The Vietnamese language is spoken by around 75 million people across the world and it is the official language of Vietnam. The language itself has undergone several centuries of development…
Category: Languages of Asia
The Golden Week in Japan
From the 29th of April to the 5th of May each year, Japan and its citizens celebrate “Golden Week”. This period of festivities includes four very special holidays, which we…
The Issues With Machine Dubbing For Asian Languages
Although dubbing in film and television has been around since the 1950s, machine dubbing is a much more recent phenomenon. There’s been a massive proliferation of video content all around…
Vietnamese in the US
The Vietnamese community is the fourth-largest Asian community in the US. The countries share a rich history but there are also several important linguistic considerations to keep in mind. Vietnamese…
Word Count for Japanese for Project Managers
For three years in the translation industry, I learned a trick or two on the peculiarities of working with Asian languages. Sometimes my quest for searching interesting and professional topics…
NLP for Burmese and Machine Translation Difficulties
The necessity of machine translation (MT) and natural language processing (NLP) for Burmese grew several decades ago as Myanmar was voted and expected to be a rising star in terms…
Translation Challenges: Itadakimasu – the Japanese way to live life with gratitude
There’s a Japanese saying that goes like this: “Seven Gods live in one grain of rice.” And what this means is that when one eats food, one should not waste…
Top 7 Challenges when translating English to Chinese
There are over 50,000 Chinese characters, 20,000 words in use, and if you know about 500 Chinese characters, you’ll know about 80% of the language. While this may seem encouraging…
What lies behind the names of Asian countries – Myanmar or Burma?
Ever heard of purebred Burmese cats? What about Burmese wine and rubies? How about the golden pagodas, one of which is encrusted with diamonds? As Myanmar slowly opens its doors…
The challenges in translating Khmer language
Cambodia is a fascinating country. If you think it’s only about Tomb Raider being shot there, you’d be wrong. Apart from the delicacies and tasty foods, there are so many…
Translation to Mongolian – the change creating new opportunities
Mongolia is a central and eastern Asian country that’s nestled in between China and Russia. When we say “nestled” we don’t mean the country is small. In fact, if possible,…
The 5 languages of Taiwan – Multilingual place indeed
One of the most densely populated countries in the world is Taiwan. It is an island that’s approximately the size of Belgium but with more than double the population. Taiwan…
What lies behind the names of Asian countries – Korea
With a population of just over 51 million, anyone who’s been to South Korea as a visitor will tell you about the wonders of the country. Its delicious food, rich…
What lies behind the names of Asian countries: Japan
What lies behind the names of Asian countries – Japan The land of the rising sun, Japan is home to a population of 126.3 million people. The country is known…