Freelang’s blog

When it comes to wackiness and cultural wonders, inhabitants of the Land of the Rising Sun, seem to constantly go that one step further to amaze us. From their baffling pachinko – a hypnotic ubiquitous slot-machine game-, or school girls’ underwear addiction, to strange humiliating game shows, Japan has become the place where, in terms of entertainment everything and anything goes.

Advertising is no exception, and that now apply to western celebrities too. Long gone are the days when holding a glass of Scottish Whisky while smiling at the camera, was just about all you could ask a jet-lagged over-the-hill actor, before he flies back to US with untouched rep and a bank account well topped off.

Bill Murray with his performance in Sophia Coppola’s movie has now turned these easy-money no questions asked gigs into a cool thing. Portraying an aging actor on a trip to Japan to repay a loan, “Lost in translation” has put a bright light on what used to be hushed in Hollywood and made it trendy. From then on, other celebs have had to go extra creative and wild in the name of Japanese entertainment.
Here are some of the craziest celebrity acts in Japanese ads.

Recently admitted alcoholic Hollywood actor Nicholas Cage is now going bonkers in a pachinko campaign, because he stumbles upon a triplets’ convention and thinks he’s tripping.
Coming clean with own addiction scandal and repaying the mortgage? Way to go Nick!

Closely followed by an insane Bruce Willis dressed up in grotesque orange pyjamas promotes a petrol station chain by bizarrely deciding to shoot up his bedroom with a ray gun in action films-like shouting frenzy. A must-see! Where else would you get to see Bruce Willis in an orange nightcap?

Last but not least, ever so cool Japan-ophile Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill 1and 2), has gone further by going lingual too and actually having a go at Japanese language in this gone-mad family reunion ad pushing a weird doggy speaking cell phone.  Hat off to Quentin for making the effort, when most English speaking actors, usually get dubbed in Japanese ads!
Note also that Mr Tarantino has for the occasion been renamed “Tara Chan” (Uncle Tara)!
Domo Arigoto Tara Chan!

AP, for Freelang

English and French have a natural link, because of the proximity of the UK and France. The languages have influenced each another to a similar degree, although the English influence on French came later.

English is full of words that have come from French through the ages. There are plenty of common expressions used in English today, such as cul-de-sac, which originally came from France, but many words, which we think of as wholly English also came from France.

This started with the Norman invasion of England in 1066. It had a major impact not only on the country, but also on the English language. William the Conqueror and his merry band of Normans brought Norman French with them, which became the language of the court, government and the upper class for the next three centuries. English continued to be used by ordinary people, and Latin was the language of the church.

During the period when Norman French was the dominant language, English was rarely used in writing, and started to change in many ways.

Over the years, the English language has borrowed a great number of French words and expressions. Some of this vocabulary has been so completely absorbed by English that speakers might not realize its origins. Other words and expressions have retained their “Frenchness” – a certain je ne sais quoi which speakers tend to be much more aware of.

Vocabulary
During the Norman occupation, about 10,000 French words were adopted into English, some three-quarters of which are still in use today. This French vocabulary is found in every domain, from government and law to art and literature.

Around a third of all English words are derived directly or indirectly from French. In fact English speakers know around 15,000 French words, even before they start learning the language. There are also more than 1,700 words that are identical in the two languages.

À la carte, chef d’œuvre, crème brûlée, competition, force, machine, publicity… English indeed contains many words of French origin, and many other Anglicized French words. These are pronounced according to English rules of orthography, rather than French but around 28% of English vocabulary is of French origin.

Many French expressions are also commonly used, such as “après moi, le déluge”. Literally: after me, the deluge; remark attributed to Louis XV of France and used in reference to the impending end of a functioning French monarchy and predicting the French Revolution.

Pronunciation
The pronunciation of English also changed to some extent under the influence of French, as did the spelling. For example, the Old English spellings cw, sc and c became qu, sh and ch, so we now write queen rather than cwen, ship rather than scip, and should rather than scolde.

Grammar
Another rare but interesting remnant of French influence is in the word order of expressions like secretary general and surgeon general, where English has retained the noun + adjective word order typical in French, rather than the usual adjective + noun used in English.

Finally, we can see the influence of French in the English language by all the Idiomatic English expressions using the word “French”: French vanilla, French kiss, French press, French maid, or French letter, which in French is actually “English condom”!

For further reading, here is a list of French phrases and sayings used in English and a list of French words in English. You can also test yourself with this quiz about French terms used in English.

Spanish language is a member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. Official language of Spain and 19 Latin American nations, Spanish is spoken as a first language by about 330 million persons and as a second language by perhaps another 50 million. Spanish is the second most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese, and is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

The Spanish language is regulated by the Association of Spanish Language Academies which comprises the academies of 22 countries: Spain, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, El Salvador, Venezuela, Chile, Peru, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Philippines, Panama, Cuba, Paraguay, Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Argentina, Uruguay, Honduras, Puerto Rico, and the United States. On November 28, 2010, a “New orthographic guide for Spanish language” is going to be ratified by the language’s 22 international academies when they meet in Guadalajara, Mexico. Spanish speakers will now have to get used to new spelling rules, including for example writing Irak instead of Iraq, under proposals to modernize the Spanish language. For Salvador Gutierrez, a Spanish academic who helped coordinate the work, “The aim is to have coherent spelling and avoid linguistic dispersion.”

Dear Spanish speaking Freelang users, what is your opinion on this reform?

Delphine, for Freelang

IELTS or “International English Language Testing System” is an international standardised test of English language proficiency. It is jointly managed by University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations, the British Council and IDP Education of Australia. It was established in 1989. It is the world’s proved English test. Many candidates take the test each year to start their journeys into international education and employment.

IELTS is recognised by more than 6,000 institutions in over 135 countries.

IELTS was one of the pioneers of four skills in English language testing over 21 years ago, and continues to set the standard for English language testing today.

More than 1.4 million test takers around the world trust and recognise IELTS as a secure, valid and reliable indicator of true-to-life ability to communicate in English for education, immigration and professional accreditation.

There are two versions of the IELTS: the Academic Version and the General Training Version:
- The Academic Version is intended for those who want to enrol in universities and other institutions of higher education and for professionals such as medical doctors and nurses who want to study or practise in an English-speaking country.
- The General Training Version is intended for those planning to undertake non-academic training or to gain work experience, or for immigration purposes.

All candidates must complete four Modules – listening, reading, writing and speaking – to obtain a band score, which is shown on the IELTS Test Report Form (TRF).

The report of August 2009 revealed the annual test scores and the top English learners in 2008. Afrikaans and Eastern European speakers topped International English Language Testing System (IELTS) annual test scores. Indeed, out of the 1.2 million candidates who took an IELTS test in 2008, Afrikaans speakers achieved the highest average scores for listening, writing and speaking English. German, Romanian, Tagalog, Yoruba and Ibo speakers also performed well across the four components of the world’s leading English language test.

Zoom on Romania:
Romania was classified third international English Language Testing System with the Afrikaans and Germans. The Romanian candidates obtained very high scores, placing them in the world Top three, with an average score of 6,39 points, on a scale from 1 to 9. This score showed very advanced linguistic skills of the Romanians, which explains their capacity to study sometimes complex subjects such as medicine, in universities taught.

2008 records the highest number of people around the world who chose to take an IELTS test, which 3/4 seeking to prove their English language ability for academic purposes. IELTS continues to be the world’s English language test for higher education, immigration and recruitment. A strong demand for IELTS was expected in 2010. The current global economic climate means that an increasing number of people are considering the opportunities presented by studying or working abroad. As a result, the organisation is also expecting to see the overall level of test scores rising and candidates from new countries beginning to enter the list of top performers.

Delphine, for Freelang

According to this article in German, Ioannis Ikonomou works as an interpreter for the European Union in Brussels and he speaks 32 languages! Or maybe even 42, according to this other article in French. I don’t speak German myself, so if somebody understands the article in German and wishes to translate or sum up a few interesting sentences as comments in this blog, I would be most grateful. And of course, if you personally know this person or you know how to reach him, please tell him that we, at Freelang, would love to interview him! The article in French gives very few details, saying that the man is 44 year-old and he began learning English at the age of 5. He considers Chinese as a simple language (!) and mentions Hungarian as the most difficult language to learn. I had already heard that before, but coming from a guy who knows so many languages, it sounds really true. The one question I really would like to ask him, though, is how does he do in order not to forget a language?

What about you, dear reader, do you speak several languages and can you practice them on a regular basis?

Known as Ireland’s most reckless driver, Prawo Jazdy was wanted by the police after racking up scores of speeding tickets and parking fines. Strangely enough, despite more than 50 offences, the serial offender had always managed to evade the law, by leading to a different address each time he was caught. So the police had a closer look, and they finally discovered that “Prawo Jazdy” was Polish for “Driving License”! Officers taking details of Polish traffic offenders had been mistakenly using “Prawo Jazdy”, printed in the top right corner of the driving licence, as the holder’s name. A memo has been issued, so Polish nationals driving in Ireland won’t be so lucky next time!

The sign on the picture below shows a warning in English, with its translation in Welsh. Whoever contacted the translator probably sent her or him an email, got the reply and had it printed it on the sign:

And here it what it says in Welsh: “I’m out of office at the moment. Please send me the text to be translated.”

Isn’t it priceless? Thanks to Anthos for posting this on our forum.

Translation mistakes can be fun sometimes, here are a few other examples that were sent to us by Manuela, another friendly and active forum member.

More fun at engrish.com…

Quite frequently, fellow webmasters use our submission form to add their websites to our directory. Our directory has not been updated for a long time and we are thinking of reorganizing it, probably by mentioning the most useful links in the dictionary pages. So instead of having a whole page dedicated to links to other websites, we will keep only a short paragraph, like you can see on our Spanish page, for example. Google likes it better, and I think our users and our fellow webmasters will like it better too.

In the meantime, here are a few interesting websites that have been submitted recently.

Let’s begin by Helcio Domingues’ personal homepage, dedicated to Brazilian Portuguese. You will find grammar lessons and thematic vocabulary lists, as well as a detailed pronunciation guide with MP3 files to download.

Türkiye Sözlük is an interactive online dictionary. It’s all in Turkish so I’m not sure how exactly it is “interactive”, but it looks like a unilingual dictionary. So it’s not a translator, it gives definitions in Turkish.

Our third website is for English learners (beginner level or children) and is actually made of two blogs. The first blog presents vocabulary lists and vocabulary games, with pictures and sound. The second blog offers Flash games: Hangman, Memory, Drag & Drop games…

So McCain is a “maverick”. Palin used that word again, 6 times, during the last debate with Biden on October 2. To her it probably means some kind of a rebel, a nonconformist. But not everybody is happy with the use of the word, especially Terellita Maverick, whose last name has given its origin to the word. It began as far the XVIIe century, when Terellita’s ancester fought for the rights of workers. Then at the beginning of the XIXe century, Samuel Augustus Maverick was known in Texas for not branding his cattle. Non branded cattle was thus referred to as “Maverick’s”. Samuel’s grandson and great-grandson also lived by their name, fighting for individual freedom respectively as a congressman and as a lawyer.

So Terellita Maverick, Samuel’s great-granddaughter, now aged 82, is “enraged” when she hears that McCain is referred to as a maverick, because he has nothing of it, according to her. You know we don’t do politics at Freelang, but we found this story in the New York Times about the origin of the word, and we wanted to share it with you.

We have changed the way the dictionary installs itself on a computer, and we are happy to announce that it is now 100% compatible with Windows Vista. There is also an uninstall option, so if you want to remove Freelang dictionary from your system, you can do it by using the Add/remove programs option in Windows Control panel.

In the case of dictionaries using special fonts, like Armenian, Esperanto, Macedonian or Vietnamese, the fonts are now installed automatically.

It is only the installation that has been modified, not the program itself. So if you already downloaded and installed the program, you don’t need to do it again. If you are using Vista and experiencing trouble, though, like you can’t reverse the word lists, we recommend that you download the new installation files.

The dictionary updates will now resume normally. I would like to thank the authors for their patience, especially Renato Figueiredo. Many thanks also to Jordan Russell for developing Inno Setup Compiler and keeping it free and alive.