Translation Africa Blog - June 2014
The Russian Language and the African Continent
30/06/2014When people in Africa get the chance to learn a foreign language, most students on the continent opt for a language such as English, French or even Chinese to increase their prospects on the job market. The Russian language, however, is often ignored as the Russian ties with Africa are not that strong. The development…
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Street Shona – Language Evolution in Zimbabwe
24/06/2014With few exceptions, languages are always evolving: new technologies or influences from other languages lead to new words and phrases. In Zimbabwe, it is the street life in the big cities that is currently transforming the Shona language. The Shona language is spoken by 80 per cent of all Zimbabweans. However, according to Hilary Siyachitema,…
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New Online Encyclopaedia to Preserve African Culture
23/06/2014In many African countries, youths are abandoning their native villages and moving to the city. In this process, many African traditions are slowly being forgotten, which means entire cultures are in danger of becoming extinct. Thankfully, a new online project has been created to put this development to a halt. Smack in the forests of…
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E-retail Strategies for the African Market
18/06/2014In order to be successful, all companies must market their products. Of course, marketing strategy depends on the kind of product a company sells, but this strategy should be altered to fit specific countries or regions as well. As the African continent is less developed than the European one, for example, companies that wish to…
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Is Social Media Saving Africa’s Languages?
16/06/2014What role can social media have in developing and potentially saving African languages? An article on Think Africa Press says it might be helping.. Entitled, Speak It, Keep It, Tweet It: Reaffirming the Pride and Place of African Languages, the article is a fascinating look at the modern landscape of language on the continent. A…
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Afrikaans Social Media Platform Launches in South Africa
06/06/2014A new addition to the social media family – Toeter . Speakers of Afrikaans can finally share their thoughts online in their native language! Have you always wanted to use Afrikaans to do your social media business in? The wait is over! Media Online gives account of the launch of Toeter, a social networking site…
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Khoikhoi Language Brought Back to Life in South Africa
04/06/2014The Khoikhoi language is the oldest indigenous language in South Africa. Even though the apartheid and colonialism have caused the Khoikhoi culture in its entirety to fade into the background of South African society, people are now making serious efforts to bring the culture and language back to life. In an article on AllAfrica, Yazeed…
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Rwandan App Seeks to Teach African Languages through Crowd-Sourced Translation
03/06/2014Wow! Exciting news out of Rwanda! Jifunza, a local startup., is going to be launching a language learning app which will use crowd-sourced translations to help teach people African languages. The game-based mobile app which is called Menya will work by providing users with templates to create lessons for users wanting to learn an African…
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Localization on the cards for Spotify in Africa?
03/06/2014News today from Human IPO that Spotify and Vodacom are discussing a potential partnership which would see the music streaming service launch in Africa. The original report from Bloomberg states that Vodacom will offer wireless customers subscriptions which will include some free data to access Spotify. Vodacom has 31.5 million customers in South Africa alone…
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Tips on Business Etiquette in Nigeria
02/06/2014Working in a foreign country is difficult. Nigeria is no different. If you are planning on working in or with Africa’s largest economy then there are a few things you should understand about their culture and their ways of doing things – business etiquette is just one of these areas. Obviously, Nigeria has a different…
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