UN French Language Day: Celebrating Linguistic Diversity and Cultural Heritage
What is the UN French Language Day? On 20 March, we once again celebrate UN French Language Day, a global celebration of linguistic diversity and cultural exchange. Created by the United Nations in 2010, this day is to remind us of the long history of the French language, as well as its continuing influence in international […]
Tips for Proofreading Academic Papers
Proofreading for non-native academic authors At Rosetta Translation we regularly receive requests to proof academic papers or research material. Most of these requests are from researchers whose work is written in English, yet they are not native speakers of English. Proofreading academic texts can dramatically increase their acceptance for publication. It can also make sure the material is as […]
International Day of Sign Languages
What is the International day of Sign Languages? The International Day of Sign Languages is one of the most recent arrivals in the annual procession of official days, having been introduced by the United Nations as recently as 2017. It is now celebrated annually on 23 September, and aims to recognise and promote the importance […]
Moses: A machine translation system you can train!
What is the Moses machine translation system? Recently, I was talking with a translator friend of mine about machine-assisted translation (Google Translate in particular) and she mentioned Moses as a translation tool growing in popularity. I was a little bemused, as Moses, to me, is an important figure in Judaism and not in the world […]
Latin Language…. And other things the Romans did for us
Latin language …. And other things the Romans did for us On a recent trip to Italy and having visited several Roman historical sites such as the coliseum, Herculaneum and Pompeii, I was struck by how many things in Western civilization have been influenced by the work of the Romans, going way beyond the […]
Aboriginal languages: preserving the Maori language
Aboriginal languages: Maori Think of New Zealand and you’ll probably picture beautiful landscapes, outdoor adventures, the All Blacks rugby team and perhaps a nice glass of chilled Sauvignon Blanc. These are certainly images that come to mind for me. I also think of the Māori people, their language and iconic tattoos. Preserving the Maori […]
Starting and Running a Translation Business in China
Rosetta Translation officially started its Shanghai operations in 2008. That’s 7 long years already, and I thought it would be interesting to sit back and think what lessons can be learnt in terms of getting a small service business off the ground in the People’s Republic of China. Get professional help to register the […]
Why is the Chinese language so difficult to learn?
Well, the short answer is: the Chinese language isn’t so difficult to learn, and here is why. Ease of learning depends on (linguistic) distance The difficulty of a new language that we want to learn is very relative, and is significantly related to how similar it is to our mother tongue(s), or other languages […]
Interesting idioms in Chinese
For those who just speak English, or any other Western language for that matter, understanding the Chinese language – both in written and verbal forms – can be a challenging task, even if you are curious about interesting idioms in Chinese. The country is quite literally on the other side of the world and its […]
The importance of Mandarin Chinese in modern business
The British are known for many things – tea, scones, roast dinners and a passion for sarcasm, to name just a few of our great loves. However, when it comes to modern foreign languages, it would be fair to say that, as a nation, we are notoriously bad at them. We are the nation of […]
How To… Keep a Language Alive
It is estimated that there are approximately 7000 languages spoken in the world today, although about 1000 of these only have a few hundred speakers. It is also estimated that 25 languages are lost every year, which is a sad thought. Are we moving towards a new chapter of globalisation where only a handful of […]
One Brain, Two Languages: Are Bilinguals More Intelligent?
Being bilingual is something many people would envy you for. You can communicate with a wider range of people, you have more chances of getting a good job and it seems you are smarter than monolingual people. This is what has been claimed in an interesting article written by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee[1]. But, is it really […]
Top 10 Alien Languages
Narrative stories around the world have been using alien languages for generations. Sometimes completely made up, sometimes real but distorted, these languages add some mysterious dimension to their speakers. What are the top 10 Alien languages in movies, then? Below is a non-exhaustive list of some of the most popular representations of these alien […]
Wasted Letters in English and the Reasons behind them
A wasted letter, also known as a silent letter, refers to a letter within a word which does not contribute to the sound or pronunciation of that word, for example the ‘n’ in ‘autumn’ and the ‘k’ in ‘know’. So, why do we spell ‘colour’ with a wasted ‘u’ when the American equivalent is spelt […]
Learn our Language and be part of our Nation
National identity, the sense of belonging to one state or nation, rather than another, is far from a natural phenomenon. It rather requires the presence of a number of symbols of various kinds, which people can identify with. These can include flags, songs, colours, the nation’s history (particularly the national creation myth), culture, food, etc. […]
Language: A Social Class Indicator?
Within the general “social class” theme (if there is still such a thing) that we are touching upon this month, the language-related section will be looking into the social stratification of people based on their language use and more specifically the way they pronounce (or not) a specific linguistic variable, the [r] variable. William Labov […]
Sorry: No Language, No Entry
A High Court in the UK recently ruled to uphold English language tests for immigrants wanting to live in the UK. The outrage from some couples caught up in this affair is understandable, but is it too much to ask immigrants to speak the language of their destination country? The rules surrounding immigration have always […]
Tuning Your Language Radio
The importance of foreign languages Having been immersed in a different language from a young age and subsequently pursuing my passion of learning and speaking languages throughout my school life and into my adult career I find it very hard to understand the lack of interest in foreign languages at school. Nor do I understand […]
Advice to an aspiring professional translator
A sombre health warning has to be given first. The following advice is completely unsolicited, biased, quite possibly uncalled-for, and comes from a grumpy, balding, middle-aged and somewhat hungover principal owner of a UK translation company. If taken seriously, it might therefore eliminate any trace of illusion and, possibly, enthusiasm in our young aspiring translator, […]