Giveaway: Language Learning Software
Zak Erving
This contest is now closed. Thanks for playing!
__________
¡Sparkpunk.com has officially launched!
To celebrate Sparkpunk's maiden voyage, I'll be hosting contests and giveaways every week in April—and to kick things off I've got some great language learning software up for grabs. Trust me, you'll want to win this stuff.
Hokay, so! Here's the deal: Languages are a beautiful part of the fabric of culture, but not knowing how to speak or write in another language can have disastrous—and often hilarious—results. Whether it's Engrish, a language fail, or a simple mistranslation, I want to hear about your favorite example of lost meaning across languages.
HOW TO ENTER:
- Upload a picture (<2mb), share a video (link), or tell a short story (<100 words) in the comment section below that responds to the above prompt
- Be sure to include your email address in your comment so I know where to find you if you win
- To get the ball rolling, I've provided a link to some of my favorite examples: Cracked.com's 6 Mistranslations That Changed The World and my own misadventures in Italy.
GET EXTRA ENTRIES BY SHARING THE GIVEAWAY WITH YOUR FRIENDS!
- Follow @zakerving on Twitter
- Tweet the giveaway link to your followers, and be sure to include the hashtag #sparkpunk to make sure I see it!
- Like Sparkpunk on Facebook
- Post the giveaway link to your facebook page. Again, be sure to include the hashtag #sparkpunk to make sure I see your entry!
UP FOR GRABS:
One Grand Prize: A three-month Gold Key membership from Livemocha.com, the premiere online social language platform (check out my overview of Livemocha.com)
Five Runners-Up: Componica's Memorize Words spaced-repetition flashcard program for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, a leader in spaced-repetition vocabulary trainers (check out my overview of Memorize Words)
THE NITTY-GRITTY
This giveaway ends Friday, April 6, 2012 at 5:00pm Pacific Time. A Grand Prize Winner will be randomly selected via RowFeeder (which monitors the "sparkpunk" tags on Twitter & Facebook) and announced on Monday, April 9, 2012 at 7:00am Pacific Time.
The Grand Prize Winner will receive a 3-month Gold Key membership to Livemocha.com.
I'll also be selecting the runners-up from my five favorite entries based on the following criterea:
- Contrast of intended meaning against actual message: The Chinese character GAN4 is Suspect #1 in many of these incidents.
- Scale of international consequences: Like when then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter told Polish officials that he wanted to love them carnally.
- Overall hilarity and/or absurdity: Make me laugh. A lot.
Each of the runners-up will receive their choice of Memorize Words in Spanish, French, or Russian.
So what are you waiting for? Get posting!