A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience
Americans don’t exactly agree with everyone on the pronunciations of words. A major part of what makes American English so interesting as a dialect are the regional accents.
Continue reading… “How Americans speak English totally different from each other”
Saudi students can receive up to a five year visa, with scholarships covering tuition, housing and health benefits.
Meshari Albishi considers the University of Mary Washington his “second home” even though he is not a student there. He has made “a lot of friends,” and has access to the library, workout rooms and other campus facilities. The University of Mary Washington has offered him admission, on one condition: Before he can enroll, he must complete a non-credit program, called English for Academic Purposes.
Continue reading… “Students from Saudi Arabia flood U.S. colleges to study English”
Polly is gonna talk about the cracker.
Across parts of Australia, reports have been pouring in of strange voices chattering high in the treetops — mysterious, non-sensical conversations in English. But while this phenomenon is certainly quite odd, its explanation isn’t paranormal. It turns out that escaped pet birds, namely parrots and cockatoos, have begun teaching their wild bird counterparts a bit of the language they picked up from their time in captivity — and, according to witnesses, that includes more than a few explicatives…
Continue reading… “Escaped pet birds are teaching wild birds to speak English”
In the beginning, the language of the World Wide Web was English. Times change though, and the United States’ military’s gift to civilization knows no national boundaries, and growing worldwide adoption of the internet has changed the audience make-up to such an extent that the dominant language of the internet is about to become Chinese. That’s not to say the Chinese are all that comfortable with this either. There has just been an official decree requiring the use of Chinese translations for all English words and phrases in newspapers, magazines and web sites. While all countries have watched the unregulated global nature of the internet erode traditional cultural values and the integrity of national languages, it seems the Chinese powers-that-be have concluded that the purity of the Chinese language needs to be preserved.
Continue reading… “Chinese Language Will Soon Dominate the Internet”
English language doubles over last century.
The English language is enjoying unprecedented growth causing it to have nearly doubled in size over the last century, claims a new study. Researchers at Harvard University and Google found that the language was expanding by 8,500 words a year in the new millennium and now stands at 1,022,000 words.
Language spoken by the greatest number of non-native speakers: English
There are approximately 6,900 languages currently spoken around the world today, the majority of which have only a small number of speakers. About 4 billion of the earth’s 6.5 billion people, or over 60% of the earth’s population, speak one of the top 30 languages as their native tongue. The rest are suffering a slow death.
Here are some rather unusual statistics about the world’s languages that you may not know.
Continue reading… “World Languages – 24 Unusual Statistics & Facts”
The free internet encyclopedia is one of the world’s most popular websites and uses volunteers to create pages and check facts
Fears are rising that the usefulness of Wikipedia could be undermined as thousands of volunteer researchers abandon the site. The free internet encyclopedia is one of the world’s most popular websites and uses volunteers to create pages and check facts.
Continue reading… “Future of Wikipedia Uncertain As 49,000 Volunteers Abandon Site”
A new study in the Journal of School Health found that physically fit kids scored better on standardized math and English tests than their less fit peers.
Continue reading… “Physically Active Kids Do Better In School”
This portable hand-held scanning translator can scan a word or a full line of text and give you an immediate translation, even idioms and phrases.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXxkWXncuo[/youtube]
A Swiss daredevil crossed the English Channel strapped to a homemade jet-propelled wing Friday, parachuting into a field near the white cliffs of Dover after a 10-minute solo flight.
Continue reading… “Swiss Rocket Man Crosses English Channel”
It’s easy to make fun of foreign people who don’t understand English very well. But probably the worst offenders are us peoples. Yeah you, sitting on that green shag couch. We couldn’t sorta say anything greatly correctly if’n we tried. (Pics)
Continue reading… “English is a Tough Language – 10 Crazy Examples”
In 1832, English author William Hone (1780 – 1842) published The Year Book of daily Recreation and Information*, an almanac of sorts in which included this quirky and wonderful “Alphabet for Beginners” (amazing they still mostly apply today).
Continue reading… “Alphabet for Beginners by William Hone (c. 1832)”