[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!

Italian Lessons

Today I have loaded Italian Lessons to Internet Polyglot.

Ah, Italia! Who wouldn't want to this beautiful country with its sun and the sea and famous Italian food?! But does it make sense to go there without knowing at least the basic vocabulary: greetings, hellos, goodbyes? Don't miss your chance, learn these words in this lesson: Saluti, Richieste, Benvenuti, Addii.



Facts about the Italian Language



Italian could probably be considered the direct descendant of Classical Latin spoken in the Roman Empire, at least in terms of vocabulary. Although there are a few other Latin languages that could very well contest this title (such as Romanian, which kept the closest declension rules as Classical Latin or Sardinian which kept most of the phonology) Italian remains the leader of the pack in what regards Latin languages.



Spoken by over 70 million people worldwide (most of them Italian natives of course) the Italian language consists of several dialects which are very close in vocabulary and grammar, but differ slightly in phonology. The Italo-Dalmatian dialect from Southern Italy, the Tuscan dialect or the Gallo-Italian dialect from Northern Italy are 3 such examples.



Learning Italian online



The Internet provides a large variety of sources where you can learn Italian from, including free Italian online lessons, live Italian language videoconferences, downloadable books or “Learn Italian” courses and so for. Depending on the level of difficulty you need, you might want to search out some of the sites offering these services but be aware that the quality level of the lessons also varies dramatically. You’ll be better off studying all your options thoroughly rather than simply charging into the first site you find on Google for the keyword “learn Italian course”.



You should set a few priorities for yourself when looking after one of these sites. First of all, determine how much time and money you can spend on their services. Learning takes quite some time and the prices may vary a lot. For example, a video conference lesson will obviously be more expensive than your average downloadable “How to Learn Italian” course book.



It’s best to scoop around and try to find people that have used a particular site’s services before actually buying them yourself. Just because the site says that you’ll ”receive quality courses” doesn’t mean that it will actually go down that way. If another one of their users could enforce those promises, then you might want to try out their services.



Alternative ways of learning Italian



Another way to increase your Italian language learning speed other than taking free Italian lessons online or subscribing to the many „Learn Italian” courses that you can find on the World Wide Web, you might want to try some slightly more relaxing alternative learning methods. For example, vocabulary games can be a great way to boost your Italian word pool and playing them could also prove to be a means of relaxation. Although their main purpose is to improve vocabulary, you will also get a better grasp on Italian spelling and possibly pronunciation as well and we all know that when we learn something for fun, we learn it better and faster.





Articles about Italian in different languages:

Facts about the Italian Language (in English)
De lengua italiana (in Spanish)
De langue italienne (in French)
Italienischsprachig (in German)
Di lingua italiana (in Italian)
Italiaanse Taal (in Dutch)
Língua italiana (in Portuguese)
Limba Italiana – Istorie si statistici (in Romanian)
Сведения об итальянском языке (in Russian)
الحقائق حول اللغة الإيطالية (in Italian)

Languages can be switched

Another new nice feature has been added in the latest release. Under the logo of Internet Polyglot you can find now a list of languages to which the site has translations. So clicking on any of them will switch your view from one language to another. So now even if you have a particular settings in your browser you will be able to see the site in another language.

New version is deployed

Today I have deployed a new version of InternetPolyglot software. It contains two major improvements:

1. Speed Game. This is a new game developed by my old buddy and former co-worker Ashot. It is now in Beta mode - some features are still missing (like saving game results in the database) but it will be improving over time. It'll have music, sounds also. Please visit this game (for example here is Speed game for the Russian-English lesson "Car") and enjoy it. Also please visit the discussion topic about this game and give us your feedback - how do you like this game, how it could be improved, and so on.

2. The beginning of the statistics module. You all know that the results of the games are saved in the database so that the words that you know better are shown less frequently that those that you know worse. But until today it all was hidden from you, my dearest Internet Polyglotters. From now on you have full information on what words you know better or worse, in which lessons you excelled and in which lessons you were not too good. Besides, when you play games you can see immediate results of your current session in the right-top corner of the screen. In the future I plan to expand the statistics module - for example introduce the championships.

Please enjoy the new version and let me know if anything goes wrong with it.

Ta-da! German lessons at last!

At last long awaited German lessons has been completed and loaded to Internet Polyglot!

This was a true collaborative effort which involved , except your humble servant Misha, four people. All of them worked very hard and did their best to make it possible today for people of the world to learn German on Internet Polyglot.

These heroes are:

Baggeroli
wagnerm
Introscop
Ralf

The story with German lessons is quite adventurous. First we talked with Introscop in December and he started the translation to German in the winter. Baggeroli has joined later. Both of them did a great job. Unfortunately neither of them is native German speaker and one of the main strategies of Internet Polyglot is to verify and double-verify what we are going to present our users. So after a while wagnerm volunteered to do the verification of a hefty part of the translation and Introscop found a guy from his work Ralf who also verified the rest.

And now please visit German lessons at Internet Polyglot and start practicing it right away.

Willkommen!


Things worth knowing about the German language before you start learning it




As with any learning process, it’s good to set up a base ground and find out more information about what you’re trying to assimilate. For that reason, we’re going to start with a short lesson in German language history in order to understand why learning it is important and also why it’s considered one of the easiest languages to learn once you’re familiar with English.



German is considered one of the World’s major languages, although it cannot compete to other languages such as Spanish, French, English, Chinese or Hindu in what regards the number of its speakers, German is important due to the economical and political power of German speaking countries. Most German speakers are concentrated in Central Europe, in the following countries: Germany, Austria, Poland, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg and some parts of Switzerland, Belgium, Romania and Italy.



So why is learning German considered easy?



If you simply start a “Learn German” course or take up on a few free German lessons online, you’ll beg to differ the fact that German is an easy language to learn. The famous “long words”, the extra 3 umlaut vowels used by the German language as well as a certain roughness to its phonology might scare you off at first. However, if you take your time to study it you’ll notice that it’s actually quite easy once you’ve mastered English (even easier if you’re a native English speaker).



The two languages have been in a constant “collaboration” throughout time, influencing one another. The fact that they share the same West Germanic layer and Latin influences makes them even closer to one another. A lot of words look alike in English and German, which makes it easier for English speakers to memorize words and improve vocabulary in German. These words are called cognates and there are three major categories of such words that you can identify:




True cognates – these words have exactly the same form and the same meaning in both English and German, making them extremely easy to use from both sides. True cognates also sound alike and are spelled alike in both languages. They make up for a good starting point in the learning process and can help you build up your German vocabulary increase. Examples of such true cognates include: butter, finger or winter.



Close cognates – this group of cognates includes words that share the same meaning but have slightly different phonology or spelling. This particular group is the biggest of all cognates, containing hundreds of words such as (German version – English version): Bett – Bed, Bier – Beer, Gott – God, Haus – House, Maus – Mouse, Katze – Cat, Lachen – Laugh, Sommer – Summer, Wetter – Wheather and so forth.



Fake cognates – the last group of cognates can give people that are fresh to learning German a hard time. A lot of “Learn German” courses and free German lessons online will have special, focused chapters dedicated to fake (or false) cognates due to the ease with which a fresh student can get confused. Fake cognates are words that look and/or sound alike in both languages but their meaning is totally different. Examples include (German word – English word – English meaning): baum – beam – tree, gift – gift – poison, knabe – knave – boy, kopf – cup – head, stadt – stead – city. It’s extremely important to memorize words that are tagged as fake cognates as to not use them loosely in conversations, placing them in the wrong context.



Articles about German in different languages:

The German Language (in English)
El de lengua alemana (in Spanish)
De langue allemande (in French)
Deutschsprachig (in German)
Di lingua tedesca (in Italian)
Duitse Taal (in Dutch)
Língua alemão (in Portuguese)
Limba Germana (in Romanian)
Что хорошо было бы знать о немецком языке (in Russian)
أشياء مهمة يجب معرفتها حول اللغة الألمانية قبل البدء بتعلّمها (in Arabic)