Language Articles

Culture and Society » Language | By Warren Wong @ Sunday, 16th November 2008 @ 7:48 AM

With the convenience and the technology of the Internet, when you want to learn to speak, read and write English you no longer have to take regular classes or travel to an English speaking country to do so. You can stay at home and take English online and study at you own pace without paying the costly tuition and other expenses that would otherwise be involved. The courses are designed to be very comprehensive and include listening passages, reading materials and games in addition to instructi... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Beth Butler @ Sunday, 16th November 2008 @ 7:16 AM

Who knows, by the time you read this article many of you have already voted for your candidate via the early voting provisions made in many states. And if that is not the case, most of you have well made up your mind on which presidential candidate you will vote for come Election Day. As a mom of three school age children and educator of thousands of other children I have listened intently to both candidates speak their mind on providing world class education. My heart races at the thou... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Warren Wong @ Sunday, 16th November 2008 @ 6:59 AM

Prepositions are part of the grammar of every language. In English some of these are used to denote the placement of people and objects. In this case, this is called a preposition of place. Even native English speakers have difficulty with this concept on times, so it should not come as a surprise for students of English as a second language when they have problems depending on their mother tongue. This is due to the fact that there are not many rules for using prepositions in English sentences.... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Kristi Ambrose @ Sunday, 16th November 2008 @ 4:56 AM

It's amazing the number of people that use services like Yahoo's Babel translation services, however, the problem is that most of these people don't realize that these free services are incredibly low quality. So what exactly are the differences between paid versus free? Is it worth it? Is the quality somehow higher? Well to answer the last two questions, yes and yes. See when you use a free service, it's being looked at by a computer or a website script, when it comes to cer... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Nick Nikolis @ Saturday, 15th November 2008 @ 9:33 PM

Whether you are planning a vacation to Greece, traveling on business, or simply looking for an interesting challenge, learning Greek is an exciting and rewarding experience. For travelers vacationing in Greece, learning even a few phrases is worthwhile. The attempt (however halting) to speak Greek is always appreciated, and having some understanding will enhance your enjoyment of your travel experience. Likewise, business travelers with some command of the language are at an advantage and... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Warren Wong @ Thursday, 13th November 2008 @ 3:39 AM

You can learn a great deal about how to speak the English language by taking an audio English course. Such courses are free online and allow you to study at your own pace and at home. You do need to have an Internet connection as well as the Macromedia Flash Player installed on your computer. If you don't have this player installed, you can download it free through the site you use for learning English online. The basic courses in English through an audio course start off with simple... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By John Hubert @ Sunday, 2nd November 2008 @ 9:26 AM

The Japanese Alphabet is an elegant system of writing that consists of two main scripts known as the Hiragana and Katakana alphabets. It's these two writing scripts that comprise the some 100 kana characters that are used to write and pronounce every sound in the Japanese language. Learning the alphabet has always been a difficult task for new students, as the characters often bare little if any resemblance to one another. One of the best strategies that people use to learn ... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Cheow Yu Yuan @ Sunday, 2nd November 2008 @ 8:32 AM

Due to globalization, more businesses are expanding into overseas markets. Some markets such as China and Thailand are non-English speaking countries. Therefore, the need for professional translation service is at the highest demand than ever. These businesses will need to translate their professional business documents such as business and marketing plans to the native language. And as a professional translator, you can definitely make money from them. If you wish to be a translator, you... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Warren Wong @ Saturday, 1st November 2008 @ 11:35 AM

There are several ways of asking a question in English and this sometimes poses a problem for those learning English as a second language. You can ask a direct question, such as that do you want? which is easy enough to understand. Indirect questions, on the other hand, use other words to ask the question and may even seem like two questions in one. The reason that some people have difficulty with this concept is that the word order in the sentence is the same as if you were making an affirmati... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Warren Wong @ Saturday, 1st November 2008 @ 10:33 AM

Learning how to use and determine prepositions of place in a sentence is one of the starting lessons in taking English courses online. The dialogues used to introduce the lesson all consist of short conversations in which you also learn how to ask for and give directions in English. At the end of the dialogue, you will also see a list of key English vocabulary that you will learn in this lesson. As you listen to the introductory dialogue, you can also read the words on the computer screen so tha... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Cheow Yu Yuan @ Friday, 31st October 2008 @ 8:31 PM

Due to globalization, more businesses are moving their operations to other countries. Naturally, it makes sense to translate all business documents and website to the native language if you are expanding into a non-English speaking country. Moreover, when you attend business conferences overseas, you will also need to hire a professional translator. With a translator around, you can then communicate effectively with the people over there. With so many translators in the market, how can you ensur... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Carol Bell @ Friday, 31st October 2008 @ 7:59 PM

Always remember, if you are not interested in learning a particular language it will be much more difficult. Learning the new language might seem simple but if you have a lackadaisical attitude towards it, you are going to have a very hard time. When it comes to speaking Spanish there are many ways to learn how to speak it: for one, most colleges and universities offer Spanish language courses since they believe it is really helpful, which is true. Normally, adult classes are arranged fo... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Kristi Ambrose @ Friday, 31st October 2008 @ 8:07 AM

For those of us that run businesses online, we realize in time that there are all sorts of people who will visit your website daily, have it be from Japan or from Lithuania. When this happens you want to make sure that you can reach these people on a multi-lingual basis. Well, the same goes for your advertising and marketing needs. There are billions of people around the world that could be potential prospects for you, but you will never reach them if you only send out ads in your native languag... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Kristi Ambrose @ Friday, 31st October 2008 @ 8:04 AM

In the translation market these people specialize in solving communication problems where there are language and culture barriers. This includes all types of written and verbal communication such as French business card, a German brochure or a large-scale multilingual web site. These pieces of content and processes include things such as legal documents, technical manuals, patents, training materials, corporate brochures, newsletters, annual reports, product packaging, Internet sites and softwar... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Kristi Ambrose @ Friday, 31st October 2008 @ 8:01 AM

Is your site only in English? If it is, you could be missing out on a huge marketplace because around two-thirds of Internet users don't speak English as their first language. Communicate with millions of individuals around the globe! For numerous businesses most of the world is a tremendously large untouched marketplace. How huge? Consider that there are more than 200 million Internet users who speak French, Italian, German or Spanish. If you're a UK-based business, many ... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Kristi Ambrose @ Friday, 31st October 2008 @ 7:59 AM

When you really sit down and think about it, there are over 1,400,000,000 people around the world who have access to the Internet and not all of these people speak English or French or German. Some of them may speak Portuguese, Japanese or Italian. When these people visit sites online I would think they would almost expect the sites to be customized so that they can read the site in their preferred language. In some cases, as a person that speaks mainly English and broken French, I have gone to ... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Kristi Ambrose @ Friday, 31st October 2008 @ 7:49 AM

I don't think it even dawns on most people the amount of languages available out in the world, some of them are well-known like French, German and Spanish whereas others still hold a huge population but are lesser known such as Finnish, Dari, Haitian, Lithuanian, and Bosnian. When introducing an e-book or other type of content it would be in your best interest as a writer to not only distribute people in your language but in others as well. There are a few simple ways to tell which language... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Kristi Ambrose @ Friday, 31st October 2008 @ 7:48 AM

A lot of people who run businesses over the Internet and even in real life frequently run into individuals with different language backgrounds whom they need to work with on a plan. In these instances if the person doesn't talk, read or compose in the language you do then you are going to need to find an agency or company you can have trust in. I realize this sounds strange, but I have run into it a lot; your doing business with a person, they can write in English, but when it comes to read... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Amy Nutt @ Thursday, 30th October 2008 @ 6:09 AM

If you have decided that you want to learn English, you are about to start on a fairly difficult journey. While English is one of the most widely spoken languages, particularly in the western hemisphere, it is also one of the most difficult to learn. If you have committed yourself to learning the language, here are some tips you can use to make it a little easier. Tip 1 - Identify Your Motivation and Desire Before you start down the path of learning English, make sure you really wa... more...

Culture and Society » Language | By Kristi Ambrose @ Wednesday, 29th October 2008 @ 5:32 AM

Some people live in their own little bubble they don't realize just how many different people you can come into contact with when you're an avid online user or when you have a business you run online. Language barriers can often be awkward and uncomfortable for both parties, thankfully I haven't had to go through this just yet! Most all of the people that contact me speak English or at least some form of broken English, so I can understand them. However, if you have a business and... more...