Does Google Translate Output Accord with Reality?—And Remarks on the M...

Aug 17, 2015 by

Does Google Translate Output Accord with Reality?—And Remarks on the Morphosyntax of Russian Nominalizations

I have written extensively about problems with Google Translate and its many bloopers in both lexical choices and producing a grammatically cohesive output. It is thus ironic that Google Translate’s “translation” of the Russian...

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3D-landcape, 3D-language?

Dec 27, 2011 by

3D-landcape, 3D-language?

In yesterday’s post I mentioned that languages of the Northeast Caucasus, such as Avar, Tzes and Tabasaran, are famous for their extremely rich case systems; most of their case distinctions are used to mark various aspects of...

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What is the most difficult language to learn — and why?

Jun 3, 2011 by

What is the most difficult language to learn — and why?

As mentioned in the previous posting, there are numerous rankings of “difficult” (and “easy”) languages to learn (note that we are talking about second-language learning here, not acquiring one’s native...

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Yet another art-ificial language: the Dothraki language

Apr 5, 2011 by

I usually write about natural human languages in this blog. But now and again, the subject of artificial languages is brought up by my students, and recently my attention was drawn to yet another language that was created for a TV...

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Tales from Grammar-Land

Oct 15, 2010 by

While many people are interested in language in general, fewer and fewer people (especially English speakers) today have an even most basic training in grammar. Concepts such as consonant and vowel, noun and verb, nominative and...

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