Just How Good is Your English? Posted by Transparent Language on Apr 8, 2015 in Archived Posts
We’re excited to announce the new percentile ranking feature in Which is English. In the game, players are presented with pairs of words or phrases. Which option uses English most naturally or correctly? The challenges are easy at first, but get harder if you do well early on. Even native speakers of English usually get at…
There Are No Rainy Days in Language Learning Posted by Malachi Rempen on Apr 6, 2015 in Archived Posts
Many aspects of our lives are ruled by that which we simply cannot control. Try as we might, our fervent honking has no noticeable influence on traffic jams on the way to work; shouting at the television does not, in fact, sway the football match in our favor; and as our unfortunate would-be weekender in…
Hacking Pronunciation in Any Language with the IPA, Part 3: Phonetics Posted by Transparent Language on Apr 1, 2015 in Archived Posts
Jakob Gibbons writes about language and travel on his blog Globalect. He often shares his experiences with learning languages on the road, and teaching and learning new speech sounds is his specialty. In the first and second posts in this series on pronunciation, we delved into phonology and using the IPA for learning consonants and vowels…
Play Ball… En Español! Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 31, 2015 in For Learners, Learning Material Updates
Fear not, sports fans. We may be wrapping up the Multilingual Madness Tournament, but baseball season is just around the corner. This year, the Major League Baseball season will not commence with an international game as it has in previous years, so we’ve taken it upon ourselves to add a little international flavor to opening…
Not Improving? Wrong. Posted by Malachi Rempen on Mar 30, 2015 in Archived Posts
My stepfather, Stan Hirsch, is a professional blues guitarist. His story is so classic it’s almost cliché: when he was ten years old he mowed lawns and raked leaves to save up money to buy his first guitar, and when he got it, he decided he wanted to be brilliant at playing it. He wanted…
Transparent Language Library Spotlight: Jacksonville Public Library Posted by Transparent Language on Mar 25, 2015 in For Libraries, Library Success Stories
In 2011, things got a little brighter for the Jacksonville Public Library system in sunny Jacksonville, Florida: they subscribed to Transparent Language Online, providing their customers free language-learning resources in more than 80 languages. Inspired by his friends’ New Year’s Resolutions to learn a new language, Eric Soriano, a member of the library’s e-services team…
What’s the Greatest Topic of Conversation Ever? Posted by Malachi Rempen on Mar 23, 2015 in Archived Posts
As language learners, we hope to find ourselves in conversations on a wide variety of topics. That’s really the point of all these conjugation tables, vocab flash cards and grammar drills, isn’t it? Sure, reading a foreign newspaper is great, watching TV shows and movies in their original language is rewarding and all that, but for…