When it comes to languages, three topics fascinate me the most: The real-world application of multilingualism; learning how to speak a new language as quickly as possible; and music from all over the world. As well, it is important to keep onself informed of global issues. Here on this site you will find four intertwining blogs, each dedicated to one of my areas of interest.
Here's a fun exercise to replicate. WorldLingo, a translation company, used to conduct a quarterly survey of major companies that tested their ability to handle e-mail inquiries submitted in other languages.
In his book The Limits of Language, Mikael Parkvall includes a juicy tidbit of language planning, and I have the benefit of six years' hindsight to provide an update.
There are significant costs to making sure your web content is accessible to audiences of different languages. Multinational companies as well as governments of multilingual nations often need to translate content into dozens of languages simultaneously, and this costs money.
I wanted to be able to quickly and conveniently switch from typing in English to Russian and back again without actually trying to find a bilingual keyboard. It is terribly inconvenient to have to find an online Russian editor, type a word in, then copy-and-paste into the document I'm writing.
I am guilty of judging this book not by its cover but by its title: The Limits of Language by Mikael Parkvell.
Somehow, every year, I manage to miss the nomination deadline and I get left out of the competition run by bab.la for the top language learning blogs. sigh Not that I'm looking to win, just an acknowledgement would be fine.
The Pareto principle of 80/20 suggests that, when prioritizing the vocabulary I should learn first, I should pick those words I'm likely to get the most mileage out of. But how can you guess a priori which words you'll use the most?
Part of the Chinese Challenge is to be able to read menus. Chinese restaurant menus are notoriously long, often with well over 100 items to choose from. Daunting! Or is it?
I was working through Alan Hoenig's Chinese Characters: Learn & Remember 2,178 Characters and Their Meanings when I realized I was being shown characters for things like "bamboo pitch pipes."
"Once I return from vacation," I told myself, "I will memorize 2,500 Chinese characters in three months.
Song of the week for May 7th, 2012.
Song of the week for April 9th, 2012.
Song of the week for March 26th, 2012.
Song of the week for March 19th, 2012.
Song of the week for March 12th, 2012.
The Everyday Language Learner promotes independent, self-directed language learning ("the third way—the independent way") and provides ample resources and coaching to support it. But he has a problem with what's available on the internet today.
With support from UNICEF and many other partners, the Niger Ministry of Education have developed a national strategy to expand access to quality education for children with disabilities through special educational services.
South Sudan has been in the news for other crises and issues, most significantly its recent separation from Sudan after a violent civil war. The economy is one of the world’s weakest, with little infrastructure and low literacy. On top of this, South Sudan has some of the worst health indicators in the world.
The book You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity by Robert Lane G
I finally got through a fantastic book on languages, Robert Lane Greene's You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Lang
