Happy Mother’s Day!

It is that time of year again: Huge amount of flowers, candy and greeting cards will be bought by husbands and children who want to do something nice for their wives and their mothers. Even those that do not see eye-to-eye with their mother feel pressured to follow that tradition.

Yes, it is Mother’s Day! This year it is celebrated in many countries on May 13th. It is the celebration in honor of all mothers and the influence of mothers in society. Without mothers, we would not exist. Most countries put aside one day per year to celebrate their mothers.

The tradition of celebrating mothers dates back many years and is the same throughout the countries. In all countries, women started the tradition of celebrating mothers. In the USA, in 1880 Julia Ward Howe was the first woman to announce a special Mother’s Day by calling all women to participate in her effort of disarmament, but that effort did not catch on. The actual current holiday was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 as she wanted to fulfill her mother’s dream of honoring all women. Continue reading »

Search Efficiency Through Multilingual Sources

Though I am not much of a writer, I can positively say I am quite a reader, and I spend several hours a day either trying to find information to solve a problem, gain knowledge, learn new skills, or simply for the joy of it. Often times, I do a search on the same topic twice, once using English keywords, and a second time using Spanish keywords. Sometimes I encounter information in one language that I cannot find in the other, and occasionally I find the same information on both languages. Perhaps cultural interests determine what type of content or subject area is more prolific while other fields seem barren, which would explain why I would get different results depending on the language. Continue reading »

Foreign Films – 2012 Academy Awards

The 2012 Academy Awards Ceremony is just around the corner, and in the list of nominees are several foreign language films waiting to be selected as the best in their category. The candidates are Iran’s “A Separation“, Belgium’s “Bullhead“, Canada’s “Monsieur Lazhar“, Israel’s “Footnote“ and Poland’s “In Darkness“. All these films are screened in the U.S. with English subtitles. Creating these subtitles is a task that shouldn’t be taken lightly, particularly for the film’s director, who most certainly would have a desire to have his/her message come across as originally intended. The trick is that this is not a regular translation as one might think. There is the added challenge of making the subtitles concise enough for the audience to have time to read them and still enjoy the motion picture. This is one of the reasons why so often a viewer that is bilingual will always be able to tell that the subtitles are not a word-for-word translation, but rather a paraphrased message at times, which can only be done by professionals that understand both languages and have a technical knowledge of written text limitations in regards to keeping up with the spoken word of the original version. Continue reading »

Year of the Dragon

新年快乐！

According to the Chinese calendar, which consists of both Gregorian and lunar-solar calendar systems, the Year of the Dragon will start on January 23rd, 2012 and will end on February 9th, 2013.

Under Chinese tradition, each year is dedicated to a specific animal. The twelve animals are: Dragon, Horse, Monkey, Rat, Boar, Rabbit, Dog, Rooster, Ox, Tiger, Snake, and Ram. In 2012, the Dragon is welcomed back after the 2011 year of the Rabbit. Each of these animals are believed to influence the children born in that year and it is believed that they take on the character and qualities of the animal.

The Dragon is the fifth sign in the Chinese Horoscope and signifies luck.

People born in the year of the Dragon are said to be healthy, energetic, persistent, easily excitable, impatient and stubborn. On the other hand, they are reliable, honest, brave and exude confidence. Dragons are blessed with good fortune; they are smart, daring in business and have a great sense of humor. Continue reading »

Happy New Year

Pope Sylvester, also called the first "peace Pope", after centuries of bloody persecution, served as pope from 314 to 335 AD; he died on December 31. In the West, the liturgical feast of Saint Sylvester is on December 31st. Accordingly, this last day in the year in German-speaking countries and in some others close to them, New Year’s Eve is known as ‘Sylvester’. In other countries, the day is referred to as Saint Sylvester’s Day. In Brazil, the long-distance running event Saint Sylvester Road Race occurs every year on 31 December. Continue reading »

The Snowman’s Resolution

“Germish”

When I was living in Germany, I made fun of Germans who were living in the U.S. and came back to their homeland to visit and then spoke broken German. Their sentence structure was English and English words were mixed into their speech. I thought that these expatriates put on a show on how special and worldly they were. I always thought that this was their way to feel important. And now, the same thing is happening to me.

I came to the U.S. in 1988. Since then I have visited Germany frequently and also speak German every day. Continue reading »

Don’t txt n drive

A huge billboard next to one of the major interstates in Atlanta displays this:

Not correct English, but one can easily read and understand it it. Everybody knows that you cannot properly concentrate on the road when you text while driving. But I want to reflect on texting and what it has done to our language. ‘RSVP’, ‘asap’ and ‘info’ were used before anybody even knew what texting was, even before anybody had a cell phone. Was that the start of texting? Continue reading »

Happy Halloween

Halloween is essentially a Western holiday, which was originally celebrated by the Celts to commemorate the dead. It is one of the oldest celebrations observed by people all over the world. The name “Halloween” comes from “All Hallows’ Eve,which means “eve of All Saints”. The Irish celebrated this night on October 31, the eve of “All Saints”. When the Irish immigrants came to the U.S., they continued to celebrate their traditional Halloween. Now it is a day for fun and parties, getting dressed up in mostly scary costumes, trick-or-treating and decorating pumpkins. Continue reading »