Mango Languages

"Do you speak-a my language?"

I love that line in the Men at Work song “Land Down Under.”   Probably dates me a bit though!

Did you know that 85% of Mangoes in our Headquarters speak a foreign language and several of them do not speak English at home? All of our 150 developers and editors are 100% bi-lingual.   Language is more than just what we do for a living, it is an important part of who we are as individuals.   Many of us have lived abroad, were raised by multilingual families, and/or studied foreign languages formally in secondary school and college.

Many of the staff members are tri-lingual and some can even speak four or five languages.  I am always impressed by all the foreign languages I hear around the office.  For example, at lunch today about 10 of us were discussing slang Russian/Ukrainian terms.   We often times discuss cultural norms and language nuances.

I am always learning something new about the world around me, and for that I am very grateful.

Do you know of any other companies that are so linguistically diverse?

Mango Summer Fiesta Friday Fun

Last Friday after work, we got together and played on the new Mango Languages’ Patio at our new office.

We love Stephen’s laugh!  Can’t help but smile too!

ALA Rally on Capitol Hill

The Mango Languages Team joined over 1,000 librarians to march on Capitol Hill to help bring attention to the budget shortages in Public Libraries.

Have you written your Congressional representative to tell them how important libraries are to you?

First Day of ALA Annual 2010 Conference

We just wrapped up our first day of the show and had such a great day.

Alana, Yana, Bob, Mike, and Stephen all set up the booth.

David, Marco, Jason, and Beverly got to meet the actor Stephen Baldwin on their way to the hotel this morning.

Ryan and Drew came in from a Military show in Virginia, and Franco and Steve arrived later today and chipped in at the last minute.

The booth was busy – lots of folks requesting Mango smoothies.  Many librarians received demonstrations of our online language learning software and heard about all our new products, languages, and features, like:
1. Mango Take-Out and offline USB box product available in 12 languages
2. Little Pim – An interactive children’s language learning software for ages 0-6
3. Mango Mobile – An iPhone application that works just like the regular software designed specifically for the i-suite of products.
4. 35 new languages being released by the end of the year
5. Promotional/reward system that is second to none

Everyone walked away with something – whether it was a Mango Badge Ribbon, Smoothie, or a Mango BPA free water bottle.

So much fun! Can’t wait for tomorrow!

Moving the Mango Orchard

Mango Languages is happy to announce that we are moving our office! With all the new additions to our staff as of late, it has become more and more necessary to accommodate additional desk space, work areas, and even extra rooms to compensate for our growing promotional item requests.

The new office will be only about a mile away from where we are located at the moment, but it’s still a great deal of work getting everything into the new building. With the space still under construction, the move-in day has been set during the week of ALA’s Annual Conference, so we’re all packing our desks into boxes before leaving for the show. Everyone is taking bets on who will show up at the wrong office when we all return!

Our new shipping address:

30445 Northwestern Hwy. Suite 300

Farmington Hills, MI  48334

Have you ever worked in an office that you felt needed to be a bit bigger?  Do you think it affects how well you work?

Sales Celebration for a Mango Language Learning Specialist

We love you Marco!

10 Ways English Takes You Out To The Ball Game

Yesterday was a reminder of the extent that American sports has infiltrated the English language and just how unique baseball is to the American culture.

The Mango Team got to spend the afternoon at a Detroit Tigers’ Game, where we sported our orange Mango shirts proudly. Much of our staff is international and many of our team members had never been to a baseball game. Jamie our accountant is from China, and she even printed out the rules of the game before she went. It was really hard for me to even imagine not knowing the names of certain aspects of the sport because baseball is so much a part of life here in the U.S. If you don’t the the game than you probably would have a hard time with these idiomatic phrases.

Think about it:
1. 3 strikes and you’re out (you only three chances to do it right)
2. Hitting a homerun (when you do something well)
3. Hit it outta the ballpark (same as above)
4. First Base, Second Base, Third Base (all sexual dating terms)
5. He is out in left field (when someone is thinking differently than the group)
6. Batter up (who is next in line to speak or present)
7. Being on deck (same as above)
8. Someone throws you a curve ball (tells you something you didn’t expect)
9. He made a bad call (when someone doesn’t see what really happened or make the right choice)
10. He is on the Home Team (someone who is on your side)

Can you think of any I missed?

We had a great time at the game – check out a clip of the fun below.

Video: Mandarin Chinese Tongue Twister

Jamie in accounting at Mango Languages shows off her mad tongue twister skills in Mandarin Chinese. Can you repeat what she says? We couldn’t!

Funny Video: English Lesson – How to Pronounce The "th" Sound

Late last Friday – a few Mango Languages staffers sat down and had a couple drinks while they practiced pronunciation of the “th” sound based on a Learn English Pronunciation exercise we found on the internet. Note…this is not the way we teach English!

The results a very funny video. Check it out and let us know what you think of our English pronunciation!!

Start Up Weekend – Detroit

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of speaking to young entrepreneurs at Start Up Weekend in Detroit.   There were about 20 potential business ideas that were pitched on the first day, and the field was narrowed down to about 8 ideas through a voting process.  A group was formed for each of the selected ideas with the goal of creating a business plan to take the idea to the next level.   To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much because there was such a short period of time for the whole idea to be fleshed out and presented.  However there were two groups I talked to in more detail…I was very impressed and thought the groups and the ideas had some real potential.

Start Up Weekend is a fairly new event in Detroit, I can see this becoming much larger in the next few years.  It’s exactly what Michigan needs right now!