By Ruiling Feng
Chinese Language Intern

Some people call it Chinese New Year; some people call it Lunar New Year and some people call it Spring Festival “春节”. The first one is never my favorite way, as this festival is celebrated by several other countries, too; the second one is merely an explanation of what it is; the third one is the most touching one for me, because it is more beautiful, more commonly used to describe this festival and more related to my life in China. If asked how important it is to Chinese people, I’d like to take myself as an example. This is my first time in my whole life that I didn’t celebrate it with my family.

In China, both Solar Calendar and Lunar Calendar are widely used, but the latter is mainly popular for farmers. Although Spring Festival, more specifically speaking, refers to the first day of the lunar new year, the real celebration begins from the last day of the old year and lasts to the Lantern Festival which falls on the 15^th day of the first month of Lunar Calendar. Unfortunately, most people in cities have to say goodbye to the holiday and begin to work around the 6^th of the first month.

I have been asked many times what the most common custom for the celebration is. Apparently, eating is absolutely one of the right answers. Family reunion dinner, party with friends, visiting relatives, etc., all center around eating and talking. Every year, when the Spring Festival is coming, my parents will prepare a lot of vegetables, meat, drinks, snacks, while waiting for their children to come back. However, people in different regions may prepare different food. Dumplings are well-known worldwide, which doesn’t need further details. Many people are confused why Chinese people like connecting fish with the Spring Festival. There is actually an interesting custom about it. The Chinese idiom 年年有余 “Nian Nian You Yu” can vividly reflect this tradition. The pronunciation of “余” (surplus) is the same with that of “鱼” (fish), so the fish for the New Year Eve family reunion dinner will not be finished completely, leaving some for next year, indicating the wish “May every year ends with ample surplus”.

There are some popular decorations for Spring Festival, for example, couplets, paper-cut and New Year painting, kumquat trees, red lantern, upside down ‘Good Fortune’ signs. Speaking of kumquat trees, although it is basically more popular in Cantonese, there is an amazing story happening between Brother Orange, a Chinese man, and Matt Stopera, an American, there this year. Matt is probably the most well-known foreigner for Chinese citizens during this Spring Festival celebration. The story is about Matt’s lost IPhone that was bought by Chinese man who took some selfies, and Matt accidentally saw these photos on his new IPhone probably because they share one iCloud account. Anyway, a touching and exciting story began because of a lost IPhone. You can get more information about this story here.

For children, red envelope money is definitely one of the most exciting presents for Spring Festival. It is called “压岁钱” (yasui qian ) which means “suppressing ghosts money” and is normally given by the married to unmarried, but not necessarily so. I already began to give my nephews and nieces money for Spring Festival when I began to work, just to show my care and love. The receivers are wished safety and peace in the new year. In the northern part, the money can also be given without the red envelope. Red, nevertheless, is always the most common and popular color for Spring Festival celebration, reflecting people’s wish for happiness and prosperity.

Spring Festival in China is always associated with the Spring Festival Gala produced by Chinese Central Television, which is a necessary part of the celebration for many people. And it is often widely analyzed and commented by citizens after the show, which itself has also become a custom and entertainment these years.

As it is so widely celebrated in China, to mention every custom in one article is impossible. No matter how differently people celebrate it in different places, the themes of family reunion, friendship, worship of nature, love of peace, wish of happiness and prosperity, respect of traditions, etc. are commonly shared. That’s exactly the charm of this old yet developing festival and culture.

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By Vika Abramova
Russian Language Intern

Why do Russians chant “gorko” (bitter) at a wedding reception? 

At the beginning of December 2014 my brother Anton got married and had a wedding reception back in my home city of Perm, Russia. I decided to arrange a skype session between my Intermediate Russian students, the newlyweds and the guests at the wedding reception involving the students in real-life cultural experience.

In Russia, weddings tend to be done on a grand scale. The reception of a Russian wedding typically takes place in a restaurant or the home of the bride or groom’s family and tend to last more than one day with the average being about two days. A Russian wedding is a great celebration with plenty of food, drinks, toasting, and dancing. A toastmaster, or “tamada”, is hired for the reception to conduct toasts, supervise games, and entertain the guests.

Both the newlyweds and the students were excited to meet via video. The couple was pleased to receive congratulations across thousands of miles while the students were happy to practice their Russian speaking skills congratulating my brother, his wife and all the guests with this special occasion. The Skype to the newlyweds was a lot of fun. The Russian students raised cups with juice to toast the newlyweds and proposed long toasts according to Russian tradition. The students also learned about some of the traditions at Russian weddings.

As the students finished making toasts one of the guests at the reception suddenly yelled out the word “Gor’ko” (bitter) to the newlyweds and the couple started to kiss each other. I asked the puzzled students to support the guests with chanting the same word, over and over again, and explained the tradition afterwards. No Russian wedding can go without people yelling “Gor’ko” to the bride and groom. This is not a sign of displeasure at the food: it is a signal, after which bride and groom must stand up and kiss each other. The Bitter Kiss is a Russian wedding tradition. For the first toast held, the guests will drink from their glasses and then they will start chanting “Gor’ko” (meaning that the drink is bitter) and the couple then have to kiss to make the drink “sweet.”

Guests usually shout “Gor’ko” after every toast or just when they want the couple to kiss. So, every five or 10 minutes one of the guests will begin chanting: “Gor’ko! Gor’ko! Gor’ko!” The rest of the guests will join in. Once they made the newlyweds kiss, everybody begins counting very slowly to see how long the kiss will last. It is generally considered that the more the guests yell “Gor’ko”, the happier the couple’s life will be

Congratulations to Anton and Lena! Wishing that your marriage will be as happy and beautiful as your wedding.

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Not everyone has the time or the money to attend language courses or study abroad. Therefore, free programs and online learning applications such as Duolingo  have become very popular lately. One of the latest revolutionary ideas on the world of online language learning is Lingua.ly, an app which allows you to learn languages while surfing the Internet, on any website, for free and with just a few clicks. Sound tempting? It is. Lingua.ly is a plug-in for Chrome where you’ll be able to read any article you want while selecting words to add to your personalized dictionary to learn its meaning. Lingua.ly is currently available in English, Russian, French, Spanish, Hebrew, and Arabic.

Lingua.ly can be used to learn a new language from scratch. When you install the extension, you can go to any website in the language you are learning and double click on the word to learn it. Lingua.ly automatically saves the words you choose to your personal learning area. You can hear the correct pronunciation by clicking on each word or browse by clicking on the speaker icon. Unlike other online courses, the “lessons” on Lingua.ly are created just for you while you browse the contents online, and you choose what you really want to read. As you add words, the system will know your level for the language you want to learn and will suggest items to read, tests to take, practice exercises, etc. And you will be always able to see your progress.

The cons of Lingua.ly: once installed, the plug-in can become a little annoying due to the pop-up with the meaning and pronunciation of words whenever you double-click on something, but this is bearable.

Learn new works with Lingua.ly even while you are on Facebook

Do you like the idea? Then check it for yourself. Just download the plug-in, choose your native language and the one you want to learn, login with your Google, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn account, and you’re all set. A Lingua.ly icon will appear to the right of the navigation bar: clicking on it, you’ll find the main menu of the app and you choose one of the 4 options:

1 Find something to read in English
2 Explore new words suggested by Lingua.ly
3 Study your own word list
4 Practice the words you have saved

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Apps can make your life much easier when you’re learning a new language or visiting a foreign country. Today we’re going to review Word Lens, an app meant to let you “see the world in your language: instantly translate printed words using your built-in video camera, in real time!”. What it does is exactly that: you point your camera at something written in one language, and it shows you the translation in a different language right on the screen, by replacing the captured text in real time. The app doesn’t require an Internet connection to work, however you will have to download language packs separately.

The description makes Word Lens sound quite interesting and fun to use, but the actual experience might not be as smooth and efficient as you would hope. I tried an English-Italian translation on a few writings, including an instruction booklet. This is the result:

Many words are poorly translated: for instance, “Before you get started” sounds more like “Before you arriving, it began”; for some reason “connecting” is translated as “communicating”; “light” as in “not heavy” is translated as “light” as “radiant energy visible to the human eye” (they are two different words in Italian: “leggero” e “luce”).

The translation seems to be extremely literal and word-by-word, so you’ll have to struggle in order to make sense of what’s written onscreen. The way this app works is also quite clumsy: you have to point at words and stand very still, and the text recognition isn’t always immediate.

The app is not completely useless, however: I believe it could be helpful if you’re traveling in places using languages that are completely obscure to you (maybe because they have different alphabets or writing systems) to make sense of signs, product tags and other easy bits of information — if you’re on a trip in the Amazon forest and you can actually translate a sign in Portuguese that says “something something rattlesnake something death something danger”, you don’t really need to understand the entire sentence to realize you should probably be careful, after all. This app might also save you from unwanted allergic reactions if you’re buying groceries in Russia and you really have no idea how to type Cyrillic letters into your smartphone keyboard.

Here’s a list of the supported languages: English-Russian / English-Portuguese / English-Italian / English-French / English-Spanish / English-German. 

Unfortunately, no Japanese or Chinese — for that, you’ll have to download a different app. However, in May 2014, Word Lens was acquired by Google (whose Translate app works fairly well with a large number of languages), so there might be new languages added soon, as well as improvements in the way Word Lens handles longer, more complex texts.

Word Lens might definitely be worth a try: you can download it from the App Store or from Google Play — both the app and the language packs are free.

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The Keck Center will be hosting its first Language Exchange night. Come practice your language skills while helping others learn your languages. Anyone who speaks or is learning Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, or any other language is welcome.

Food will be provided as well as some conversation prompts to help focus on specific grammatical needs.

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