Mango Languages

Mango Voice Talent

Have you ever aspired to be a voice-over talent? If you have an interesting and appealing voice, you would be a good candidate for the job.  Just imagine – getting paid for speaking!

Many people enjoy recording for commercials, television promos, animation, audio books, radio and in other fields. The voice-over talents are in a high demand in the language learning industry, especially foreign-language speakers.  However, those who think the voice-over work is a piece of cake are wrong! It is not just the ability to talk to the microphone and being able to create special effects in the recording software. Voice-over is a profession that requires lots of studying, training, practice and perseverance.

If studying is something you like to do, I will share a very easy tip on how to be a better voice talent: just smile! The specialists and instructors in the field have discovered that when a voice-talent is smiling while reading the script, his or her voice becomes more appealing and softer. That’s easy, right?

Have you ever worked as a voice-over talent?

Fall is All Around

Hello friends,

When you look out of your window, do you experience as amazing fall colors as we do here in Michigan? Red, yellow, green, brown…  Monet would surely be inspired looking at this beautiful array of colors and would probably create another great masterpiece inspired by Michigan’s beauty.  Mother Nature was very gracious to Detroit these last few days. She granted us with lots of sun and warm air. What about smell? No, I am not talking about the pollution in the city! If you are outside, stop for a moment, close your eyes, forget about the world and smell….. I smell fresh fall leaves, a little bit of rain. And just when you think the gloom of winter is near, out comes the sun – oops, a sunbeam just touched my nose! I love fall!! Isn’t life amazing when we actually stop for a moment to enjoy all the beauty that this planet has to offer?

Looking at all the fall colors I always remember my home country, Ukraine, which is also very beautiful during the fall. Ukraine has very similar weather, breathtaking fall colors, and lots of apples.  Speaking of apples, this past weekend my one-year-old daughter enjoyed her first trip to the Cider Mill with my family and she loooooved the apple cider.  It is amazing because she gets the privilege to experience so many things for the first time in her life. Even though she might not be able to remember them for a long time being so young, childhood memories do build up and amazingly influence our being.

How do you experience fall?

Ukrainian Easter Egg

We can almost feel the breeze of spring in the air and for many Catholics throughout the world spring time is often associated with Easter. If someone sent you an Easter postcard with the following message

would you be able to read it?
Don’t worry, after reading this blog you will be an encoding pro!

Signs and symbols had been the means of ancient communication for ages.  These particular signs and many others are used in Ukrainian pysanky and mean wishes for good health, fortune, and prosperity.  Pysanky is the ancient Eastern European art of egg decorating, and Ukrainian pysanky are famous throughout the world.  The name comes from the verb to write (pysaty), as you use a stylus to write with wax on the egg shell.

Ukrainian Easter egg decorating has been handed down through generations of Ukrainian people.  Over 2,000 years ago, before the time of Christ, people decorated eggs believing that great powers were embodied in the egg.  Eggs symbolized the release of the earth from the shackles of winter and the coming of spring with its promise of new hope, new life, and prosperity.  With the advent of Christianity, Easter eggs came to symbolize the Resurrection and the promise of eternal life.  Legend has it that as long as pysanky are decorated, goodness will prevail over evil throughout the world.

A completed Ukrainian pysanka may look like one of these:

While a standard pysanka is the size of an egg, some countries are known for building the world largest pysanky. For example, a 13-meter pysanka was built in the year 2000 in Ukraine in the city of Kolomyya as a part of the museum structure.  Almost 45 feet–pretty amazing!

So, if you would like to get a little more creative this year and send either an Easter postcard or an egg, be proactive and intrigue the recipient with one of the messages encoded in signs.

Click here to see a few examples of other commonly used pysanka signs.

Happy Easter! What are some of your Easter traditions?

International Women's Day – March 8th

Women of Mango, the US, and the entire world – Happy March 8!!!!!

March 8th is International Women’s Day which celebrates the economic, political, and social achievements of women past, present, and future.  Did you know that in some places like China, Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam, and Bulgaria, March 8th is a national holiday? These countries do really love their women ☺!
Even though March 8th originated in the USA, it is not well-known holiday here.  Many associate this holiday with the Socialist movements of the 20th century; however, in many regions of the world, the day has lost its political flavor, and has simply become an occasion for men to express their love for women in a way somewhat similar to a mixture of Mother’s Day and St Valentine’s Day.

The Women’s Day was and still is a very popular holiday in Ukraine (the country where I was born and raised).  Mothers, grandmothers, wives, sisters, aunts, schoolmates, coworkers – no one lacks attention on this day.  Children prepare self-made postcards with flowers and greetings for their moms; husbands do dishes, laundry and house cleaning (what a true holiday!), and they give the women they love spring flowers. I woke up this morning and saw a beautiful bouquet of spring flowers in front of me – what a great start of the day!  Kudos to my husband ☺.  It brought me a memory of how I got my first flower and first kiss on the March 8th – well, I was 4 and yes, it happened in  kindergarten…

Does your family celebrate March 8th?