Category Archives: language

Travel to France

A-plume-of-ash-rises-from-002Last couple of days I was at LAX trying to go to Paris. Our flight was canceled three times, so we gave up our trip.
Currently we don’t have a lot of French phrases for an airport situation, but we hope some new phrases will help people.

More phrases for an airport situation are available.

“What time is the first flight tomorrow” in Portuguese

“Is that the last flight out?” in Italian

この数日、パリに行くためにロサンゼルスの空港に行っていました。3度私達のフライトがキャンセルされたので、今回の旅行をあきらめせざるおえませんでした。現在、マイティーバースには、フランス語の空港のプレーズは、あまりありませんが、いくつかのフレーズがフランスの空港での人の手助けになることを祈っています。

“What time is the first flight tomorrow” ポルトガル語

“Is that the last flight out?” イタリア語

Free Japanese Relief App for iPad and iPhone is available now!

Japanese Relief App loading page

Japanese Relief App loading page

Japanese Relief Phrasepack is developed for all of the victims of the Tohoku Pacific Ocean coast earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011.
It’s free. We were driven to do something for the people of Japan and this felt like a small effort that might help. The Japanese-English version is now available here.

Please Pray for Japan and the safety of the people.

– Mightyverse team

ジャパニーズ・リリーフ・フレーズパック(無料)は、2011年3月11日に起きた東北地方太平洋沖地震で、被災された外国人と日本人の皆様のコミニケーションを少しでも手助けできればと思って開発させていただきました。 日本語から英語の翻訳版の「日本救援」アプももうすぐ、アップルのアプストアーで入手できるようになります。(日本語から英語版の「日本救済」アプできました。)

被災された皆様、そのご家族の方々に、心よりお見舞い申し上げます。皆様のご無事と、一日も早い復興をお祈り申しあげます。

マイティーバース・チーム

言葉の壁 – Ruby Kaigi 2010

Ruby Kaigi 2010

Ruby Kaigi 2010

8月27日からつくばで始まったRuby Kaigi 2010のオープニングで、Rails 3 やRuby 1.9などの新しいコードの話と一緒に、言葉の壁が話の話題になったのは、びっくりしました。RubyとRailsというプログラミングのコードは、コミニケーションし合っても、それをコーディングするプログラマー同士が、上手くコミニケーションできないのは、とても残念なことです。

お互いにお互いの言葉を勉強しましょうということで、言葉の壁の問題の話は終了しましたが、プログラミングのような専門的な言葉を使うコミケーションは、一般のコミケーション以外のボキャブラリーや、専門的な言い回しが必要になってきます。

Mightyverseでは、そんな問題をなんとか解決できないかと思い。プログラミングのフレーズリストをつくりました。

Pair Programing Phrase List
また、8月28日の午後に、サラ・メイさんペア・プログラミングのワークショップにも、Mightyverseのフレーズが使用されるとのことです。

Mightyverseをとおして少しでも、皆様の意見の交換にお役にたてれば光栄です。

Why Na’vi?

Na'vi fandom is global and fueled by imagination

Na'vi fandom is global and fueled by imagination

We recently embarked on a project to record Na’vi phrases into Mightyverse. Na’vi is a constructed language created by James Cameron and Dr. Paul Frommer for the movie Avatar. Due to the popularity of the movie, it’s estimated that Na’vi is already the fourth most popular constructed language, after Esperanto, Klingon and Elvish (from the Lord of the Rings).

I’ve been fascinated by the community that’s sprung up around Na’vi and the people who are learning it. It has the potential to become a relatively popular language, with events where people communicate solely in Na’vi, teaching it to their children and translating texts like Shakespeare and the Bible. In the face of the decimation of indigenous languages worldwide, friends of mine who are following Mightyverse have questioned why we would spend anytime documenting Na’vi while so many worthy, incredibly vital languages need to be recorded.

That’s a fair and thoughtful question.

My own feelings about the movie are complicated. I thought it was ultimately a violent revenge fantasy cloaked in a peaceful message film. Kind of Dances with Wolves all over again, with a weird Pocahontas story woven in. I’m not a big fan of the film and felt kind of yucky after seeing it. But I like weird stuff and I’m clearly not the intended audience for the film anyway. I have to confess though that I was absolutely entranced by the craft of the film and the exquisite production that it represents. Cameron has no equal in the universal spectacle of Hollywood film. And his work has now spread across the globe to places more refined stories will never reach. It’s a true phenomena of human storytelling writ large.

So, here are the reasons why I felt Na’vi recordings could be important for the evolution of Mightyverse.

– Na’vi is international. I love the fact that people all over the world are learning Na’vi and in the process sharing a love of language across cultural borders.
– Na’vi learners are obsessed. It’s amazing how many incredible resources have been produced so quickly, and how they are evolving daily. They’ve escaped beyond the confines of the film and are now creating their own world far more interesting than the limits of Pandora.
– Na’vi excites children about language and other cultures. Children are the key to the future of language survival. If they learn about adpositions, topical, dative and genitive cases through Na’vi, well that can’t be too harmful.

Finally, if people learn about Mightyverse through a link somewhere to Na’vi phrases, well, that would be very nice as well.

Mightyverse used on a pilot project to support Hawaiian revitalization

Then There Were None Documentary FilmThe co-founders of Mightyverse came together to work on Mightyverse out of a love of language. It’s heartbreaking that of the 7000 or so languages spoken throughout the world today, some believe that over half of them could be extinct on a practical level by the end of this century. We are hopeful that Mightyverse has the potential to help in the global effort to revitalize endangered languages, and this is a big part of what drives us to make Mightyverse useful to the world. It’s hard to imagine, but with approx. 1000 fluent speakers and less than 10,000 active speakers, Hawaiian is on the list of endangered languages that could conceivably die out over the next 100 years.

Needless to say, this would be a tremendous tragedy for the world.

Fortunately there are very good efforts going on to grow the speaking community, including immersion schools, television programs and passionate individual efforts. And yet the resources on the web to answer the question “How would I say that in Hawaiian?” are still fairly limited. We are extremely excited to have worked with National Geographic Fellow, Dr. Elizabeth Lindsey, on a project to record Hawaiian phrases into Mightyverse. We are currently at 109 phrases and hope to grow that number with the help of other native speakers. Stay tuned as we work to develop a collection of Hawaiian language that can be useful for people who want to have Hawaiian language and culture live on through them!

Here’s a fun place to start – some great Hawaiian phrases to practice.

A short video interview with Dr. Lindsey on her project with Mightyverse.

(see a trailer and learn more about Elizabeth’s film Then There Were None here)

Travel to Europe

A plume of ash rises from the volcano in southern Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull glacier. Photograph: Brynjar Gauti/AP

Photograph: Brynjar Gauti/AP

The last couple of days I was at LAX trying to go to Paris. Our flight was canceled three times, so we gave up our trip.

C’est dommage!

Currently we don’t have a lot of French phrases for airport situations, but we hope some new phrases will help people.

These phrases for airport problems are available here.

“What time is the first flight tomorrow?” in Portuguese.

“Is that the last flight out?” in Italian.

This week we are planing to update phrases for airport problems in European languages . If you are an iPhone user, you will see these phrases show up on your Mightyverse app.

この数日、パリに行くためにロサンゼルスの空港に行っていました。3度私達のフライトがキャンセルされたので、今回の旅行をあきらめせざるおえませんでした。現在、マイティーバースには、フランス語の空港のフレーズは、あまりありませんが、いくつかのフレーズがフランスの空港での人の手助けになることを祈っています。

他の言語の空港のフレーズ

ロシア語で、「私のフライトは、遅れています。」は、どういうのでしょうか?

ポルトガル語で、「明日の最初のフライトは何時ですか?」は、どういうのでしょうか?

イタリア語で、「最後のフライトは、出発しましたか?」は、どういうのでしょうか?

今週は、ヨーロッパの空港に関するフレーズを掲載したいと思います。iPhoneをお持ちの方は、マイティーバースのiPhoneアプからもご覧頂けます。

いろいろ選べるようになります。- サンドイッチ編

Saigon Sandwich

Saigon Sandwich

前回のコーヒ編はお役に立ったでしょうか? 今回は、サンドイッチの注文の仕方を紹介したいと思います。アメリカでは、サンドイッチを注文する時に、パンの種類やマヨネーズの有無などを指定できます。

メニューにも普通は、以下のようなことが書かれています。

“All Sandwiches Served with Homemade Fries or Fresh Green Salad.
(全てのサンドイッチには、ホームメイドのフレンチフライかグリーンサラダがつきます。)
Also Served with your choice of Lettuce, Tomato, Red Onions, Pickles.
(レタス、トマト、赤タマネギ、ピクルスの選択ができます。)
Available on Freshly Baked Bread Including French, Wheat, Sourdough, and Dutch Crunch.”
(新鮮なフランスパン、麦芽パン、サワードパン、ダッチクランチがあります。)

サンドイッチを注文する時、前もって決めときたいのは、以下のとおりです。

  1. どのサンドイッチにするのか
    (メニューから注文したいサンドイッチを決めます。BLT、ターキーサンドイッチなど、など)
  2. パンの種類
    (French, Wheat, Sourdough, Dutch Crunch – フランスパン、麦芽パン、サワードパン、ダッチクランチ)
  3. マヨネーズ無
    (no mayo – マヨネーズ無し)
  4. マスタード無
    (no mustard – マスタード無し)
  5. マスタードの種類
    (dijon mustard, mustard – ディジョンマスタード、マスタード)
  6. トマト無
    (no tomato – トマト無し)
  7. レタス無
    (no lettuce – レタス無し)
  8. ピクルス無
    (no pickles – ピクルス無し)
  9. タマネギ無し
    (no onion – タマネギ無し)
  10. チーズの種類
    ( American, Cheddar, Jack or Swiss cheese – アメリカンチーズ、チェダーチーズ、ジャックチーズ、又は、スイスチーズ)

コーンビーフサンドイッチをライ麦パンで注文する場合
Could I have a Corned Beef on Rye?

ターキーサンドイッチを小麦パンでマヨネーズ無しで他は全部入れて注文する場合
Can I have a Turkey on wheat, no mayo, everything else?

BLT(ベーコン、レタス、トマトのサンドイッチ)にアボガドとスイスチーズをつけてもらう場合
Can I have a BLT with Avocado and Swiss?

また、サンドイッチを注文する際に、よく店員さんに聞かれるのが、以下のとおりです。

“Everything?”

どうゆう意味かというと、マヨネーズ、マスタード、トマト、レタス、ピクルス、の全部をサンドイッチにいれてもいいの?ということです。

“What kind of cheese?”

どのチーズがいいですか?ということです。

サンドイッチメニューの例

Do you sell sandwiches here?

— サンフランシスコのお店 —

今回から、サンフランシスコの地元のお店もいくつか紹介したいと思います。サンフランシスコに来られたおりに良かったら立ち寄ってみてください。

Four Barrel Coffee
コーヒー編で紹介したFour Barrel Coffeeは、Valencia streetの14th street と15 streetの間にあります。とてもオープンで、モダンなカフェです。ドーナッツや、クロワッサンなども美味しいので、Mission地区付近を散策した時に休憩代わりに立ち寄って見られたらいかがでしょうか。

Ike’s Place
サンドイッチのメニューで、紹介したIke’s place には、個人的に、立ち寄ったことが無いので、お味の方は分かりませんが、サンドイッチとハンバーガー 、自家製のソースで人気はあるようです。Castoro地区にあります。

Saigon Sandwich
Saigon Sandowitch(サイゴンサンドイッチ)は、ベトナムスタイルのサンドイッチです。サンフランシスコに来られたおりには是非食べてください。とても美味しいうえにお手頃なお値段です。Civic Center/Tenderloin地区にあります。



Even Monkeys Fall from Trees

Monkey waiting to fall

Monkey waiting to fall

This week we have a nice selection of Japanese proverbs, courtesy of Mitsuhito Fujita, our friend (and wonderful Mightyverse engineer) in Japan. Fujita-san recited these proverbs from memory, and they should be familiar to most native Japanese speakers. They were recorded across from his office at Knowledgelink in the Akasaka prefecture in Tokyo, on a very hot Summer day, with the sound of cicadas almost drowning his voice.
Proverbs and idiomatic expressions have been shown to be some of the hardest aspects of language for non-native speakers to learn. How often have you, or a friend mangled a proverb to humorous effect in a language you don’t speak?

The study of proverbs is called “Paremiology” and is a rich area of research for people studying language and the mind.

From Wikipedia:
“Proverbs are found in many parts of the world, but some areas seem to have richer stores of proverbs than others (such as West Africa), while others have hardly any (North and South America) (Mieder 2004:108,109).
Proverbs are often borrowed across lines of language, religion, and even time. For example, a proverb of the approximate form “No flies enter a mouth that is shut” is currently found in Spain, Ethiopia, and many countries in between. It is embraced as a true local proverb in many places and should not be excluded in any collection of proverbs because it is shared by the neighbors. However, though it has gone through multiple languages and millennia, the proverb can be traced back to an ancient Babylonian proverb (Pritchard 1958:146).
Proverbs are used by speakers for a variety of purposes. Sometimes they are used as a way of saying something gently, in a veiled way (Obeng 1996). Other times, they are used to carry more weight in a discussion, a weak person is able to enlist the tradition of the ancestors to support his position. Proverbs can also be used to simply make a conversation/discussion more lively. In many parts of the world, the use of proverbs is a mark of being a good orator.
The study of proverbs has application in a number of fields. Clearly, those who study folklore and literature are interested in them, but scholars from a variety of fields have found ways to profitably incorporate the study proverbs. For example, they have been used to study abstract reasoning of children, acculturation of immigrants, intelligence, the differing mental processes in mental illness, cultural themes, etc. Proverbs have also been incorporated into the strategies of social workers, teachers, preachers, and even politicians.”

We are excited to present this small selection of Japanese proverbs for people looking for another entry point into Japanese culture and language.

Monkeys do fall from trees

Learn how to say “Even monkeys fall from trees”