Most of the clients I work with need to use English in their professional lives, but often don’t have the chance to practice, or the time to sit through boring, irrelevant lessons. They may have an international conference call once every few months or need to speak at a meeting, but don’t feel confident enough […]
Making a good impression in a job interview is only the first step. For some, integrating into a new work environment can be the biggest challenge; a challenge made all the more daunting when it’s an international workplace. In an interview with SprachenNetz, Editor-in-chief of Business Spotlight Ian McMaster and Timothy Phillips, National Geographic Learning’s Germany […]
German-speakers often feel that they have more problems with the softer, social side of using English at work than with goal-orientated aspects of business, such as giving presentations, meetings or negotiating. In particular, making small talk with business partners can cause difficulties. A few simple tips can help. Make, don’t have! Semantics first. In English, […]
Imagine coming home from a long vacation and finding out that the language you used to speak has evolved into something unrecognisable. Your father insists on being addressed as mdosi and your girlfriend will only respond to mshakaji. Oh and forget about buying cigarettes – since you’ve been gone, a rapper has popularised a new word […]
by Steven Blum According to a study by the investment bank Natixis, French will become “the world’s most spoken language” by 2050. Given the doom and gloom typically accompanying stories about France’s waning influence in the world, it’s no surprise that this bit of counter-intuitive fortune telling has proved tantalizing to journalists. “The [French] language […]
English will help make its speakers and those countries which invest in it richer. This is the economic rationale given by Dr David Graddol, Director of The English Company (UK) Ltd. But as the extraordinary growth in learning English continues around the world, and language skills become increasingly important for businesses and organisations in the […]
Psychology Today uses über as a preposition to signify greatness in headlines like “How to be Über-Successful in Your Love Life & Career.” Meanwhile, Americans who travel abroad in their early twenties are said to have “wanderlust,” and pop artists are said to have captured the current “zeitgeist.” Heidi Klum’s ice-cold “Auf Wiedersehen” is directed […]
Unless you’re a rap artist or poet, chances are you don’t pay much attention to the “invisible pulses” that form the foundation of your sentences. But the truth is that our speech is made up not so much of words as sounds, grouped together acoustically by syllables. Although syllables are vital to the construction of […]
Oh, that awkward moment when you try to make a joke in a foreign language only for it to lose all sarcasm and ‘punny’ (funny pun, in case that one got lost, too) context. We all know that humour is commonly lost in translation, but what about moral judgement? According to a recent study, using […]
by Steven Blum I sometimes mispronounce words on purpose just for my own amusement. I often wish I was funny enough to rack up millions of hits on YouTube just by pronouncing things in a ridiculous fashion. But according to a very serious report the Daily Mail, it is a very shameful thing to not […]
