The goal of our ‘Language in the Workplace’ series is not just to share stories from people who practice their languages in their respective workplaces, but to illustrate to our community where and how you can apply what you’ve learned and perhaps find meaningful work or even a successful career using your multiple languages. In this post, Gio Donatelli of the Virginia Institute of Interpreting, outlines what it takes to be an interpreter.

by Gio Donatelli

Imagine that your doctor walks into your hospital room, looks at a clipboard, furrows his brow, looks at you and starts talking. But you have no idea what he’s saying.  Or, perhaps you are calling your bank because you see an error in your account…  read more

Last month we put out an all-call to the Livemocha community asking for people to share their language learning and teaching stories on a regular basis. What a great response we had! Thanks to everyone for your interest.

We’ll begin this series with introductions to our contributors; you’ll get to know them, and they’ll tell you why they wanted to document their language learning and teaching journeys on the Livemocha Blog. Please feel free to comment on their posts and ask them questions; they’re not just here to tell you their stories, but to share their experiences with you.

Tune in Wednesdays to read stories of frustration, achievement, lamenting, and success from Siôn, Asia, Kjera, Miranda, and Dalia. In their words…  read more

Guest Post: Daniel Owen – Recruitment Consultant for Euro London Appointments, Multilingual Recruitment Specialists. Daniel has written for us twice before (links below) and has a unique perspective to offer our readers in regard to what employers are looking for when it comes to bi- or multilingualism in the workplace and in the job market.

By Daniel Owen

Working at Euro London Appointments, Europe’s largest independent multilingual recruitment consultancy, new jobs come in daily for us to recruit for. These jobs are far ranging across many different sectors and at many levels of the pay scale but the one constant that they do have is that they all require the knowledge of at least one other language, sometimes even three or…  read more

Hi everyone!

We are busily working on a new, fun, and updated blog page that we will be launching in the coming week or so. We’re excited to say that it will have a lot of entertaining and informational features that we hope will be helpful to you and become a resource for you.

One of the ongoing features that we will be incorporating into the blog will be a series of journals from language learners and teachers.

 We all know that there are both struggles and successes in the language learning and teaching processes, and that sometimes the journey can be frustrating and lonely. We want the learners and teachers in our community to know that they are not alone!!

We…  read more

A big thank you to language-learning guru Aaron Myers for these tips on how to get the most out of Livemocha’s writing exercises!

One of my favorite features of the Livemocha community is the ability learners have to write and to get feedback on their writing.  Writing is an overlooked and often underutilized part of the language learning journey.  Most learners just want to be able to speak the language and don’t see the value in writing.  But writing offers some great benefits for language learners.

First, writing allows you to practice creating in the target language.  You are forming the words in your mind and producing them on paper but it is essentially the same process as speaking – only…  read more

Guest Post – Selina Rawe: Socio-cultural Anthropologist
When a language dies, the culture it once belonged to loses some of its essence. Sad though this feels, in a rapidly globalizing and industrializing world, many social groups face such significant change that the loss of a way of life and, indeed, an ancient language, is inevitable.
Take, for example, the life and death of Nushu. Nushu, which means “women’s writing”, developed in the Jiangyong county in Hunan Province, China. The story behind how it started and the continuing story of the practitioner’s lives demonstrated the culture that arose from this language, and also shows why, when the last “practitioner” died in 2004, that part of the culture died too.

It is believed to…  read more

Guest post: Gulnihal Ozdener – trilingual Turkish translation student (say THAT three times fast!)

As a translation student speaking two foreign languages (English, French), I have usually been chosen as an intern at the ministries for international meetings. One of those meetings was the UNFCCC conference in 2010, so I went to Cancún, México, for two weeks as an intern again. I did not know a single word in Spanish. I was then learning Arabic, as I wanted to continue my education with Middle Eastern studies. So I was not really planning to learn another language. Three would be enough.

However in México, when I visited the Mayan ruins and met the remaining culture of the lovely Mayan people, the path of…  read more

Guest post: Valérie Berset-Price is an international business guru, global coach, and cross-cultural trainer. She was kind enough to provide us with her expert advice on what it takes to do business successfully abroad.

Sitting on the plane the other day, I listened to my traveling companion explain to me why and how he learned to speak “Castillano” during his one-year stay in Madrid while opening an office for his employer.

While I was impressed and pleased by Pete’s ability to learn Spanish, I realized that learning a foreign language had not provided Pete with the deciphering keys needed to penetrate a culture. Based on Pete’s description, Spanish is a limited language that lacks the precision of English. As a result, he often…  read more

Today we’d like to share some language learning advice from Benny, who learned to speak 8 languages fluently as an adult. He’s quite prolific. And he was kind enough to write an article to benefit our members! If you haven’t heard of him yet, trust us – you’ll be ready to join his fan club after reading this. 

The importance of speaking your language immediately

After I graduated university, with a degree in Electronic Engineering, I moved to Spain to work as an intern. I was enjoying my time so much that I decided to stay for an entire year, and of course learn some Spanish.

But the problem was that I was coming from a background of not being “talented” in languages….  read more

Guest post: Elizabeth – Livemocha Spanish tutor

Hola all!

My name is Elizabeth or Ellie, a certified Livemocha Spanish tutor. Coming from Mexico at age 11, I knew nada de inglés. I cried and complained; I wanted to go back. Pero dos meses después, I spoke English. I learned fast and suddenly I also spoke what we call Spanglish (mixing both languages together in nonsense), which I seriously try to avoid. But since I am bilingual now it’s easy for me to mix the languages together and give it the same meaning with a twist loco to both cultures.

And that is how my love for people, their languages and their cultures developed. I have a blast learning new languages and meeting…  read more