The acquisition is the company's latest move in providing customers with comprehensive and distinctive offerings in the education and corporate learning sector
Published: Oct. 14, 2021 at 10:30 AM CDT|Updated: 13 hours ago
OAKLAND CITY, Oct. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Dictionary.com, the leading online and mobile English-language educational resource, today announced the acquisition of top-rated learning management system Skillo, an online platform that provides modern and intuitive training and coaching tools to clients.
With more than 70 million monthly users and 5.5 billion word searches annually, Dictionary.com is the premier online dictionary, thesaurus, and education technology platform. The company's suite of educational products promotes learning for English language students, educators, and word lovers worldwide, providing access to millions of definitions, spellings, audio pronunciations, example sentences, and word origins as well as grammar coaching, virtual tutoring, writing activities, quizzes, and learning games.
Recently ranked among the top learning management systems by SoftwareWorld, Skillo builds dynamic online training courses and provides insight with in-depth reporting tools, enabling clients to train their audiences seamlessly and effectively. By integrating Skillo with Dictionary.com, educators will be able to use, create, and share such educational materials as interactive lesson plans, activities, templates, and more for both remote and in-person learning.
"I'm excited to see what Skillo can do with Dictionary.com behind us," said Andrew Colchagoff, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Skillo. "Dictionary.com's vision for superior learning experiences is perfectly aligned with Skillo's mission to provide the most intuitive platform to facilitate that learning. We look forward to building on our core capabilities as we enter this new phase."
The acquisition marks the nextchapter for Dictionary.com as the company broadens its offerings for current users and expands its suite of tools for education and corporate learning. Recent additions to Dictionary.com's services include its Dictionary Academy and Grammar Coach™ in addition to its wealth of educational content across the site.
Jennifer Stevees-Kiss, CEO of Dictionary.com, stated, "Language and education are constantly evolving, and Dictionary.com is proud to lead the charge in creating the ultimate online learning experience. By leveraging the breadth of Dictionary.com's resources with the modern capabilities provided by platforms like Skillo, we will continue to create fun and engaging educational resources that grow with our customers."
For media inquiries regarding Dictionary.com, please contact Jacquelyn Grant at The TASC Group at jacquelyn@thetascgroup.com.
About Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com Dictionary.com is the world's leading online source for definitions, word origins, and a whole lot more. With virtual tutoring, educational word lists and flashcards, and engaging word games driven by the Dictionary Academy™, Dictionary.com opens the door to learning for millions of people.
Thesaurus.com powers millions of writers every day with the world's largest and most trusted lists of synonyms and antonyms, plus expert grammar advice. Whether they're looking for the perfect word or utilizing Grammar Coach™ for help writing that essay, email, or school paper, writers trust Thesaurus.com to help them communicate.
Contact: Jacquelyn Grant
The TASC Group Email: jacquelyn@thetascgroup.com
View original content:
SOURCE Dictionary.com
The above press release was provided courtesy of PRNewswire. The views, opinions and statements in the press release are not endorsed by Gray Media Group nor do they necessarily state or reflect those of Gray Media Group, Inc.
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The acquisition is the company's latest move in providing customers with comprehensive and distinctive offerings in the education and corporate learning sector
Published: Oct. 14, 2021 at 11:30 AM EDT|Updated: 6 hours ago
OAKLAND CITY, Oct. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Dictionary.com, the leading online and mobile English-language educational resource, today announced the acquisition of top-rated learning management system Skillo, an online platform that provides modern and intuitive training and coaching tools to clients.
With more than 70 million monthly users and 5.5 billion word searches annually, Dictionary.com is the premier online dictionary, thesaurus, and education technology platform. The company's suite of educational products promotes learning for English language students, educators, and word lovers worldwide, providing access to millions of definitions, spellings, audio pronunciations, example sentences, and word origins as well as grammar coaching, virtual tutoring, writing activities, quizzes, and learning games.
Recently ranked among the top learning management systems by SoftwareWorld, Skillo builds dynamic online training courses and provides insight with in-depth reporting tools, enabling clients to train their audiences seamlessly and effectively. By integrating Skillo with Dictionary.com, educators will be able to use, create, and share such educational materials as interactive lesson plans, activities, templates, and more for both remote and in-person learning.
"I'm excited to see what Skillo can do with Dictionary.com behind us," said Andrew Colchagoff, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Skillo. "Dictionary.com's vision for superior learning experiences is perfectly aligned with Skillo's mission to provide the most intuitive platform to facilitate that learning. We look forward to building on our core capabilities as we enter this new phase."
The acquisition marks the nextchapter for Dictionary.com as the company broadens its offerings for current users and expands its suite of tools for education and corporate learning. Recent additions to Dictionary.com's services include its Dictionary Academy and Grammar Coach™ in addition to its wealth of educational content across the site.
Jennifer Stevees-Kiss, CEO of Dictionary.com, stated, "Language and education are constantly evolving, and Dictionary.com is proud to lead the charge in creating the ultimate online learning experience. By leveraging the breadth of Dictionary.com's resources with the modern capabilities provided by platforms like Skillo, we will continue to create fun and engaging educational resources that grow with our customers."
For media inquiries regarding Dictionary.com, please contact Jacquelyn Grant at The TASC Group at jacquelyn@thetascgroup.com.
About Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com Dictionary.com is the world's leading online source for definitions, word origins, and a whole lot more. With virtual tutoring, educational word lists and flashcards, and engaging word games driven by the Dictionary Academy™, Dictionary.com opens the door to learning for millions of people.
Thesaurus.com powers millions of writers every day with the world's largest and most trusted lists of synonyms and antonyms, plus expert grammar advice. Whether they're looking for the perfect word or utilizing Grammar Coach™ for help writing that essay, email, or school paper, writers trust Thesaurus.com to help them communicate.
Contact: Jacquelyn Grant
The TASC Group Email: jacquelyn@thetascgroup.com
View original content:
SOURCE Dictionary.com
The above press release was provided courtesy of PRNewswire. The views, opinions and statements in the press release are not endorsed by Gray Media Group nor do they necessarily state or reflect those of Gray Media Group, Inc.
Fans await the K-pop boy band BTS visit to the Today show at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City last year. Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
If you're looking for a way to describe your newfound love for K-dramas after watching Squid Game, you might say you're riding the Korean wave.
The South Korean survival drama has exposed millions to Korean culture and is considered Netflix's biggest-ever original series launched. It's #1 in over 90 countries and for many people is their first experience with hallyu, or South Korean pop culture and entertainment.
South Korean culture has made its mark in the U.S. recently through a boom in Korean skincare products as well as McDonald's BTS meal. Now it has inspired an update in the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED recently added 26 South Korean words and revised 11.
Jieun Kiaer, associate professor in Korean language and linguistics at the University of Oxford, said the words were included because they are so widely used. "But what is so significant about this," she said, "is that there's been no precedent before that 26 words from one language, one year entered into OED."
Hallyu is more than just dramas and music. It also includes food. Newly added food entries include banchan, kimbap and japchae.
Terms such oppa and unni have been revised to reflect the changes in their meanings as South Korean culture has spread beyond its borders.
Oppa, which was generally used by a female speaker to address an older brother, friend or boyfriend, has been revised to also refer to an attractive South Korean man. And unni is used by a female speaker to refer to an older sister or female friend; it has been revised to also refer to anyone of any gender addressing their favorite Korean actress or singer.
He’s the type of guy who loves skinship huh?😏😏#CHANSUNG #찬성 #2PM
pic.twitter.com/4qUcI4Gp13
— Rae 래 🧛🏻♀️🎃👻 (@chansunghearteu) October 14, 2021
Not every new entry in the OED update is a Korean word. Fighting, a phrase often heard in K-dramas and variety shows, was added as an interjection to express encouragement and support.
Skinship is a combination of the English words skin and kinship and is used to express affectionate physical touching between parents and children, friends or lovers. K-drama fans might use the term to describe scenes between romantic leads and K-pop fans use it to describe how their favorite group's members are interacting with each other.
So the next time you watch a K-drama like Squid Game, you might spread the word by telling everybody how daebak it is.
You can find the words in the new OED update here.
We transmit our knowledge — the scientific and the subjective, the ordinary and the sublime — through a medium of verbs and nouns, adjectives and participles. Through language, we share artistic creations, observations and emotions, crossing the divide that separates one human mind from another.
Translation is a skill as complex as it is necessary: Languages, after all, don’t express the same ideas in the same ways. But it’s more than a tool; it’s also a subject worthy of study in its own right.
Since its founding in 1971 by the late Distinguished Service Professor Marilyn Gaddis Rose, Binghamton University’s Translation Research and Instruction Program (TRIP) has built a truly global reputation. Graduates around the world recommend the program to their own students, passing on TRIP’s legacy to a new generation of scholars.
One of its hallmarks is the PhD program in translation studies, the first of its kind in the United States. It also offers a graduate certificate and an undergraduate minor, and a master’s degree is under development.
Translation skills are increasingly in demand from a wide range of employers, ranging from nongovernmental organizations to immigrant services and international trade, says Associate Professor of Asian and Asian American Studies Chenqing Song, the program’s director since 2017.
TRIP has a proud history at Binghamton, and its doctoral program was developed even before there was an appreciation for the critical importance of translation studies, says Harpur College Dean Celia Klin. In addition to Gaddis Rose’s legacy and the continued development of TRIP’s degree programs, she pointed to exciting interdisciplinary initiatives such as the Ladino Lab.
“In our increasingly global world, translation studies are a critical part of a liberal arts college and Harpur College is proud to be celebrating the 50th anniversary of TRIP,” Klin says.
TRIP began as a program within the Department of Comparative Literature, where it is still housed today. Its focus is two-fold: helping translators hone their skills and emphasizing translation theory, says Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy Anthony Preus, who was recruited by Gaddis Rose.
Translation theory
“Marilyn Gaddis Rose wanted to give an opportunity to develop trained translators for actual careers,” Preus says. “She also established a service to link people who needed translation done with people who could do it.”
That was the Translation Referral Service (TRS), where graduate students tackled a wide range of projects in the days before widespread internet use reduced the need for localized translation services. The service, which ended in 2009, helped open doors for many translators to connect with organizations and publishers and begin working in the field, says Kim Allen Gleed, MA ’97, PhD ’05, now an English and French professor at Harrisburg Area Community College in Pennsylvania.
In addition to the TRS, Gaddis Rose also spearheaded the grant-funded Center for Research in Translation (CRIT) and coordinated translation workshops in which professors worked with students specializing in particular languages, says Ithaca College Associate Professor of Italian Marella Feltrin-Morris, who earned doctorates in both comparative literature (’05) and translation studies (’08) at Binghamton.
What truly set TRIP apart was its doctoral program in translation studies, unique among American universities when it began in 2004; Feltrin-Morris was the first to receive a doctorate through the program. Translators don’t need a doctorate to work in the field, but the advanced degree opens up additional career possibilities in research and teaching, notes Marko Miletich, an assistant professor of Spanish and translation at Buffalo State College who earned his PhD at Binghamton in 2012.
Gleed, who earned her master’s and doctoral degrees in comparative literature, considers the program the perfect blend of translation theory and practice.
“We studied the roots of translation, going all the way back to Saint Jerome, and moved through to modern and contemporary theorists, many of whom Professor Gaddis Rose knew and invited to campus as guest speakers and lecturers,” she says. “The study of the discipline informed our practice, and as translators, we worked with a multitude of texts, from literary to technical and everything in between as we developed and honed our skills.”
A pioneer in the field of translation, Gaddis Rose shaped the program in myriad ways. She recruited people into TRIP; among them was Preus, who has published translations from both French and classical Greek. She also advocated for her students and sought to broaden their horizons in multiple ways.
A pioneering founder
“I remember Marilyn Gaddis Rose’s calm, steady, yet unwavering, energy. She was an incredibly intelligent and strong woman, so devoted to our field and to the success of her students,” says José Dávila-Montes, one of the visiting scholars who came to TRIP while conducting research.
He had only intended to stay in Binghamton for nine months while he worked on doctoral research for his alma mater: Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain. Nine months became 18 as Dávila-Montes stayed on to complete a master’s degree in Spanish literature at Binghamton and see his second son born. Today, he is a professor of translation and interpreting at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, where he founded one of the first bachelor’s programs in translation and interpreting in the country.
He has many cherished memories of Gaddis Rose, such as the time in 2004 when she took a half dozen graduate students in a van to the second American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association conference in Amherst, Mass. Today, ATISA is a national reference for the discipline, Dávila-Montes says.
When he held a party at his home, Gaddis Rose came, along with TRIP graduate students from around the world.
“I am so grateful that I could witness those moments. Many of my current colleagues and friends in the field, I met them there first,” he says. “Long-lasting friendships and academic collaboration were built around Marilyn’s amazing personality.”
Gleed’s favorite memory of Gaddis Rose also involved a road trip; when she presented at a James Joyce conference at Cornell University, her mentor accompanied her each day to cheer her on as a new academic. Conferences also spark Feltrin-Morris’ memories of Gaddis Rose, in particular in those moments when ideas seem to emerge spontaneously.
“Among the many lessons that I learned from her is this: ‘The best ideas come when you’re doing something else. And it’s true!” she says.
Feltrin-Morris and TRIP alumnae María Constanza Guzmán and Deborah Folaron published Translation and Literary Studies: Homage to Marilyn Gaddis Rose three years before their mentor’s death in 2015. Feltrin-Morris interviewed the professor for the volume, and the co-editors solicited articles from her former students.
Gaddis Rose not only gave her blessing but also actively participated, contributing a new essay on the stereoscopic reading of Jane Austen through translations of her work.
“We wanted to do a Festschrift to honor Marilyn Gaddis Rose because she created something quite amazing and quite unique at the time,” Feltrin-Morris says. “She was a force of nature; she had her hands in so many fields. She had to because of the nature of translation studies.”
Translators can be found throughout University departments, working within their own disciplines. Because of this, TRIP has deep connections to many other departments in Harpur College.
An interdisciplinary field
“We have students coming from around the world. All share one passion, which is translation, but they approach translation very differently,” Song says. “Some want to do it under, say, sociology. For some, it’s more linguistic than literary. We also have students who are interested in political science, or gender studies or theater, music, you name it!”
Today, TRIP has 38 doctoral candidates, the majority of them international students; only a handful are domestic students. Many graduates return to their home countries to teach. The most common languages for translation include Arabic, Chinese, Korean, the Romance languages and occasionally German, but students also translate other languages, Song says.
The program has changed through the years to accommodate students’ interests and needs. Doctoral dissertations, for example, are no longer limited to theory-based analysis and can now include translation.
“This really addressed what many of our students wanted to do and what they felt was important to secure good positions in the future,” says Professor of Korean Studies Michael Pettid, who headed TRIP from 2011 to 2016.
The regions from which its students come also have shifted. More than a decade ago, TRIP began drawing more students from the Middle East, thanks to generous government programs and grants from the region such as the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission. These students are typically teachers in their home countries, where a PhD in the field is unavailable, Song says.
Under Pettid’s leadership, TRIP began a dual degree PhD program with Beijing International Studies University; Chinese students from BISU, funded by a government grant, finish their doctoral degrees in Binghamton.
TRIP graduate students are a significant force in campus life, running an academic conference every three years, holding multiple events and supporting multiculturalism and gender and racial equity initiatives, Song says. Irem Ayan, who earned her PhD through TRIP in 2019, compares the program to a mini United Nations. She should know; she has worked at the U.N. as a freelance interpreter.
Tarek Shamma earned a certificate in Arabic/ English translation through TRIP while finishing his master’s in comparative literature. After earning his PhD in 2006, his career took him to universities throughout the Middle East; he returned to Binghamton in 2018 as an associate professor in both TRIP and comparative literature.
“Translation is one of the most enriching fields to study on the academic and personal levels. It is highly interdisciplinary in nature, so you can pursue practically any interest that you have,” he says, noting options in the hard sciences, social sciences and the humanities. “The experience of learning other languages and cultures is one of the most rewarding I know, and one of the most useful in today’s world in practically any professional field.”
(JTA) — When Lazarus Goldschmidt completed his translation of the Talmud into German, the world he had hoped to serve when he started 40 years earlier was in the process of being destroyed.
It was 1935, two years after Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany, and Goldschmidt himself had already fled to London. Over the next decade, virtually every Jew in Germany either escaped or was murdered. Goldschmidt’s feat — he was the first to complete a full translation of the Talmud into any European language — was recognized, but his work had little practical impact.
Now, nearly 90 years later, German-speaking Jews are getting another chance to engage with Goldschmidt’s work. Sefaria, the website that makes Jewish texts available and interactive online, has added Goldschmidt’s translation to its library.
“The original publication of this document was a milestone event in German Jewish life,” said Igor Itkin, a German rabbinical student who led the team that adapted Goldschmidt’s translation for online use, in a statement released by Sefaria. “Making it available online not only preserves that legacy, but also introduces it to future generations.”
Itkin told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he has already heard from Germans who have begun using the translation in their study of Daf Yomi, the daily page of Talmud that Jews around the world learn in unison. “The response has been very positive,” he said.
Scholars of Judaism in Germany have sought to make Jewish texts available in German for decades, but the Talmud translation project gained steam after Itkin and his colleagues, German and Austrian scholars, took on the project after he realized that Goldschmidt’s work would enter the public domain at the beginning of this year.
It took them five months for the team to make its way through the 9,434 pages of Goldschmidt’s translation, reviewing and correcting errors in the scanned version and formatting it so users can navigate among the German, English and Hebrew/Aramaic translations that Sefaria makes available. (Sefaria’s CEO, Daniel Septimus, is a board member of 70 Faces Media, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s parent company.)
The translation will be the subject of an online event Oct. 24 featuring scholars who will speak to its significance. But it already took center stage once, premiering earlier this month in Berlin as part of this year’s “Festival of Resilience,” a series of events celebrating how German Jewish communities have persisted in the face of hate.
“It was very important to us to do an event in German, because this is a tool for a German-speaking audience,” said Rabbi Jeremy Borovitz, director of Jewish learning for Hillel Deutschland, who helped coordinate between Itkin’s team and Sefaria. “There’s a lot of excitement from German rabbis because finally, it’s opened up a way that they can really bring Talmud learning to their audiences.”
The translation’s accessibility comes amid surging interest in Jewish studies at German universities as well as in less formal settings. Sefaria’s tools allow users to draw from its library to create source sheets, or Jewish study texts, meaning that individual classes and communities will be able to tailor the new materials for their needs.
The digital German Talmud represents “a way of making important Jewish texts available and accessible for a new generation of German-speaking Jews who are eager to learn and explore what it means to be Jewish today,” Katharina Hadassah Wendl, an Austrian student at the London School of Jewish Studies who assisted with the project, told JTA.
She added, “For me personally, this project has opened my eyes anew to the depths of Torah and the vast sea of Talmudic discussions and wisdom.”
Joshua Foer, an author and cofounder of Sefaria, said in a statement that the translation’s online release represents the triumph of Jewish tradition over the forces of hate that lapped against Goldschmidt as he worked.
“Goldschmidt released the translation at a time of rising antisemitism to dispel dangerous myths and make the text accessible to all German speakers around the world,” Foer said. He added, “That this translation is being made more accessible today with the help of German and Austrian rabbinic students and scholars representing the future of German Judaism is a fitting celebration of Goldschmidt’s legacy.”
Goldschmidt died in 1950, shortly after the Royal Library in Copenhagen acquired his collected works and papers. His other contributions included the first German translation of the Quran and a parody commentary on creation that he published under the moniker Arzelai bar Bargelai.
Sefaria is in the process of adding French and English translations of the Jerusalem Talmud, an alternate form of the foundational Jewish text, that also recently entered the public domain. And with their work on Goldschmidt’s Talmud complete, Itkin and his team will get to work on translating other texts, such as the Mishnah, with commentary from prewar German rabbis including David Zvi Hoffmann and Eduard Baneth.
One day, they hope that text and others will appear on Sefaria in German as well, ready to engage German students and synagogue-goers in their native language.
“There’s a source of pride that the first language other than English on Sefaria is German,” said Borovitz. “It speaks to some of the resilience of this text and also this community and that it’s growing, and that people are optimistic about the future.”
The acquisition is the company's latest move in providing customers with comprehensive and distinctive offerings in the education and corporate learning sector
Published: Oct. 14, 2021 at 9:30 AM MDT|Updated: 12 minutes ago
OAKLAND CITY, Oct. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Dictionary.com, the leading online and mobile English-language educational resource, today announced the acquisition of top-rated learning management system Skillo, an online platform that provides modern and intuitive training and coaching tools to clients.
With more than 70 million monthly users and 5.5 billion word searches annually, Dictionary.com is the premier online dictionary, thesaurus, and education technology platform. The company's suite of educational products promotes learning for English language students, educators, and word lovers worldwide, providing access to millions of definitions, spellings, audio pronunciations, example sentences, and word origins as well as grammar coaching, virtual tutoring, writing activities, quizzes, and learning games.
Recently ranked among the top learning management systems by SoftwareWorld, Skillo builds dynamic online training courses and provides insight with in-depth reporting tools, enabling clients to train their audiences seamlessly and effectively. By integrating Skillo with Dictionary.com, educators will be able to use, create, and share such educational materials as interactive lesson plans, activities, templates, and more for both remote and in-person learning.
"I'm excited to see what Skillo can do with Dictionary.com behind us," said Andrew Colchagoff, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Skillo. "Dictionary.com's vision for superior learning experiences is perfectly aligned with Skillo's mission to provide the most intuitive platform to facilitate that learning. We look forward to building on our core capabilities as we enter this new phase."
The acquisition marks the nextchapter for Dictionary.com as the company broadens its offerings for current users and expands its suite of tools for education and corporate learning. Recent additions to Dictionary.com's services include its Dictionary Academy and Grammar Coach™ in addition to its wealth of educational content across the site.
Jennifer Stevees-Kiss, CEO of Dictionary.com, stated, "Language and education are constantly evolving, and Dictionary.com is proud to lead the charge in creating the ultimate online learning experience. By leveraging the breadth of Dictionary.com's resources with the modern capabilities provided by platforms like Skillo, we will continue to create fun and engaging educational resources that grow with our customers."
For media inquiries regarding Dictionary.com, please contact Jacquelyn Grant at The TASC Group at jacquelyn@thetascgroup.com.
About Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com Dictionary.com is the world's leading online source for definitions, word origins, and a whole lot more. With virtual tutoring, educational word lists and flashcards, and engaging word games driven by the Dictionary Academy™, Dictionary.com opens the door to learning for millions of people.
Thesaurus.com powers millions of writers every day with the world's largest and most trusted lists of synonyms and antonyms, plus expert grammar advice. Whether they're looking for the perfect word or utilizing Grammar Coach™ for help writing that essay, email, or school paper, writers trust Thesaurus.com to help them communicate.
Contact: Jacquelyn Grant
The TASC Group Email: jacquelyn@thetascgroup.com
View original content:
SOURCE Dictionary.com
The above press release was provided courtesy of PRNewswire. The views, opinions and statements in the press release are not endorsed by Gray Media Group nor do they necessarily state or reflect those of Gray Media Group, Inc.
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