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English can be as hectic as you let it be. In fact, it is funny how English can make no sense at all, sometimes. For many, English is an easy language to learn but if there is anything that would make it difficult to understand is that its logic - or lack of logic. For example:<br />
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There is no egg in the eggplant; no ham in the hamburger; and neither pine nor apple in the pineapple. English muffins were not invented in England, and french fries were not invented in France.  We sometimes take English for granted, but what is the logic in Quicksand that takes you down slowly; boxing rings that are square in shape, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. <br />
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If writers write, how come fingers don't fing? If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth? If the teacher taught, why hasn't the preacher praught?  Why do people recite at a play, yet play at a recital? How can the weather be as hot as hell on one day and as cold as hell on another? <br />
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Obviously, English was invented by people, which reflects the creativity of the human race (which of course isn't a race at all.)  That is why: When the stars are out they are visible, but when the lights are out they are invisible!!<br />
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Have fun.

Blog Language Humor

English is a CRAZY language!

English can be funny as much as it can also be stupid. Why? Keep reading to find out

<span style="font-family:bahnschrift light semicondensed,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;">For travellers, this is a quite important thing to learn.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family:bahnschrift light semicondensed,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;">There is an old saying that America and Britain are two nations divided by a common language. But is it really true?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family:bahnschrift light semicondensed,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;">Well, the accent of Brits is very distinguishable which explains the reason it is often highlighted in American movies, but obviously there are other differences that would make an English man stand there not knowing what you are talking about although you both are speaking the same language! Well, maybe not exactly the same. Of course, not knowing such differences may not be a big deal for many people but in some cases, it can make your life more convenient and even save you the embarrassment.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family:bahnschrift light semicondensed,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;">Let’s see the differences in a small scenario, as it follows:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family:bahnschrift light semicondensed,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;">American English:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family:bahnschrift light semicondensed,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;">A man lives in an apartment with his two children. He has to change the diaper of his little baby every morning before going to work. He likes to eat fries in the afternoon but his older son likes to eat cookies. After a long day at work, he puts his baby to sleep and makes sure his other son went to the toilet before going to sleep. He turns off the light and uses a flashlight so he does not awake them. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family:bahnschrift light semicondensed,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;">British English</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family:bahnschrift light semicondensed,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;"> A man lives in a flat with his two children. He has to change the nappy of his little baby every morning before going to work. He likes to eat chips in the afternoon but his older son likes to eat biscuits. After a long day at work, he puts his baby to sleep and makes sure his other son went to the loo before going to sleep. He turns off the light and uses a torch so he does not awake them. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family:bahnschrift light semicondensed,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;">You can see the difference and I am sure you will thank us next time when you try to find a toilet in the UK – or is it a loo?!</span></span><br />

Blog Insider Tips

British English VS American English

Learning the differences between British and American English can save your face. But how?

<span style="font-family:verdana,geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:16px;">Living in a globalised world is often celebrated due its success in creating cross-border markets and accordingly a new domain for employment. For millennials, working as a freelancer reflects the life style of this high-paced age, where technology is dominant, freedom is absolute, and jobs can be done while relaxing at home. This has created a new hype so as clients would opt for freelancers believing it will help them to save money and get the job done in the blink of an eye - <strong>but is it true? </strong><br />
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No doubt, internet has made life easier for clients who can search millions of results by just googling a keyword - all what you need to do is to google the magic words “freelance translators” and voilà! But, in truth, the easiness to find a freelancer comes with a price – an expensive price I must say. This is because the cons for hiring a freelancer outweigh the pros, as will be explained. This article is intended to help clients make an informed risk-aware decision, which should make you think twice and even thrice before hiring a freelancer.<br />
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<strong>(1) Freelancers can only play solo.</strong><br />
One hand never claps alone and so is translation as well as many other language services. This is probably one of the biggest limitations you will have to face when you hire a freelance.  Imagine having an important business meeting next Thursday and so you need your presentation translated to hand it over to your new or potential business partner. You rushed to your laptop and typed the magic words and so you hired a freelance translator online after you read he or she has some good reviews – though I am often sceptic about online reviews! On Tuesday, two days before your meeting, you receive an email or a text message (presuming he or she agreed to give you their phone number) from your freelance translator apologising for not being able to finish the work for whatsoever reasons (i.e. had a car accident, fell sick, laptop is broken, kidnapped by an alien, etc.) What would you do? Nothing of course, except you can kiss your job, money and time goodbye. Contrary to the common belief, translation, as well as any other language service, is not a one man show, and it should never be so. One of the biggest pros of hiring a language services company is that you do not have to worry about such emergencies because a company would have a team of linguists and a project manager who will take care of any emergency to deliver the project on time.<br />
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We love taking risk, but obviously not when it means wasting money and losing business! Think wise before making the decision.<br />
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<strong>(2) Freelancers are NOT ball jugglers.    </strong><br />
Freelance translators cannot juggle more than two balls at a time i.e. they can only translate specific types of materials and often have translation experience in certain topics only, never mind they are often bilingual (meaning they can help you to render your project to one language only). Of course, they are not multitasking meaning they cannot work on many projects at the same time i.e. they have to finish one project to start working on another. This makes their availability and productivity limited. In contrast, a language services company not only can handle many pairs of languages, but also have experience in most, if not, all areas and topics. It is even pain in the neck when you have to go through the hassle of dealing with many people from different time zones and locations!  <br />
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<strong>(3) Freelancers can be anyone! </strong><br />
This might be the biggest nightmare that you do not wish to live since freelancers live online, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to verify their identity, let alone their credentials. Due to the growth of this industry, scammers decided to take a bite of the cake and land in our territory, and in response a <a href="http://www.translator-scammers.com">special monitoring agency</a> is dedicated to track and report such scammers, frauds, and impersonated translators’ profiles.   Do not forget to consult their database before agreeing to deal with any freelance translator. We often tell our kids not to take candy from a stranger, so how about us giving money and entrusting total strangers with business?!<br />
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<strong>(4) Quality is just a fortune cookie </strong><br />
We all love having a fortune cookie after a nice tasty meal, but would we go for a restaurant to buy it? Of course not, because not only is it something that we do not take seriously, but also because its messages are generic and far from being unique. Likewise, our industry does not take most freelancers seriously because freelancing is not a start point, as most freelancers believe, but rather the outcome of many years of experience in a professional setting. Having a qualification is not enough because it does not guarantee fully understanding the second language, let alone the mother tongue.   experience is what matters since it helpsthe most important thing the quality of translation should always be your first concern has to be that some freelance translators deliver do not offer more than what a fortune cookie can. Aside of the fact that most freelancers depend on machine translation, which makes the quality of most translators similar and generic, their quality cannot be guaranteed and many freelance translators do not seem to take criticism and objections with open heart! There are thousands of trolls online against clients who refused to pay them – although they did the job! Of course, they will not admit the reason the client refused to pay since it happens that freelance translators often find all his or her geese are swans!<br />
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Of course, such a hassle and terrible experience will never happen when dealing with a professional registered language services provider, because each project is managed by a team leader and linguists whose job is to assure the quality of outputs so emotional swings and moody moments will never affect the final output as it is always monitored and evaluated. Let alone, working in the capacity of a company makes it liable to its actions and manage any dispute in a professional manner.<br />
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<strong>(5) Cheaper Rates is Just Another Myth</strong><br />
It is one of the most favourite tactics that freelancers like to use to convince clients whereas the reality says otherwise. I am confident everyone heard of the famous line “You get what you paid for” and so very cheap rates should make you worried and run away. In fact, skilled senior translators will charge rates that are equal if not higher than comapnies. It is true that freelancer would charge less than language services providers (though it is not always the case) but the extra charge is justified because a company can manage multiple projects at a time unlike freelancers who can only take one project, and deliver large projects in a short time due to its team, besides extra services are provided including proofreading, cross-checking and etc.</span></span><br />
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Blog Insider Tips

Freelancers Debunked

Hiring freelancers is a high risk decision. This blog post explains some of the main risks and issues that everyone should be aware of.

OUR MISSION

Lingo Shack endeavours to raise the standards of quality in this industry, and keep our services sensitive to the budget of our valued customers. We are committed to utitlise all our resources and services to help clients, particularly humanitarian agencies and NGOs, do their work without worrying about the cost and budget. We focus on Arabic, English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Hebrew, Turkish, Kurdish, and Persian pairs of languages and provide about 13 different languages services.