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Modern Languages, Page 51

14 million language learners from 195 countries on Livemocha

Livemocha claims to be the world’s largest online language learning community. With Livemocha, you can meet native speakers of the language you want to learn, join a language course and have your language exercises reviewed by other community members or by one of the Livemocha ‘experts’. They offer courses in 38 languages at the moment. They also have a regular language learning blog and a Facebook page. Continue reading →

Bo Bing

Visitors to the Southampton Confucius Institute Mid Autumn Festival finished a colourful evening of Chinese music, song and dance by local artists and schools with a game of Bo Bing, or mooncake gambling, which is popular in the city of Xiamen (home to the University of Xiamen, a partner in the Southampton Centre). See the article in the China Daily to see how the game is played. Continue reading →

Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival in Southampton – 2 events

The Confucius Institute at the University of Southampton has hosted a reception to celebrate the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. This festival is the second most important festival in Chinese culture, after Chinese New Year. The festival always falls on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar. The Mid-Autumn Festival is also known as the Moon Festival, as the moon is at its fullest on the 15th day of the lunar calendar. Continue reading →

Work, study or volunteer in another European country with Erasmus for All

The European Commission stresses its commitment to promoting multilingualism in a press statement to celebrate the European Day of Languages on the 26th of September. The EU currently spends around 1 billion euros a year on language related initiatives such as Erasmus which allows higher education students to spend part of their studies or training in another country. Continue reading →

The most multilingual person in the European Commission

According to a European Commission memo issued to celebrate the European Day of Languages on the 26th September, Ioannis Ikonomou, who is a translator for the European Commission, speaks 32 languages. Ioannis was born in Irakleio, Crete. He studied linguistics at the University of Thessaloniki before pursuing an MA in Middle Eastern languages and cultures at Columbia University in the United States. Ioannis has worked for the Commission since 2002. Continue reading →

Youtube videos translated into 300+ languages

YouTube, the video hosting platform, is using Google Translate technology to translate videos into over 300 languages – from Turkish to Tagalog to Tswana – in order to reach wider audiences. CNET reports how video producers can use the automatic caption translation service that uses Google Translate to translate into over 60 languages or the new service which translates more uncommon languages by letting users integrate the YouTube Video Manager with the Google Translator Toolkit. Continue reading →

Modern Languages project highlighted in new film release

This Friday sees the launch of “To say goodbye”: an animated documentary film based on the Spanish Civil War oral histories of “Los Niños”, which will have its premiere at the San Sebastian Film Festival on 28th September. This film highlights the significant work of Alicia Pozo-Gutierrez from the Department of Modern Languages and others involved in this project. See the film website for more details. Continue reading →

New academic year, new language?

Why not start a new language this year and add to your employability? You can take a language module as an option through the Curriculum Innovation programme – choose from Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. To find out more, follow the Curriculum Innovation or Language Module links. Do tell us if there is a language you would like to learn that we don’t yet offer. Continue reading →

BBC World Service news in 33 languages

News and analysis from around the world can be accessed online in English and 32 different other languages from the BBC World Service website. The written news reports and audio files can be accessed via PC or mobile devices, including smartphones, and saved locally for you to use again. Use these resources if you want to receive up to date news in your own language or if you want to improve a language you are learning by following news and current affairs from different regions. Continue reading →