Yes, you read right. A new study has found out that people should talk in two languages, even when the baby is not born yet. This increases the chances of the baby “liking” both languages. Now, you might ask how you can check whether a baby likes one language more than the other. The answer is quite easy: What does a baby want the most? The method is known as “high-amplitude sucking-preference procedure”. Here’s the entire study.
Image Credit: flickr, BadrNaseem.

I grew up with Star Trek. The first years I never wondered why Captain Picard and his crew could communicate with aliens without any difficulty. After all, the universal language is English, right? 😉 With the latest (and newest) episodes we know that the first Enterprise had a language specialist on board. And then the universal translator was invented. Now apparently Google wants to leapfrog innovation and build a phone that can translate at an instant, as I read in The Times the other day. Now, is that maybe why …

Now, we all now that pronouncing a foreign name correctly can be difficult and sometimes end up very embarrassing. One of my “alltime favorites” is Jorge, pronounced rchohrchä (hopefully!). I just came across a website which helps you pronounce every name correctly. The fancy title is howtosaythatname.com. Try is out yourself, it has hundreds of names, ranging from Spanish to Vietnamese and Japanese. Pretty neat.
Image credit: wwarby, flickr.

I just came across an article about the strangest Australian tourism questions. Who asks which train to catch going from Fiji to New Zealand? Unbelievable. That actually reminds me of being in Berlin a couple of years ago. Standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate the guide explained exactly where the Berlin Wall used to be. One tourist seriously asked: “But why would they build a Gate in front of a wall?” Yeah, why? Someone explain please while I try to calm down.
image credit: Linh_rOm, flickr

Just stumbled across another translation fail on failblog.org. It is really unbelievable how people just use automatic translation software and then crap like this happens. I vaguely remember one picture with a restaurant sign showing the name in the native language and the English translation being “This service is currently unavailable.” You could start laughing if it wasn’t so sad. Guys, get a professional translation, it’s not that expensive!