Mango Languages

Feature Friday: Libraries Rock

First, I have to say I LOVE my job. And this is one of those times that really reminds me how lucky I am to get to do what I do with such cool customers – Libraries.

Mango likes to have fun…and at the New York Library Association trade show we really like to do it up. Why? Because we have a serious reputation to uphold. We have won best booth for two years running and the themes of the shows keep getting better and better. This years theme is Libraries Rock. And we couldn’t agree more!

Libraries are centers of the community. They are Google, Amazon, and Starbucks all rolled into one super human hero of searching capabilities and knowledge. I read a tweet today from the #nyla11 Hashtag that said 60% of librarians had helped someone get a job this year. Libraries are helping to keep this country working too! Wow!

We are always humbled by the words of love that our customers give to us…we honestly love you too. We wouldn’t be here without you and say thank you for all you have given us! I know that I have made some wonderful librarian friends and can’t wait for next year’s theme and show to do it all again!

Libraries…YOU rock! Thanks for letting us be your groupies!

Meet Mango Elf Gulshen Karahann

Feature Friday:

We have had the pleasure of Gulshen’s presence at the Mango Grove since November of 2010. I recently talked to her about her background and found it super interesting.

Gulshen was born in Korla, People’s Republic of China. She moved to the U.S. in 1999 because her husband was going to graduate school here. She had learned English in college and had studied linguistics, specifically Turkic languages. Gulshen speaks Uyghur (her native tongue, a member of Turkic Language family), Mandarin Chinese, and English. She understands most of the Central Asian languages as well.

She loved the linguistic graduate program back in China as she learned about the history of her native language, why certain words are used and where many words are borrowed from. But when she moved to the U.S. she had to stop her linguistic studies, not many schools here specialize in Turkic languages. Hmmm…I wonder why. She started a family but made a promise to her dad to finish her Master’s degree.

After her son was born she applied to college here in the U.S. and decided to go into accounting. Crazy right!?! A friend of hers said she could get a good job in this field, so she thought she would give it a try. She ended up loving it and finished Schoolcraft College in August 2007 and transferred her credits to Walsh College in September 2007. She received her bachelor’s degree in accounting from Walsh College in December 2009.

She found Mango through an online job search and fell in love with the idea of working at a language company where both her passion for linguistics and her knowledge of accounting could be put into practice. Gulshen is The Numberist (number+linguist) who makes sense of our numbers and accounting here at Mango Languages. We are so glad to have her and her very rich background here at the Grove.

Do you use what you went to school for?

Texting in Different Languages

Mango Monday:
Recently I was texting with a friend who lives in NYC but happens to be Brazilian and I kept seeing “rsrs” after some of his comments. This meant nothing to me…I actually thought it was a typo at first. But quickly realized it might actually mean something when he wrote it a few times in his texts. I asked Josi, the princess of particulars here at Mango who is from Brazil and she confirmed that it did mean something! It was the equivalent to our “ha ha ha.” Wow!

This made me think that texting language is probably different all over the world. Here are just a few languages so now you can be an international texter of mystery!

French: haha = héhé and lol =mdr, which stands for “mort de rire” which translates to “dying of laughter”

Mandarin:
??? (Ha Ha Ha)

Japanese:
??????hahaha?? ha ha ha
?????????= smile / laugh , sometimes they only use ?? to keep things short, but they really like cuteness so instead of they would more likely do something like :
(????) ? ????? ? ?????

Portuguese:
rsrsrs= risos, you can read kkkk, that is the sound of laughing just like hahaha, and you can also read huahuauhahua, that it is another way of hahaha or kkkk.

Do you know of any other languages and their translations for Ha ha or lol? Please share!

Video: Mango Languages – The Mango Culture, Webisode 9

We are a crazy bunch and act very much like a family…see some of our antics here!

If you worked at Mango what kind of office culture would you want to see?

5 Things That Make Good Web Based Software.

As the internet is evolving so are all the great things you and you can do on it.  The Internet is no longer just a place where people go to find information.  It is the place people go to learn, talk to friends, manage their schedules, and much much more.  The web is becoming very interactive.  The tools for creating web based software applications are becoming better and better everyday and the benefits to the user are enormous.  From being able to access your applications anywhere to ease of collaboration with others.

The problem that is being addressed now is…how do you create good software for the web?

There are several challenges that people face and many web applications today are frankly not that good.  So here is a list of things you may want to consider before creating a web application:

1. Never forget who you designed the software for.  The user not your own ego.  Make sure the software works the way the users wants it to work so they find it valuable.  The advantage of the Internet is that it’s easy to collect good user feedback.

2. Simple and good interface design is as important if not more important for users as all of the great things the software can do.  It’s nice to have bells and whistles, but if you need a 400 page manual to figure out how to do what you want to do…then what’s the point.

3. Make sure your team stays abreast of technological advancements.  Every day there are new tools that help to make it easier to access your software and use it.  Software is no longer built once and then sold for years.  Constant, progressive improvement is the key to creating excellent web based software

4. Great web based software is not created by one person, it’s created by a team that carries multiple talents.  The key is to get great designers, programmers, and specialists in the field you are creating the software in to work together in harmony to create something remarkable.

5. Have a passion and a belief in what you are creating.  There are too many people today who are trying to make a quick buck on the Internet.  It’s nice to make money, but you will never create something that is great and useful without people who really are passionate and believe in what is being created and put their heart and soul into doing it.

The Internet has recovered from the .com bubble, but still we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg  of the potential of this new and revolutionary resource.

What do you think makes good web based software?