As a founding member of the Talentorum Alliance, we are proud to have participated in the Talentorum Alliance's Launch Event held in Partnership with Maserati North America on June 10th, 2013 in San Diego. A day of guest lecturers, test driving the full Maserati line up, and outings on the record breaking Maserati VOR70 Sailboat.

Denise Herzing: Could we speak the language of dolphins?

For 28 years, Denise Herzing has spent five months each summer living with a pod of Atlantic spotted dolphins, following three generations of family relationships and behaviors. It's clear they are communicating with one another -- but is it language? Could humans use it too? She shares a fascinating new experiment to test this idea. Denise Herzing has spent almost three decades researching and communicating with wild dolphins in their natural setting and on their own terms. The book "Dolphin Diaries" tells her remarkable story.

Keith Chen: Could your language affect your ability to save money?

What can economists learn from linguists? Behavioral economist Keith Chen introduces a fascinating pattern from his research: that languages without a concept for the future -- "It rain tomorrow," instead of "It will rain tomorrow" -- correlate strongly with high savings rates.Read more about Chen’s explorations »

Keith Chen's new research suggests that the language you speak may impact the way you think about your future.

John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!

Does texting mean the death of good writing skills? John McWhorter posits that there’s much more to texting -- linguistically, culturally -- than it seems, and it’s all good news.

Linguist John McWhorter thinks about language in relation to race, politics and our shared cultural history.

Sheikha Al Mayassa: Globalizing the local, localizing the global

Sheikha Al Mayassa, a patron of artists, storytellers and filmmakers in Qatar, talks about how art and culture create a country's identity -- and allow every country to share its unique identity with the wider world. As she says: "We don't want to be all the same, but we do want to understand each other."

Sheikha Al Mayassa is the young and progressive force behind Qatar's mission to become the Middle East's foremost destination for the arts and culture.

Wade Davis: Dreams from endangered cultures

With stunning photos and stories, National Geographic Explorer Wade Davis celebrates the extraordinary diversity of the world's indigenous cultures, which are disappearing from the planet at an alarming rate.

A National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, he has been described as “a rare combination of scientist, scholar, poet and passionate defender of all of life’s diversity.

Phil Borges on endangered cultures

Photographer Phil Borges shows rarely seen images of people from the mountains of Dharamsala, India, and the jungles of the Ecuadorean Amazon. In documenting these endangered cultures, he intends to help preserve them.

Dentist-turned-photographer Phil Borges documents the world's disappearing cultures, capturing portraits of exiled Tibetan monks and embattled tribes in the Amazon. He is the founder of Bridges to Understanding, which teaches digital storytelling to teenagers. 

Steven Schwaitzberg: A universal translator for surgeons

Laparoscopic surgery uses minimally invasive incisions -- which means less pain and shorter recovery times for patients. But Steven Schwaitzberg has run into two problems teaching these techniques to surgeons around the world -- language and distance. He shares how a new technology, which combines video conferencing and a real-time universal translator, could help. (Filmed at TEDxBeaconStreet.)

Dr. Steven Schwaitzberg is on a mission to teach surgeons around the world to perform minimally invasive surgery. But first, he's had to find the right technology to allow communication across the language barrier. 

Learning Swedish - Episode 1 - Transparent Swedish

If Putin can speak English, UTSA students can speak Russian

by Jennifer R. Lloyd

For complete article, click here

This week the University of Texas at Arlington and UTSA announced a grant of about $205,000 from the UT System’s Institute for Transformational Learning, which will help the two universities create a language telecollaboration. The partnership aims to enroll more students in languages critical to government and business, like Russian, but which aren’t taught as often, according to a university news release.While Russian President Vladimir Putin is busy showing off his English skills, more University of Texas at San Antonio students could soon be honing their advanced Russian speaking skills online.

“It shows how we can leverage technology and available faculty expertise at both universities to provide an expanded educational opportunity to our students,” said Sunay Palsole, UTSA associate vice provost for education technology, in a prepared statement.

For complete article, click here

10 Stages of Language Learning: How to Get Started and Keep Going

Travellinguist.com




Here at World Language Communications, we greatly support all linguists, companies, schools and organizations offering language instruction over the internet.

Here is another great YouTube Channel for language instruction.

Common Words and Phrases in Portuguese, French, Russian, Italian and Mandarin.

Trying to Learn a Foreign Language? Avoid Reminders of Home

by Emily Underwood| 

For complete article, click here
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Tongue twister. Bilingual immigrants are more likely to slip back into their first languages when reminded of home.

Credit: Michael Morris and Shu Zhang; Image of pistachio nut © Dmitry Rukhlenko/iStockphoto.com

Something odd happened when Shu Zhang was giving a presentation to her classmates at the Columbia Business School in New York City. Zhang, a Chinese native, spoke fluent English, yet in the middle of her talk, she glanced over at her Chinese professor and suddenly blurted out a word in Mandarin. "I meant to say a transition word like 'however,' but used the Chinese version instead," she says. "It really shocked me."

Shortly afterward, Zhang teamed up with Columbia social psychologist Michael Morris and colleagues to figure out what had happened. In a new study, they show that reminders of one's homeland can hinder the ability to speak a new language. The findings could help explain why cultural immersion is the most effective way to learn a foreign tongue and why immigrants who settle within an ethnic enclave acculturate more slowly than those who surround themselves with friends from their new country.

Previous studies have shown that cultural icons such as landmarks and celebrities act like "magnets of meaning," instantly activating a web of cultural associations in the mind and influencing our judgments and behavior, Morris says. In an earlier study, for example, he asked Chinese Americans to explain what was happening in a photograph of several fish, in which one fish swam slightly ahead of the others. Subjects first shown Chinese symbols, such as the Great Wall or a dragon, interpreted the fish as being chased. But individuals primed with American images of Marilyn Monroe or Superman, in contrast, tended to interpret the outlying fish as leading the others. This internally driven motivation is more typical of individualistic American values, some social psychologists say, whereas the more externally driven explanation of being pursued is more typical of Chinese culture.

For complete article, click here
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Hacking Language Learning - TED CONFERENCE

Benny Lewis recently spoke at TEDx, an independently organized TED event, about his strategy of speaking from day 1.

This video introduces some of the concepts he explains in more detail in the Speak From Day One video course + Language Hacking Guide (click to see other videos of him, including those where he demonstrates himself using these languages much more).

By Benny the Irish Polyglot

For complete story, click here

The many reasons (32 so far) why we DON’T succeed in learning languages, and retorts for why we can. Let’s hear your reasons/solutions in the comments!

Today’s post is my serious attempt to collect every possible reason why we don’t learn a language in list format, and to offer possible suggestions to overcome them, or to request your solutions to these problems! I will be updating this list to add new reasons based on your comments.

(Note that in the post after this, I am looking for the opposite to reasons why we can’t and I want to hear your success stories that could potentially inspire millions of people!)

I am genuinely going to try to get the number of reasons and their possible retorts up to the high double digits, because I want there to be no more excuses for us to remain monolingual throughout our lives. Because of this, I will start with what I feel are the main reasons I have heard, or that I believed at the age of 21, and offer a quick thought or link(s) to a possible solution to or reframing of the problem.

If any of these apply to you, please consider my reply to them seriously and follow the links in each point to blog posts where I dive into it in more detail.

As an engineer, I do feel many problems can be looked at analytically and a possible solution offered up when you think about it logically enough!

So without further ado, here are some reasons I have come across, and my suggestions for them.Please reply in the comments below with your own challenges, and other commenters can chime in with their own suggestions! I’m also interested to read other solutions to the reasons I’ve already presented here.

1. I’m too old to learn a language

This old wives’ tale may or may not have been inspired by research showing that Feral children can’t learn a language after a certain age, but when talking about second language learning some research has actually shown that adults are better language learners than children, and my experience has also been that we tend to make these kids-are-better judgements falsely.

I consider myself a vastly superior language learner now than I was at the age of 6, 10, 14 etc., and I’m getting better with age. A good learning strategy, positive attitude and passion can put you very far ahead of those younger than you.

Also, something someone said in one of the comments below: “Kids aren’t better language learners. Ever talk to a 6 year old? They speak fluently but still say things like “funner” and “me and her went…”, and they still have trouble pronouncing a lot of consonants like TH, R, and L. And it took them 6 YEARS to get to this point, and they’re surrounded by it everyday.  ”

It wouldn’t take me 6 years to fix these mistakes (considering I’m an adult with decades of experience using some language already). So why should we keep claiming children are so much better language learners if the reason to bring the point up is to discourage adult learners? I say that we should encourage everyone. Encourage children to use their advantages, and I’ll try to encourage (with this blog) adults to use their many advantages.

For the complete article, click here

SPANISH TO ENGLISH LEGAL/FINANCIAL TRANSLATORS

We have a series of high volume legal, financial/banking documents for translation from Spanish into English. Please send us your rates, availability and daily volume output to careers [at] worldlanguagecommunications [dot] com

NATIVE ENGLISH TRANSLATORS ONLY!

Also, to be considered for this project as well as future projects, please make sure to register with us here:
http://www.worldlanguagecommunications.com/careers

Thousands Gather for Protests in Brazil’s Largest Cities
By SIMON ROMERO
Published: June 17, 2013

The growing protests rank among the largest and most resonant since the nation’s military dictatorship ended in 1985, with demonstrators numbering into the tens of thousands gathered here in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, and other large protests unfolding in cities like Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Curitiba, Belém and Brasília, the capital, where marchers made their way to the roof of Congress.

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Protesters showed up by the thousands in Brazil’s largest cities on Monday night in a remarkable display of strength for an agitation that had begun with small protests against bus-fare increases, then evolved into a broader movement by groups and individuals irate over a range of issues including the country’s high cost of living and lavish new stadium projects.

Sharing a parallel with the antigovernment protests in Turkey, the demonstrations in Brazil intensified after a harsh police crackdown last week stunned many citizens. In images shared widely on social media, the police here were seen beating unarmed protesters with batons and dispersing crowds by firing rubber bullets and tear gas into their midst.

“The violence has come from the government,” said Mariana Toledo, 27, a graduate student at the University of São Paulo who was among the protesters on Monday. “Such violent acts by the police instill fear, and at the same time the need to keep protesting.”

While the demonstration in São Paulo was not marred by the widespread repression that marked a protest here last week, riot police officers in Belo Horizonte dispersed protesters with pepper spray and tear gas. In Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil, police officers also used tear gas against protesters.

In Rio de Janeiro, where an independent estimate put the number of protesters around 100,000, televised images showed masked demonstrators trying to storm public buildings including the state legislature, a part of which was set on fire. In Brasilía, the police seemed to be caught off-guard by protesters who danced and chanted on the roof of Congress, a modernist building designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer. 

For complete story, click here

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We would like to thank our fellow founding members of the Talentorum Alliance and Maserati for an incredible Sail & Drive event in San Diego last week, driving the latest Maserati cars and sailing the VOR70 Sailboat, helmed by the record breaking skipper Giovanni Soldini. 

FRENCH TO ENGLISH TRANSLATORS


We have a 42 page legal banking translation to be translated from FR>EN that we have to split among several different translators to be completed in the next 2 days. Please respond with rates and how many words you can reasonably take during that time to careers [at] worldlanguagecommunications [dot] com


NATIVE ENGLISH translators only.

To be considered for this and future translation and interpreting projects, make sure to register with us as well here: 

http://www.worldlanguagecommunications.com/careers

RUSSIAN TO ENGLISH TRANSLATOR 


We are looking for a Russian to English translator specializing in patents. Must have verifiable experience with patent translations and MUST be a NATIVE English translator.

Please send rates and availability to careers [at] worldlanguagecommunications.com 

To be considered for this and future translation and interpreting projects, please register with us here: 
http://www.worldlanguagecommunications.com/careers