Category Archives: Foreign Languages

Spanish texting / IM abbreviations

Posted on July 18, 2007 by Kevin

If you’ve ever wondered what b/c (because) type of typing would be in other languages, Oxford University Press has provided some Spanish ones for free in this 165 KB PDF (plus how to write an old-fashioned letter in Spanish). Here … Continue reading →

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Free audio phrase books for phones

Posted on July 6, 2007 by Kevin

Just under a year ago (Mobile words) I wrote about Coolgorilla’s free audio phrase books for iPods. Those are now free with a purchase of something from travel/tourism site lastminute.com. But the new version, Talking Mobile Phrase Books, for cellphones/mobile … Continue reading →

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Annoying Internet words?

Posted on July 3, 2007 by Kevin

Do recent Internet terms bother you? They seem to bother some. The British polling organization Yougov (site) reportedly found that the most annoying Internet-related term is folksonomy. Yougov poll Other irritating terms from the Yougov poll were blogosphere, blog, netiquette, … Continue reading →

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Youtube goes multilingual

Posted on June 22, 2007 by Kevin

Last week I mentioned the rumor that Youtube might launch foreign versions (Flickr, possibly Youtube go multilingual). This week they did just that, with versions in the UK, Ireland, Brazil, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. Oddly, there’s … Continue reading →

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Flickr, possibly Youtube go multilingual

Posted on June 15, 2007 by Kevin

If you’re not an English speaker and want to post and view photos online on Flickr (owned by Yahoo), it’s about to get easier. Flickr is adding traditional Chinese (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau), French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish … Continue reading →

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China may get ‘hyphenated’ surnames for kids

Posted on June 15, 2007 by Kevin

Imagine you’ve got 1.3 billion people. Then imagine that 1.1 billion (85%) of them have one of only 100 family names, ninety-three million of them named Wang. That’s the situation in the People’s Republic of China, and they’re considering allowing … Continue reading →

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Dice-K and Japanese signs at baseball stadiums

Posted on May 18, 2007 by Kevin

It’s Japanamania over at Fenway Park in Boston. The Boston Red Sox baseball team now has Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka (松坂 大輔 MATSUZAKA Daisuke, literally: PINE-HILL Big-help), and some Japanese signs are going up in the area. (Daisuke is actually … Continue reading →

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2007 (First) NZ Sign Language Week

Posted on May 8, 2007 by Kevin

Quick, what’s the official language of New Zealand? English? Wrong. It’s a trick question because there are three: English, Maori, and as of April 2006, New Zealand Sign Language (New Zealand Sign Language Act). Now they’re having their First New … Continue reading →

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No. 1 language of blogs: Japanese?

Posted on April 18, 2007 by Kevin

This Just In: English loses to Japanese in number of blog posts. So says blog tracker Technorati in its The State of the Live Web, April 2007, specifically The Global Blogosphere section. (And it’s not the first time.) 4th Quarter … Continue reading →

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British Sign Language mobile dictionary

Posted on March 19, 2007 by Kevin

Now Brits who want to communicate with the signing Deaf can get British Sign Language (BSL) signs downloaded to their cellphones/mobile phones. The Centre for Deaf Studies at the University of Bristol (site) has developed a free BSL dictionary called … Continue reading →

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