combina multimídia visual e aprendizagem auditiva, interatividade da rede social, metodologia de ensino sólida, aplicações móveis (para iPhone, iPod Touch e iPad- Babbel Mobile) numa plataforma integrada, de balcão único, para aprender inglês. Muito recentemente, eles expandiram a sua plataforma, adicionando muitas novas funcionalidades para a interface Web, bem como aplicativos móveis e para desktop, para melhorar os seus esforços de aprendizagem online de inglês - e levá-los no telemóvel. read more
Apprenez L’anglais en Ligne: Facile, Rapide, Amusant (Et des applications!)

travelinguist

23 Jan 2012 | 2:03 pm

Amusez-vous en Apprenant Rapidement L’anglais Busuu Anglais propose aux apprentis en anglais une combinaison dynamique de leçons en ligne, d’échange de langages et d’applications mobiles pour iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch et Android. Busuu offre beaucoup de ces caractéristiques gratuitement :) Cela comprend un entraînement de vocabulaire basé sur les images, des exercices d’écriture, des exercices de compréhension écrite, des chats vidéo, des examens interactifs ainsi qu’une communauté animée pour échanger socialement en anglais. Le système Busuu vous permet de garder une…
Aprender Inglés Online Gratis: Fácil, Rápido, Divertido (¡Más Aplicaciones!)

travelinguist

5 Dec 2011 | 8:14 am

Aprender Inglés Rápido de Forma Divertida Busuu English ofrece a los estudiantes de inglés una combinación dinámica de lecciones online, intercambio de lengua y aplicaciones móviles para iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch y Android. Busuu ofrece muchas de sus características de forma gratuita : ) Esto incluye práctica de vocabulario basada en fotos, ejercicios de escritura, ejercicios de comprensión lectora, video chat, exámenes interactivos y una activa comunidad para el intercambio social en inglés. El sistema de Busuu le permite llevar un registro de sus estudios de inglés y marcar su…
Aprender Inglês Online de Graça: Fácil, Rápido, Divertido (mais Aplicativos!)

travelinguist

5 Dec 2011 | 8:01 am

Divirta-se aprendendo rapidamente inglês O Busuu oferece aos alunos uma combinação dinâmica de lições online, a troca de idioma e aplicativos móveis para iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch e Android. O Busuu oferece muitas das suas caraterísticas de graça :) Isso inclui vocabulário de treinamento baseado em imagem, exercícios de escrita, exercícios de compreensão de leitura, vídeo chat, exames interativos e uma comunidade movimentada para troca social em inglês. O sistema Busuu permite manter um histórico de seus estudos do inglês e marcar seu progresso à medida que você completa…

English, Jack
iBooks Author straightjacket

22 Jan 2012 | 9:59 am

I downloaded iBooks Author, considering using it to publish teaching materials. The license agreement, however, is rather a barrier. Particularly this section: B. Distribution of your Work. As a condition of this License and provided you are incompliance with its terms, your Work may be distributed as follows:(i) if your Work is provided for free (at no charge), you may distribute the Work by anyavailable means;(ii) if your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product orservice), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and such distribution is subject…
The exercise is not the game

15 Jan 2012 | 11:14 am

In football, coaches will put cones on the ground and ask you to dribble the ball around them. This is supposed to improve your accuracy and fluency, but nobody believes that the purpose of this drill is to get better at dribbling around cones. Everybody understands that the purpose is a transfer of skills to a similar but different situation in a real football game.Things are not so clear when it comes to the teaching of writing. It's pretty typical for writing textbooks and writing teachers to make claims like: "There are two ways of organizing a compare/contrast essay: the common traits…
Economist wants to teach English

11 Jan 2012 | 6:55 am

The "Johnson" blog at The Economist is looking for ideas about how the newspaper can make itself more useful to English (language?) teachers.
How do you even write a book like that?

1 Jan 2012 | 9:09 pm

The Sisters Bothers by Patrick deWitt is a fantastic read. Or at least it is so far. The incongruity between the character of the brothers, two hired killers in the 1850s, and the formality of their dialogue is jarring but somehow fully appropriate.'What's the matter?' asked Charlie, leaning up on his elbow beside the fire.'A horse.''Where is the rider?''There is no rider that I can see.''If the rider appears, you may wake me.' He turned and fell back asleep. (pp. 76-77)It's perfectly in line with Eli's ability to follow his genuinely kind impulses and then switch instantly to utter…
Grammar and Beyond, a review

30 Dec 2011 | 12:02 pm

Cambridge has a new grammar series called Grammar and Beyond out/in the works. I got a review copy of the level 2 book by Randi Reppen. I first noticed it at the TESL Ontario conference in October and was interested in it because it's the first grammar series for English language learners I've noticed that employs the concept of determiner (please tell me in the comments if you know of others).Unfortunately, they make a hash of it.Let's start with the shocking mismatch between the level of grammar and vocabulary knowledge needed to read and understand the text and the level of knowledge…

Thoughts On Translation
A few financial management tips

Corinne McKay

18 Jan 2012 | 3:19 pm

After working all day on my business taxes (year-end and fourth quarter…I need a mocha!), my thoughts are firmly stuck in the financial realm. So let’s stick with that topic and talk about some tips for managing your freelance finances. Some of these are US-specific and some apply worldwide, so especially if you’re an overseas reader, feel free to contribute your own tips too! Have a business bank account and business debit card. Your business and personal finances should be completely separate, and the debit card statements save you from dealing with a shoebox full of…
Webinar on remote interpreting

Corinne McKay

13 Jan 2012 | 2:50 pm

On January 25 at noon New York time (the same time as the Speaking of Translation question and answer call), my good friend and colleague Cris Silva is presenting what looks like a fabulous webinar for ATA, on webcast and telephone interpreting. Cris does a lot of remote interpreting for high-profile events, so I’m sure that this webinar will be an excellent learning opportunity!
Off-topic: travel A-Z

Corinne McKay

11 Jan 2012 | 11:30 pm

To reward myself for finishing part of my taxes, here’s a spinoff of Jill Sommer’s post on the ABCs of traveling; a great Internet meme for language geeks! I agree with Jill that just assembling this list brought back some fabulous memories, and just for fun, it also prompted me to tally all of the countries I’ve visited (Canada, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, Brazil, France, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Monaco, Austria, Italy, Greece, Czechoslovakia (when it still existed!), Hungary, Bosnia, Moldova, Romania, Portugal, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Nepal,…
Must-read: advice for new translators

Corinne McKay

11 Jan 2012 | 1:39 pm

This link deserves its own post: over at Musings from an Overworked Translator, Jill Sommer has an incredibly useful post on job-hunting advice for beginning translators. Jill offers some great tips, and there are yet more ideas in the comments. Definitely give it a look!
Free Q&A conference call

Corinne McKay

11 Jan 2012 | 11:11 am

On Wednesday, January 25 at 12 noon US Eastern/New York Time (you can use The World Clock to convert to your time zone), Eve Bodeux, Michelle Bradley and I will be doing a free half-hour question and answer conference call about translation and the business of translation. You can connect to the call by phone using a US toll number or by Skype for free. Ask us anything! Well, at least anything related to the translation industry. To read more details or to submit a question, please see the Speaking of Translation website. We’ll select some of your questions to answer during the live…

Global by Design
The best global websites of 2012

John Yunker

25 Jan 2012 | 11:43 am

TweetI’m happy to announce the publication of the 2012 Web Globalization Report Card. This year, we reviewed 105 websites across 17 industries; the websites comprise 70% of the Interbrand Best Global Brands of 2011. This year, we also reviewed mobile … Continue reading →
Coming soon…

John Yunker

19 Jan 2012 | 4:09 pm

Tweet
Slip Carefully

John Yunker

13 Jan 2012 | 3:03 pm

TweetI came across a rather enterprising individual who is crafting and selling replicas of infamous “Chinglish” signs. His Etsy store is called: All Your Signs Are Belong to Us. Here’s a sample:
Adopt a Typewriter Today

John Yunker

4 Jan 2012 | 7:36 pm

Tweet Yes, I have a fondness for typewriters. And, yes, I am old enough to have actually used one regularly. Mostly, I miss the way they sound. I’ve memorialized two of my favorite typewriters in these notecards.
Russia’s Internet growth is just getting started

John Yunker

2 Jan 2012 | 8:51 pm

TweetI checked domain registration stats from Russia’s registry and here are the high-level numbers: If you combine IDNs and ccTLDs, Russia becomes the third-ranked country in terms of country code registrations, behind Germany and the UK. But what caught my eye is … Continue reading →

Web Translations
Localise your website and overtake the competition

Cass

27 Jan 2012 | 7:05 am

It’s a statistic we often repeat on this blog, but the fact is that online customers are four times more likely to buy from a website in their own language, so companies who have multilingual websites soon reap the rewards of the time and resource investment they make in website localisation. Here’s how localisation of [...]
Translators & Project Managers - just like Fish and Chips!

Guest Blogger

20 Jan 2012 | 4:48 am

Translators and Project Managers (PMs) are just like fish and chips: one won’t go without the other. Here’s a short guide on how to enjoy this recipe without giving yourself indigestion! Rather than writing about what freelancers love or hate (or a similar rant from the Project Manager’s perspective), it’s possibly more useful for [...]
French eCommerce sales to hit 45 bill. EUR in 2012

Cass

17 Jan 2012 | 9:29 am

Within Europe, 70% of online sales are generated by “the big online three”; €48 billion from the UK; Germany €39.2 billion and France €25 billion. The French online market has grown rapidly in the last couple of years. In 2010, eCommerce alone accounted for €31 billion of the €36.2 billion France sold abroad. In [...]
Web-Translations assists Leeds City College with rebrand to reach entrepreneur audience

Cass

16 Jan 2012 | 8:27 am

Web-Translations has been commissioned to implement the Leeds City College online rebrand and help engage new audiences as part of the college’s commitment to Entrepreneurs. In a move that will see the college opening up a whole host of creative services to entrepreneurs in and around the area, from screen printing and laser cutting, to retail [...]
Chinese New Year 2012: Enter the Dragon

admin

11 Jan 2012 | 9:03 am

This Chinese New Year, beginning on 23rd January, marks the beginning of the year of the Dragon. The Chinese zodiac consists of 12 animals: Dragon, Horse, Monkey, Rat, Boar, Rabbit, Dog, Rooster, Ox, Tiger, Snake, and Ram; last year’s Rabbit, representing calm and tranquility makes way for the Dragon, bringing with it excitement, unpredictability, exhilaration [...]

Women Learning Thai... and some men too ;-)
The Common Koel & Why I’d Make a Lousy Buddhist

Catherine

26 Jan 2012 | 10:48 pm

The Common Koel and why I’d make a lousy Buddhist… Around November of last year a longtime member of my neighbourhood bird community, the Common Koel (lovingly known for his stealth gliding through the trees), transformed his pleasant warbling into an incessant, high-pitched shrill. Right outside my bedroom window. All of my windows actually. And all day and all night. Throughout the day and 11pm, 12pm, 1am, 2am, 3am (especially 3am), this is what I hear: [See post to listen to audio] The Koel’s mating calls started in November, ran through the month of December, and now…
Thai Tales: Mango’s, Mangosteen and Angry Thai Feet

Catherine

22 Jan 2012 | 9:14 pm

Thai Tales: Mango’s, Mangosteen and Angry Thai Feet… My good friend Khun Phairoh, giggling away, told me a cute story this weekend and I just had to share it with you. Here you go… (and may there be many more). A tourist in Bangkok stops at a fruit stall along a crowded footpath. Wanting to try out his limited Thai skills, he asks the female fruit seller about one of the items. Tourist: What is this? นี่ อะไร ครับ /nêe a-rai kráp/ Fruit seller: It’s called mangosteen. เรียกว่า มังคุด /rîak-wâa mang-kút/ Tourist: Mango?
Successful Thai Language Learner: Stephen Thomas

Catherine

19 Jan 2012 | 6:00 pm

Interviewing Successful Thai Language Learners… Name: Stephen Thomas “ไกร” Nationality: British Age range: 40-50 Sex: Male Location: Bangkok Profession: Actor Web presence: Facebook: Stephen Thomas | Stephen Thomas and People On Wheels What is your Thai level? Intermediate. Do you speak more street Thai, Issan Thai, or professional Thai? Probably more street Thai. Professional Thai has a lot more complicated and redundant grammar, though it can be useful if I am having trouble getting my point across. It’s important to know the proper rules of any language I think. I…
FREE Online Resources at Everyday Thai Language School

Catherine

16 Jan 2012 | 5:04 pm

Free Thai learning materials… I’m a Thai language resource junkie so was chuffed when Remi pointed me to the Thai language resources at Everyday Thai Language School. Thanks Remi! I owe. Everyday Thai Language School’s FREE online resources… Everyday Thai Language School’s Free Thai language study aids are in four main groups covering beginner to advanced levels. 1) Language exercises, Thai flashcards, and listening quizzes. Developed from the course books used at Everyday Thai Language School. Audio included. Speaking Everyday Thai: Thai Learning aids for…
Review: A Guide to Thai Grammar Books

Mark Hollow

12 Jan 2012 | 5:50 am

A Guide to Thai Grammar Books… Presented here are short introductions to Thai grammar books, both in the English language for foreign learners and Thai language books for Thai school and university students which are also useful for foreign learners with a good Thai reading ability. As these are reference books, not tutorials, they are not intended to be read from cover-to-cover, but instead used to support continued studies. Each book overview here covers the general structure and content together with comments about any specific, notable features. However, no opinion or rating is…

Russian Language Blog
Wolverines, Elks and Amur Tigers

yelena

27 Jan 2012 | 2:00 am

What does this wood goblin have to do with the forest animals in the title of the post? Keep reading and you will find out the connection and the goblin’s name in Russian. Image courtesy of Wikipedia. This post was going to be about Russian grammar. However, after having our regular чаептие (tea time) with мо хоршая подрга (my good friend) earlier today, I radically changed my mind for two reasons: She shared three beautiful LiveJournal blogs with me by Russian фотграфы-натуралсты (nature photographers) and I want to share those with you. Besides,…
Russian Wedding – Part 2

yelena

24 Jan 2012 | 4:00 am

Click here to view the embedded video. Let’s talk some more about Russian weddings. I left off on the part where новобрчные (the newlyweds) leave the (registry office). In case you missed the first part, it is here. Somehow I completely forgot to mention обмн кльцами (exchanging the rings) that happens during the ceremony. Wedding bands in Russia are called обручльные кльца and are worn on безымнный плец првой рук (ring finger on the right hand, lit: the no-name finger). This fact is not nearly as interesting, in my opinion, as the…
Reading the News – In Russian

Natalie

23 Jan 2012 | 4:00 pm

«Дбрый вчер, дороге читтели!» [Good evening, dear readers!] Today I want to share with you a technique I have used for learning Russian that has helped me immensely: reading the news. «Я любл читть нвости и по-англйски, и по-рсски» [I love reading the news in both English and Russian]. It is always interesting to read what is going on «в мре» [in the world], and what better way to learn about this than in Russian. «Давйте читть!» [Let's read!] The article I am referencing can be read here (but don’t worry, I…
How to Celebrate a Wedding по-русски

yelena

18 Jan 2012 | 2:00 am

Doesn’t look like much, does it? Yet this fairly unassuming doorway, with a four-letter acronym ЗАГС, leads to a life of (hopefully) married bliss. This particular door is for the ЗАГС is in my hometown of Volgograd. I walked by it countless times as a child and was inside the office only twice, at a friend’s wedding and at my grandparents’ fiftieth anniversary. I am going shopping for a set of two фансовые чшки (earthenware tea cups) today. It is a gift for a friend who is celebrating девтая годовщна свдьбы (ninth wedding…
Out With the New, In With the Old

yelena

13 Jan 2012 | 2:11 am

What are your plans for tomorrow, Saturday the 14th of January? Better cancel them and instead celebrate стрый Нвый (the old New Year). Today, January the 13th is yet another the New Year’s Eve. Yes, it’s another chance to finish last year’s unfinished business, to set goals and make promises, and to start afresh. Yes, lucky Russians get to celebrate the New Year not once, but twice. Russia was 300-odd years late switching to Gregorian calendar. Стран перешл нвый в 1918 год (the country moved to the new style calendar only in 1918). Before then it was using…

Polish Language Blog
Director of Auschwitz museum has died

Kasia

27 Jan 2012 | 3:21 pm

Kazimierz Smoleń, a former prisoner of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, passed away on The International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Holocaust. He was 91 years old. Kazimierz Smoleń was born on April 19, 1920 in Chorzów Stary. He was sent to the concentration camp for underground activities in Chorzów in one of the first transports of Polish prisoners. He was given a number 1327. Kazimierz Smoleń was also imprisoned in Mauthausen. After the war Kazimierz Smoleń graduated from law at the Catholic University and worked for the Main Commission for Investigation of…
Irena Jarocka has passed away

Kasia

26 Jan 2012 | 5:31 pm

After more than 40 years on the international stage, Polish singer Irena Jarocka has passed away in Warsaw. One of the best known hits of Irena Jarocka was “Odpływają kawiarenki” (Sail Away Cafes). Irena Jarocka debuted in 1968 at the festival in Sopot. Her first hit was the song “Gondolierzy znad Wisły” (Gondoliers on the Vistula River). Over the years, Irena Jarocka sang such well-known songs as “Motylem jestem” (I am a Butterfly), “Kocha się tylko raz” (You Love Only Once), “Odpływają kawiarenki” (Sail Away Cafes), “Wymyśliłam Cię” (I Created…
Nie, dziękuję

Kasia

24 Jan 2012 | 3:01 pm

Many times you were probably in a situation when you had to refuse something, say “no” in a polite way. Today I will try to give you some examples of refusal in a different situations you may find yourself in Poland. Shopping at the store, when you are approached by the sales representative asking if she/he can help you with anything, sometimes you just feel like just looking around and you do not help…What do you say then? Nie, dziękuję – no, thank you Narazie tylko się rozglądam – I’m just browsing right now Dam pani/panu znać,…
Kłodzko – Hillside charm

Kasia

22 Jan 2012 | 6:48 pm

Kłodzko is a delight for the eyes: its Old Town is perched on a rambling hillside, surrounded by winding, steep streets. Overhanging houses and Gothic architecture give this small town a wild, romantic feeling. Kłodzko is one of the oldest towns in Poland’s Silesia region: it’s estimated to be about 1,000 years old. In that long time, it – like most towns and cities in this most south-western part of the country – has seen much. It changed ownership every 100 years or so, getting grabbed by Bohemia, Austria and Prussia; it was largely due to Kłodzko’s strategic geographical…
Visiting Krosno and its’ neighborhood

Kasia

21 Jan 2012 | 5:53 pm

Today I wanted to give you some ideas what is worth seeing if you are in Krosno area. A charming town in southern Poland, Krosno is primarily known as a big glass-manufacturing center. It also boasts numerous historic attractions, including splendid medieval churches and ancient tenement houses. A number of cultural events give Krosno its special atmosphere, the best known of which are the cyclical Krosno Theatre Festival and the open-air events of the Mountain Ballooning Competition (A mountain Balloon Competition is one of most beautiful and most spectacular events in Poland. The party has…

What's New? The Learn English Blog
Jan 11, THANK YOU LETTER

11 Jan 2012 | 3:20 pm

HI DIANA,I JUST FOUND YOUR WEBSITE TODAY AND I WANT TO TELL YOU IT IS AWSOME.IT IS LIKE A MIRACLE. SO I HOPE YOU MAKE A BIG SUCCES.
Dec 16, English for Beginners

16 Dec 2011 | 7:12 am

English for Beginners does not have to be boring. With the help of Livemocha you can learn and have fun, even with a lower level.
Dec 16, Do "Effortless English" Lessons Really Work?

16 Dec 2011 | 7:00 am

Learn more about Effortless English lessons and see if they really work.
Dec 16, Demonstrative Pronouns and Demonstratives: Learn How to Use English Grammar

16 Dec 2011 | 6:54 am

How to use demonstrative pronouns and demonstratives in real life English.
Dec 16, Compare photos like a Pro! 5 Tips for taking an oral exam.

16 Dec 2011 | 6:42 am

When asked to compare photos for an oral exam, are you able to do it easily? Follow these 5 simple tricks to help you describe and compare pictures more easily.

Ingl�s na Ponta da L�ngua
Real English Fast Furious

26 Jan 2012 | 8:30 pm

Well, the podcast idea was really welcome by the readers and fans. I got really nice words here on the blog, on the Facebook page (please like the page). So, here I am with another edition of Inglês na Ponta da Língua podcast.This time I have something totally different. You can listen to the audiofile and can also read the tip. Yeah! You can read it too. So, below you have the audiofile (if you can't see it, click here) and below the audio file you'll find the script to read while you listen. I hope you like this. Take care, you guys. I wish you a wonderful weekend.Real English Fast and…
The Pronunciation of Everyday and Every day

25 Jan 2012 | 9:20 am

It's been quite a while now that I've been trying to have a podcast here on Inglês na Ponta da Língua. A podcast is a spoken post instead of a written one. Anyway, below you can click on play and listen to the tip I have about the pronunciation of "everyday" and "everyday". Just listen to it and let me know what you think about it. I'm not a professional on this field, so bear with me. Anyway, I know I can learn and improve, but as a first trial, is it ok? What do you have to say about it? [In case you can't see the play thing below, go to…
Is disembarkation ok?

23 Jan 2012 | 4:00 pm

Only a few days ago, I got an email from a reader saying that TAM (or Infraero) employees should study English. Actually, the reader said that they should be reading Inglês na Ponta da Língua daily tips, so that they could learn English and avoid huge mistakes.The reader said so based on the picture that you see below. The picture shows an airport information screen with the words "disembarkation started at 12:01". Before I go on on this, see the picture for yourself and then keep reading.For many people the word "disembarkation" sounds like an "embromation thing". You know, when Brazilians…
Gramática Inglesa: preposições no final de sentenças

22 Jan 2012 | 12:30 pm

Já escrevi aqui no blog várias dicas sobre preposições. Portanto, caso você seja novo por aqui recomendo que leia:Como aprender as preposições em inglês [Parte I]Como aprender as preposições em inglês [Parte II]Falando um pouco mais sobre as preposiçõesUma das perguntas que os leitores fazem com certa frequencia é sobre o uso das preposições no final de sentenças. Para facilitar veja os exemplos abaixo:What are you talking about?Who are you going to the party with?Who did you talk to?That's the chair I was sat on.This is the book I told you about.The sidewalk is too slippery…
5 Anos de Inglês na Ponta da Língua

19 Jan 2012 | 6:30 am

Hoje é um dia especial para quem acompanha o Inglês na Ponta da Língua. Para mim então que escrevo quase todos os dias é mais que especial. Afinal, eu nunca pensei que esse blog completaria 5 anos de idade um dia.Pensei que fosse abandoná-lo ao longo do caminho. Mas, nada disso! O blog continuou firme e forte desde o seu início em 19 de janeiro de 2007. Um dia eu conto a história de como e porque tudo começou, caso estejam interessados.Hoje não darei uma dica. Na verdade, quero apenas dar parabéns a você que ajuda o Inglês na Ponta da Língua estar entre um dos blogs com dicas de…

One Hour Translation Blog
One Hour Translation for eBay

Matt Moore

15 Jan 2012 | 1:25 pm

With the One Hour Translation for eBay you can translate your eBay listing by a professional translator or by machine translation to any of the 15 supported languages and instantly list the item in any of the international eBay sites. The One Hour Translation for eBay is part of the cooperation between One Hour Translation and 3dSellers – an eCommerce apps developer, it is an approved eBay app that can be found on the eBay app market – Translation for eBay
Blog Translation – Does It Worth the Cost?

Matt Moore

9 Jan 2012 | 10:15 am

Translation of online content certainly has its pros and cons. Proponents of translation of online content cite the benefits of being able to reach a wider and deeper audience as being the foremost advantage of employing the use of blog translation services. Opponents of blog translation services have alluded to the cost being a negative aspect. However it is neither the reach nor the cost that is of the utmost concern from the outset. It is the reasoning behind why translation services are required in the first place. The objectives of blog owners must be clarified in order that the efficacy…
Content Translation as a SEO Method

Matt Moore

2 Jan 2012 | 10:25 am

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques vary between the traditional and the exceptional. Websites employing the use of content translation as an effective SEO method will find their ratings visibly enhanced on the world’s leading search engines such as Google and Yahoo! When considering the issue of content translation as an SEO Method, the first aspect that must be taken into account is the target market. Should a website seek to increase its reader base, then it is essential to employ the use of content translation services. The Benefits of Content Translation in Terms of SEO Leading…
Responding Tenders in Other Language

Matt Moore

28 Dec 2011 | 2:33 pm

Important international business agreements require the full understanding and compliance of participants. It does happen that from time to time – and increasingly of late – tenders between business enterprises involve cultural and language differences. An oversight in this arena may prove the demise of the business relationship and participants are strongly advised to research the cultural and linguistic nuances and expected norms. This is done in an attempt to satisfy cross-cultural understanding and discourse. Respondents in the international business, social or cultural arena are…
Translation Memory Software Advantages and Disadvantages

Matt Moore

21 Dec 2011 | 2:11 pm

Prior to discussing the merits and pitfalls of utilizing translation memory software, it is imperative to understand precisely what this technology is able to do. For starters, translation memory or TM, is essentially a workable database of information relating to language. It stores bits of data – packets of information – in segments. These can be strung together into functional language fragments. The key differential here is that these bits of information have been translated for the purposes of non-native speakers of the translated language. Various names for such software are readily…

BeatBabel - The Art of Localization
Happy Friday!

27 Jan 2012 | 9:00 am
On native languages and hometowns...

25 Jan 2012 | 5:46 pm

Spanish is my native language. That is the language my parents spoke to each other when they fell in love, the language in which I said my first word, the language I learnt to love. It is the epicenter of my identity. However, identity is a complicated matter, especially if you come from a complicated place…I was probably not even a year old the first time I traveled to a country other than the one where I was born. In those days, it wasn’t much of a hassle to cross the border to San Diego, and so we did it all the time. Sunday mornings meant ten people cramped in my Great Grandmother’s…
Think Latin America, Silicon Valley

13 May 2011 | 1:01 pm

A diverse array of localization industry professionals from all over the world were brought together last Friday at The Mountain Winery in Silicon Valley. And for what purpose?... to spotlight Latin America and discuss the region’s booming market, business opportunities and uniqueness for the second edition of the “Think Latin America” conference, organized by the “Women in Localization” group , IMTT and Ccaps Translation. BeatBabel drove all the way up with 4 team members and the event was well worth the drive!Latin America, the region of the world spanning from the northernmost…
A Different Perspective on Thanksgiving

24 Nov 2010 | 2:16 pm

It’s Thanksgiving again and I remember the year when my sister exclaimed at the table that she didn’t even like turkey. I then realized that if it was any other day other than Thanksgiving, I wouldn’t be eating the macaroni and cheese, gravy, turkey stuffing, etcetera. These are all dishes that millions of Americans eat on this day, and they are also dishes I could do without. So why did I find myself mechanically eating this food while vacantly wishing people a “Happy Thanksgiving,” when in reality I didn’t quite understand what Thanksgiving was about. Food preferences aside, the…
Vendor Management Best Practices: why less is more...

20 Jul 2010 | 12:45 pm

In light of our presentation this Saturday at the Vendor Management Seminar in Las Vegas (organized by our friends from IMTT and VMS), we have decided to talk about vendor/client relationships and what makes them successful over time. We are looking at the relationship from different angles: - the perspective of our translation and localization vendors and our own experience since some of us started as vendors - the perspective of Project and Vendor Managers- the company's perspective, since we are after all also vendors to our customers. Since there are a few days left before the conference,…

Macmillan
Language and words in the news – 27th January, 2012

Kati Sule

27 Jan 2012 | 2:28 pm

This post contains a selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English, language change, education in general, and language learning and teaching in particular. Feel free to contact us if you would like to submit [...] [This is a content excerpt only. Visit our blog for the full post].
Open Dictionary word of the week: takeaway

Laine Redpath Cole

26 Jan 2012 | 5:56 am

takeaway (noun) an important piece of information to remember from e.g. a meeting or presentation The most arresting takeaway last October at the Frankfurt presentation was that adding “enhanced metadata” elements to a basket of backlist books not only stopped their normal sales decay, it reversed it and actually made sales of those books rise... [This is a content excerpt only. Visit our blog for the full post].
Macmillan Dictionary Love English Awards: update 5 and final

Laine Redpath Cole

25 Jan 2012 | 6:30 am

We’re almost there, with just five more days of voting left. Over 23,000 votes have been cast in the last two months, showing love in abundance for the useful, entertaining (and sometimes a bit weird) English language-loving websites and blogs that are in the running. If you have been nominated, results will be officially announced [...] [This is a content excerpt only. Visit our blog for the full post].
Language tip of the week: knowledge

Kati Sule

24 Jan 2012 | 4:00 am

In this weekly microblog, we bring to English language learners more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary. These tips are based on areas of English (e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc) which learners often find difficult. This week’s language tip helps with the noun knowledge. Knowledge is an uncountable noun, so it... [This is a content excerpt only. Visit our blog for the full post].
Apostrophe apostasy

Stan Carey

23 Jan 2012 | 7:00 am

Learning a rule or convention in language gives people a secure footing in an area of usage. When the convention is ignored or challenged, this can undermine the pocket of security and offend people’s sense of what is proper and necessary. This might help explain the levels of anxiety and outrage we see when, for [...] [This is a content excerpt only. Visit our blog for the full post].

American Accent Training for all Nationalities
Speaking American English - How to Slow down and speak clearly

Tracey Ingram

17 Jan 2012 | 9:02 am

Many non-Native English speakers have a habit of speaking English too quickly!! This makes it very difficult for Native English speakers to understand them. Sometimes I feel non-Native English speakers speak quickly because they feel nervous or can be a carryover from the way they speak their native language. Here are a couple of things you can do to slow down your rate of speech so that people will understand you more easily. Use Thought groups When native English speakers are talking, they divide long sentences into smaller sections called thought groups. At the end of each thought…
How a Speech analysis can reduce your Accent

Tracey Ingram

4 Jan 2012 | 8:18 am

Happy New Year!! Start the New Year with confident English pronunciation. Confident English pronunciation is probably the most powerful skill you could ever learn. It can open doors for you and lead to multiple opportunities. The need for comprehensible spoken English is everywhere and will continue to grow in schools, call centers, management, and in social situations. Imagine the new opportunities you would have if you could improve your American English pronunciation!! By improving the way you speak you could gain new respect from your boss, your co-workers, and get a better job. …
Chinese New year of the Dragon 2012

Tracey Ingram

2 Jan 2012 | 8:47 am

Happy New year Everyone!! The Chinese New year of the Dragon is a very special year. The dragon historically is a symbol of power from heaven. Let this year be your special year to take at least 1 step to enhance your life. The Chinese New Year officially starts January 23, 2012 Many people may want to change their eating habits and lose weight. Others may have a goal to get a better job. For those individuals who want to improve their speech you have come to the right place. Why don't you make a point to speak to an experienced Speech and hearing professional about your goals??
7 Weeks to a Better American Accent for Native Mandarin Speakers - Volume 2

Tracey Ingram

5 Dec 2011 | 9:28 am

Volume 2 of the New Series will be ready to be released just in time for Christmas!!! Many of my students have asked when will volume 2 be ready. As you may be aware that the first volume consists of a 70 page workbook and 16 track CD/MP3 audio files which lay a foundation for both professionals and students to gain a better grasp on understanding the many complicated stress patterns and quick, fluid rhythms of American English. Volume 2 has multiple chapters devoted to presenting helpful information on mastering intonation which is the rhythm and flow of the American English language. …
Top 3 strategies for Improving your American English pronunciation

Tracey Ingram

30 Nov 2011 | 8:21 am

Strategy #3 Use the Schwa vowel sound in reduced syllables The vowels in reduced syllables are not pronunced long and clear, instead these vowels have the schwa sound. For example, when you say the word STU-dent the e in the second (or reduced) syllable sounds like "uh", so the word sounds like STU-duhnt. As I mentioned before, the schwa sound is the most frequent sound in spoken English but many learners are unaware of it. Learning to use the schwa sound for vowels in reduced syllables is one of the very best ways to improve your accent. By studying the three accent…

Pimsleur Approach Blog
5 International Winter Festivals

Pimsleur Approach

27 Jan 2012 | 4:20 pm

Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival, Harbin, China Once the holidays are over and the decorations are put away, many of us take a cue from the bears and hibernate until spring in our respective caves, ready to wait for some warmer weather. But you don’t have to keep piling on the layers and sit around waiting for spring. Why not try something new and celebrate this time of year, maybe in an exotic location, while waiting for the flowers to bloom? Check out a few of these winter festivals around the world: Shopping Festival, Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Admittedly, Dubai is…
Italian Carnival Characters – Traditional Maschere

Pimsleur Approach

26 Jan 2012 | 3:31 pm

Pulcinella symbol of Naples When you think about Carnival and Italy, most probably what comes into your mind is a picture of those fancy, richly embroidered and oh-so-elegant Venetian masks. Well, this is of course right, but maybe you don’t know that there is a whole family of humbler traditional characters, linked to the traditional Commedia dell’Arte. Some of them are quite famous, while others are considered to be less important and are thus harder to recognize. Pulcinellais probably one of the most famous Italian icons. Symbol of Naples and of the puppet theater, he wears white shirt…
Enjoy Italian Carnival!

Pimsleur Approach

23 Jan 2012 | 2:20 pm

Viareggio - Carnival In Italy, people eagerly wait for Carnival. Why is that so? Is it because of the typical Carnival deep-fried, sugary food? Is it because of the pranks people can pull at their friends? Is it because of the masked balls and city parades? Or is it because masked children are just so cute? Well, it is a bit of everything, of course! Some Italian cities put a lot of effort and passion in preparing Carnival celebrations, that reach their peak in the days called Martedì and Giovedì Grasso (respectively, Shrove Tuesday and Thursday before Lent) and end just before Mercoledì…
Is the 2CV the Most Iconic French Car of All?

Pimsleur Approach

18 Jan 2012 | 3:04 pm

Is the 2CV the Most Iconic French Car of All? You’ve probably seen at least one somewhere, even if only in a movie. The 2CV (“deux chevaux”) car is as French as Beaujolais, Camembert, and the Eiffel Tower. Citroën, the company that makes the 2CV, defined the car at the design stage as a “TPV” or “toute petite voiture” (very small car). The specifications were for a four-seater with front-wheel drive, a three-speed gearbox – and a suspension that allowed a car carrying a crate of eggs to drive over a ploughed field without breaking any eggs braking in the process. The first…
5 Lesser-Known Ski Destinations

Pimsleur Approach

13 Jan 2012 | 9:26 am

5 Lesser-Known Ski Destinations As the weather turns colder, skiers start thinking about their plans for ski season. Those serious about the sport might even think of booking a trip to a country with some major slopes—perhaps France, Italy, or Switzerland. But there are other areas of the world that should be viewed a little more closely when you plan your next ski getaway—areas that may not come immediately to mind when you think of major skiing meccas, but offer some great mountain ranges, beautiful scenery, and challenging runs: Bulgaria: Likely not one of the top countries that come…

The PhraseBlog
What's your favorite phrase?

aaron@phrasemix

23 Jan 2012 | 8:25 pm

Out of all the PhraseMix example sentences you've read, what's your favorite one? Why is it your favorite? Because it was new to you? Because it's funny? Because it perfectly fit a situation that you've encountered? If you need to refresh your memory, here's the index of all the past PhraseMix lessons. Leave your answer (with a link, if you can) in the comments!
The 5 levels of incorrect English

aaron@phrasemix

15 Jan 2012 | 3:55 pm

What does it mean to say that something is "wrong" in English? Sometimes PhraseMix readers ask me things like "Is this sentence correct?" and I have trouble answering directly. That's because there are actually several different meanings of the words "correct" or "incorrect", "right" or "wrong". Here are some of the different categories of "incorrect" English that I've found: Level 1: Unintelligible English Something that people just can't understand is "unintelligible". Here's an example of unintelligible English: "If me and if we don't you have know me find." Huh? You might speak…
Who would you like to speak like?

aaron@phrasemix

8 Jan 2012 | 8:04 pm

If you could sound like one particular English speaker, who would you want to sound like? For me, I think it would be cool to have this guy's voice: I've already explained in a past blog entry why you should try to do an impression of someone. So is there anyone special that you would like to sound like? Give your answer in the comments. Extra credit for posting a video or audio clip!
Good English learning habit: carry around a piece of paper

aaron@phrasemix

31 Dec 2011 | 12:25 pm

I find that I forget a lot of what I learn. Do you have that problem? For example, if I watch a movie in a foreign language, I usually hear a few interesting new phrases. If I'm paying attention, I might even think, "Hey, I should remember this for later!". But a few minutes later, it's gone. If you ask me the next day, I probably won't remember what even happened in the movie, much less any new words or phrases :) Ah, if only there was a way to record what I've learned and save it for later... Wait! There's is a way to do that! In fact, it's an extremely simple technique. Just make sure that…
Another award nomination?! Wow! Please vote for PhraseMix!

aaron@phrasemix

28 Dec 2011 | 7:17 am

Some wonderful PhraseMix reader has nominated PhraseMix for another "Best of 2011" award. This award is from the Macmillan Dictionary website. A lot of other sites have already been nominated and got an early start on voting, so I reallly need your help this time. Please visit the voting page and vote for PhraseMix! Thank you to everyone who voted for the EnglishClub.com "Best of 2011" competition as well.

Globalization Partners International - Blog
Localization Challenges in Translating eLearning Content

22 Jan 2012 | 6:00 pm

Ask someone: "What is eLearning" and chances are you will get as many different responses as the number of people you ask. Asynchronous eLearning Ask an academic and you'll hear descriptions of online platforms, such as SABA/CentraOne, Clarity Net, Consensus, Learn.com, Moodle, SumTotal, Blackboard/WebCT that have 'slots' for posting content like lectures, documents and assignments; functionality for tracking students and grading papers; and mildly interactive features like discussion forums or chat rooms where students collaborate on team projects. In academics' lingo, this is asynchronous…
Website Translation & Web Localization Strategies Books

15 Jan 2012 | 6:00 pm

For those of you who are facing any website translation projects in 2012 and are interested in learning about success stories and best practices for translating websites there is a new book on topic by Nitish Singh, PhD. which we highly recommend. Professor Singh's new book is entitled "Localization Strategies for Global E-Business" and can be purchased for $75.00 from Cambridge University Press. For those of you who have not heard of Professor Singh, Ph.D., he is an Assistant Professor of International Business at Boeing Institute of International Business at Saint Louis University. Prior to…
Global SEO Top Factors

9 Jan 2012 | 6:00 pm

Global SEO is the process of optimizing your multilingual content and websites for global and local search engines in order to obtain the best rank and visibility in the search results also known as search engine results pages (SERPs). Global businesses are investing more and more time and resources to expand their online presence. By using a combination of social media marketing and content development strategies, including company blogs, online portals, useful resources and localized websites for local markets, companies are fighting to elevate their place in the world's search engines.
Tools to Reduce Language Translation Services Costs

5 Jan 2012 | 6:00 pm

Every language translation services agency provides some type of custom tools or solutions to differentiate itself from other vendors. Globalization Partners International (GPI) has spent several years developing and refining a Globalization Project Management Suite® (GPMS) and a robust Globalization Toolkit. For purposes of simplicity, we will refer to these tools as "G11nTools" in this blog. Both GPMS and G11nTools help reduce time and costs associated with language translation projects by making critical file and content assets more readily available to localization engineers and other…
Website Translation: Google’s New Markup for Multilingual Websites

27 Dec 2011 | 6:00 pm

Google now supports a new type of markup for multilingual website content. This new markup should improve the following two scenarios: (a) multiregional websites which essentially use the same content, (example: web pages in English for the USA, Canada and the UK which differ in price) and (b) multiregional websites which use completely translated content, or substantially different monolingual content targeting different locales. An example of the second scenario could be a product webpage in German, English and French. At the time of the new feature release, Google said in its blog:…

PhraseMix.com - Daily English Lessons
“Sounds great. What's the catch?”

aaron@phrasemix

27 Jan 2012 | 10:11 pm
“Can you believe the nerve of these airlines charging a fee for checking a suitcase?”

aaron@phrasemix

26 Jan 2012 | 10:36 pm

You flew to another city recently. You brought two suitcases, but you were only allowed to carry on one. The airline charged you $25 for the other one. You're angry because that used to be free. You're complaining to a friend about it:Can you believe the nerve of these airlines charging a fee for checking a suitcase?
“It can be tough to navigate the sea of information that's out there these days.”

aaron@phrasemix

26 Jan 2012 | 6:55 am
“Have you guys covered exponents yet?”

aaron@phrasemix

24 Jan 2012 | 10:30 pm

You're tutoring a middle school student in math. You want to know whether the student's teacher has taught a topic. You ask:Have you guys covered exponents yet?
“I'm on a roll! No pun intended.”

aaron@phrasemix

23 Jan 2012 | 10:27 pm

Lexiophiles
Lexiophiles TGIF Selection No. 148

Areli

27 Jan 2012 | 4:00 am

"Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." What are you up to this Friday? Check this brand new TGIF links collection! If you want to send us a funny or interesting link and see it published in our selection, send it to us at lexiophiles[at]bab[dot]la or send us a tweet @babla with the hashtag #TGIF. NO wiches allowed! A very Engrish snack to start off the weekend!(English) World's coolest flight attendant Check this out! (English) Quinceañera Disaster Plan ahead the perfect party! (Spanglish) The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great…
The Scandinavian Brotherhood

Helle

26 Jan 2012 | 4:00 am

When people outside of Denmark ask me about my native language, Danish, I always say that learning Danish is sort of a “learn one – get two for free” deal. By that I mean that the three Scandinavian languages Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are so similar, that if you’re fluent in one, you have to put in very little work in order to learn to read and understand the other two. But unfortunately, reading is one thing, listening and understanding is quite another. When I last visited Sweden, I was at a conference in Malmö and went up to the lady at the reception desk at the conference to…
Det skandinaviske broderskab

Helle

26 Jan 2012 | 4:00 am

Når folk uden for Danmark spørger ind til mit modersmål, dansk, siger jeg altid, at hvis man beslutter sig for at lære dansk er det en slags ”lær ét – få to gratis” investering. Med det mener jeg, at de tre skandinaviske sprog, dansk, norsk og svensk, er så ens, at hvis man er flydende i et, kræver det kun en lille indsats for at lære at læse og forstå de andre to sprog. Men desværre er det at læse et sprog én ting, det at høre og forstå en helt anden. Sidst jeg var i Sverige deltog jeg i en konference i Malmø, og da jeg skulle tjekke ind ved damen på konferencen for…
Por que aprender espanhol? Sob o ponto de vista de uma brasileira.

Virginia

25 Jan 2012 | 4:00 am

Há vários motivos que levam as pessoas a aprender uma nova língua. Razões profissionais normalmente impulsionam o aprendizado e ditam que idiomas estudar. Já é senso comum que para aqueles que desejam se colocar bem no mercado de trabalho é necessário falar inglês e, de preferência, um terceiro idioma. Se você for brasileiro há grandes chances de que este terceiro idioma seja o espanhol. Afinal, todos os países da América Latina falam espanhol com exceção do Brasil. Entretanto, não são todos os brasileiros que falam o Espanhol e menor ainda é o número de brasileiros que…
Why learn Spanish? A Brazilian’s point of view…

Virginia

25 Jan 2012 | 4:00 am

There are several reasons why people learn a new language. Usually professional reasons motivate and dictate which languages to learn. It is common sense for those who wish to place well in the labor market to learn English and preferably a third language. If you are Brazilian the chances are that this third language is Spanish. After all, every country in Latin America speaks Spanish except Brazil. However, not all Brazilians speak Spanish and the number of Brazilians studying Spanish is even lower. In fact it is not difficult to understand the language. With basic studies and with the help…

pandltranslations.com
Happy New Year! Get Ready for the Year of the Dragon

18 Jan 2012 | 4:29 am

Fun Facts about the Year of the Dragon: Dragon Years: 1904, 1916, 1928, 1940, 1952,1964,1976,1988, 2000 (January 23, 2012 - February 9, 2013) Chinese Calendar Year: 4710 Corresponds to Western Sign: Aries Famous People Born in Year of the Dragon: Bruce Lee, Joe Torre, Sandra Bullock, Keanu Reeves, Lenny Kravitz, Reese Witherspoon, Colin Farrell, Wynonna Judd, Pat Tillman, Raquel Welch, Anthony Weiner, Shirley Temple, John Leguizamo, Bill Walton and Russell Crowe. Dragon Characteristics: Innovative, Brave, Passionate, Conceited, Self-Assured and Quick-Tempered. Best Careers for Those Born in…
What Kind of Road Warrior Are You?

17 Jan 2012 | 6:00 am

Do you spend more nights at hotels than at your own home? Do you know where the electrical outlets are located in more than one airport? Do flight attendants know your name? If you answered yes to these questions, there is a quiz on the CNBC website that is calling your name. Find out how tough a road warrior you really are.
Romney Launches Spanish-language TV Ads in Florida

12 Jan 2012 | 4:10 am

The campaign for GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney today released a new Spanish language television advertisement in Florida titled “Nosotros” featuring his son and three South Florida law makers who signed on last month to support him. The 30-second commercial, to start playing on Spanish language networks, all in Spanish, starts with Craig Romney talking about his father’s values, then goes to former U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, all three of Miami, saying things like “Romney believes in…
Tips for SEO in the Spanish-speaking World

11 Jan 2012 | 4:53 am

Living la Vida Loca! Top Tips for Online Success in the Spanish-speaking World by Gemma Birch With 153 million users, Spanish is the 3rd most used language online, trailing only English and Chinese. However, the variations of this language, along with the cultural diversity of those using it are vast, making the job of the search marketer all the more challenging. Ani Lopez, a native Spaniard working as an SEO Manager at Cardinal Path in Canada, will be speaking on the topic of keyword research for Spanish speaking markets at the International Search Summit @ SMX West on…
Today's the Twelfth Day of Christmas

6 Jan 2012 | 3:18 am

Today, January 6th, is a holiday in many countries. It marks the end of the Christmas season (and the Twelve Days of Christmas) and celebrates the arrival of the Three Kings or Magis with their gifts. The three kings leave gifts for children in many countries who awaken on the 6th to enjoy their bounty. In Spain, "Reyes" (Kings) is the traditional day to exchange gifts, although December 25th is making inroads. Celebrations include a "rosca de Reyes", a cake with a small figure hidden in the dough. Whoever finds the figure in their…

dado que
Notes in Spanish

27 Jan 2012 | 11:34 am

Free Spanish audio and video brings you authentic, real Spanish conversations about real-life topics, making you totally confident with your Spanish. Listen here, or on your iPod or mp3 player as Spanish podcasts. Three levels to choose from: - Inspired Beginners - Intermediate - Advanced

Medical Translation Insight
Meeting the linguistic requirements for EMA submissions

ForeignExchange Translations

27 Jan 2012 | 5:54 am

Anabel Pérez is one of our Senior Project Managers here at ForeignExchange Translations. She has been involved in the medical localization field since 2004 in a variety of roles from freelance translator to in-house proofreader and localization project manager. Over this period, Anabel has gathered a lot of know-how around EMA submissions. She understands that translating product information
Saudi Food & Drug Authority publishes roadmap to eCTD

ForeignExchange Translations

20 Jan 2012 | 10:31 am

The Saudi Food & Drug Authority (SFDA) is still relatively young - it was only established in 2003. That doesn't stop the agency from embracing eCTD though. SFDA published some information regarding their roadmap towards electronic submission. The timeline looks like this:Starting from December 20, 2011, NeeS submissions for human medicinal product dossiers will be accepted by the SFDA according
Top audio conferences in 2011

ForeignExchange Translations

17 Jan 2012 | 6:54 am

2012 has started and medical translation clients and professionals are slowly returning to work after taking time off over the Holidays. This is a good time to review the most popular audio conferences and webinars from the past year. Our team produced roughly 120 events - 2 to 3 every week of the year - that attracted close to 5,000 attendees. Many of our events were in the areas of clinical
Dunglish, where Dutch and English collide

ForeignExchange Translations

11 Jan 2012 | 6:51 am

What is Dunglish, you ask?A) The combination of the words Dutch and English.B) The language produced when these two languages collide. C) A blog by Natasha Cloutier.Sure, the web is full of Chinglish examples but there is just something uniquely funny about the language produced by Dutch speakers who have been abroad too long, and by English speakers whose English is going Dutch. Maybe it's
Monthly roundup: Most popular posts in December

ForeignExchange Translations

10 Jan 2012 | 8:38 am

A belated Happy New Year to all of our readers!2011 was a terrific year for Medical Translation Insight. We were able to report on important issues impacting medical device and pharmaceutical companies, suppliers, and translators. As a result, our readership has more than doubled. We appreciate everybody's interest and support!December was a good example of our efforts. We were able to generate

JLPT Boot Camp: The Ultimate Study Guide to passing the Japanese Language Proficiency Test
JLPT BC 64 | Be SMART about your goals for 2012

Mac

25 Jan 2012 | 12:39 am

So, I drink this and I get smarter? I had an incredibly busy week teaching an intensive that I do twice a year (12 hour days of teaching). This is usually a good opportunity because I have a lot of choice in how to teach the class and how the material is presented. I get to experiment with multiple ways of helping students remember the phrases that they have to memorize for the test that is at the end. Yes, I know memorizing phrases is bad, but that’s what they want me to do, so that’s what I teach. Other than that, I’ve started up my regular chat again with my wife everyday…
JLPT N2 Grammar Resource: New Kanzen Master N2 Listening

Mac

21 Jan 2012 | 11:36 pm

After I took the N2 test in July of 2011 and failed it (by about 15 points), I discovered one of my weaknesses was listening. This should be kind of obvious to me because I hadn’t up until that point spent much time practicing listening. After all, I live in Japan and hear Japanese every day on TV and at work. However, this isn’t always enough. The JLPT is meant to cover all everyday conversations not just a few of them, and I haven’t been exposed to a lot of say directions given to me by a superior. I also haven’t really had to take that many notes while listening to…
JLPT BC 63 | Are you a Visual Learner?

Mac

17 Jan 2012 | 8:23 pm

Still getting used to the bitter humid cold of Japan’s winter. We don’t get that much snow in Kyoto, but it is definitely windy and the cold goes right through your clothes. It makes the morning and evening commutes pretty interesting. Since I’ve been back to Japan, I’ve been putting in some volunteer time being a curator over at memrise.com. We have been really cleaning up the data and making it a great place to study Japanese. Recently, we added the 20,000+ most common words from the WWWJDIC database to sort through and clean up the words that are already in the…
JLPT N2 Grammar Resource: New Kanzen Master N2 Grammar

Mac

15 Jan 2012 | 7:02 am

After I passed the N3 test last December, I started studying for N2 in order to hopefully pass it in 2011. The first book I bought was the So-Matome N2 Grammar Book, which was a pretty good introduction to the grammar and eased me into taking the test. The only problem was is that it didn’t get me all the way there. I would say this textbook is great after you just pass N3 because the vocabulary used in it is not very difficult. But, it will not properly prepare you for the level of difficulty of the test. The test is actually a lot harder. Enter the New Kanzen Master series that just…
JLPT BC 62 + Bonus | I Have a Drinking Problem

Mac

11 Jan 2012 | 10:13 am

You know it's delicious when it says so on the bottle. I just got back in a few days ago and I’m struggling with jetlag off and on. I do seem to get better at it every time I go. This time it has left me a little drunk more than anything else. I’ve also been getting through my massive backlog of emails and comments. Thanks everyone for sending me some awesome mail. I always love to answer questions. It was also good to just take two weeks and forget about it all. I was able to devour massive amounts of American food and eat all the sweets that my family notoriously cooks up…

Language Intelligence Localization Blog
EN 15038 Translation Quality Standard

Rick White

9 Jan 2012 | 3:43 pm

Language Intelligence is committed to the EN 15038 Translation Quality Standard. Read more about the standard in this post...
Language Intelligence will be attending The Market Research Event

George Stamoulacatos

1 Nov 2011 | 10:07 am

Language Intelligence will be attending The Market Research Event November 7-9 in Orlando, Florida.
What is Translation Memory and How Does it Reduce the Cost of Translation?

Andrew Pulcino

25 Oct 2011 | 8:22 am

Translation memory (TM) is a type of software application that allows human translators to reuse existing translations. This post defines TM and explains how it can reduce the cost of your translation projects.
Client-side Translation Review –The Most Valuable QA Step

Rick White

20 Oct 2011 | 9:28 am

For clients who have the resources available, a client-side review of translated materials can be an invaluable QA step. After all, who knows your products better than the people that are creating, selling, and distributing them?
5 Things to Consider When Translating Surveys for International Audiences

George Stamoulacatos

3 Oct 2011 | 3:26 pm

The market research industry moves fast because survey data has a shelf life. This means that every step in the survey creation process has to work like a well-oiled machine, including the translation process.

Macmillan
Language and words in the news – 27th January, 2012

Kati Sule

27 Jan 2012 | 2:28 pm

This post contains a selection of links related to language and words in the news. These can be items from the latest news, blog posts or interesting websites related to global English, language change, education in general, and language learning and teaching in particular. Feel free to contact us if you would like to submit a link for us to include, or just add a comment to the post, with the link(s) you’d like to share. Global English New words from noncelebrity neologizers Why do some new words take off … and some fail? Neologism expert Allan Metcalf, the executive secretary of…
Open Dictionary word of the week: takeaway

Laine Redpath Cole

26 Jan 2012 | 5:56 am

takeaway (noun) an important piece of information to remember from e.g. a meeting or presentation The most arresting takeaway last October at the Frankfurt presentation was that adding “enhanced metadata” elements to a basket of backlist books not only stopped their normal sales decay, it reversed it and actually made sales of those books rise after the metadata was improved. / This could be the most important takeaway from today’s Fed announcement (Submitted from the United Kingdom) I say! We haven’t picked on corporate jargon this year yet! We did it a lot in 2011: here,…
Macmillan Dictionary Love English Awards: update 5 and final

Laine Redpath Cole

25 Jan 2012 | 6:30 am

We’re almost there, with just five more days of voting left. Over 23,000 votes have been cast in the last two months, showing love in abundance for the useful, entertaining (and sometimes a bit weird) English language-loving websites and blogs that are in the running. If you have been nominated, results will be officially announced on February 1st and there’ll be award badges to download then. It’s worth taking the time to look through the lists of websites and blogs that’ve been chosen: plenty of great resources to bookmark. Thank you for all the votes so far! Note:…
Language tip of the week: knowledge

Kati Sule

24 Jan 2012 | 4:00 am

In this weekly microblog, we bring to English language learners more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary. These tips are based on areas of English (e.g. spelling, grammar, collocation, synonyms, etc) which learners often find difficult. This week’s language tip helps with the noun knowledge. Knowledge is an uncountable noun, so it is never used in the plural: ✗ Students don’t understand how to use these knowledges in real life. ✓ Students don’t understand how to use this knowledge in real life. ✗ We can exchange our experiences and strengthen our knowledges. ✓ We…
Apostrophe apostasy

Stan Carey

23 Jan 2012 | 7:00 am

Learning a rule or convention in language gives people a secure footing in an area of usage. When the convention is ignored or challenged, this can undermine the pocket of security and offend people’s sense of what is proper and necessary. This might help explain the levels of anxiety and outrage we see when, for example, the serial comma appears to be under threat, or when unnecessary apostrophes – such as the one in Waterstones’ name – are discontinued. Minor matters of style and punctuation have a way of agitating people, and worlds of contention spring from trivial distinctions.

Be global! Learn languages. Travel the world.
Sensual Brazilian music —> Learn Portuguese

admin

17 Jan 2012 | 4:09 pm

Luciana Lage of Street Smart Brazil and I have a video series on how to learn Portuguese via Brazilian songs. Here is the introductory video where we explain the connection between listening, music and learning a new language. The next video is our first using the song Você Não me Ensinou a Te Esquecer by Fernando Mendes. We point out the grammatical and pronunciation differences between Portuguese and Spanish. We offer the Spanish version of the song, Tu no me enseñaste a olvidar by Marcus Maestro to show the differences between Portuguese and Spanish. I even sing a bit of this sensual…
CNN interview: Why maintain an ancestral language like Ladino

admin

10 Jan 2012 | 9:09 pm

Susanna Zaraysky habla con Mercedes Soler en el program de NotiMujer en la CNN en Español sobre el idioma ladino (el antiguo español de los judíos explusados de España durante la Inquisición católica en 1492), de dónde viene, como se mantuvó y porque es importante para los sefardíes (judíos españoles) de no perder su lengua ancestral. Se ve a Liliana Benveniste cantando Yo me akodro d’akeya noche en ladino. Susanna Zaraysky speaks with Mercedes Soler in CNN in Spanish about the Ladino language (ancient Spanish of the Jews expelled from Spain during the Inquisition). They…
Video: How music can save a language like Ladino

admin

27 Dec 2011 | 11:00 am

Susanna Zaraysky, autora del libro, El Idioma es Música, habla con Fabiola Kramsky del idioma ladino (de los judíos sefardíes expulsados de España durante la Inquisición) y cómo se conserva hoy en día con la música. Kat Parra canta “En la Mar”, una canción ladina. Al Despertar, Telefutura 66, San Francisco CA. Susanna Zaraysky speaks about the history of the Ladino language of the Spanish Jews expelled from Spain during the Inquisition and how it is being preserved today with music. (English subtitles are available by pressing the “CC” button in the lower…
Video: How the Ladino language saved a Jewish boy’s life during the Holocaust

admin

26 Dec 2011 | 11:00 am

English subtitles available by pressing the “CC” button in the lower right side of the screen or the Interactive Transcript button to the right of the flag button below the screen. Susanna Zaraysky, autora del libro, El Idioma es Música, habla con Fabiola Kramsky del idioma ladino (de los judíos sefardíes expulsados de España durante la Inquisición) y cómo salvó la vida de un joven judío bosnio durante la segunda guerra mundial. Kat Parra canta “Hannukiah”, una canción ladina. Al Despertar, Univision 14, San Francisco CA. Susanna Zaraysky speaks on San…
Turkish delights: Food in Istanbul

admin

16 Dec 2011 | 11:00 am

Instead of just writing about my wonderful four days in Istanbul, I’ve decided to make a small picture gallery of food and cafes in the city. Lahmacin (Turkish pizza) Stuffed potato with olives, olive paste, butter, cheese, corn, carrots, pickled cabbage, etc in Ortaköy with a view of the setting sun over the Bosphorus. Stuffed potato close up. Cheese at the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul. Olives at Istanbul Spice Bazaar. Pierre Loti cafe interior. Great view of the Golden Horn. Charcoal stove for coffee and tea at Pierre Loti cafe on the Golden Horn. Baklava and other sweets like…

The Mezzofanti Guild
The Matrix – Spanish Word Comparisons

Donovan Nagel

28 Jan 2012 | 3:59 am

This is a guest post by Jared Romey of SpeakingLatino.com | Real World Spanish. Jared is the go-to guy for anyone learning or considering learning Spanish, and he’ll blow you away with how much he knows about the Latin American varieties…
Why I Love Rhinospike and Forvo (And How They Differ)

Donovan Nagel

23 Jan 2012 | 6:35 pm

One of the the many challenges that stuck-at-home language learners (people who for whatever reason can’t travel) face is that they miss out on necessary, vital error-correction from native speakers and exposure to correct forms – something that comes often…
Language Challenges: Show Us Your Stuff!

Donovan Nagel

20 Jan 2012 | 8:10 am

[UPDATE: Egyptian Arabic and Irish Gaeilge example videos added to the Facebook fan page. Click here to see them and don't forget to share yours!] G’day all! I came up with this random idea today for a new feature on The…
Life-Changing, Eye-Opening Foreign Language Encounters

Donovan Nagel

17 Jan 2012 | 5:45 pm

I wasn’t born into opportunity. I was never the lucky kid who got to go on vacation with the family to interesting and exotic places, and I certainly didn’t have the chance to experience other cultures or even cuisine growing…
Get Your Foreign Language Pronunciation Right From The Start

Donovan Nagel

13 Jan 2012 | 7:25 am

In my time traveling and living abroad in many different countries it’s always bugged me when I’ve met expats with shamefully bad pronunciation despite them having a good level of fluency in the local language. These people usually employ the phonetics of…

The Everyday Language Learner
Language Learning Tip: Obtaining Native Speaker Feedback

aarongmyers

25 Jan 2012 | 8:00 pm

That's me on the left with two new Turkish friends. Over the last few months I have been working to diligently add new vocabulary to my personal lexicon of Turkish words. I’ve found these new words in the John Grishom novel I have been reading, in daily conversations with friends and from the Turkish movies I watch each week and from Turkish word lists. If I hear a word I do not understand and it seems important, I’ll write it on a 2 X 2 card. I then write the definition on the back and the card goes into my daily review pile. Many of these new words have definitions that are quite…
Bucket List Triage: Get Started or Get It Off The List

aarongmyers

22 Jan 2012 | 8:12 pm

The Bucket List The bucket list. Everyone seems to have one these days. It’s the popular thing to do and indeed a good exercise should you want to live an intentional life that is fulfilling, impactful and fun. Like my bucket list, most are a bit narcissistic, filled with quests that will make “me” happy and do little to improve the lives of others – but that’s okay. We all need adventure and enjoyment in life. And there is a certain overflow that being happy and fulfilled has on those around us that makes our world a better place. While being primarily focused on things…
AJATT: The Most Inspirational Language Blogger Out There

aarongmyers

18 Jan 2012 | 8:00 pm

I have never met Khatzumoto of All Japanese All The Time (AJATT), but over the last year he has become one of my language learning superheroes. Okay, I don’t really know or care too much about how well he learns languages, namely Japanese. What I care about is how he writes for the everyday language learner in all of us. He says things straight. His ideas, while not always traceable to the best research of academia, make a lot of sense. And they make sense for an average guy like me. Khatz is like the Michael Jordan of good thinking and good ideas for the average, ordinary,…
What Tim Tebow And The Denver Broncos Can Teach Us

aarongmyers

14 Jan 2012 | 10:26 pm

I am privileged to have an international readership and so realize that part of today’s post may be a bit of a stretch for my non-American readers. Bare with me though – I think the lessons will be clear enough even without knowing a lot about American Football – lessons for bloggers, entrepreneurs, and yes, language learners. I enjoy a good football game. I am not a rabid fan of any one team, I don’t own any jerseys and I generally don’t stay up late here in Istanbul to watch the week’s games. But I grew up an athlete, playing football, basketball and baseball in…
Anki: Bringing Flashcards Out Of The Stone Age

aarongmyers

11 Jan 2012 | 8:00 pm

Monday’s post, Language Learning Tip: Using Paper Flashcards Effectivley was well recieved and hopefully a helpful article for all language learners who have used flashcards as part of their personal language learning journey. I lean toward the good old fashioned paper flashcard, but I know from experience that there are some great technological upgrades to this ancient tool. Anki is one of those upgrades and is a great tool. But to do Anki justice, I needed to find an expert. And so I am excited to have Rich Bailey sharing his thoughts in today’s guest post. Enjoy!

Linguistics

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