Posted by Mike on May 5, 2010 under Language Study | 
Uncle Sam can now teach you Czech, or any other major language you’d like to learn. A group of volunteers recently put all of the US Government’s language learning materials (which are in the public domain) online where they can be accessed, for free, by anyone interested. The site boasts over forty languages, and while not affiliated with the government, the site contains the same materials used by the Foreign Service Institute.
Of course, no online course is a replacement for being immersed in the culture, or even taking an intensive class at your local university. But it could provide a valuable head start, and hey, it’s free. When the site first went live, traffic overwhelmed the servers, so be prepared for slow loading.
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Posted by Mike on May 3, 2010 under Language Study |
On Saturday, the Mercury News ran a story about the increase of profanity in contemporary American culture. Swear words and curses are becoming more commonplace, be it in the title of a current movie about a father/daughter fighting team or a vice president’s now-infamous remark about the importance of the health care bill. Words that were obscene even fifty years ago are now a part of everyday vocabulary.
In the article, Mercury News points to concern that altering our permissible vocabulary alters our society and ultimately, who we are. “I’m appalled by the degradation of the language around me,” said Silicon Valley poet laureate Nils Peterson, professor emeritus at San Jose State University. “There’s a great intimacy between what we say and who we are.”
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Posted by Alex on March 19, 2010 under Language Study |
“My pen is in my hand.”
Understanding Afrikaans is not terribly hard for a native English speaker (the above example is in Afrikaans). Lowland Scots does not prove much of a challenge to an English speaker, either: “D’ye see yon hoose ower yonder?” English is said to have a high degree of mutual intelligibility with these two languages. 
Mutual intelligibility describes the degree to which speakers of two different languages could understand one another without previous knowledge of the other language. For example, Norwegian has a high degree of mutual intelligibility with Swedish and Danish, as does Bosnian with Croatian and Serbian. However, intelligibility is not always the same for both speakers – sometimes, the conversation can be rather one-sided.
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Posted by Alex on March 17, 2010 under Language Study |
As China has begun to allow more Western culture to flow in, senior government officials are struggling to keep English words out of Chinese vocabulary, reported the London Telegraph. On Monday, Huang Youyi, chairman of the International Federation of Translators, stated: “If we do not pay attention and we do not take measures to stop Chinese mingling with English, Chinese will no longer be a pure language in a couple of years.” 
English words have recently become popular in China, especially slang and words related to technology and pop culture, such as “DVD,” “bye-bye,” and “guitar.” The rise in popularity of English words is mirrored in the increasing popularity of Western movies, television shows, and music. More students are opting to study English, because, according to Mr. Huang, of a desire to seem more international and cosmopolitan.
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Posted by Alex on March 11, 2010 under History, Language Study |
Spoiler Alert! In our prolonged Oscar fever, this post is inspired by another 2009 Best Picture Nominee, Inglorious Bastards. If you haven’t seen the film, and would like to, please be advised that plot elements are contained below. 
In Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 WWII hit Inglorious Bastards, one of Lt. Aldo Raine’s soldiers is impersonating a German soldier successfully at a bar with his excellent command of the language, that is, until he raises his hand to order glasses. His words are perfect German; his hand gesture, however, is not, and gives away his cover to a German officer.
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Posted by Alex on March 9, 2010 under Language Study |
In James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar, the planet Pandora may just be special effects, and the story just an updated version of Pocahontas, but the Na’vi language spoken is a complex and original language developed for the film by a University of Southern California linguist, reported ABC News on Friday.
The language, four years in the making, boasts a 1000-plus word vocabulary, conjugated verbs, and specific pronunciation. It was designed by Dr. Paul Frommer to be easily pronounced by the film’s actors and to fit the aesthetic of the film, but to sound like no other recognizable language. It has been growing in popularity among Avatar fans since the release of the movie, with the emergence of Na’vi Skype chat rooms and YouTube videos. The site Learnnavi.org provides an extensive overview of the language for those who would want to fit in on Pandora.
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Posted by Alex on January 21, 2010 under History, Language Study |
With the world becoming a global village, the necessity to improve one’s communication and social skills in order to climb up the ladder of career success is more than ever. This is because the kind of relations that an individual develops and maintains at his/her workplace is the defining factor of the success in career and has a direct impact on the performance. At work place, the relationship between the team members/clients/managers has a major contribution towards the performance of not just the team/organization, but also individuals.
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Posted by Alex on January 6, 2010 under Language Study, Translation |
One of the main aims of translation is to open the window to the variety of culture, art, and lifestyle across the globe. However, there exist a few cases which require adapting the content to suit local sensibilities. Translators are often asked to change not just the content but also the graphics of softwares/tools/games. The change or adaptation varies from modifying the look of the characters in the game to screenshots in softwares.
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Posted by Mike on October 15, 2009 under Language Study, Translation News |
We’ve blogged before about the French Academie, a group that purports to preserve and protect the French language, particularly against encroaching Anglicisms.
This week, the Wall Street Journal reports on the Academie’s attempts to come up with French equivalents for English-language computing terms such as cloud computing (which, for those not in the know, consists of accessing remote data over a network, so as to preserve the resources of the computers on the receiving end). The suggested phrase was “informatique en nuage,” literally “computing in cloud,” a phrase which left the board of the Academie cold.
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Posted by Alex on September 25, 2009 under Language Study, Translation News |
On the Island of Miyako in Japan, there is a smaller island that connects to Miyako called Ikema. This island is known for its isolation and it once flourishing bonito fishing.
There are about 800 inhabitants and a majority of them are elderly individuals. The inhabitants of this island have their own specific dialect that a native, standard-Japanese speaker would consider unintelligible. The dialect is called Ikema…
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