Back in November I picked up this article in New Scientist : Mind-reading scan locates site of meaning in the brain and I never got round to blogging about it. Now it seems that this research has been expanded by
2012 Review: Language Gaffes
Well it’s that time of year when the 2012 reviews and roundups proliferate, so I thought I’d do a quick one on the language and translation errors that made the headlines in 2012. London2012 I posted at the time about
“The Book Farm” & how to buy secondhand language books
I’ve just been away to visit family in Warwickshire, and while I was there we went to a favourite local haunt of theirs; Astley Book Farm, which bills itself as ‘the largest secondhand book shop in the Midlands’. Well, I’ll
Language skills & SMEs
I was flicking through the news the other day and a headline from the BBC caught my eye; “Foreign language skills cost Scottish businesses“. In fact, it should really have read ‘LACK of foreign language skills’, as the article was
Potayto, Potahto…
Anyone who knows me can tell you that I get quite narked about American spellings or words creeping into use by my friends – to the extent that I do correct them if they do it! There’s just no need
London2012 Language Gaffes…
I have a horrible feeling I’ll be posting parts 2, 3 etc… to this topic as the Games progress. It’s Friday 27th, the day of the Opening Ceremony, but in fact the Olympics started at the beginning of the week
Google Translate comes off better than the BBC? What is the world coming to…
While flicking through the news over my coffee this morning, I came across this article from the BBC : ‘Nicolas Sarkozy says France has too many foreigners’. But what stood out for me was not Sarkozy’s policy, but the quote
Follow-up: ‘The World is talking but we’re not taking part’
As a follow-up to my previous posts about the Daily Mail article ‘Why do the English need to speak a foreign language’ and The i article on the lack of foreign students applying to UK universities, here’s another one from
Foreign Students are shunning UK Universities
An article in The i on Friday revealed statistics which show students from other EU countries are starting to view the UK as a ‘no-go zone’ for higher education. As the article points out, the UK economy stands to
Why shouldn’t the English need to speak a foreign language?
This article “Why do the English need to speak a foreign language when foreigners all speak English?” in the Daily Mail has sparked a lot of debate in the linguist community. The author, David Thomas, sets out his multilingual