English is the international language. It is the second most spoken language in the world after Mandarin, and it dominates more than 55 percent of all online content, making it the de facto language of the World Wide Web. So, in a globalized world, one that is getting smaller by the day, English has been …
Marcel Iseli
Japanese onomatopoeia is a fascinating and incredibly varied part of the language. In fact, it’s so varied that there’s at least five different types of onomatopoeia, some which we don’t even really have an equivalent for in English! In this article, I’m going to give you an overview of what Japanese onomatopoeia is, as well …
Maybe you’re interested in romance languages, maybe you like carnival and samba, maybe you just didn’t want to follow the mainstream and learn the other, more popular Iberian language that shall not be named. Maybe you’ve visited Portugal and fell in love with the Fado or maybe you’ve spent some time in Angola and got …
When you start writing, one of the first thing style manuals teach you is to avoid using the word “very”. So, instead of quantifying an adjective with the rather generic word “very”, find a stronger adjective that does the trick. For instance, rather than describing someone as “very smart”, you could describe them as “brilliant” …
In today’s ultra-connected world, one that moves at a break-neck pace, email has become the preferred medium of communication for many professionals. If you think about it, it kind of makes sense: For one thing, emails don’t take up any physical space, yet, at the same time, you never have to worry about losing a …
Maybe you’ve watched a few too many episodes of One Piece, Naruto or the more recently trendy My Hero Academia; or maybe you’ve finally discovered the ugly truth that subtitles and dubs often omit information in order to sound more natural, and now you’re curious to know what your favorite character is really saying. Regardless …
Here, at Linguablog, we’ve explored various aspects of language. We’ve looked at how language intersects with culture. We’ve delved into how certain words originate and how they morph over time. And, we’ve talked about various grammatical rules that make English the beautiful, rich language it is today. However, one thing we haven’t talked about all …
English can be confusing. Thanks to the language’s many different origins, the vocabulary alone is enough to make anyone’s head spin. You have words that should rhyme but don’t, you have nouns that give you irregular plurals that seem arbitrary, and you have some words whose spelling will confound even the most practiced native speakers. …
How do you say “Good Luck” in Japanese? Well, you can, but you don’t. If that doesn’t make sense, stick around as I explain in depth all the details behind this difficult to translate phrase. Difficult? Really? For any English speaker, this probably seems as improbable as it does absurd. It’s such a common, almost …