Visualistan: Language -->

    Social Items

How People Laugh in Text Messages Around the World: 26 Languages Explained

If you're chatting with friends, colleagues, or customers in another language, knowing how people express laughter online can help you sound more natural. One of the quickest ways to reveal that you're not a native speaker is by using the wrong text-laughing style. While English speakers commonly type "haha," other countries use completely different expressions to show amusement in text messages and social media conversations.

How People Laugh in Text Messages Around the World: 26 Languages Explained

Study Shows Education Can Push Back Against Language Extinction

The team at Preply presented stark statistics on endangered languages worldwide. Fortunately, they gave us reason to hope, with evidence that education and immersion can revive a language, even one declared extinct—the regions where the most endangered languages are found are in Australia, where 133 languages are critically endangered. The Pacific region has 250 endangered languages, and Africa has 217 threatened languages, but this is a global problem.

The countries with the most threatened languages

Study Reveals Language Learning Supports People Moving Abroad

A detailed survey from Preply drew connections between learning a new language and moving abroad. They dug up some important statistics and connections through their survey responses. For example, 81% of people open to moving out of the country say they are more likely to do so now than they were two years ago. As for motivation, it often stems from people seeking new job opportunities. 63% of Gen Z reported being affected by job loss at some point over the last two years. Others, 55% to be exact, said they would move for a better quality of life, and 56% said they would move out because of the cost of living in their home country. Moving abroad isn’t easy, but 92% of respondents believe that knowing the local language is key to success abroad. 75% of respondents who had learned a new language felt that it had a major impact on their lives and confidence.

Study Reveals Language Learning Supports People Moving Abroad

Study Shows Statistics from the Heart of Language Learning

The team at Preply released statistics from their Global Language Learning Report, which revealed the human stories behind language learning. They hinted at the many stories behind language learning. People may have learned a new language to speak the native language of someone they loved. They may have learned to go to a dream travel destination or start a new life abroad. Whatever the reason, the team’s survey shows us the impact of language learning on people around the world. They examined motivations for learning and found that the biggest reason for learning a language was career advancement, followed by hobbies and personal growth. English is the most widely spoken language worldwide, followed by Spanish, which ties into people’s desire to learn a language for career purposes. English is widely considered the universal language in business, while English-speaking countries like the U.S. prize employees who can also speak Spanish, a language with a growing demographic.

Study Shows Statistics from the Heart of Language Learning

The Best and Worst Films for English Learners

The team at Preply delivers a fun study guide for English language learners. They created a list of the simplest and most challenging films for English language learners to watch for some practice. They created a scoring system for the highest-grossing films based on the number of words per minute and the complexity of their vocabulary. The films with the highest scores were Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Maleficent, and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. As for the most difficult films, The Wandering Earth, Oppenheimer, and Barbie had high word counts and challenging vocabulary. The team also determined that fantasy and adventure films with quest or romance storylines score the best. They also specifically picked out which films have subtitles that are difficult to follow. The film Finding Dory, which may be surprising since it’s a children’s movie, but the chatterbox fish in the starring role delivers a lot of dialogue to keep up with.

The Best and Worst Films for English Learners

The Words Americans Use to Make Themselves Seem Smarter

Many people think that a complex vocabulary is a sign of intelligence. Americans have different habits around word use and different perceptions of what words are used and when. Context matters when it comes to the use of complex words, but the words themselves matter too. The team at Preply surveyed Americans on the topic of complex words to find out which words they think sound intelligent, when they use big words, and how they feel when others use them.

The Words Americans Use to Make Themselves Seem Smarter

Graphics Illustrate Why Mother Language Matters
When people move to a new country or region, they usually have to learn a new language to navigate society. While multilingual people around the world prove they are up to the task, that doesn’t mean their native language diminishes in meaning or importance. Preply proves this truth with a set of graphics based on survey data. The team offered a survey that asked questions about the following topics:

Graphics Illustrate Why Mother Language Matters

Study Examines Slang Across the Decades

The team at Preply offers us a fun infographic showing the outdated slang terms that Americans want to revive. Slang comes and goes with hairstyles, the cut of your jeans, and popular music and dances. But there isn’t always a perfect replacement for the slang words from decades past. In fact, 80% of Americans say they use outdated slang regularly. This might be from an old habit, but some say they do it ironically or for a laugh. America’s favorite decade for slang is the ‘90s, which brought us words like “rad,” “gnarly,” “sick,” and “dope,” all of which are synonyms for cool! While many generations favored the slang of the ‘80s and ‘90s, Baby Boomers prefer slang from the ‘60s. Gen X respondents were the most nostalgic for the slang of their youth, specifically from the ‘80s and ‘90s, reflecting the wider preference for slang from that era.

Study Examines Slang Across the Decades

The Most and Least Bilingual Cities in the U.S.
American cities are diverse, comprising a wide range of cultures and backgrounds. It’s common to find bilingual people in America. About 21% of Americans can speak a language other than English. However, some areas are more isolated, and you’ll find far fewer bilingual people. The team at Preply gives a complete picture of where you’ll hear the most and fewest foreign languages spoken with two maps. One shows the most bilingual cities, and the other shows the least bilingual cities.

The Most and Least Bilingual Cities in the U.S.

A Timeline of New Words Based on Business Names

Language is an ever-evolving process with new and defunct words that come and go as culture changes over time. Business names have had an impressive impact on language, spawning new words that become common place names for items or actions that we use without always thinking about their origin.

A Timeline of New Words Based on Business Names #Infographic



Pinterest is including more languages to its app to appeal to users from more regions of the world, as the platform’s userbase continues to grow, especially in this year. Currently, over 400 million people visit and use the app each month to find and create inspirations, according to Pinterest.

 

The total number of languages accessible on Pinterest is now 41, including Afrikaans, Croatian and Bulgarian as the newly added languages.

Pinterest Introduces New Languages in the App to Broaden Global Accessibility



YouTube is expanding its latest engagement tools of Comment Translation and Smart Replies. The new translation tool relies on Google Translation to let users translate comments in the app, whereas Smart Replies provides response suggestions to assist users in their interaction with each other in-stream.

 

YouTube has announced that the Translate button is now available on mobile and offers translation in 100 languages. Although Google Translate does not provide completely accurate translations, its ability is still adequate enough to help people make sense of text displayed in foreign languages.

YouTube is Rolling Out ‘Comment Translation’ and ‘Smart Replies’ to More Users

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Subscribe Our Newsletter