10/30/2006 - 10/31/2006

Chinese fail to embrace hugs from strangers

Chinese appear not to have warmed to a "free hugs" campaign aimed at cheering up strangers by hugging them on the street, with some huggers even being hauled away by police for questioning, media said Monday.

The campaign hit the streets of Beijing, Changsha and Xian this weekend, with participants opening their arms to embrace passers-by and brandishing cards saying "free hugs," "care from strangers," "refuse to be apathetic," the Beijing News said.

translation market looks good in vietnam

The publishing market in Viet Nam today is richer and more various. Foreign books translated by Vietnamese writers, including overseas Vietnamese, are invading the book shops and selling quickly, only later to be replaced by other recently translated novels, short stories, dictionaries and reference books.

Some 10,000 copies of the American best-seller The World is Flat by New York Times editorial writer Thomas L Freidman sold out two months after leaving the printing house. That set a record in the history of publishing in Viet Nam and is evidence that the reading public has become more critical and demanding.

Bilingual pupils 'are an asset'

Bilingual children are a valuable resource and more should be done to support the learning and retention of dual languages, a report says. Cilt, the centre for languages, said research showed that language learning enhanced educational attainment.

bank of ireland taps in polish market

Bank of Ireland today announced that the lines are now open to its new Polish Language Telephone Helpdesk. The Helpdesk offers a range of banking services to the Polish community in Ireland in their own language. It is estimated that there are now over 160,000 Polish people living in Ireland and this figure is set to continue to grow.

chinglish.com

As ambitious parents in western countries cram their children into Mandarin classes and career-minded Chinese students study English, an online service has stepped into the fray -- Chinglish.com.

Chinglish -- a word which returned no results on Dictionary.com or online dictionary Merriam-Webster -- is typically taken to mean a sort of Chinese-English pidgin.

The term echoes the term "Engrish," which is used to describe mistranslations into English in Asian countries and has led rise to cult Web sites such as www.engrish.com.

word of the day: wan

wan \WAHN\, adjective:
1. Having a pale or sickly hue; pale; pallid.
2. Lacking vitality, as from weariness, illness, or unhappiness; feeble.
3. Lacking in intensity or brightness; dim or feeble.

She was concerned about her grandson's wan appearance. "So skinny," she would say in Yiddish, "such a plucked little owl." -- Herbert G. Goldman, Banjo Eyes

Her pale, pinched lips, sunken eyes and wan, haggard cheeks presented a mournful contrast to her former self. -- Wilkie Collins, Iolani

Education minister in London to launch Spanish language scheme

The Spanish Education and Science minister, Mercedes Cabrera, is in London today to attend the launch of the 'Languages Work, Spanish' campaign, which is a joint project involving the Education Council of the Spanish Embassy and the UK National Language Centre.

Ms Cabrera said that the programme aims to "promote the learning of Spanish, which, according to the figures, is an increasingly popular language in this country," especially in the primary and adult education sectors, although there are some "complications" in secondary schools.

British expats trapped in the sun

Thousands of British retirees who have moved abroad in search of the good life in the sun are instead ending up in poverty, ill and alone, according to a stark warning from the Foreign Office.

Officials say the problem is growing fast as the first big wave of expat retirees, who went overseas in the Eighties, reach old age. Many of them fail to understand the welfare and support systems of foreign countries and end up isolated after the deaths of partners and friends.

Workplace challenge is cultural diversity

Next week is Anti- Racist Workplace Week, which runs from November 6 to 12. Anti-Racist Workplace Week is about organisations and enterprises taking initiatives to celebrate cultural diversity in the workplace and to lay the foundations for a workplace that is inter-cultural and integrated.

In 2006 the theme of Anti- Racist Workplace Week will be integration.

The Race Relations (Northern Ireland) Order 1997 as amended prohibits discrimination on the grounds of race where race includes people of a particular racial group or people of a particular ethnic or national origin, colour or nationality, and includes members of the Traveller community.

chinese phone translation service debuts

China Mobile users, especially foreigners, will never have to worry that their non-English-speaking friends cannot read English messages, or vice versa, thanks to a service called SMSOK that the company launched on Friday.

"You type in English, send to 366321. In no time, an accurate Chinese version of the sentence will show up on the receiver's phone," Jin Zhengyu, deputy general manager of Beijing Communications Service Company, told the press on Friday.

"The translation can be as accurate as 85 per cent, since we are using the most advanced software, Linggotax, whose translation memory can enrich itself constantly."

word of the day: febrile

febrile \FEB-ruhl; FEE-bruhl; -bryl\, adjective:
Of or pertaining to fever; indicating fever or derived from it; feverish.

Instead of being weakened by the consumption she contracts in a dank Yankee prison, Adair seems fired from within; she glows -- flushed, febrile and passionate. -- Ann Prichard, "Enemy Women' joins ranks of Civil War epics", USA Today, February 28, 2002

Whether his refusal to quit stemmed from righteous stoicism or mulishness, the Governor-General became trapped in a vortex of lurid claims, political opportunism, public hysteria and febrile op-ed commentary that was sucking the life out of his tenure. -- Tom Dusevic, "Queen's Man In Limbo", Time Pacific, May 19, 2003