A joke really only has two parts โ the set-up (I'm on the new whiskey dietโฆ) and the punchline (I've lost three days already). The punchline is of course the funny bit and comes at the end, though for a longer joke, smaller humorous parts, known as jab lines, can be sprinkled in. If you've ever heard an unfunny joke, [...]
Food is a subject nearly everyone holds dear, but expressing our love of food in different languages is not so easy. Most people are proud of a particular food or dish from their culture, and eager to share it with a visitor. Similarly, most of us are excited to sample exotic new dishes or even try our hand at [...]
Language is one of our worldโs most powerful tools, and throughout history, governments and large organizations have used different forms of language planning as a way to control that power. In a broad sense, language planning is an organized effort by a major entity to change a societyโs language. These efforts can be, and usually are, done for the [...]
As students, many of us took part in some type of foreign language instruction at school, and depending on your age and country, this could have ranged from incomprehensible teacher lectures to singing songs, to intense grammar drilling. In the world of education, second language acquisition philosophies and practices change at a rapid clip, and the new breakthrough methodology [...]
From the moment we learn to control our mouths, lungs, and vocal cords as infants, we yearn to speak. As babies, we babble and attempt to copy words, and with no formal instruction at all, we can typically grasp the basics of speaking in under a year and begin to communicate. Neurolinguists have shown that our brainโs superior temporal [...]
One of modern civilizationโs most commonly used tools sits just beneath our fingertips, as our keyboards provide us with an arsenal of approximately 80 numbers, letters, and commands, all ready to do our bidding. For those of us who utilize the Roman alphabet (approximately 70% of all major languages), we press these keys in various combinations and assemble the [...]
Foreign language degrees in the United States have evolved beyond traditional literature-focused programs. In 2026, advanced language skills are increasingly valued across industries such as law, healthcare, technology, international business, education, and government. While machine translation continues to grow, employers consistently seek professionals who can communicate accurately, understand cultural nuance, and operate in multilingual environments where precision [...]
The company of your dreams emails you to set up an online interview. Itโs going to be held in a foreign language, but thatโs okay. You've spent your entire life studying, getting job experience, and preparing for this moment that will give you financial freedom, a new career trajectory, and an adventure in a new land. And now youโre [...]
"What's in a name?" Shakespeare's Juliet famously asked. The answer, it turns out, depends entirely on where you were born. As a translation company, we work daily with birth certificates, marriage certificates, and name-change documents from dozens of countries. Few things make the diversity of human culture more visible than the documents people use to prove who [...]
Picture this scenario: A young German executive from a semiconductor manufacturer is sent to pitch a proposal to a high-level business partner in Japan. The German executive knows his companyโs products are superior, and he spends days preparing different documents, case studies, graphs, etc. as evidence. At the meeting he gives these mountains of handouts to the Japanese businessman, [...]
