Lingualogue Blog

Hi there, and welcome to my Lingualogue Christmas Giveaway Prize Draw. I wanted to have some kind of small competition to thank all of you that read my blog and are working hard to learn a second language.

Of course I wish I could offer a full language learning course as the prize or something like that, but Lingualogue is not exactly iTunes, so I will have to settle for something a little more realistic. Maybe next year one of the big language companies will give me a free language package to give away…hint hint.

For this year though, the grand prize is going to be….drum roll…

$20

Yes 20 buckaroos, all wrapped up in the form of an Amazon gift card

Basically the winner will be emailed a gift card which they will then be able to use to spend $20 on whatever they want at Amazon.com. I know $20 is not a huge amount, but it’s not bad if it’s free right?

What do you have to do?

I’m glad you asked. Basically to enter the competition, all you need to do is fill in the tiny form below with your name and email address and you will be automatically entered into the free prize draw. It really is as simple as that.

Bear in mind that the email you put in the form will be the one that I will send the gift card to if you win. You will not be able to change the email address later on.

When will it be drawn?

In 20 days time, on the 16th December i will choose the winner using a random number generated at http://www.random.org which will pick the winning entry from the list of applicants. I will announce the winner on this site and inform the winner by email. The gift card will also be sent by email of course. Don’t worry, your email address will never be published on the site.

Note: Once you have signed up with the form below, you will be sent an email. Please click the link in this email to confirm your email address. Without it you will not be entered into the draw.

Thai Lottery Tickets - by nist6dh

Okay so it’s that time of year again (well almost). The  time when turkeys start taking  self-defence classes, high street stores give voice to Bing Crosby once more, and the man in red begins limbering up for his one day a year vocation. yes, it is nearing Christmastime.

I actually hate myself for saying that, because although i still love Christmas, I have always hated how early the whole thing kicks off. I mean, let’s face it, it’s not unheard of these days to hear the first renditions of Jingle Bells before you’ve even bought a pumpkin for the year. It almost makes you sick of the whole thing by the time you reach December.

For me though, living in Thailand is a double edged sword when it comes to Christmas. On the one hand, I have never seen a Christmas tree in September, or heard Slade ripping their festive classics over Halloween, and the places that do enter into the Christmas spirit tend not to start until the beginning of December at least. This means that by mid December I am still excited about the whole Christmas shebang. Of course the other sharpened side of my blade is that Christmas at 28° C still doesn’t feel right to me, and Christmas day could basically pass by unnoticed if I didn’t purposefully make an effort to stop it in its tracks and force it to enjoy itself.

All that said I can finally get around to the point of of this post. To try and get into the festive spirit as much as I can, and get the white beard vibes from the big guy in red, I will be holding a little Christmas competition over the next few weeks. I did think about asking for some kind of essay or something, but then I realised I would have to mark them all and that is the bit I hate most about teaching, so not exactly what I want to do over Christmas.

So I figured I would make it as simple as the old tombola at the school fayre, but for free. You enter the competition and on the deadline day I randomly pick a winner with the help of that most high tech of gadgets – random.org.

Obviously the prize will not be a new ferrari or a weekend with Megan Fox as this blog is not called Donald Trump’s Lingualogue. We will be looking at a small cash prize or gift card  for you to use over the Christmas period.

Keep your eyes peeled then as the Lingualogue Christmas giveaway will be in a website near you soon! Nah it will be here really. But don’t miss it, it could be YOU!

This is a guest article currently posted on Accredited Online Colleges.

Mastering a foreign language can be great for a wide variety of reasons. You get to learn about a new culture and its peoples, give your brain a workout and perhaps even prove yourself a more qualified potential employee once you graduate from college. While learning any language can be good for you, there are some that offer more financial and employment benefits than others. Here are a few — in no particular order — that may help you make more money, find more work and be a more versatile employee. Depending on the kind of industry you choose to pursue, of course.

1. Chinese: With China playing such a big role in the global economy, it’s no wonder that so many students are flocking to Chinese classes. While the bulk of business with China still takes place in English, knowing Cantonese or Mandarin could be a big asset to a resume, depending on your choice of career – especially since it’s often a very difficult language for English speakers to master. Those who want to enter international business will likely see the biggest salary boost, which is on average 4% higher than non-Chinese speakers.

2. Japanese: If you’re planning on working in a tech industry or with international business, you may want to consider learning Japanese. Japan has the second largest economy in the world, making it hard to ignore. With so much business in the tech sector, those in programming, development or other similar industries may also prove well-served by the knowledge. While there are no stats on just how valuable being able to speak Japanese is to college grads, it can open up doors and might even win you jobs in companies who do a lot of business over there.

3. French: This popular romance language can help you do more than navigate the streets of Paris. Students who learn French can expect to earn a 2.7% wage boost from their language knowledge. Why is knowing it such a big deal? French is spoken around the world as a secondary language, with millions of speakers in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

4. Arabic: Enrollments in Arabic classes have spiked 157% in the past few years, with students interested in business, journalism, education, finance and geopolitics alike taking up learning the language. Depending on your chosen career, knowing Arabic can be a big help, as it is the 5th most spoken language in the world. Speakers live not only in the Middle East, but Africa and other small pockets around the world. Since few Americans ever learn the language despite an increasing demand for those who can, learning Arabic could be a great investment. With numerous scholarships available to students who want to learn, you might not even have to put in a dime of your own money to get started.

5. Swahili: If you’re interested in a career working in global politics, learning Swahili can be a huge asset. The language tops the FBI’s list of most desirable languages, followed by Urdu, Farsi and Bahasa. Spoken mainly in Kenya, Tanzania and the DRC as well as many other nations in East Africa, this language can be an amazing tool for those who hope to work there in education, business, military or the FBI.

6. Spanish: Spanish is the most popular foreign language in American colleges and high schools, accounting for 52% of total foreign language enrollments — though among second tongues it commands one of the smallest wage increases. Even with many areas of the country being saturated with Spanish-speakers, students can expect to see only a 1.7% bump in their salary for knowing it. Still, it’s better than no increase at all; many jobs are open to the bilingual, giving you more options and more flexibility in the market over the long haul.

7. German: You might not think of German as an in-demand language, but learning it will earn you a higher premium in salary than many others spoken in Europe. How much? Researchers estimate that German language speakers get about a 4% wage premium. It is actually the most popular tongue in Europe, with 68 million speakers in Germany alone, not counting those who live in Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg and Liechtenstein. Additionally, with one of the most powerful economies in the world and ranking as number one in exports, knowing German can go a long way for any student interested in international or domestic business. German companies employ over 700,000 workers in the U.S.

8. Russian: With over 170 million native speakers and another 120 million who use the language secondarily, Russian is one of the most common languages in the world. While not always simple for English speakers to learn due to complicated grammar rules, many students may find the language rewarding because it offers a bit of a salary boost in some careers. Studies have shown a 4% boost in salary for college grads who know the language.

9. American Sign Language: While not a foreign language per se, sign language does take some coursework and practice to master. For those who want to go into teaching, work as translators or help out those in the hearing impaired community, learning it can be an invaluable skill. Currently, sign language is actually the 4th most popular language course with college students. And if you’re not planning a career in education or translation, sign language can still be a great asset, Many employers seek out those fluent in ASL as a way to improve their compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

10. Italian: Italian can not only help you to woo a mate or understand just what those opera singers are bellowing about, but it may land you some job benefits as well. While it might not seem like the first choice for a second language in terms of salary benefits, students should consider the wide range of fields that use it. Not only do 6 of the 100 biggest global companies have their headquarters in Italy, the language can be a boon to those in government and international relations and academia and research. Learning Italian can earn students as much as a 4% salary premium, which isn’t too shabby.

You can see the original article at Ten Most Lucrative Languages to Learn Now

A new iphone app has hit the market over the past 6 months or so which could well be the start of a paradigm shift in language translation. It is also possibly the coolest language gadget I have ever seen in my entire life. It is called Word Lens, a rather unassuming name, and one that does not really do justice to the Star Trekishness of the whole thing.

So what does this amazing new gizmo do? Well in a nutshell, it allows you to point your iphone camera at a word in a foreign language, and the software will translate it on the fly.  But wait, not only does it translate it, it also swaps the original word out and replaces it with the translated word within the picture in real time. Basically the image on your iphone looks the same as it does in real life except that now you can read what it says.

It is very hard to explain and so to give you the full sense of awe at what this thing does, I will let you see it for yourself.

How cool is that? Okay it is still not perfect and sometimes has difficulties reading certain things in real time, but it feels like the beginning of something really good. I have to say, that when they start releasing more languages, this will become the travellers essential. Imagine being able to translate everything you see as you see it.

I don’t actually own an iphone, but it is things like Word Lens that make me think that the iphone will more than likely be the next phone I buy

I learned something new today and so I thought I would share it with you. When I was growing up I picked up the saying of  “one foul swoop” to mean anything that was done altogether in one go quite suddenly. I’m not sure anyone actually ever taught me this phrase, I guess I just picked it up and inferred the meaning myself.

What I noticed though, was that many people said it differently. Some people said “One fell swoop”, some people even said “One fell stoop” and so I was never sure which (if any) was correct. Whichever was correct, it is certainly a strange phrase as none of the possible choices really make any sense.

Apparently though I was wrong (or at least the people that I gleaned the expression from were wrong): The correct phrase should be “One fell swoop”. It was originally coined by none other than the Bard himself, Mr William Shakespeare, in Macbeth when he wrote: -

All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?

In old English Fell meant savage, cruel, or fierce and was the original root of the word felon. The swoop was done by the Kite he refers to in the second line as the the red kite is a rare bird in England which was common in Shakespeare’s day.

So the fell swoop actually refers to the vicious swooping strike of a hunting bird which was used to describe the ruthless efficiency of Macbeth’s agents by Macduff.

So now I know, I guess I will have to make sure I say “In one fell swoop” instead whenever I want to use the phrase. At least I know I will be quoting Shakespeare.

Name reads 'Lay' in Thai and looks like 'Lay' in English

It’s not too often that I am impressed by the smarts of corporate marketers, but when it comes to rebranding your brand name overseas, certain companies have gone that extra mile.

Let’s face it, most companies when they enter a foreign market which uses a non-Latin script will plump for the simple route of keeping the brand name the same and hoping the local market can read it.  Another option of course is to re-invent your brand name in the target language. This means that the local people will be able to read the sound of your brand name but international visitors will only be able to recognise you if you continue with the same packaging. It is a dilemma that I imagine many companies have wrestled with.

There are those select few however, for whom the option of choosing one language or the other is not enough. With a bit of clever letter manipulation they design a brand name which can both be read by locals and is easily recognisable by visitors or expats.

One of these brands that has always impressed me is Lays. Each of the Lays’ potato chip packets in Thailand has the name ‘Lay’ written in Thai script. It just so happens that the way they have written the Thai letters allows the word to also look like the English word ‘Lay’  and so be read by English speaking visitors.

You can see the photo of the Lays’ packet at the top. I know it’s not exactly Illuminati art but I do think it is pretty nifty. It is a little more impressive when you consider that the ‘a’ in the Thai word on the packet is actually ล (lor ling) which is the L sound of the word Lays. The vowel sound actually comes from a combination of the first and last letters.

Pretty Cool i Think

Do you know of any other names that read the same in two languages? Let me know and I will add them in a follow up

Welcome to the Chinese year of the rabbit. Today is the start of the Chinese new year celebrations, where Chinese people all around the world celebrate the beginning of a new year with great enthusiasm.

If you are Chinese, of Chinese descent, or just like to celebrate for the hell of it, I hope you  have a fantastic New Year; I hope the year brings you everything that you wish it to, and I hope your little red envelope is stuffed with more cash than it can hold.

Happy New Year Thailand; Happy New Year China and Happy new Year to everyone else. Let’s hope the year of the rabbit brings us all some extra good luck

For those people that are trying to learn a language that does not use the Latin alphabet, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Thai, you will appreciate the importance of transliteration. Transliteration is used to help language learners read words of the foreign script by writing the sound of the word using the equivalent Latin letters. It would be nigh on impossible to learn a non-Latin based language on your own, at home, without transliteration– you would not be able to read any of the words. Thankfully though it is fairly easy to transcribe sounds of words into our alphabet. Without it, we would have no chance of learning the words Ni hao or Sawasdee Krap as they would appear in unintelligible script.

There are two things I have never understood with transliteration though: The first is why does there never seem to be a definitive version–a convention so to speak. When you pick up a new Thai-English dictionary, you first must take the time to familiarise yourself with its particular transliteration method. Not the best, most efficient way to transfer language. But forgivable.

The second thing I don’t understand and think is extremely counter productive and counter intuitive, is the transliteration taken literally from the actual spelling of the original word. To me, the point of transliteration is so non-native speakers of the language can use their own script to more or less reproduce the sound of the word. If however we choose to transliterate the word by its spelling, letter by letter, then we can end up with an extremely confusing word that sounds nothing like its supposed to. When this technique is used on major tourist attractions it makes you wonder what the hell the tourist board was thinking in the first place.

This technique, believe it or not is being used for the Bangkok International Airport. An airport is an extremely important place for tourists one would think, and considering many tourists must get there by taxi, being able to say the name of the airport may also be useful. This is where transliteration is supposed to come in. Plaster signs and tourist brochures with a transliterated name of the airport and every tourist will be able to say the name of the airport right? Well not quite. You see the transliterated name that the Thai government has decided to post on almost every signpost in the city is ‘Suvarnabhumi‘. This is a direct transliteration letter by letter of the spelling of the Thai word. NOT a transliteration of the sound. Not very helpful to a tourist.

In fact if you pronounced the sound ‘Suvarnaboomy’ to a taxi driver in Bangkok (as you well might), I doubt very much that many would know where you wanted to go.  The true sound of the word, (with the caveat that no transliteration is perfect) should be closer to ‘Suwarnapoom’. If you say the two words together, you will realise that they don’t sound very close at all, and it is completely understandable that a taxi driver would think you were speaking gibberish.

Who knows why the Thai government chose this route. Maybe it was a misguided fear of corrupting the purity of the language. Whatever the reason, it certainly doesn’t help the tourists, and considering they are the group that transliteration is made for, it kind of defeats the object. I mean why transliterate a silent letter (like the final i in Suvarnabhumi)? It would be the same as the Thais transliterating an English word like Knight using the literal spelling.  They would all end up saying ‘kenigget’. Not a useful move for second language learners.

Living in Thailand myself, I see the confusion that it causes tourists to the country, and although I know that Thailand is not the only country that is guilty of this literal transliteration, I hope it doesn’t spread too far.

Everyone has heard of Amazon. Everyone knows it as one of the biggest online stores in the World. Even I have bought a Kindle for myself for Christmas. Not everyone, however, has heard of Audible. Audible is in fact a subsidiary of Amazon, and anyone who has ever bought an audio book from the online giant has seen the name. Audible is the company set up by Amazon devoted entirely to audio books and other audio products.

Audio books are a growing trend. As people get busier and busier in their daily lives, they seem to get less time to do the relaxing things in life–like read a book. Listening to someone else read books for you is becoming popular, but this is not the only thing Audible offers…oh no.

For language learners, there are many products you can get to help you learn the language of your choice. Some of those products are audio courses, and being audio courses, many of them can be found on Audible. Now this might not be groundbreaking news, or even all that interesting, but many people feel much more comfortable buying a product from the trustworthy enormity of Amazon than a small individual company. When you can buy several language courses together from this same stalwart of commerce, then it’s time to take note.

Amazon is a well known site and simply by doing a search on their homepage you will uncover the masses of language resources that they offer. You will find the usual big boys – Pimsleur, Fluenz, Michel Thomas, Linguaphone,  but also a lot of smaller audio courses that otherwise you might not have heard of. They are also usually very nicely priced

So Why Use Audible?

Audible is simply a subsidiary of Amazon and most of what they sell will be found on the Amazon store. But Audible is more than that: If you are a serious language learner and like to use audio products a lot then you can become an Audible member. Being an Audible members opens up bonuses and discounts for you that the Amazon store cannot. Audible membership involves either a monthly or annual subscription fee for which you will get your choice of audio books or audio courses. There are two main plans to choose from as an Audible member:

Gold Plan

The Gold plan costs $7.49 for the first 3 months followed by $14.95 per month for the remainder of your subscription. This monthly membership provides you with one credit per month which you can use to trade in for audio books. It seems that a vast majority of the audio books available at Audible cost 1 credit. You also receive 30% off any other audiobook that you buy not using one of your credits. This is estimated to give you up to 75% off the standard retail price of a CD.
They also throw in a daily subscription to the audio New York Times or Wall Street Journal newspapers.

Platinum Plan

The platinum plan is similar to the gold except you pay $22.95 per month for two monthly credits

Try Audible Now and Get A Free Audiobook Download with a 14 Day Trial. Choose from over 85,000 Titles.

The Audible library boasts an impressive 85,000 plus titles including books in many different languages. Not only can you buy your audio language course form Audible, you can also get some foreign language audio literature to help your ears gain familiarity with the language.

Audible products can be easily downloaded and then loaded onto your ipod, iphone, blackberry, or whatever device you use for mp3 playing. They are a huge reputable company (owned by Amazon) and offer an exceptional way to learn a language through your mp3 player.

If you are serious about learning a language or know someone else who is, get a subscription to Audible. Annual payments are accepted if you know someone who would appreciate it is a gift and it’s a small price to pay to have so much information at your fingertips. Of course you can cancel at any time as well.

Seriously, check out Audible and see what they have that could help you.

Audible.com – for the US

audible.co.uk – for the UK

Finally! The biggest, most comprehensive and very possibly the best language learning course on the market is finally available for Mac Users. Yes, Auralog has, at long last, understood that Mac Users are language learners too and released their TellMeMore software package for users of Windows’ less popular but more sophisticated brother. Not exclusively, I hasten to add, but beggars never get to be the keepers of choice.

First of all, I never really understood why the TellMeMore course was not available for the Mac. It was actually one of my major bones of contention with the company when I did my initial review. I can only surmise that Auralog does not have any one on staff that could code the software to be Mac compatible. You would think that would be an easy fix though wouldn’t you?

Anyway, my days of griping over such trivial (for Windows users at least) oversights are over…at least in part. It seems that Auralog still could not find anyone competent enough to convert the Software into a Mac compatible package, and what they have done instead is put their award winning TellMeMore software online for everyone to use.

They call it Webpass, and to all intents and purposes, it is TellMeMore online. Although at the moment the Webpass language courses are available for only a few languages – Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, and English – I would expect this number to grow over time.

So how does it work?
Well it gives you the choice of learning a single language, with unlimited web access, for either 3 months or 12 months. The three month membership will cost you $199, while the 12 month will put you back a not inconsiderable $499. I guess the time frames have been calculated to make the costs comparable to the regular TellMeMore language suites, which I have always considered to be a lot of money, but  remarkable value considering what you get. Of course you could not expect the company to give lifetime membership to customers, as these would certainly be sold on from person to person once the content had been mastered. I think 1 year is probably fair for most serious language learners.

So what do you get for your money?
Well the courses are designed for a wide range of experience levels whether you are a beginner, intermediate, advanced, or expert. Your current skill at the language is initially gauged via a placement test at the very beginning; this will help find your perfect start point for the course.
You can also tailor the language course to your professional needs if you have any, and make the language that you learn immediately useful for your career. The software includes tools to tailor to many different professions,  including marketing, HR, finance, and more. This is a nice touch and I guess makes good use of being online. It certainly seems nice that it is so customizable, and of course the customization can be changed at any time.

The Webpass of course boasts similarly impressive language materials as the TellMeMore software packages, including over 1000 hours of language learning, 500 interactive dialogues, 70 news videos, 60 film clip activities, cultural content, and audio, and more. The audio of course can also be downloaded and loaded onto any mp3 player of your choice. This is a lot of material  and will keep any language learner busy for a very long time. Probably too much for the minimum 3 month subscription, but it would certainly be a good start.

The main beauty of TellmeMore and now Webpass is that unlike the vast majority of language courses, it covers reading, writing, listening, speaking, vocabulary, and grammar. Everything you could possibly need to learn a language to complete fluency.

Webpass then would seem an extremely positive move from Auralog, and I do have to wonder that with the versatility and customization of the online service, if Auralog will be planning to get rid of the software programs altogether and take it all online. I for one would not mind.

Online Language Learning by TELL ME MORE. Spanish, French, English, German, Italian, and Dutch. 12 month unlimited access.

Online Language Learning by TELL ME MORE. Spanish, French, English, German, Italian, and Dutch. 3 months unlimited access.