Language interpreters, especially those who interpret less-spoken languages, often have fascinating life histories.Local newspapers have been publishing plenty of articles the past few years about medical interpreters and how they started their careers…

It may not be necessary for American presidents to speak a foreign language – but a surprising number of the early presidents did.An entertaining blog post from the Foreign Policy magazine website suggests that foreign language ability isn’t re…

A new initiative aims to encourage “direct translation” of Hindu or Tamil literature into the world’s major languages – without going through the English translation.Due to a scarcity of translators for certain “language pairs,” esp…

…or the one where I create a plan to catch up with some of the interesting language-related stories that I wasn’t able to get to over the past month.I’ve been blogging for nearly 7 years now, and I would say that actually writing a blog post …

A new initiative aims to encourage “direct translation” of Hindu or Tamil literature into the world’s major languages – without going through the English translation.Due to a scarcity of translators for certain “language pairs,” esp…

For companies that export, it’s important to have foreign language speakers on staff – but they can’t cover all your bases.Results of 2007 research are currently being used to bring home the stunning cost of poor foreign language skills to Britis…

English-speaking countries need to get up to snuff on foreign language study, but funding isn’t following.In a global economy, even if English is the predominant language of business, mastery of other languages is an important communication skill. T…

A media expert argues that a “one-size-fits-all” approach Hispanic-oriented marketing won’t cut it anymore.As we have already pointed out in this blog, Spanish language translation is not enough to target Hispanic-American consumers. Of course, i…

Two major language services associations have agreed to join forces to provide more member services.The Association of Language Companies (ALC) and The Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) have announced the beginning of a joint collaborat…

In the first of a series about fascinating websites for language lovers, we will take a look at the site WordnikBeyond ongoing talk of machine translation, we mustn’t forget that the Internet also boasts a fountain of fun sites for word lovers. …