The Top 100 Language Lovers Competition has started

Good evening everybody! Hope you are doing well and enjoying this wonderful weekend. My weekend has been going very well and I am very thankful for this time of long walks with my daughter, rest, joy and peace.

This week has brought an unexpected but good surprise to me as my Facebook page was nominated for Top 100 Language Lovers Competition hosted by bab.la language portal and Lexiophiles blog.

You can find out more about the whole process here. Right now it's the nomination stage. You can nominate any language blog, Facebook page or Twitter user. Here's what it says in the Lexiophiles blog about the 1st stage:

"As always, we need your help to find the best of the best for the following categories:
1. Language Learning Blogs (blogs about language learning & teaching)
2. Language Professionals Blogs (blogs from translators, interpreters etc. on the professional usage of languages)
3. Language Facebook Pages (Facebook pages about language, language learning etc.)
4. Language Twitterers (Twitter accounts focused on language, language learning etc.)

The nominations for the Top 100 Language Lovers 2011 competition are open until May 16th, 23:59 hours German time. Nominate your favorite Blogs, Facebook Pages and Twitter Accounts by sending an e-mail with the URL to giulia (at) bab (dot) la or just leave a comment below."

Some of my wonderful colleagues nominated for the Competition are Catherine Christaki (@LanguaGreca on Twitter), Dimitris Mantas (@translategreek), No Peanuts for Monkeys (@No_Peanuts), Language News (@Langology) and Celine Graciet (@NTceline).

So why am I writing all this? I am inviting you to participate! If you like this blog please feel free to join my Facebook page and vote for it from May 17th until May 29th 23:59 German time. I am inviting you also to vote for other brilliant language professionals nominated for the Competition. And if you think that there is somebody who was overlooked in the process and also needs to be nominated - this is the perfect time to nominate them!

Have a wonderful Sunday and a great week!

Translation Forum Russia 2017: my report

A few days ago I came back from Translation Forum Russia which took place in Ufa, Bashkortostan . My daughter Delia went with me because she never visited Ufa before (neither have I) and because of the trip to the Southern Ural mountains we planned to take after the conference with a small group of colleagues. Ufa is not considered one of the primary tourist attractions of Russia, though I am convinced now that it definitely should be. Some pictures of the city (not all of the pictures are mine, some were made by the official photographer of the conference Elena Ekaterininskaya, our company CEO Fedor Kondratovich and some other colleagues): The bee is a symbol of the region as Bashkortostan produces the best honey in Russia. We saw installations shown below in different parts of the city. There were still covered because of the cold weather, but they will be full of blooming flowers as soon as the warm weather comes. The bee as we saw it That's what it...

10 interesting facts about the Russian language

In my previous post I promised to follow with the interesting info about some other languages. So here are 10 facts about the Russian language which might be of interest to those who are studying it. If you would like to have this list in Russian, please contact me and I will send it to you by email. So, what do I find interesting about my native language? 1. Russian has about 500,000 words, but only 2,000-2,500 of them are used frequently. 100 most frequently used words make 20% of all written and oral speech. A high school graduate's vocabulary usually has 1,500 to 4,000 words. Those who have graduated from a higher educational institution normally have a richer vocabulary consisting of approximately 8,000 words. 2. It's compulsory for all astronauts in the international space station to learn Russian, so we can call it an international language of space :)

15 interesting facts about the English language

I prepared this list for one of my English classes. And then it dawned on me that I can share it with you, too! So here are 15 facts about the English language that I find very interesting. Hope you do, too ;) Rudyard Kipling was fired as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. His dismissal letter said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language. This isn't a kindergarten for amateur writers." No language has more synonyms than English.

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