Bryant H - Translation Blog

And the Happiest Language in the World Is…

Posted on February 26, 2015 by Bryant H — No Comments

According to the Pollyanna principle, formulated in the ‘70s by two social psychologists, people tend to use positive words more frequently than negative ones. Furthermore, we tend to remember in greater detail and describe more exhaustively those memories with a positive rather than a negative association. Based on this principle, researchers at the University of […]

Tagged with: Chinese English language Portuguese Spanish twitter

North Korea and Language

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Bryant H — No Comments

999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999

The Guardian recently published an interesting piece that to a certain degree removes the mantle of impermeability that covers North Korea. In other communist nations the study of a foreign language might (now or previously) be taken as a matter of prestige, however, it is mandatory for all students in hermetic North Korea, from primary […]

Tagged with: Chinese English Kim Jong-un North Korea songbun

The Advantages of Speaking Several Langauges

Posted on February 2, 2015 by Bryant H

During our modern times, almost all professionals are encouraged (or required) to master more than one language fluently. In primary and secondary school as well as university, students have to take language classes in order to meet the requirements for graduation. However, the advantages of speaking more than one language go well beyond the professional […]

Tagged with: bilingual languages learning mother tongue

And the 2014 Spanish Word of the Year Is… “selfi”!

Posted on January 26, 2015 by Bryant H

For the second year straight, the Fundación del Español Urgente (“Foundation of Urgent Spanish” – Fundéu BBVA) chose its Word of the Year, which, as indicated by the Foundation, represents the word that had the greatest penetration in the media and in common language. In 2014 the word chosen was… “selfi”! It is the Spanish adaptation […]

Tagged with: 2014 selfi selfie Spanish Word of the Year

The Peculiar New Words Added by Oxford Dictionaries

Posted on December 19, 2014 by Bryant H

The editors at OxfordDictionaries.com don’t want to get left behind with all the advances in the English language and so they decided to add a thousand new words to their online dictionary. It’s worth noting that here we’re referring to the popular online dictionary of Oxford University, which is not related to the highly regarded […]

Tagged with: al desko mahoosive mamil marmite Oxford shiny bum sticker licker the ant's pants tiki-taka tomoz

Translating Microbes: the Future of Automatic Translation?

Posted on December 12, 2014 by Bryant H

In the sci-fi series Farscape, beings from different planets could communicate amongst one another by consuming “translating microbes” which allowed them to understand other languages. Might we one day see something along these lines? Currently, various companies specializing in the area are developing the future of machine translation. What advances might we expect in this […]

Tagged with: google machine translation

Translating into Moldovan or Romanian?

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Bryant H

Romanian is an Indo-European language that belongs to the eastern group of the Romance languages, being the least-known of the Latin languages, coming in at fifth place in terms of number of speakers behind Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian. Many people in Serbia, Bulgaria and Ukraine speak it and it is estimated that there are […]

Tagged with: Bulgaria Moldova Moldovan Romance languages Romania Romanian Serbia ukraine

What’s the Equivalent of John Doe or Juan Pérez in Other Countries?

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Bryant H

In the Spanish-speaking world they’re known as Juan Pérez, “fulano de tal,” N.N., among other things. The truth is that, despite being among the most common first and last names in Latin America, not many people know someone with just those names, though we tend to use them to refer to someone without a specific […]

Tagged with: fulano fulano de tal john doe juan pérez N.N.

10 Key Points to Learn a New Language

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Bryant H

Without naming names, how many people do we know that “started a language”? For those who succumbed and gave up halfway through, The Guardian’s website posted an interesting article a few days ago about motivations to learn a new language while not dying in the effort, compiled from language professors and students through their experience. […]

Tagged with: fluent learning languages new language vocabulary

The Changing Fame of Colors

Posted on November 7, 2014 by Bryant H

While it’s widely known that different languages divide the chromatic spectrum in different ways and that colors evoke different ideas for different cultures, I’d like to focus on a few mutations that certain connotations have spanned over the course of time. Let’s take a look at a few examples. White Not long ago the food […]

Tagged with: Cultures English languages varieties of Spanish

Blog Archives