The Cunning Linguist

There are many ways to immerse yourself in a language. One is to use websites with the preferences set to your target language. The other day I got to messing around with iGoogle, to see whether I could access a Japanese version with my same favourite content and gizmos. It start out with wondering if they did a Japanese version of the standard iGoogle "Date & Time" application (which they don't), then thinking perhaps the Japanese version might just show the date and time in Japanese. I use iGoogle as my browser home page, so setting it to default to another language would be a great way to drum some of those day-to-day terms into my brain.

And .... *drumroll* .... you can! Here's how to do it. The default iGoogle page is at URL "http://www.google.com/ig?hl=en". See the "hl=en" at the end of the URL? That's the parameter that tells iGoogle what language you want the page to be displayed in. Each language has a two letter code, and they're fairly intuitive.

 

• en - English
• de - German
• ja - Japanese
• zh-cn - Simplified Chinese
• zh-tw - Traditional Chinese
• ko - Korean
• th - Thai

There's plenty more languages for those wishing to experiment! You may be met by a "logged out" version of the page when you first visit, but if you were logged in on the English version, all you need to do is find the "login" link (usually directly under the search box in a line of text) and it will pull up your preferences without challenging you for a username or password. Couldn't be simpler! Don't forget to bookmark the page once you've configured it to use your preferred language (or set it as your home page). If you ever get in a pickle with the new language you can escape to English by either hacking the URL or going back to "www.google.com" and logging in from there. As long as you've not changed your language preferences in the iGoogle settings page (only tweaked the URL), you will default to English when you log in from the regular site.

 

While we're on the subject of web-goodies, Apple are currently hosting High Definition videos featuring footage of both China and Japan as part of their promotional materials for QuickTime 7. The videos have been collated by BBC Motion Gallery in collaboration with CCTV and NHK respectively. Windows Media and downloadable versions are available direct from the BBC Motion Gallery website, but they're not such high resolution as those featured on the QuickTime High Definition Gallery. Follow these links to sate your desire for library footage of Japan and China (you will need to install QuickTime to view the video clips). Found via Jaakko Saari's Hanami Web December 2007 newsletter!

PS ... In both January and February of 2008 this site has exceeded 600 unique visitors per month, and last week's traffic burst through the "200 unique visitors/week" barrier for the first time on record! That may not sound too exciting in the grand scheme of popular websites, but language-related blogging is a bit of a niche, and these are all firsts for this particular little corner of the web. Thank you for visiting Cunning Linguist, posting comments and feedback, and spreading the word. Its great to see the site grow!