Mango Languages

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

St. Patricks Day is is quickly approaching  and Mango Languages has just what you need to speak a little Irish on St. Patricks Day. But first, check out some of these fun trivia facts about this green holiday:

• The very first St. Patrick’s Day parade was not in Ireland. It was in Boston in 1737.
• Green is associated with Saint Patrick’s Day because it is the color of spring, of Ireland, and of the shamrock.
• 19 Presidents of the United States proudly claim Irish heritage—including our first President, George Washington.
• There are four places in the United States named Shamrock (West Virginia, Texas, Indiana, Oklahoma) and nine Dublin’s (Dublin, California and Dublin, Ohio are most populous)

Using our Irish course, you won’t only learn how to converse in Irish, but you’ll also learn some insight into the Irish culture.

And if you’d like to ask someone if they would like something to drink…

Or if you find yourself on the receiving side of that question…

From everyone at Mango, we wish you a happy and safe St. Patrick’s Day!

Happy International Mother Language Day!

“The language of our thoughts and our emotions is our most valuable asset. Multilingualism is our ally in ensuring quality education for all, in promoting inclusion and in combating discrimination. ”
- Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO

Today is  International Mother Language Day, which is meant to promote linguistic and cultural diversity, as well as multilingualism. It was originally announced in 1999 by UNESCO and has been in observance since February 2000.

Do you have any plans to celebrate your Mother language today? Here are different suggestions on how you can celebrate in your own way:

1) Read a poem, story or book in your mother language
2) Do you know someone who has a different mother language than you? Ask them to share a short song or poem in that language. Or maybe teach you a couple of words.
3) Watch a film in your mother language. Or celebrate someone else’s mother language and watch a film with them in their language with subtitles in your language.
4) Visit your local library to explore their foreign language book offerings and check out if they have Mango Languages.  ;)
5) Use Mango Languages to practice a language you’re learning or celebrate by trying to learn a new one.
6) Check out your local university communities to look for cultural events, discussions, celebrations, and festivals
7) Learn more about endangered languages and what individuals and organizations, including UNESCO, are doing to help prevent different languages becoming extinct.
8) Visit UNESCO.org to learn more about International Mother Language day and what different organizations around the world are doing.

Do you have any other suggestions on how to celebrate this multilingual day? 

Ringing in the new year…in four new languages.

Want to learn Romanian?  Good news: Mango has a course for that.  And for Swahili, Modern Standard Arabic, and Egyptian Arabic – four new courses released today to our complete database subscribers.  Expanding our language offerings is just one of the many ways we’re working to make Mango sweeter, both for you and your patrons in 2013.

The new year also means it is time for us to travel to Seattle for the 2013 ALA Midwinter Conference.  Stop by booth #1215 to learn more about these four new courses and all the ways Mango shows our love for clients.  Tell us how to say “I love Mango” in Romanian, and we’ll give you our free “Language Love Affair” mini-course download.

English: I love Mango
Romanian:  Eu iubesc Mango (ee-YOH YOO-besk MAHN-go)

Happy new year and happy learning!

Eat Your Way Around the World

As you learn a different language, it can also be a great time to learn about the cuisine of that language’s country or culture.

In the book, Hungry Planet, Photographer Peter Menzel profiles 30 familes around the world and offers descriptions of that family’s weekly food purchases. It is a small, but very interesting,  insight into how and what families in different countries eat.

After looking through some of these pictures, it made me want to learn how to make some meals from around the world! Check out this food around the world website to get some ideas and learn a little more about different cuisines.

Here is a Turkish dish I tried on my own called, “Hünkar Beğendi” or as some like to refer to it, “Sultan’s Delight”.  There a couple of different stories as to why the name of “Sultan’s Delight” was given to the dish. Maybe you’ll have your own theory after you try it!

Do you have any favorite dishes that you’ve tried? Or what are some popular dishes in your native cuisine? Happy cooking, but most importantly, happy eating!

Why do you learn a language?

While the end result may be the same for many language-learners, the motivation can be unique for every learner.

Below are three quotes that relate to  three different situations I found myself in this past week.

1.
“Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.”
‒Flora Lewis

While catching up with an old friend from high school and mentioning where I worked, I was excited to hear that he had not only heard of Mango Languages, but he was also starting to use it, thanks to Mango Military through the US coastguard! He  shared his new goal to learn Spanish as a new dad and husband. It seemed random at first, as both him and his wife, and their families, all speak English. When I asked why, he told me that he wants to learn Spanish to be able to better communicate with the teachers at his son’s daycare.  It was great to see him making such an effort to ensure that communication was always clear for the well-being of his son, but it also was great to see that language-barriers don’t have to push people apart, in fact in this situation, it is only bringing people closer!

2.
“The limits of my language are the limits of my world.”
‒Ludwig Wittgenstein

A friend from Mexico who recently moved to the United States for work asked me if I knew any fun and easy ways to learn a new language (Mango Languages!) so that his girlfriend who is still in Mexico could start learning English.  After telling him all about Mango Languages I realized that he also had a unique motivation for learning a different language; his future! It was touching to see that he thought about his girlfriend’s comfort and success as they contemplate their future together beyond their comfort zone and in a foreign country.

3.
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.”
-Nelson Mandela

Hitting a little closer to home, my Turkish boyfriend’s parents, after hearing all about my new job at Mango Languages, wanted to know how and how fast they could start learning English. With my efforts to learn Turkish and their effort to learn English, I was excited at the prospect of us being able to communicate without needing a constant translator (the boyfriend ). I was also touched that they were willing to take time and put an effort into learning a language in order to be able to talk to me and my family. It also made me realize how much it would mean to them and to my boyfriend for me to be able to speak to them in their native language. Without doubt, my Turkish-learning experience continues!

After talking to these friends and family, I realized how extremely happy and thankful I was for being able to be a part of their language-learning experience. In the end, everyone has a different motivation for learning a language. Maybe it is out of necessity, or out of thirst for knowledge, or maybe its for love.  Whatever it may be, I hope you continue to find motivation and encouragement!

Happy Thanksgiving – Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias!

As Thanksgiving is only one day away in the United States, all of us at Mango want to express our gratitude to you for your constant support and passion that make our job  so enjoyable!

Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful but it is also a time to celebrate culture. And what a better way than to explore how people from all over the world celebrate their own Thanksgiving and how people all around the US add their unique traditions as well.

Growing up in a Mexican-American household, Thanksgiving is a perfect example of how two culture can fuse together while still bringing unique traditions to the table (no pun intended!).

While we have the traditional Turkey, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie, you can’t expect to sit at my family’s table without also having tortillas and Mexican rice. And instead of only saying Happy Thanksgiving, we also say “Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias”, with a combination of Spanish, English, and even Spanglish conversations all around the table.

And with so many different cultures in the United States, I know my family isn’t the only one to incorporate different cultural foods or traditions into a very traditional American holiday. Take a look at how Arabic cuisine can incorporate “…hummus, tabouli salad, garlic dip, batata harra, which is sautéed potatoes, as an alternative to the mashed potatoes,”  as  Denise Hazime, of Mediterranean cooking website DedeMed.com explains.

Other countries also celebrate Thanksgiving in their own way. The day and way of celebrating may be different, but it is clear that traditions, culture, and most importantly, giving thanks, are always the main components of this special day.

In what ways do you add your own flavor to Thanksgiving?

Is there an international language? Part Two.

In the previous post we looked briefly at the main factors that can lead to the abandonment and loss of a language.  Let’s see now what happens nowadays to foresee if of the 83 major languages, one will surpass all others and be crowned THE language.

Part 2: What Is the Situation Today

Let’s say first that from a biological standpoint, the existence of only one language is not impossible. Our brains are hardwired to learn language, not a language. A child will learn the language(s) s/he is exposed to, regardless of their nationality. For example, a Chinese child will learn Chinese if s/he is exposed to Chinese, or Japanese if s/he is exposed to Japanese.

So, what is the situation today?

There is still immigration.

There are social forums, where people want to communicate and make friends with people sometimes in the other part of the planet, speaking a different language, so they need a lingua franca, a language commonly known.

There are new developments and so new vocabulary is used, and languages either create new words to cover that need or adopt the foreign word as is; there is osmosis, attrition, “languages” like Chinglish, or Spanglish.

There are movements of language revitalization: despite the efforts of the former Spanish dictator Franco to stamp out the regional languages of Spain, today Catalan is stronger than ever; similarly, efforts are made to restore Irish, Cornish and other languages whose speakers were forced to abandon them.

All these phenomena have been with languages since day 1. People have always come into contact and had lingua francas. Languages have always come into contact and borrowed or lent words; new words have always been created to cater for new needs. Creoles have been created.

But is there coercion? Is there loss of self-esteem? Is there conscious effort to keep up with the changes or are the changes too rapid for us to keep up pace with them?

Maybe the answer to the two first questions is no, or not to the same extend as in the past, but we must explore the third one more in depth. One word that characterizes “today” is “globalization.” People today come into contact more often than before, through forums, blogs etc. The reason why there were so many languages in the past was that people lived in small settlements of a few speakers, sometimes in complete isolation, and used a lingua franca whenever they had to communicate with other tribes; they met, solved their issues, and left to meet much time later, if ever. But today, people use the Internet on an everyday basis. Services are created that are addressed to the world as a whole. Translation of services is costly and sometimes it cannot be done automatically and hence on time.

Languages must keep up with the technological changes. If a page is not translated into someone’s native language but is translated into English and s/he speaks English, then s/he will read it in English. There is automatic translation but if only English is supported then the future of the other languages is bleak.

There is much need for an international lingua franca, and the English Language is the best candidate. The question now is, will it prevail? Are we – or rather our children’s children – going to experience an anti-Babel phenomenon?

Why give up a language when you can speak both your language and the lingua franca?

No reason, probably, but let’s look at what happened in Italy: Before 1861, there were many states in Italy and as many languages: if someone from Milan met someone from Sicily, they wouldn’t be able to communicate. After 1861 when all these states were united, through education, but more importantly for our topic, through the mass media, the Italian language has been homogenized and is now what we call “Italian.”

Can there be a similar case today through the Internet? Can people unconsciously start using one language more and more until they forget their native tongues?

This is yet to be seen.