Last weekend Affordable Language Services took part in one of our favorite events of the year, the Deaf Health Fair. We love working with the Deaf and hearing-impaired community! To make sure we could communicate effectively with the people in attendance, we contracted a nationally certified interpreter (who often does contract work for us) to […]
Linguistic anthropologists have always looked at the connection between language and culture. Some cultures can express concepts in a single word that would take other languages a full paragraph to approximate the full meaning. Similarly, exact translation doesn’t necessarily capture the feeling behind the word, or the connotation it carries within the cultural context. That’s […]
Ever since British colonies started springing up in the Americas, we’ve been borrowing and building off their language. Now, there are marked differences between American English and British English, so much so that Facebook even differentiates between American, British, and Australian English when asking users what languages they speak. This, understandably has led to some […]
If you’re seeing a lot of green today, there’s probably good reason. Irish Dancers, Credit:James Jordan Right now there are only about 85,000 native speakers of Gaelic left in Ireland. There are massive efforts to raise this figure to 250,000 speakers, but reintegrating Gaelic into mainstream society will take time. The man in charge […]
New feature coming to the Affordable Language Services blog: a monthly video round-up! Each month we’ll feature 5 videos on our YouTube channel. They’ll range from the funny and inane to the scholarly. Check it out! Here’s what we have in store for you this month. Longest Words in the English Language Happy Birthday (in […]
This month we’re honoring Maryem Rah as Interpreter of the month. Maryem is a Qualified Medical and Legal Interpreter at Affordable Language Services, and also takes on Educational and Social interpreting roles. She’s always willing to juggle her schedule to accommodate a heavy load of interpretation jobs. We feel we’re truly sending one of our […]
It may sound like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, but that’s exactly what happened on the day after Thanksgiving 2009. The wife of one of our interpreters went into labor with their first child. At the time, she was just learning to speak English, and her mother did not speak any English at […]
If you can correctly pronounce every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud. Try them yourself. Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. […]
Hear ye, hear ye, it’s time for another update on the renovations at ALS Headquarters! We’ve finished downstairs to use as our language school, for interpreter orientation and the occasional presentation. Take a look! This is a look to the front of the classroom… … and here’s what it looks like looking back at the […]
People across the world say it in different ways, but it comes down to the same thing– I love you! Tell your honey you how you feel, regardless of where they are or what their native tongue is. How to say “I love you” in: Afrikaans- Ek het jou lief Albanian- Te dua Arabic […]