background preloader

Curiosities

Facebook Twitter

Language Difficulty Ranking - Effective Language Learning. The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) has created a list to show the approximate time you need to learn a specific language as an English speaker.

Language Difficulty Ranking - Effective Language Learning

After this particular study time you will reach “Speaking 3: General Professional Proficiency in Speaking (S3)” and “Reading 3: General Professional Proficiency in Reading (R3)” Please keep in mind that this ranking only shows the view of the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) and some language students or experts may disagree with the ranking. If there is a language in this list you would like to learn and it is in a high difficult category, don’t let this stop you from learning it.

Even if they are ranked as difficult, it does not mean that they are impossible to learn and maybe it is not hard for you at all. Why Rechargeable Batteries Are Rarely Cost Effective – Len Penzo dot Com. Why we need to accept the singular 'they' Sign Up for Our free email newsletters It's been decades since I was a copyeditor, but I haven't given up my long, trusting relationship with the Chicago Manual of Style.

Why we need to accept the singular 'they'

So when I learned that Chicago, along with The Associated Press (AP), had accepted the use of "they" as a singular pronoun last year, I was ready to go along. Not everyone was, though. Dairy company settles overtime suit that hinged on lack of Oxford comma. Legislation & Lobbying By Debra Cassens Weiss Posted Shutterstock.com.

Dairy company settles overtime suit that hinged on lack of Oxford comma

A dairy company in Maine has agreed to pay $5 million to its drivers after a federal appeals court last year found ambiguity in a state overtime law because it lacked an Oxford comma. Los más de 500 errores en la traducción de "El capital" de Marx que han confundido por décadas a los lectores de la obra en español. Derechos de autor de la imagen Hulton Archive/ Getty.

Los más de 500 errores en la traducción de "El capital" de Marx que han confundido por décadas a los lectores de la obra en español

Davos jargon: A crime against the English language? Image copyright Getty Images The annual World Economic Forum takes place amid freezing temperatures in snowy Davos, but inside the myriad meeting rooms and conference halls, there's more than a little hot air.

Davos jargon: A crime against the English language?

Some of this is generated by a form of English unique to this gathering, which can be mystifying - even to the seasoned WEF watcher. To help, we've compiled a short list of bewildering terms and phrases overheard or read at Davos, and attempted to decipher them, with limited success. 2017 October 24 - Where Your Elements Came From. Discover the cosmos!

2017 October 24 - Where Your Elements Came From

Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2017 October 24. Order force: the old grammar rule we all obey without realising. I regularly have cause to recall a scene from a novel called Madder Music, by Peter de Vries, in which the main character, a writer who specialises in polo, hears a match announcer telling newcomers to the ground that, contrary to popular belief, the ball is struck with the side of the mallet, rather than the end.

Order force: the old grammar rule we all obey without realising

The writer, having never realised this before, feels obliged to abandon his life’s work on the spot. It’s a chillingly familiar feeling, although my side-of-the-mallet moments tend to be about writing itself, or at least about language. The Ancient Reasons Why We Have So Many Languages. The thatched roof held back the sun’s rays, but it could not keep the tropical heat at bay.

The Ancient Reasons Why We Have So Many Languages

Culture - The language rules we know – but don’t know we know. Over the weekend, I happened to go viral.

Culture - The language rules we know – but don’t know we know

Or rather a single paragraph from a book I wrote called The Elements of Eloquence went viral. The guilty paragraph went like this: Typeset In The Future. After studying Alien in intimate detail, it’s time to look at the typography and design of Ridley Scott’s other classic sci-fi movie, Blade Runner.

Typeset In The Future

Based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? , Blade Runner cements Scott’s reputation for beautiful, gritty, tech noir science fiction. The study of adjective order and GSSSACPM. Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Silense/iStock/Thinkstock. The Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin America. The link between English and economics. Billions of people around the globe are desperately trying to learn English—not simply for self-improvement, but as an economic necessity. It’s easy to take for granted being born in a country where people speak the lingua franca of global business, but for people in emerging economies such as China, Russia, and Brazil, where English is not the official language, good English is a critical tool, which people rightly believe will help them tap into new opportunities at home and abroad. Why should global business leaders care about people learning English in other parts of the world?

After 130 Years, the Dinosaur Family Tree Gets Dramatically Redrawn - The Atlantic. When I first read Matthew Baron’s new dinosaur study, I actually gasped. Lawrence Krauss’ Brief History of the GUT. Particle physicists had two nightmares before the Higgs particle was discovered in 2012. The first was that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator would see precisely nothing. For if it did, it would likely be the last large accelerator ever built to probe the fundamental makeup of the cosmos. The second was that the LHC would discover the Higgs particle predicted by theoretical physicist Peter Higgs in 1964 ... and nothing else.

Each time we peel back one layer of reality, other layers beckon. So each important new development in science generally leaves us with more questions than answers. 15 English words we stole from Arabic. Sign Up for Our free email newsletters. Blog - SinFaltas.com. The Origin of Just About Everything, Visualized. The world is full of simple questions that have complicated answers. Explaining chavismo Apr 2010 copyedited. Chavez Synth 10. Which languages rule the internet? Google recognises the most languages, across its Translate and Search services – with 348 languages supported on Google Search. Untitled. VENEZUELANS are famously inventive with words. 5 Myths About How Teens Use Technology. Should You Be Capitalizing the Word 'Internet'? How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk - Interactive Graphic. Does Language Influence Culture? (Please see Corrections & Amplifications below.) Why English as the Universal Language of Science Is a Problem for Research.

Technology The vast majority of scientific papers today are published in English. Kill the Password: Why a String of Characters Can't Protect Us Anymore. DuPont and the Chemistry of Deception. KEN WAMSLEY SOMETIMES DREAMS that he’s playing softball again. h10032.www1.hp. Guyana~2.pdf. Of Love and Other Demographics. CIA Meddling, Race Riots, and a Phantom Death Squad. Music: New Music, Music Reviews and Music News. George R.R. Martin. Jamestown excavation unearths four bodies — and a mystery in a small box. 35 Bill Cosby Accusers Tell Their Stories. Norah Jones or Sex Pistols? Thinking style molds taste: study. How language can affect the way we think.

The Psychology of What Makes a Great Story. The English of non-native speakers could make smarter computers. Guía: Respuesta rápida a fallos de seguridad digital - Acceso Libre. US State Department Creates Illustrations Depicting Differences Between British And American English. The Disadvantages of Being Stupid. Her shocking murder became the stuff of legend. But everyone got the story wrong.

Elegy for the Capital-I Internet. Don’t Replace People. Augment Them. — What’s The Future of Work? Sacrificing One Species to Change the Color of Another. The Linguistic Turf Wars Over the Singular 'They' Can Reading Make You Happier? Diccionario UB de la calle: desde "becerro" hasta "chigüire" The Print Shop and the Origins of Emoji. How People Learn to Become Resilient. 25 maps that explain the English language.

Mapped: Chinese Stereotypes of the Americas. El origen de los idiomas, explicado en una preciosa infografía. How to identify any language at a glance. The harsh truth about speed-reading. The Observers’ guide to verifying photos and videos on social media networks. A Cloud Atlas Provides Clues to Life on Earth. 10 Critical Skills You’ll Need to Succeed at Work in 2020 — Life Learning. Future - The secret “anti-languages” you’re not supposed to know. Lengua española y periodismo (II) What Should We Call Self-Driving Cars? The Ancient Roots of Punctuation. Steven Pinker: 10 'grammar rules' it's OK to break (sometimes) Why so many scientists are so ignorant. Shady Characters – The secret life of punctuation.

Why one woman stole 47 million academic papers — and made them all free to read. Cosmic breakthrough: Physicists detect gravitational waves from violent black-hole merger. English is weird.