Bad name for blogging?

Let’s face it. The ‘Blogosphere’ (irritating phrase, but handy) has the reputation for consisting of nothing but inconsequential drivel. It’s a common view, like it or not, but why?
Well, put it this way. I just did a Google blog search for learning French, because I’m about to start doing it. A third of the links [...]

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Poetische Sprache

I’m brushing up on my Deutsch again, and I’m quite enjoying it. I was browsing through a vocabulary list, and I started thinking about how poetic-sounding some German words are if you translate them literally.
In adolescence = Im Jugendalter – “in the old age of youth”
Mad cow disease = Rinder wahnsinn – “cattle’s sense of [...]

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Deutsch

It’s frightening how languages trickle out of the brain when you don’t use them!
I’ve been thinking about a degree in modern languages with the future aim of translation as a means of buying food. Seven years ago I was fluent in German. I foolishly presumed that I more or less still would be. Uh-uh. [...]

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Language abuse

It’s my duty to point this out. This is an issue I think everyone feels passionate about, whether they are sticklers or take the laissez faire approach. Coming from The Spectator, this article naturally comes down on the stickler side of the fence.
The article ends on an interesting note, one that has occured to [...]

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France: Reasons it is cool (Part I)

An odd mood has come over me lately. My mind has been flirting over and over with the idea of moving to France and learning French. I don’t know where it’s come from. I’ve never been there, never had much thought about it until this year.
So, in an attempt to see why it’s so attractive, [...]

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Language

Following on from an interesting discussion at Meg Gardiner’s blog about sloppy language use and grammar, I found this one from no lesser source than the noble BBC.
“Former minister accused of death”
Accused? If you are accused of something, it means they say you committed that deed. If he ‘committed death’ wouldn’t we know for sure? [...]

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Esperanto again

This Esperanto business is great fun. After no more than a couple of hours’ worth of learning, I’ve been able to have a simple conversation about hobbies, weather, etc., with some guy from Brazil. He knows no English, and the Portuguese I know could be engraved on a penny with a pickaxe. It really is [...]

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Esperanto

Mi estas komencanto de Esperanto.

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