2019 Brings Focus on Indigenous Languages Around the World
Did you know that 2019 has been designated the International Year of Indigenous Languages? The recognition comes as a result of a United Nations resolution, which was adopted in 2016. According to official IYIL website the purpose is to “raise awareness of them [indigenous languages], not only to benefit the people who speak those languages, […]
Essential Phrases to Know When Traveling to a French-speaking Country
French is one of the most beautiful and widely spoken languages around the world. It is considered one of the “Romance languages”, along with Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Romanian. Today, French is spoken in 29 countries on nearly every continent, including Europe (France, Belgium, Luxembourg and parts of Switzerland), North America (eastern Canada/Québec), Africa (which […]
How College Graduates Can Benefit from Learning a Foreign Language
Fluency in a second language is highly beneficial for recent college graduates in key industries such as administrative services, healthcare, wholesale trade, travel and tourism, and finance. One recruiter, B. Max Dubroff, from an HR advisory firm, elaborated on the benefits of language training when he said, “In many ways, language is the study of […]
How to Unify Global Offices with Corporate Language Training
As businesses take advantage of technology that enables them to work with team members across the globe, good communication is not only key but essential. With the influx of worldwide team members, language barriers can create a problem. Business news from the Houston Chronicle points out “one of the biggest effects of communication barriers in […]
Voice-Overs and Dubbing: Home Studio vs. Professional Studio 2018
With the boom in podcasts and audio books, individuals and businesses alike are on the hunt for the best software for creating voiceovers and dubbing for their particular needs. In the old days, bulky and expensive audio equipment was needed to create a great sound. Today a computer, a mic, and user-friendly software will help […]
3 Most Common Suffixes in Medical Terminology
The world of medicine offers language lovers an uncanny look into our prevalent and inescapable Latin and Greek origins. While we hear and read the language of medicine on a daily basis, most of us seldom have the opportunity to examine the ancient history and etymological origins of these terms. To rectify that, below you […]
Is Japanese a Tonal Language?
When it comes to learning a new language, one difficulty for English speakers can be learning how tone impacts the meaning of words in some languages. Tonal languages are languages in which changing the pitch of a word can change the meaning of the word itself. For example, in Mandarin, the pronunciation of ma can […]
Dubbing Fails for Popular Hollywood Films (and one surprising hit)
Multilingual dubbing is a profitable business in the modern film market. As a result, many movies today are dubbed into as many as 30 or 40 different languages from around the world. This is especially true of many films from the United States, as they tend to be popular in various countries around the globe. […]
Teaching American English Pronunciation to Japanese Students
One of my favorite moments from my time as an English teacher in Japan has got to be the “Japanese loanwords” lesson where I attempted to teach Japanese students how to properly pronounce Japanese words used in English. The students were both amused and bemused to learn that these words were pronounced differently in English, […]
Spanish Words with Completely Different Meanings in Different Countries
Translating a business report, document, book, paper or article into Spanish seems fairly straight forward, until you take into account the fact that certain Spanish words do not have the same meaning around the world. A word that means one thing in Spain can have a totally different meaning in Argentina or Mexico or Cuba. […]