An idiom is a phrase or an expression that has a figurative, or sometimes literal, meaning. They are usually established in language by their common usage.
Idioms are often different from a country to another country.
Here’s a few French idioms and phrases and their equivalence in English
French Idiom
Literally Translated
English Idiom
Il pleut des cordes
It rains ropes
It rains cats and dogs
Quand les poules auront des dents
When the hen will have teeth
When pigs fly
On ne peut pas etre au four et au moulin
You can’t be at the oven and at the mill
One can’t be in two places at once
Ce n’est pas ma tasse de thé
It is not my cup of tea
It’s not my bowl of rice
Filer á l’anglaise
To take English leave
Take French leave
Avoir le vent en poupe
To have the wind in one’s sails
All wheels in motion
Noyer le poisson
to drown the fish
To beat around the bush
Jamais deux sans trois
Never two without three
Never twice without thrice
Courir sur le haricot
To run on the bean
To get on someone’s nerve
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Which country has the largest number of languages spoken?
At first, you might think of the country with the largest population, but surprisingly, the answer is not China, India or any other big country.
It is Papua New Guinea. It’s a country of only 462,840 square kilometers with a population of just over seven million. Despite its small size, this country has an incredible linguistic diversity with 820 languages spoken.
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European parliament hemicycle in Strasbourg / Image credit: Wikipedia
English not official language, MEP warns
According to a senior MEP, English will not be an official EU language after Brexit.
English could lose its status as an official language as apparently no other EU country has English listed as an official language.
Onced Britain leaves the EU, English will be stripped of its status warned Danuta Hübner. Hübner, an economist, is head of the European Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee (AFCO).
There are 24 official languages in the EU; the UK identified English as it own official language while Ireland notified Irish and Malta notified Maltese. Both countries also list English as their second official language. However, when Ireland and Malta joined the EU English was already an official language. Therefore both nations opted to list their other official languages instead.
We have a regulation … where every EU country has the right to notify one official language. The Irish have notified Gaelic, and the Maltese have notified Maltese, so you have only the UK notifying English.
Even though English may be removed as an official language, “English is one of the working languages in the European institutions, Hübner commented, adding: “it’s actually the dominating language.” It’s one of the most frequently used by EU civil servants.
If they want to keep English as an official language, the remaining countries would have vote to keep its status unanimously, Hübner noted.
EU Regulations
However, an EU source explained that the regulations governing official languages are themselves subject to more than one translation.
A regulation from 1958 regarding the official languages of the EU, was originally written in French and does not clearly state whether a member country, i.e. Ireland or Malta, can have more than one official language.
Interpretations of the French wording of this body of text concludes that this might be possible, whereas the English version says otherwise.
The regulation states that “if a member state has more than one official language, the language to be used shall, at the request of such state, be governed by the general rules of its law.”
According to reports from the Wall Street Journal, ‘the Commission has already started using French and German more often in its external communications’, after the UK voted to leave the EU last Thursday.
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An Ghaeltacht sign in the region / Image credit: TCD
Gaeltacht community anger over names in English
In a 2015 annual report by the Irish Language Commissioner, the highest number of complaints under the new Eircode postal system related to the translation of place names in the Gaeltacht region.
Rónán Ó Domhnaill, head of the office of An Coimisnéir Teanga expressed that he was not surprised at the level of anger in the Gaeltacht communities. More than 70 complaints were noted in the report. All complaints related to the English translation of Irish names and addresses without any Irish version.
Conradh na Gaeilge, the Irish language group, stated that up to 50,000 household in the Gaeltacht area are affected by the new system and called on the department to amend it.
Rónán Ó Domhnaill also reported that the Department of Communications had ‘breached a statutory language obligation during the rollout of the postcodes – Eircode’.
Irish Proficiency
As of today’s report, there is a reluctance on behalf of certain government departments to identify jobs requiring a proficiency in the Irish language. Mr Ó Domhnaill stated on the ‘serious questions that arise on the State’s willingness to provide services of the same standard in both languages’.
Transit NXT Service Pack 9 ushers new languages to its arsenal
New Languages Supported in SP9
The new Transit NXT Service Pack 9 ushered in loads of new features.
As the localization industry grows, we grow along with it and enhance Transit NXT each time to suit the requirements of the industry.
One of the most important aspects of translation is being able to translate projects to and from one’s language; not just for the translator but the project manager too. SP9 packs loads of new languages in which you can now work. Gone are the days that you no longer have to depend on variants if your language was not supported; start working in one of the new languages now supported by Transit.
Eight Additional Languages
Transit supports eight additional languages and language variants. Furthermore, both Transit NXT and TermStar support more than 200 languages and cover all relevant markets in the target languages.
Asian languages: Tajik, Pashto and Dari (Persian); Maori (New Zealand); Spanish (USA) and International Spanish variants; and two other European languages are all the latest additions to Transit NXT SP9.
Screenshot of the source language [selection] drop-down menu in Transit.
New Asian Languages in SP9
Tajik (تاجیکی)
Tajik or Tajiki, also called Tajiki Persian is a variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Pashto (پښتو)
Pashto belongs to the south-eastern Iranian branch of Indo-Iranian languages spoken in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
Dari (دری)
Dari (Persian) is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan.
New European Languages in SP9
Breton
Breton (Breton: Breizh; French: Bretagne) is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany, France.
Corsican
Spoken in the islands of Corsica (France) and northern Sardinia (Italy), Corsican is a Romance language of the Italo-Dalmatian subfamily.
Introducing Maori for SP9
Maori
An Eastern Polynesian language spoken by the Māori people – the indigenous population of New Zealand – Māori is one of the official languages of New Zealand since 1987.
Spanish Worldwide
Spanish (USA)
One of the most widely spoken language has a number of variants – Spanish (USA) being one.
International Spanish
Use Spanish (International) for standardizing particular Spanish language projects.
The STAR Team
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Test your knowledge of world languages. Answer these twelve, tricky language-related questions and let us know your score in the comments.
Question
Your answer:
Correct answer:
You got {{SCORE_CORRECT}} out of {{SCORE_TOTAL}}
Your Answers
The STAR Team
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Pikachu toys line the shelves – its worldwide success expands from video games to other merchandise
Pokémon Pikachu rename leads to protests
The release of two new Pokémon games by Japanese game-maker Nintendo has angered Hong Kong.
As it is around the world, Hong Kongers are very familiar with the tiny, chubby, yellow-furred electric mouse known to them as Bei-Ka-Ciu. But a move to unify the names of 151 Pokémon characters to Mandarin Chinese has upset fans and “localists” alike.
Pikachu’s new Cantonese pronunciation sounds like Bei-ka-jau – nothing like its original.
Regional Pride
The name change, which may seems trivial to some, is part of a bigger problem in Hong Kong as locals see it as the “mainlandization” in the current climate.
Nintendo’s decision to translate all game characters “ignores Hong Kong’s culture,” a spokesman from a Facebook group known as Petition to keep Regional Chinese Translations of Pokémon said. “There’s no respect for it.”
“We are aware of the reasons behind Nintendo’s translation, presumably to make it easier for purposes such as publicity, but the move ignores a lot of players. We hope the Hong Kong market can be taken seriously and treated sincerely.” Locals, fans and activists took to the streets at the Japanese consulate to protest because they believe Cantonese — along with culture and tradition in Hong Kong — is being supplanted by Mandarin.
Regional Language
Cantonese is spoken in Hong Kong, while Mandarin Chinese is the official tongue of Mainland China. The Chinese government sees Cantonese as one of the many dialects used throughout China; however, those protesting believe Cantonese is a proper language and on par with Mandarin.
A Cultural Icon
“Pikachu has been in Hong Kong for more than 20 years,” said Sing Leung, one of those who took part in the demonstration. “It is not simply a game or comic book, it is the collective memory of a generation.”
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The Irish language is beautiful, but it also finds itself playing catch up with the modern world. So much so that it becomes blatantly obvious with some of these Irish language translations.
We found nine particularly unimaginative translations making their rounds on the Internet. These are too good to miss.
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Irish Registry Domain to make Web Addresses showing Fadas a reality
Organizations and businesses in Ireland will very soon be able to register Irish Web addresses with fadas. This will change will enable Irish businesses using the .ie domain to also include any fadas contained in their names. Effectively, we will see Irish websites’ URLs with the fada included. That is, if their domain is an Irish name or word.
The fada is the acute accent or diacritic above all Irish vowels: á, é, í, ó and ú.
Recently, the IE Domain Registry, responsible for the administration of Ireland’s official Internet address .ie, has begun a consultation process to allow users to share their views about how the system should operate.
The registry will launch details of how people can register the fada domain names after the 21st of March.
We will be on the lookout for any domains using their fadas.
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An idiom is a phrase or an expression that has a figurative, or sometimes literal, meaning. They are usually established in language by their common usage.
Numbers in Russian.
Which country has the largest number of languages spoken?
