Well, according to Ethnologue there are currently 6,909 languages world-wide. But let’s be honest, how many languages are really spoken by a majority of people in a country? As I am watching the world cup right now I checked out how many member associations the FIFA has – the teams need to communicate in one language, right? There are 208 members, more than the 192 UN member states. That’s quite cool. So my educated guess is that there are about 150-200 “major” languages in the world (yes, I know, some …

This week just a quick pick from Failblog.org. Life as a translator can be hard – just watch the video:

Image Credit: Failblog.org/Dailymotion

A post on consultant talk got me thinking of what rubbish some people talk. We all now about downsizing aka firing people. Come on, people, just say it out loud an clear. You are not paid by speaking in a sophisticated way, just by delivering results. And that brings me to one of my favorite quotes: “At the end of the day…” And what about the beginning of the day? And it gets even better. I have heard people translating this into German word-by-word: “Am Ende des Tages…”. Guys, …

Lawyer speak, otherwise known as legal speak or, more formally, legal English has never been easy to understand – even with a law degree. Apple has been criticized before for the level of the language in their Terms and Conditions’ fine print.
Recently reported by both the next web and PC Pro Apple has now been required by the UK government – or rather the Office of Fair Trading – to clean up the language they use in their Terms and Conditions. The reason given is that the consumer needs to …

The Oxford University announced their Word of the Year 2009 on Monday: “unfriend“. That’s when you kick someone off your friends list on Facebook. It used to be “Let’s stay friends”, now it is even more efficient with just one click. And the cool thing is your “friend” won’t even notice this unless he specifically searches for you in his friend list. I just saw one of my friends put his relationship status back on single today. Now I am wondering what this button should be called: “unpartner” or “unlove”? …

Google recently made a change to Google Translate. They have made changes to the layout and added a new feature.