As if I needed another distraction, this week I discovered Busuu.com. It calls itself a ‘language learning community’ and is basically another social network with a twist: you create a profile for yourself and add details of the languages you’re learning. Busuu.com offers courses in English, Spanish, French, German and Italian at the moment. AsContinue reading “Learning languages online”
Category Archives: Language
Book: ‘Biting the wax tadpole’
I decided some time ago that I’d share some of the interesting writing- and language-related books that I read. Unfortunately, I’m very good at starting lots of books at the same time, but not always great at finishing them… One I did complete a while ago (and, yes, I should have written about it whileContinue reading “Book: ‘Biting the wax tadpole’”
Learn a language, help your writing, improve your prospects
The Guardian recently reported that “there is increasing demand around the world for [website] translations into English…particularly inside businesses”. This is an interesting and exciting prospect for me, as a web copywriter living in Spain, learning Spanish and hoping to gain clients here. Increase credibility and improve search results As well as needing help translatingContinue reading “Learn a language, help your writing, improve your prospects”
Simple, clear copy (in any language)
One of the first rules of web copywriting is to use plain English, to give every reader the best chance of understanding your content. Your website is available to the entire world and will have visitors who have a first language different to your own. Don’t forget, however, that native speakers also have differing readingContinue reading “Simple, clear copy (in any language)”
‘Thoughtful, investigative pieces don’t work on the web’
An interesting article on the Guardian’s website today. Aida Edemariam looks at the issue of search on the internet and how this influences online writing in contrast to offline articles. This, of course, links in to how content for the web must be structured differently in general. Unfortunately, she thinks it makes ‘depressing reading’, interpretingContinue reading “‘Thoughtful, investigative pieces don’t work on the web’”