How to transliterate to Tamil script
The Tamil transliterator is a tool I developed to enable me to convert Tamil written in the Roman alphabet into Tamil script.
Some understanding of the Tamil sound system will help you to use the tool. It is important to note that, although you are using the Roman alphabet, you must use the letters in accordance with the pronunciation key provided with the tool – which largely corresponds with international phonetic rules.
English is not the lingo of the successful British exporter
Our reluctance to learn other languages is not just arrogant: it’s holding back the UK’s economic performance.
This article is from theguardian.com by Katie Allen.
As François Hollande reshuffled the French cabinet last week, he was handed a report warning of hundreds of thousands more job losses. For a president grappling with political crisis and record unemployment it will have made grim bedtime reading after a day spent revamping his government for the second time this year.
The warning came from Jacques Attali, former special economic adviser to François Mitterrand, who had been asked by Hollande to look into ways the global reach of the French language could help drag the country out of its economic quagmire. Read more →
Duolingo creator: ‘I wanted to create a way to learn languages for free’
He’d sold two companies to Google by his mid twenties and now Luis von Ahn has created an app that he hopes will allow anyone with internet access to learn a language for free.
This article is from theguardian.com by Lottie O’Conor.
Luis von Ahn is a man of many titles: computer science professor, entrepreneur, crowdsourcing pioneer to name but a few. He sold two companies to Google while still in his 20s and his latest creation, Duolingo, is well on the way to revolutionising language learning across the world.
“What I wanted to do was create a way to learn languages for free,” says von Ahn. “If you look at language learning in the world, there are 1.2 billion people learning a foreign language and two thirds of those people are learning English so they can get a better job and earn more. The problem is that they don’t have equity and most language courses cost a lot of money.” Read more →
Language Festival 2014
The Language Festival is an ongoing campaign to showcase the importance of language learning in the UK.
As part of our ongoing campaign to showcase the importance of language learning in the UK, we will be holding our second joint national Language Festival in partnership with the Guardian during October and November 2014. Read more →