Happy New Year!

Your humble webmaster will be on holidays from Wednesday 26 to Monday 31. Not exactly holidays, in fact, but days off anyway. I'm going south, south of Thailand that is, where there is no Internet connection and mobile phones have no signal. Only my GPS will work (it will at least display this desperate error message: Route Calculation Error! No roads near starting point).

During this time, I won't be able to update the site, reply to emails or validate translators' profiles. Thank you for your understanding, I wish you a Happy New Year!

Happy Exotic Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! Wherever you are in the world, we hope you have a wonderful time with your loved ones.

If Santa Klaus came to Thailand, I guess reindeers would instead be buffalos, and the presents could be found under coconut trees! Viewed from here, you could even say that Christmas is very exotic, with the cold, the snow...

A grammatical error in Indonesia's slogan to promote tourism

The new slogan of Indonesia's new tourist campaign, which reads "Celebrating 100 years of nation's awakening", should instead be written as "national awakening" and not "nation's awakening". Unfortunately the slogan has already been painted on airplanes and published on billboards and television, but officials say the error will be fixed.

Indonesia received only 4 million tourists in 2006, when Thailand got 15 million and Malaysia 20 million.

Well, this blog is probably full of grammatical errors as well, English not being our mother tongue. By the way, if you find any mistakes, please kindly report them and we will fix them immediately. Thank you!

Merry Christmas in all languages

Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noël, Feliz Natal, Vrolijk Kerstfeest... That was in English, French, Portuguese and Dutch! What about Nollaig Chridheil, Glædelig Jul, Selamat Natal... Can you guess the language?

So Christmas is coming, and you will probably write some cards to your loved ones. Why not send your wishes in all languages? Thanks to Freelang you can write "Merry Christmas" and "Happy New Year" in more than a hundred languages! Click here to see our collection.

We wish you a Merry Christmas!!

Drink your coffe in a Freelang mug and help an orphanage in Thailand!

I'm very happy to announce the opening of our online Souvenir shop! You can buy not only mugs, but also steins, mousepads, bags, a large variety of t-shirts, and even the world famous Freelang thong!

Why did we open that shop? Just for fun! It's not to earn money. Of course the products are not free, but all profits will go to an orphanage, and Freelang won't pocket any cent. So it's just for you to enjoy your products, as souvenirs from our website, and also an opportunity to do a good deed.

We also launched this special event as a way to celebrate Freelang's tenth anniversary. And who knows? One day, in the streets of London, Oslo or Bangkok, you might encounter a fellow member with a Freelang t-shirt!

The operation is explained and described in details here:
>> www.freelang.org/operation_logo

You can see a presentation of all products, place an order, read our commitments and check the accounts of the operation (everything is done in total transparency). Those who have bought a product are also invited to join a photo competition, you can find the details at the address mentioned above.

I hope you will like the idea, as well as the products. Many thanks in advance!

I've got my pink tee-shirt!

I never wore anything pink in my life, as far as I can remember. Or maybe I used to have a pink shirt, but it was very pale, pastel, nothing flashy. Now things are going to change, as I will follow the new trend in Thailand, which is wearing pink polo shirts on Tuesdays. We had the yellow shirts on Monday, the blue shirts on Fridays, now Tuesday will be another day when we don't have to stare at our wardrobe in the morning, wondering what to wear.

Maybe I should explain a little. In Thailand, each day of the week is associated to a color. Wednesday is green, Thursday is orange, Saturday is purple, Sunday is red, and you already know about the other days. The other thing you should know about Thailand, if you are not familiar with this country, is that the King, His Majesty Bhumibol Adulyadej, is deeply loved and revered by the whole nation. As the King was born on a Monday, Thai people are used to wear yellow shirts on Mondays, to show their love and respect to the King. The Queen was born on a Friday, and you can also see many people wearing blue shirts on Fridays, especially around August 12, which is the date of the Queen's birthday (and also Mother's day).

Anyway, until now, the other days were not important. It all changed when the King had to spend three weeks in hospial in November. When he got out, on a Tuesday, he was wearing a pink blazer. And then it was, pink shirts with the royal emblem instantly became this season's must-have item. So I got one for myself! But I'm not sure I will wear it tomorrow, as the country is actually celebrating the King's 80th birthday. He was born on December 5, and for a few days everybody will be wearing only yellow. So maybe I should wear yellow, what do you think? :-)

It's winter in Thailand

It's cold in Bangkok! These last few days the temperature has dramatically dropped to 20°C (68°F) in the morning, and no more than 25°C (77°F) in the afternoon. It's still OK, we won't see any snow unless we go to Dream World and visit Snow Town, where they have articial snow for children to see what it's like. However, we don't need to turn on the A/C, not even the fans in the house. We don't feel like going to the swimming pool anymore, and of course the Thais are wearing jackets and pretend to be shivering. My friends in Europe, who are really freezing their bums off at the moment, would kill me for saying this, but it's a fact: it's winter in Thailand!