by Amber | Thu 21 Feb 2019 | Culture
The concept of a ‘brand’ is often misunderstood. It’s not uncommon to confuse the terms ‘brand’ and ‘logo’. In fact, a brand is a way of signalling a set of values that could be important to the customer. Signals are communicated exclusively by language. How they are...
by Amber | Thu 24 Jan 2019 | Language
Kind of a touchy subject for translators. Language is no longer a conversational barrier. There are a hundred different ways to communicate that don’t involve learning a second language. Imagery and the “common cause” connect cultures in ways that never existed...
by Amber | Tue 31 Jul 2018 | Culture
Change my mind. This isn’t an easy discussion for someone whose first language is English. Over the last few weeks, I’ve shared some articles that focus on the “linguaphobia” of anglophone Western countries – where the first and predominant language is English. Of...
by Amber | Mon 23 Apr 2018 | Culture
In previous episodes in our culture series, we have broadly discussed language, technology and communication topics. For this episode, we wanted to explore language in more depth by venturing beyond lexical meaning and digging deeper into cultural paradigms. A...
by Amber | Mon 11 Dec 2017 | Culture
Why do you live where you live? Or perhaps a better question would be, where do you feel like you’re at home? And why? This week, across our social media, we explored a little of what ‘home’ is across the world. Historically, buildings are the...
by Amber | Fri 1 Dec 2017 | Culture
After spending most of the summer travelling around and training in central Europe, some of the most obvious cultural differences only become apparent upon coming home. As an athlete and a media manager, I am online virtually all day. If it’s not for work-related...
by Amber | Mon 20 Nov 2017 | Culture
Advertising across the UK is evolving in all kinds of directions. For the most part, in better directions. Advertising usually reflects the values of a market. When we take a closer looks at these values, it is possible to build a picture of what is needed or wanted...
by Amber | Sat 11 Nov 2017 | Culture
This week at The Word Gym we’ve been exploring the ways that food and advertising have been shaped by social media platform Instagram. Instagram is available to anyone with access to the internet. It currently has more than 800 million users. That’s quite...
by Amber | Wed 16 Aug 2017 | Culture
As I mentioned in my previous post, I spent a lot of time in Slovakia this summer. This was mostly because it’s a wonderful training venue, with mild weather and suitably inexpensive living conditions. It was also because Slovakia is renowned for its development work...
by Amber | Wed 26 Jul 2017 | Culture
Canoe slalom is often described as a ‘lifestyle sport’. It’s a slightly absurd term, because at an elite level all sports are a ‘lifestyle’. Decisions are made based on what is best for training, whether that means sleeping in the middle...
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