Comments on: An Idea For Discussing Vocabulary on Twitter

By: Justin

Justin — Fri, 08 May 2009 22:40:49 +0000

Is bitácora used in Latin America as well? So Twitter is a micro-bitácora? I just wrote a blog on ¨twittereando¨here and Twitter translations if you wanna check it out. Keep up the good work.

By: Nora

Nora — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:21:02 +0000

Gave it a go today with one for fr-eng. Just C&Ped as… um… no hashtag on my iBook keyboard. Too dumb for words, or common problem??

By: MartinB

MartinB — Fri, 01 May 2009 20:35:03 +0000

www.grafitter.com and www.hashtag.me are impressive examples of what application developers can also do with standardized tags ...

By: MatthewBennett

MatthewBennett — Fri, 01 May 2009 17:33:48 +0000

Hi Festus: that's great. As for hashtags, I'm not sure it's something we can organise; it seems more like something that people will either start using or not.

By: Festus

Festus — Fri, 01 May 2009 14:26:00 +0000

I've been using Twitter for some time now as a tool for learning vocabulary in other languages. I began by searching for francophone users in and around Paris, Lille, Bruxelles, etc. and followed their tweets. Before long I was getting a sense for informal language that I hadn't had before.

A standardized system of hashtags would be a great way to expand my personal database of lexical tweets, as well as to connect users with similar langauge interests. En avant !

By: MartinB

MartinB — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:48:20 +0000

Sorry, at the moment I am a little bit in a hurry. But, we can talk about it on Sunday. Enjoy your weekend!

By: MatthewBennett

MatthewBennett — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:36:14 +0000

Wow, cool, a whole site devoted to this kind of idea. How are you thinking of developing it?

I saw http://twitter.com/search?q=#wordkill on Twitter yesterday which is a fun language-related hashtag too.

By: MartinB

MartinB — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:28:43 +0000

It is great to develop better structures for the usage of these hashtags. For this purpose I just opened http://www.lnglrn.org

Maybe we can collaborate to provide the best possible support for learners.

By: MatthewBennett

MatthewBennett — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:21:59 +0000

Thanks, that's one vote for giving it a try then!

Do you mean a monolingual issue or for a language learner as opposed to a translator? I think language learners/teachers could use this in the same way as translators and maybe for monolingual things you could just do #es or #en?

That's what I found so interesting about the word 'bitácora' the other day with @alunjohn. In English it comes from the log bit – which I think was once a piece of wood used to measure things on ships – and in Spanish it refers to wood but a with a different use – the place they where they kept the log out of inclement weather as you point out. 'Bitacoreros' vs. 'blogueros', 'bitacorear' vs. 'bloguear' .

By: Elena

Elena — Fri, 01 May 2009 12:43:37 +0000

It's definitely worth our time. GREAT IDEA.
But that hashtag is just devoted to translation issues, what if it's not a translation issue but just a lexical or semantic one?
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BTW: I've never liked “bitácora”…bitácora es el armario al lado del timón dnd se guardaba el cuaderno…No sé ni cómo ni pq el continente pasó a ser el contenido…y la gente habla de bitácoras, entonces are we bitacoreros who bitacorean? :S
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Greetings from VLC.