Roundtable "Cyberspace: opportunity and challenge for Languages", 22 November, Brussels

The roundtable "Cyberspace: opportunity and challenge for Languages", will be held in Brussels the 22 November 2011 to disscuss on new opportunities and challenges for Languages in the Cyberspace. The debate will be moderated by Quentin DICKINSON, Director of Radio France for European Affairs in Brussels.

Maragretah Marzura, Secretary General of EMF will participate in the event to share knowledge acquired in the META and CELAN EU projects.

If you are interested please register at: bxl-europe@skynet.be

Results and videos of the META-FORUM on Language Technologies on-line!

The international conference on powerful technologies for the multilingual European Information Society (META-FORUM 2011) took place in Budapest the 27-28 June 2011, organized by META-NET, a Network of Excellence consisting of 47 research centres in 31 coun tries and funded by the European Commission.

The event featured both interactive and informative sessions focusing on multilingualism, the challenges and opportunities presented by the multilingual information society and how innovative Language Technologies are key in developing solutions to these challenges.

The meeting was META-NET is forging the ?Multilingual Europe Technology Alliance? uniting technology researchers, providers and users for a large European research and innovation effort.

International experts discussed future applications for Language Technologies, research needs and market requirements.

For more information watch the videos

Languages mean business - a new website for languages & business initiatives

The European Commission have launched the "Languages mean business" platform to offer information on the benefits of languages when doing business and give tips and tools for better language management.

The site contains several sections with interesting information such as results from studies on the use of languages in European SMEs, success stories of small businesses that really made it thanks to a thorough language strategy, tips for success, a support service and much more.

Visit the website

Half of the EU Internet surfers use foreing languages on-line

According to a pan-EU Eurobarometer survey 55% of Internet surfers use at least occasionally another language than their own when they are on-line. However, 90% of the surfers prefer to access websites in their own language and 44% of them feel they are missing interesting information because web pages are not in a language that they understand.

The survey confirms that English is the most commonly used language when it comes to reading and watching content on the Internet in a different language than one's own: almost half of Internet users in the EU (48%) would use English at least "occasionally" while Spanish, German and French would be used by 4% to 6% of users.

To face this situation the European Commission manages 30 different research projects working at the interface of language and digital content and one of the objectives of the Digital Agenda for Europe is to ensure more accessibility to web content for everyone.

EMF follows closely the development on Languages and opportunities in EU and participate in META (the Multilingual Europe Technology Alliance) and the CELAN project (Promotion of Language Strategies for Competitiveness and Employability) .

Download the Survey
Visit the CELAN project site
Visit the META website