In recent years, research has shown that languages like Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Turkish, and Japanese use more simple number terminology and express math concepts like fractions more clearly than English. This makes it easier for speakers of these languages to...
Can you name the English vowels? If you rolled your eyes and answered A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y, you’re on the right track, but you’re still missing nine out of fourteen correct answers, including epsilon, open o,...
When I tell people that I work in a children’s hospital, their first reaction is often, “Wow, that must be very difficult!” When I reflect and ask them in what way, typically they will mention two things: 1) medical terminology,...
Biases, opinions, and judgments surround accents. Think about the stereotypes associated with a Southern American accent. Sure, some people affiliate the twang with Southern hospitality and politeness. But according to studies, people with Southern accents are consistently rated as sounding...
The Baloch people are an ethnic group that live in Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. Historians believe this group originated from the southeast Caspian region. Most Baloch people speak Balochi, which is also referred to as Baluchi. This is one of...
If you look at a color spectrum, you will find the number of colors is infinite. The spectrum has no end or beginning, and there is no limit to the number of gradations that exist. When an English speaker looks...
As the coronavirus continues to make international headlines, interpreters may be weighing their own personal risks against their need – or ability – to work. Interpreters who operate as independent contractors often work in multiple settings across a variety of...
What animals make the following sounds: “oink-oink” “knor-knor” “groin-groin” “boo-boo” and “nöff-nöff”? Trick question – all these sounds are made by a pig, albeit in English, Dutch, French, Japanese, and Swedish, respectively. If you listen to a pig in Sweden...
Hospital interpreters are some of the most careful people I know when it comes to infection prevention. In the first hospital where I worked, my colleagues regularly wiped down their desks with disinfecting wipes at the end of the day....
As more non-English speakers enter the United States, the demand for interpreters — who convert oral conversations from one language to another — is growing fast. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of interpreter jobs in...
Many large internet platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, are beginning to rely on artificial intelligence to help stop the spread of hate speech online. The hope is that AI programs using complex natural language processing technology will eventually be...
Even if you’re not bilingual, you likely have a much more robust foreign-language vocabulary than you think. That’s because many words in other languages – especially the Germanic and Romance languages – have twins in English. Sometimes they’re fraternal, and...
It’s an age-old question, and one that continues to be widely debated in the scientific community: can animals talk? And if so, might we someday be able to converse with some of our furry, scaly, or otherwise slimy counterparts? Over...
In 1967, Albert Mehrabian published a groundbreaking research paper that established the 7%-38%-55% rule. This rule states that, in decoding messages about positive and negative feelings, only 7% of our conclusions come from the words spoken by the person we’re...
There are some foreign words that just don’t have an English equivalent. These types of words are often dynamic and multi-faceted, originating out of cultural practices that are different from those of English speakers. Language professionals face an incredible challenge...
In psychological experiments first conducted in 1929 and then repeated in 2001, scientists asked a group of individuals to give a name to two unnamed shapes. The scientists were trying to determine whether the names for these shapes would be...
Do you have three and a half hours to spare? The longest word in the English language contains 189,891 letters. It takes about three and a half hours to pronounce this technical name of the protein Titin. If you’re up...
The Hmong are an ethnic group that originated in China’s Yellow River Basin. Throughout their history, they faced persecution and displacement. Today, Hmong people live in Vietnam, China, Thailand, and America. Hmong is part of the Chuanqiandian Cluster, a branch...
The United States is more linguistically diverse than ever. As of 2015, there were at least 350 languages spoken in U.S. households. One in five people living in the U.S. speaks a language other than English at home. Of those,...
We mark time in many different ways – months, weeks, days, seconds. These terms get thrown around regularly, and they play a huge role in the way we conceptualize the many happenings of our lives. Here we’ll take a look...
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