If these symptoms apply to your condition, then we have the panacea you have been looking for all along!

How to write right!

Sometimes, you have 90% of it. You could have the perfect sentence, but there is one tiny word missing to it and you just cannot pinpoint what it is. How frustrating is that?! Time to put an end to the age of doubts; here comes the era of certainties. bab.la’s latest product, wording, helps you build sentences based on statistics, decreasing the risk of making mistakes when writing. How do statistics play a role in your writing skills? Wording browses millions of sentences stored in its database and analyses how often a combination of words is used.

Here is how it works (also check the screenshot below):

• You enter the beginning of the sentence you need help for, e.g. "I am looking"

• You place a question mark for the word you want to know about, e.g. "I am looking ?"

• Wording shows you the words that are most likely to be right.

• You choose what fits best.

Quick, free and easy! What’s more, the software retrieving data for you to choose from displays the percentage of use for each option. That should give you a boost to beat the odds. Thanks to wording, your essays, reports and any other documents written in English will have a nice flavour of fluency.

Screenshot of the wording product:

Never lost for words again!

Now that you saved so much time on your writing, you can try the fun side of Wording. You don’t believe there is a fun side to it? I let you try for yourself, use the following phrase:

"[Insert name of famous person] is a ?"

You will most certainly read unexpected statements – for which we decline all responsibilities if it happens to be about you

Enjoy toying with wording and feel free to share the funniest sentence results you come across!

Downloads:
Wording screenshot | bab.la logo

Qualche mese fa sono stati pubblicati su questo blog due articoli nei quali si davano suggerimenti su come imparare le lingue.

Per quanto mi riguarda, nonostante abbia tentato di studiare un numero a dir poco infinito di lingue riuscendo però ad impararne solo tre, almeno in questo campo, mi considero comunque una studentessa niente male; anzi, se devo essere sincera, credo proprio di essere un´esperta nel settore! E quindi oggi ho deciso di rivelarvi il mio segreto.

È tutta una questione di musica; come si è già detto anche al punto 7 dei suddetti articoli. Tuttavia – almeno per me – non tutta la musica ha lo stesso effetto. Ciò che considero veramente utile ai fini dell´apprendimento delle lingue straniere sono le canzonette senza un particolare valore artistico, quelle che ti entrano in testa e non ti abbandonano più.

Questo è il motivo per cui, nonostante sia da sempre una grande fan della band rock industriale/sperimentale Einstürzende Neubauten, non posso certo dire che mi abbiano aiutato più di tanto ad imparare il tedesco; o almeno non tanto quanto artisti come Nena e Wolfgang Petry.

Detto ciò, rendo pubblica la mia playlist di studio, sperando possa esservi in qualche modo di ispirazione nel vostro cammino alla scoperta di nuovi idiomi.

Tedesco:
- Nena: Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann
- Wolfgang Petry: Wahnsinn
- Das Fliegerlied

Cinese:
- Richie Ren: Dui mian de nu hai kan guo lai
- Zhou Huajian: Pengyou
- Yang Jugang: Lao shu ai da mi

Italiano:
- Alberto Camerini: Rock and roll robot
- Al Bano e Romina Power: Felicità
- Valeria Rossi: Tre parole

Ovviamente state attenti quando qualcuno all´improvviso vi chiede: «Cosa stai ascoltando?», una situazione tipo quella del video seguente. In questo caso, vi suggerisco di avere sempre una risposta già pronta, qualcosa come: «La sinfonia n. 6 in La minore di Gustav Mahler».

[English]

A few months ago we published two articles in which we gave you 10 tips for learning languages.

As for me, although I have attempted to study many languages but only succeeded in speaking fluently three of them, I consider myself quite a good language learner; in fact, counting all the languages I have started (but not finished) to learn, I can say I am quite an expert in this field! That is why I would like to share my learning secret with you.

When I am learning a new language, the means I rely on the most is music, as we already said at tip number 7. However – at least for me – not every kind of music works. What I consider really useful are easy songs with no particular artistic value; those catchy tunes which stick in your head and will haunt you forever!

That is why despite being a great fan of the German industrial/experimental rock band Einstürzende Neubauten, I cannot really say they contributed a lot in shaping my German knowledge, as on the other hand, did artists like Nena or Wolfgang Petry.

Having said this, I will share with you my language learning playlist, hoping it could inspire you in your language learning journey.

German:
- Nena: Irgendwie, irgendwo, irgendwann
- Wolfgang Petry: Wahnsinn
- Das Fliegerlied

Chinese:
- Richie Ren: Dui mian de nu hai kan guo lai
- Zhou Huajian: Pengyou
- Yang Jugang: Lao shu ai da mi

Italian:
- Alberto Camerini: Rock and roll robot
- Al Bano e Romina Power: Felicità
- Valeria Rossi: Tre parole

Of course you have to be careful if someone asks you “What are you listening to?” as in the following video. In this case, I suggest you always answer something like “Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 6 in A Minor”.

[Italiano]

A few weeks ago, we published two articles related to machine translation (MT) and they seemed to have inspired some of our readers who seized the opportunity to write in that direction. Livemocha published a review of Facebook Translation tool by Emily Matthews, echoing our own article on that topic, but taking a different angle for her analysis.

Similarly, after the publication of our MT comparison study, 1-800 Translate came up with a nice little application on their website.

We tried the latter and it’s a pretty cool system. You enter your source text and get the results from 3 different MT tools (Google Translator, Bing Translate and Systran). You might be surprised how the translations given differ! Even funnier, especially if you don’t have a good command of the target language, is the reverse translation feature. This translates your results back into the original language, so basically it goes language A>language B>language A.

Upon reading them, you will definitely want to think twice before using automatic translation. I had some hilarious reverse translation results while trying it. Misunderstanding generators or machine translation?

What’s more, you can also vote the results up or down, depending how happy you are with the translation suggested. Who will receive the best scores? We already have an idea, but let’s be fair and give each MT tool a chance.

Since us users are lazy, the auto-detect feature is nice and knows what language you write in. Too bad that Systran is not ready for that – you must select your source language manually if you want to get its results. Furthermore, Systran and Bing do not support as many languages as Google, so if you pick a language combination slightly too exotic, i.e. Swedish-Welsh, you obtain only one result to rely on (and hope for the best.)

May the best MT win! Or the least bad one...

Når det kommer til juletraditioner har danskerne nogle unikke skikke, og som den eneste dansker hos bab.la har jeg taget det på min kappe at introducere dem for jer læsere.

I Danmark fejrer vi jul d. 24. december, og en af de ting vi går mest op i i løbet af julemåneden, er, at tælle dagene indtil vi endelig får lov at spise lækker julemad og pakke gaver op. De to vigtigste ting når vi tæller dagene er et Kalenderlys og en julekalender. Julekalenderen med dens 24 låger er også et udbredt fænomen i de engelsk- og tysktalende lande, men kalenderlyset er en ret unik dansk tradition. Hver aften tænder vi lyset og betragter det, mens dagene indtil jul smelter væk.

En anden måde at tælle dagene på er fjernsynets julekalender. Hver aften fra d. 1. til d. 24. december bliver der vist et nyt afsnit af en Tv-serie med juletema, der kan handle om alt fra Jesu barndom til hvor nisserne egentlig kommer fra. Sædvanligvis har de to største danske kanaler, DR1 og TV2, hver deres julekalender, og en gang imellem viser en eller begge kanaler tillige en ”voksen-julekalender”. Min personlige yndlingsjulekalender er Skibet i Skilteskoven fra 1992, der dybest set er historien om en gammel sømand (baggårdspumaen Otto Brandenburg) der bor med sin talende papegøje på et skib i en granskov, og som prøver at forhindre den ”onde” duftfabrikant Viggo Velva (Axel Strøbye) i at brænde skoven af og sælge den som ”Jul på Dåse”. Sømandens nærmeste allierede er et pigebarn med et lommelaboratorium, en dame med tandbørster i håret, og tre nisser (Linie 3), som dagligt går i fælles skumbad. Og så synger de også en hel del.

Når det så endelig bliver juleaften fokuserer vi danskere på to ting: 1. mad og 2. juletræet og gaverne under det. Traditionel dansk julemad består af masser af gris/fjerkræ, kål, kartofler og sovs. Som dessert spiser man traditionelt ”risalamande” – kold risengrød med flødeskum, hakkede mandler og kirsebærsovs. Efter maden og inden pakkerne åbnes, er det tid til at udføre et sidste unikt juleritual: Dansen omkring juletræet. Alle tager hinanden i hænderne og danner en cirkel omkring træet; hvis ens familie ikke er stor nok, er det tilladt at alliere sig med diverse pels- eller kæledyr for at kunne nå hele vejen rundt. Mens vi danser omkring træet synger vi traditionelle danske julesange indtil lysene på træet brænder ud, eller den yngste til stede får et hysterisk anfald.

Glædelig jul!

[English]

When it comes to Christmas Traditions the Danes have a few unique customs, and being the only Dane at bab.la I feel it is my duty to introduce them to you all.

In Denmark we celebrate Christmas on the 24th of December, and counting the days until we finally get to eat a delicious Christmas meal and open up all our presents is one of the things we do best. The two most important things when counting the days are the Calendar Candle and the Advent Calendar. The Advent Calendar is a widespread phenomenon in German and English speaking countries as well, but the Calendar Candle is a pretty unique Danish tradition. Every evening we light the candle and watch the days until Christmas melt away.

Another way of counting the days is the Julekalender – a “made for Christmas” TV series in 24 episode, one airing every night. Usually the two biggest television networks in Denmark, DR1 and TV2, show one each, and since these shows are usually targeted towards children, if you are lucky, some years there is also a “voksen-julekalender” – a Julekalender for adults. A personal favourite of mine is Skibet i Skilteskoven (literally: the ship in the signpost forest) from 1992, which is basically about an old sailor living with his talking parrot on his ship in a pine forest and trying to keep an “evil” fragrance manufacturer from turning all the trees into Christmas-in-a-can. His closest allies are a girl with a chemistry set, a lady with toothbrushes in her hair, and three “nisser”, who frequently indulge in taking bubble baths together. And they sing a lot, too.

Then, when Christmas Eve finally arrives, focus is on two things: 1. food, and 2. the tree and the presents underneath it. Traditional Danish Christmas food involves lots of pork and/or poultry, cabbage, potatoes and gravy. For pudding the traditional dish is “risalamande” – cold rice porridge with whipped cream, chopped almonds and cherry sauce. After eating and before opening the presents, another unique Christmas ritual has to be followed: Dancing around the tree. Everyone joins hands in a circle around the tree; if one’s family isn’t big enough to reach all the way around then it’s ok to bring in teddy bears or dolls to complete the circle.

Walking around the tree, we sing traditional Christmas songs until the candles on the tree burn out, or the youngest child present throws a hissy fit.

Happy Christmas!

[Dansk]

In molte scuole del mondo, ma ovviamente soprattutto nei paesi occidentali, s´insegnano lingue morte come il greco e il latino.

Alcuni esperti ritengono che studiare queste lingue sia utile agli studenti perché li aiuta a rendere le loro menti più elastiche e a imparare a pensare.

Altri esperti, invece, sostengono che si tratti semplicemente di uno strascico ingombrante di un sistema educativo ormai obsoleto, che – nel mondo globalizzato di oggi – dovrebbe essere eliminato dai programmi scolastici per far posto a materie più “utili” come l´economia, la matematica o anche altre lingue, ma vive; poiché si tratta di materie che, come ci fanno giustamente notare, hanno gli stessi effetti positivi sul cervello in crescita. (Interessantissima la voce di Nonciclopedia sul liceo classico)

Questo è senza dubbio vero, ma costoro dovrebbero comunque tenere a mente che, se è vero che le lingue vive ci aiutano a comunicare con i nostri coinquilini del pianeta Terra, è anche vero che le lingue morte ci insegnano a comunicare con il nostro passato, con tutti quegli uomini e quelle donne che hanno contribuito a dare forma al mondo così come lo vediamo oggi (o almeno alla sua metà occidentale). Cosa che, a parer mio, non è meno importante dell´essere in grado di comunicare nel nostro mondo globalizzato.

Forse è un po´ fuori tema, dato che non è nemmeno tempo di TGIF, ma vorrei condividere con voi un esempio di quanto importante sia stato il contributo dei filosofi della Grecia antica per pensatori delle epoche successive fino ai giorni nostri con un video tratto da un film dei Monthy Phyton:

[English]

In many schools around the world – but of course mainly in Western countries – students are taught dead languages such as ancient Greek and Latin.

Some believe that studying dead languages is a good means for young students to make their mind more “elastic” and help them to learn how to think.

By some others, on the other hand, this is seen as the remains of an old educational approach which dates back to many centuries ago, and that – in our contemporary world - should be eliminated from the children's school time tables in order to make room for more useful subjects, such as economics, mathematics or modern, alive languages that, as they legitimately argue, have the same positive effects for the students' mind and brain (you can find a summary of the debate here.

This is with no doubts true, but these people should also keep in mind that if it is true that an alive language helps us communicate with the “others” with whom we share our planet today, it is also true that a dead language helps us communicate with our past, with those men and women who have contributed to shape the world (at least its western half) as we see it today. Which, to me, is not less important than being able to communicate in our contemporary and globalized world.

It may be a little off topic, since it is not time yet for TGIF, but I would like to show you an example of how heavily ancient Greek philosophers have been influencing later thinkers until today:

[Italiano]

Currently, I’m working on putting together a travel phrasebook. The idea is that it should contain phrases that are useful when travelling for example when interacting with the receptionist, waiter or asking the way. In order to get inspiration I have looked through old phrase books that I found lying around the office. Some are really old and others contain categories that are totally useless. But one phrasebook in particular really takes the price. It teaches you how to complain at everything and everyone. It’s called “English Schimpfen” and it has a moustache wearing old man with a monocle who is angrily waving an umbrella on the cover. In other words it teaches Germans how to ballyrag in English. And it does not contain polite corrections or even angry complaints. Oh no. There are only insulting phrases that really cross the line like: “This beer tastes like old feet”.

This makes me marvel. As far as I can understand, there are people out there who actually expect to go on holiday and get so disappointed that they need a whole book of nastiness to spit out in different situations? This makes me think about ”An Idiot Abroad”; the series in which the Englishman Karl Pilkington visits the most beautiful places on earth and never seems to understand what the big fuss is about. When I saw this series I figured that Karl was a pretty unique (but still entertaining) character who constantly found things to complain about. Maybe he isn’t that unique after all? I mean, there must be a target audience for this book. I seriously doubt that they wrote it only to be purchased and used by Karl Pilkington.

Maybe this says something about tourists in general. Do we unconsciously go on holiday just to prove to ourselves that our home country beats everything else? It could be that this is a need that increases in pace with the globalization process in the world. Nowadays, you could, if you felt like it, live basically in whichever country of your choosing. Possibly, this could create an anxiety in people as it makes them aware of all the places that they are missing out on.

With these thoughts as a foundation I came up with a totally non-scientifically based theory: People want to get dissatisfied and be able to ballyrag and complain in other languages to prove to themselves that they live in a nice country and have happy lives. A mental self defense mechanism if you will.
So what consequences would this slightly insane reasoning of mine bring? I will tell you. A need to totally restructure the tourism industry. If people want to be dissatisfied (and thereby get satisfied) they must be offered opportunities to use such phrases as ”Is this the beach or the dump” and “You drive like a bloody maniac”. Maybe every fourth beer could be poured into the glass through a smelly sock and you could wait that little extra quarter of an hour before you serve the food.
Employees in restaurants, hotels, museums and travel agencies would need to unlearn everything and start fresh. The service mustn’t be too perfect. Otherwise people won’t come back.

Therefore, I seriously consider whether I should, instead of a travel phrasebook for tourists, write a “bad service manual” for employees within the tourism industry. What do you think?

[Svenska]

För tillfället jobbar jag med att sätta samman en resefrasbok. Tanken är att den ska innehålla nyttiga fraser som man kan ha användning av när man reser, som att interagera med receptionisten på hotellet, kyparen i restaurangen och att fråga om vägen. För att få inspiration har jag tittat igenom gamla frasböcker som vi har liggande på kontoret. Vissa är gamla och andra innehåller kategorier som är helt onödiga. Men en viss frasbok tar ändå priset. Den lär dig hur man klagar på allt och alla. ”Englisch Schimpfen” heter den och har en mustaschprydd gubbe med monokel som argsint hutar med ett paraply på framsidan. Med andra ord lär den tyskar att skälla på engelska när de är på semester. Och det är inte artiga tillrättavisningar eller ens arga klagomål som gäller. Nejdå. Det är förolämpande fraser som verkligen går över gränsen som exempelvis: ” This beer tastes like old feet”.

Detta får mig att förundras. Finns det alltså människor som förväntar sig att åka på semester och vara så missnöjda att de behöver en hel bok med olika otrevligheter att vräka ur sig i olika situationer? Mina tankar går till ”An idiot abroad”; serien där engelsmannen Karl Pilkington åker till världens vackraste platser och aldrig förstår vad ”the big fuzz is about”. Då jag såg serien antog jag att Karl var en tämligen udda (men underhållande) figur som konstant hittade något att klaga på. Kanske är han inte så unik trots allt? Jag menar, det måste ju finnas en målgrupp för denna bok. De har ju antagligen inte skrivit den enbart för Karl Pilkingtons räkning (han skulle i sådana fall kunna lära sig att klaga på tyska).

Kanske säger detta något om turister i allmänhet? Möjligtvis åker vi undermedvetet på semester för att upptäcka att vårt eget land är så mycket bättre än alla andra. Det kan mycket väl vara så att detta är ett behov som har ökat i takt med globaliseringen som pågår på vår jord. Nuförtiden kan man ju om man så önskar, bo nästan var som helst i världen. Det är möjligt att detta skapar en viss ångest då man blir mer medveten om vad man går miste om genom att bo i ett visst land.

Jag slänger med dessa frågeställningar som bakgrund här ur mig en totalt ovetenskaplig grundad teori: Folk vill bli missnöjda och kunna klaga och skälla på andra språk för att bevisa för sig själva att de bor i rätt land och lever lyckliga liv. En mental försvarsmekanism med andra ord.

Vad får då detta galna resonemang för några följder? Det ska jag säga er. Ett behov att totalt omstrukturera turismbranschen. Om folk vill bli missnöjda (alltså nöjda) måste de erbjudas tillfällen att få använda fraser som ”Is this the beach or the dump” och ”You drive like a bloody maniac”. Kanske kan var fjärde öl få vara filtrerad genom en gammal strumpa och kanske kan man vänta den där lilla kvarten extra innan man serverar maten. Detta måste i sådana fall anställda på hotell, restauranger, museum och resebolag lära sig. Det får inte vara för perfekt. Då kommer folk inte tillbaka.

Med tanke på allt detta funderar jag starkt på om jag kanske istället för att skriva en frasbok för turister, borde skriva en ”dålig service handbok” för anställda inom turismbranschen. Eller vad säger ni?

[English]