Site translated to Italian

Is your native language Italian? Or maybe you are learning or interested in learning Italian? In both cases check out Internet Polyglot in Italian! Here is how you can switch to Italian in the Internet Polyglot menu:


Benvenuto!


And as usual, our joke of the day:

The Mystery of Childbirth


A boy was assigned a paper on childbirth and asked his parents, "How was I born?"

"Well honey..." said the slightly prudish parent, "the stork brought you to us."

"Oh," said the boy. "Well, how did you and daddy get born?" he asked.

"Oh, the stork brought us too."

"Well how were grandpa and grandma born?" he persisted.

"Well darling, the stork brought them too!" said the parent, by now starting to squirm a little in the Lazy Boy recliner.

Several days later, the boy handed in his paper to the teacher who read with confusion the opening sentence:
"This report has been very difficult to write due to the fact that there hasn't been a natural childbirth in my family for three generations."

5 Reasons Why You Should Learn a Foreign Language

During the modern age, with globalization at its height, knowing one or two secondary languages has become more than a simple feat of high class and intelligence but also a strict requirement in many occasions. Whether it’s for professional, social or personal reasons, learning at least one foreign language is a must for anyone that wants to keep his or her head up high in today’s society. Let’s take a focused look on 5 of the main reasons that should turn you towards learning a foreign language.

1. Professional Requirement

This is probably the main reason for which one would learn a foreign language. Many professions require the knowledge of at least one or two foreign languages, depending on the field of the job. Most jobs may ask that you know an international language such as English, French, Spanish or German or a business-specific language such as Chinese, Japanese, Russian and so forth. If you’re a native English speaker you may have it a bit easier, since English is the main international language (and one that is present the most often in job descriptions) but knowing a secondary might also prove vital.

2. Social Bonus

Yes, knowing a foreign language (or more) is definitely a social bonus. There’s definitely a steep hill to climb between being presented as someone that doesn’t know any foreign language whatsoever against being presented as a polyglot. Another case when knowing a foreign language can be literally a social blessing is when meeting a foreigner whose language you can speak. They’ll be extremely impressed by your ability to talk with them through their own native tongue, although you’re on home grounds and this fact can single handedly create a great impression around you. If the foreigner happens to be part of a business meeting, this impression can turn to a successful business partnership, bringing you both professional and social satisfactions.

3. Family Communication

It’s often the case where a couple formed out of persons of diverse nationalities understand each other through a commonly known international language such as English. However, they’ll soon want to start learning the other person’s mother tongue, not only for a better communication, but also out of respect for them.

4. Personal Satisfaction

Learning a foreign language is one of the highest intellectual goals that one could have, on a personal scale. Think about a difficult puzzle, or math problem that takes months if not years of constant studying in order to be solved. The process of solving it may be a hard, arduous one but the yell of joy at the end is well worth it. It’s the same case with learning a foreign language: the learning process is not easy and you’ll have many small issues and problems to tackle along the way. You’ll have to focus on various aspects of the problem, such as spelling, grammar, reading, pronunciation and so forth. If you keep the problem in sight however and if you don’t lose interest in it, the chances of solving it are extremely high and the intellectual fulfillment that you get at the end is incomparable to anything else.

5. Keeping Your Mind Healthy

It’s been scientifically proven that by learning a new language, the process stimulates your brain in such a way that it will make you more keen on understanding and learning other subjects, including “real” disciplines such as math, physics, chemistry and so forth. Learning a new language requires the memorizing and understanding of several thousand new words and concepts, which offers your brain a good training for future occasions where memorizing is a must. After studying a foreign language you’ll have better results with studying for exams, with information assimilation and generally, with keeping your mind healthy and “active” even at older ages.

For more information, visit http://www.InternetPolyglot.com

[New feature] Dictionary popup window

On the Internet Polyglot you can use a new small improvement that allows you to open Google translator. This way you can translate foreign words to your native language and vice versa (of course if Google translator has your language). To open the translator window click on the "Dictionary" link on the left menu. Here is the picture of how you can use it:



And as usual, our joke of the day:

A man was riding in the back of his limousine when he saw a man eating grass by the roadside. He ordered his driver to stop and he got out to investigate.

"Why are you eating grass?" he asked the man.

"I don't have any money for food," the poor man replied.

"Oh, please come to my house!"

"But sir, I have a wife and four children..."

"Bring them along!" the rich man said.

They all climbed into the limo. Once underway, the poor fellow said, "Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for taking all of us in."

The rich man replied, "No, you don't understand. The grass at my house is over three feet tall!"

Ukrainian lessons

Our volunteers have always been our strength. A huge portion of all Internet Polyglot lessons has been created by them and we are all very grateful to them. Today I have loaded new, Ukrainian lessons and they are now available for the public view.

These lessons are a product of the best example of team work. They were created by my good friend Jenia, and her friends from Ukrain Tatiana and Slava. Great work, guys! Your contribution to the world language learning community is priceless! Thank you from the bottom of our heart.

Now I would like to write a couple of words about the Ukrainian language and Ukraine. Ukrain is an East-European country located on the North of Black Sea bordering Russia, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Moldova and Hungary. Its capital is Kiev. Formerly, until 1991 it was a republic of USSR. Historically, it is considered the craddle of the Slavic civilisation - Kievan Rus existed in the Middle Ages.

Ukrainian language (украї́нська мо́ва, ukrayins'ka mova ) is one of the Slavic languages most close to Russian, Belarus, Polish. The alphabet is cyrillic. There are about 40 million Urkainian speaking people in the world. Except Ukraine it is also spoken in Russia, Polan, Belarus, Canada, Moldova, Brazil and several other countries.

Ласкаво просимо! Welcome!


And now our usual joke of the day:

A man is driving down the road and notices a car in the ditch. He doesn't usually help many people so he drives on by. Then he notices that a pretty woman is the driver so he goes back to help.

As he is hooking his truck to her car he says, “You know, you are the first pregnant woman I've ever helped out of a ditch.”

“But I'm not pregnant,” she says.

“Well, you're not out of the ditch yet,” he says.

Roots and branches of the Ukrainian language



Slavonic languages are usually split up by linguists into three main groups, determined by their geographical position: Western, Southern and Eastern Slavonic. Despite sharing the same ethnical foundation and several linguistic similitudes there are also a number of easily spottable differences between these three main groups. It should be noted though, that regardless of the category their language is set under, Slavonic speakers can, for the most part, understand each other without the need of an interpreter. Even more so, once you’ve learnt a Slavonic language it will be extremely easy to pass onto another and become a true polyglot in no time. That’s why learning Ukrainian is also important if you’re planning on learning another language from the Eastern Slavonic language tree, such as Russian or Belarusian.



Statistics and properties of the Ukrainian language



The number of Ukrainian speakers is somewhere around 51 million people, of which 90% are concentrated in Ukraine. The other 10% make up the Ukrainian Diaspora, which is spread along several countries all across the World, such as Argentina, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Russia and the United States.

From a structural point of view, Ukrainian resembles Russian mostly, from all the other Slavonic languages. Of course, this is also an effect of the Russian dominance over Ukraine as well as the constant influence of the Russian trade and migration in the area. Most linguists will agree that once you know either Russian or Ukrainian, it would only take a couple of months and a solid course to learn the other language. Therefore, it could even pass on as a waste not to learn the “complementary” language once you’ve already studied one of them.


Learning Ukrainian


If you’ve decided to start studying Ukrainian on your own, from the warmth of your home instead of taking an organized “Learn Ukrainian” course or something similar, there are a few methods at your disposal that can come in as rather useful. First of all, remember that the Internet is your friend and you can easily find free Ukrainian lessons online, some of which may prove extremely useful while others will prove to be a waste of time. Don’t start one of these lesson courses before you make sure it’s exactly what you’re after and maybe scooping around to see what others have to say about them first.



Your second option is to start learning through some lighthearted vocabulary games. Vocabulary games are a good choice for newcomers to the Ukrainian language that don’t have a basic set of known words already and want to have a foundation to improve vocabulary upon. These games will help you memorize words easier and some of them can help you out with spelling and even pronunciation, so you will hit more than one rabbit from one shot.



Articles about Ukrainian in different languages:

Roots and Branches of the Ukrainian Language (in English)
Lengua Ucraniana (in Spanish)
Langue ukrainienne (in French)
Ukrainische Sprache (in German)
Lingua ucraina (in Italian)
Oekraïense Taal (in Dutch)
Língua Ukrainian (in Portuguese)
Radacinile si ramurile limbii Ucrainiene (in Romanian)
Корни украинского языка (in Russian)
جذور وفروع اللغة الأوكرانية (in Arabic)

New feature: popup window with list of word translations

Today I implemented a new nice feature that will allow you to browse the lessons more efficiently. Here is the picture how it works:

You no longer have to click on lesson name and enter the lesson detail page just to see what's inside of this lesson. Just navigate your mouse over the icon next to the lesson name and voila - you get a pop-up window with the content of this lesson. Neat, huh? Just visit any list of lessons, such as Turkish-English lessons and move your mouse over this icon. Enjoy better browsing!



And, as usual, the joke of the day:

There was a tourist on a farm and he asked the farmer why one pig had a wooden leg.

The farmer said, ''That pig is the bravest pig I ever saw.''

''So why does he have a wooden leg?'' the tourist asked.

''Well one night our house caught on fire. And he came into our house and he woke us all up.''

''So,'' the tourist asked again, ''why does that pig have a wooden leg?''

''Well, a pig that brave you can't eat all at once!''

Portuguese Lessons

Today Internet Polyglot received a new important addition: Portuguese Lessons have been loaded to the database and now are available for Portuguese language learners.

Portuguese is a Romance group language that is currently spoken by about 220 million people in Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique and some other countries. The lessons were created by a Brazilian person so they are using the Brazilian dialect of Portuguese. There are some differences between the dialects, for example, bus in Brasil is ônibus and in Portugal is autocarro
Of course these differences are not very significant.

Portuguese was developed from Latin which was brought to the West of Iberian Peninsula by Roman soldiers and colonists. It makes Portuguese derive almost 90% of its vocabulary from Latin. During the colonial activities of Portugal this language was adopted in many other countries.

And as usual, the joke of the day (one of my favorites):

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Awesome Eh? :)

I know it works for Russian so if you know Russian please enjoy too:

По рзелуьататм ислсдеоавинй одного бриатснокго униеврисетта, не иемет знчаения, в ккаом порядке рсаополежны бкувы в слвое. Глваное, чотбы преавя и полсдеяня буквы были на мсете. Остланьые бувкы моугт слдеовать в плоонм бепсродяке, всё-равно текст чтиеастя без прбоелм. Прчиниой эотго ялвятеся то, что мы читаем не кжадую бкуву по отдеьлности, а всё слвоо цлеиком

A small peek into the Portuguese language history



At its roots, Portuguese is a Latin language, having several over-layers of nomadic influences as well as native ones from the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula. Of all the other Latin languages, Portuguese resembles Spanish the most, as the two languages have risen from similar cultures and had almost the same influences throughout their history. Actually, a Portuguese speaker can easily understand what a Spanish speaker is saying and vice versa, although there are some obvious differences between the two languages, especially in what regards pronunciation of words, spelling and so forth.



The similarities between Portuguese and Spanish don’t stop here. Both languages had their Golden Age during the colonization era, where explorers from both countries set foot in the new lands of Southern America and established large communities there. The Spanish colonized areas such as those that form up today’s Argentina or Mexico, whereas Portuguese colonists set foot in what is today’s Brazil. Therefore, Portuguese is still the official language of Brazil nowadays, making the language hold the title as the second largest Latin language worldwide, with approximately 180 million speakers in Portugal, Brazil and several other smaller areas.



Characteristics of the Portuguese language



Oftentimes Portuguese is regarded as a “melodic” language, due to its slightly funny pronunciation of words and sounds. As with most other Latin languages, Portuguese is less blunt as say, Germanic languages and its grammar rules are very similar to anything you’ve learnt in Spanish, French or Italian class. Most “Learn Portuguese” courses and books will emphasize on the fact that the language is an analytical one, having abandoned its declensions, at the same time remaining dynamic and soft. Vocabulary, grammar and orthography are easy to understand and grab a hold of even if you’re not very familiar with any other Latin language.



Actually, one of the main benefits of learning Portuguese is that it allows you to easily gain access to other languages from the Latin family tree. Once you got your Portuguese act together, there’s nothing stopping you to becoming a true polyglot, as you can easily pass on to Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian or any other language that has basic Latin roots.



So where do I start?



Like with most languages, when starting to learn Portuguese your first target will be to improve vocabulary. Find some translated texts and try reading both versions, trying to spot the similarities and use a dictionary if you’re uncertain of how a particular word got translated. Don’t start with any random text on the Internet though, they will prove too complicated for you. There are several free Portuguese lessons online that provide such texts for newcomers and that could be a possible starting point for you.



When you got to a point where you can parse a text and extract the main ideas from it, you can move on to more complicated issues such as grammar, orthography, pronunciation and such. However, don’t neglect your word base. Although a natural vocabulary increase will take place during the learning process, you can always enforce it by reading a lot in that language or by playing some fun and relaxing vocabulary games that can help you memorize certain words or phrases.





Articles about Portuguese in different languages:

A Small Peek into the Portuguese Language (in English)
Lengua Portuguéa (in Spanish)
Langue portugaise (in French)
Portugiesische Sprache (in German)
Lingua portoghese (in Italian)
Portugese Taal (in Dutch)
Língua Portuguese (in Portuguese)
Limba Portugheza (in Romanian)
Краткий обзор истории португальского языка (in Russian)
نظرة خاطفة إلى تأريخ اللغة البرتغالية (in Arabic)

Trip to Reno, Nevada gave new ideas: textual context for words

I took a couple of days off from Internet Polyglot to drive to Reno, Nevada. The city is nice but albeit it tries to be a second Las Vegas it is far from it. If in Vegas you can go to shows or simply enjoy strolling on the streets, in Reno you have nothing but casinos and boring slots.

Interesting observation - I don't know anybody who would ever win in casino. Still people go there and lose their money. Is it just for fun or there are still some of them who believe in winning?

Anyway, after losing a couple of dozens bucks playing video-poker it brought me back to thinking of how to further improve Internet Polyglot.

The idea is to provide for each word in the Internet Polyglot database a phrase that would show the usage of this word in live context. Of course it would be very hard to do that for each word in each language so I am thinking about the following approach:

1) There will be a way to enter a piece of text by any registered user.
2) This text preferably should be fun to read, for example it can be a joke or a funny story. It even can be copy-and-pasted from public sites that contain well-known jokes and funny stories.
3) This way there will be a library of texts in different languages.
4) On the lesson detail page (the one that contains words and their translations) there will be an icon against each word and translation - when a user moves the mouse over it a popup window appears with a short snippet of some text that contains this word. On the same popup window there is a link that lets the user read the entire text.

Such a feature, I expect, should kill two birds with one stone: first, there will be language context provided for the words and translations; second, there will be more fun learning since the context will contain mostly jokes and funny stories.

And now the joke of the day:

A 90-year-old man said to his doctor, "I've never felt better. I have an 18-year old bride who is pregnant with my child. What do you think about that?"

The doctor considered his question for a minute and then said, "I have an elderly friend who is a hunter and never misses a season. One day when he was going out in a bit of a hurry, he accidentally picked up his umbrella instead of his gun. When he got to the Creek, he saw a rabbit sitting beside the stream. He raised his umbrella and went, 'bang, bang' and the rabbit fell dead. What do you think of that?"

The 90-year-old said, "I'd say somebody else killed that rabbit."

The doctor replied, "My point exactly."

The site is translated to Polish

Huge thanks to one of our prominent enthusiasts Joanka from Poland! She has done another perfect job - translated the site to Polish. Here is Internet Polyglot in Polish. Check it out!