Online dictionaries: which is best?
Posted on August 30, 2010
The new edition of the Oxford English Dictionary will be online-only. Many of its rivals – Collins, Chambers et al - have already launched free web versions. But which one is the wordsmith's best friend?
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Oxford English Dictionary 'will not be printed again'
Posted on August 29, 2010
The next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, the world’s most definitive work on the language, will never be printed because of the impact of the internet on book sales.
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Wired youth forget how to write in China and Japan
Posted on August 29, 2010
A poll commissioned by the China Youth Daily in April found that 83 percent of the 2,072 respondents admitted having problems writing characters. Character amnesia matters because memorisation is so crucial to character-based written languages, says Siok Wai Ting, assistant professor of linguistics at Hong Kong University. Forgetting how to write could eventually affect reading ability.
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Ebonics translators needed by DEA to interpret drugs wiretaps
Posted on August 25, 2010
The US is seeking to hire nine people fluent in Ebonics - or African American patois - in order to interpret wiretapped conversations between suspected drug dealers, sparking controversy as many do not consider it a language.
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Jobless graduates find an international opening
Posted on August 15, 2010
Teaching English as a foreign language pays up to £1,500 a month – and you get to see the world
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Robert Fisk: Our language has a way of turning women into men
Posted on August 14, 2010
A week ago, in my front-page story on the Hiroshima commemoration, I planted a little trap for our sub-editors. I referred to Vita Sackville-West as a "poetess". And sure enough, the sub (or "subess") changed it – as I knew he or she would – to "poet". Aha! Soon as I saw it, I knew I could write this week about the mysterious – not to say mystical – grammar of feminism and political correctness.
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Learning a Language Online
Posted on August 14, 2010
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Keeping Cajun Alive
Posted on August 14, 2010
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Yes We Can Learn English
Posted on August 14, 2010
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Frenchman Wants to Rescue Extinct Language
Posted on August 10, 2010
Eyak is an indigenous Alaskan language that has an unlikely ally- a 21 year old Frenchman named Guillaume Leduey. WSJ's Jim Carlton reports.
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    • Japanese Firm Mandates Employees to Speak English
    Posted on August 6, 2010
    The Tokyo-based online retail company Rakuten has made it company policy for its employees to conduct their daily business in English. WSJ's Daisuke Wakabayashi embedded with the Japanese employees to see how they are coping with the changes.
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    • UK tightens English language test rules for foreign students
    Posted on August 4, 2010
    In a bid by ministers to deter bogus applicants, tens of thousands of international students who want to study in the UK will from this month be required to prove a minimum English language ability. But the move to make one of 12 "Secure English language tests" compulsory, which comes into effect on 12 August, has raised concerns that the UK Border Agency (UKBA) has selected the tests solely because of their security measures and lack a detailed understanding of the evidence of language ability that they provide.
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    Lost in Translation
    Posted on July 29, 2010
    New cognitive research suggests that language profoundly influences the way people see the world; a different sense of blame in Japanese and Spanish
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    Germany launches campaign to save language from English
    Posted on July 27, 2010
    German language experts have launched a campaign against the hybrid "Denglish" which they claim is polluting culture through its growing use in advertising and television.
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    As English Spreads, Indonesians Fear for Their Language
    Posted on July 26, 2010
    JAKARTA, Indonesia — Paulina Sugiarto’s three children played together at a mall here the other day, chattering not in Indonesia’s national language, but English. Their fluency often draws admiring questions from other Indonesian parents Ms. Sugiarto encounters in this city’s upscale malls.
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    Global migration and language testing in focus
    Posted on July 20, 2010
    How much language competence do migrants need in order to integrate or become citizens? Many countries ask for a basic command, but what is a fair way to assess that level? Welcome to our special section exploring the complex issues that arise from testing requirements
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    Proficiency rule blocked by UK court; Rwanda gets language aid; Abu Dhabi eyes early English
    Posted on July 20, 2010
    Students will not have to prove that they already have a good command of English before arriving in Britain after a judge ruled that the UK government should not have change immigration rules without first getting parliamentary approval.
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    Linguistic traps await deep-cover spies
    Posted on July 20, 2010
    Members of an alleged Russian spy ring were attempting to pass as ordinary Americans, but assuming native-speaker identity can be a very difficult act to get right
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    Battle intensifies for $2bn English-teaching business in China
    Posted on July 14, 2010
    Chinese children with affluent parents are packed off to classes staffed by American, Canadian and British teachers as soon as they can speak. High school students are frequently enrolled in extra-curricular classes to cram for the English component of the university entrance exam. And young professionals aspiring to a more interesting and lucrative career flock to classrooms and online lessons and even stadiums alongside tens of thousands of other evangelical linguists. To meet this rising demand, there are now an estimated 30,000 organisations or companies offering private English classes in China. The market has nearly doubled in size in the last five years and is now worth around $3.1bn.
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    Teaching Machine Sticks to Script in South Korea
    Posted on July 11, 2010
    SEOUL, South Korea — Carefully trained by a government-run lab, she is the latest and perhaps most innovative recruit in South Korea’s obsessive drive to teach its children the global language of English. The country, known for its enthusiasm for technology, is “hiring” hundreds of robots as teacher aides and, and is experimenting with robots that would teach English.
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