Thursday 12 June 2014

Vamoooooooos! Lexicum update with new look and Portuguese for the world cup

Once again the world is gripped by the football fever and all eyes are set on Brazil where the top 32 teams in the world will contest the most prestigious title of all. At the same time, Lexicum releases a major facelift, including adding Portuguese to our list of supported languages.

More than 3 million will get immersed into the unique vibe at the stadiums and probably up to half a billion will watch the games on TV, some of them - at very awkward times. In Europe most games will be at reasonable times, only occasionally going past 2am - but believe most employers will tolerate mild delays due to football fever on the previous night; Lexicum, for one, surely will!

Now that football is back to the country where it's most revered - why not seize the occasion and learn some Portuguese (I hope you at least now that this is the language which Pele speaks!) ? We're offering a quick selection of useful phrases that we'll be hearing a lot of over the coming weeks:

Football - Futebal
World Cup - Copa do Mundo
Go Brazil - Vamos Brazil
Beat them senseless! - Acaba com Eles!
He's simulating - Ele esta simulando
Penalty kicks - Aos penalts
We won - Ganhamos
We lost - Perdemos
We had bad luck - Š¢ivemos mal sorte
The referee was unfair - O arbitro foi injusto

and of course...

Goal - Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool
(yeah, you need to pronounce it with all the Os)

With this solid start - why not learn some non-football Portuguese too, now you can use Lexicum for this. We've also enabled Portugese as a basis of learning other languages, among plenty of other updates. Try the new lexicum - we hope you'll find the user experience more intuitive. You might wish to do a hard refresh (Ctrl-F5) when you load it for the first time to make sure all the latest stuff is correctly loaded. Our next step is to also include these updates on mobile - we'll be releasing the new mobile web and iPhone app. As usual, you're more than welcome to share both your thoughts and comments about the lastest update and any wishes about the upcoming mobile version - here is our feedback forum.

Before we finish with this post and kick off the football season let's spare a thought about the social issues that the world cup is highlighting. While the spectators will enjouy the glamour of the brand-new facilities there is a backdrop of poverty, protests and irregularities of various sorts. Organized footbal is not without some dark sides, which we think is best highlighted by some humour:

No one from our team will be attending in person but we won't be far from the vibe - in an international city like London one can witness the joyous sounds of the winners and sombre mood of some users almost every night. We also hope that apart from breathtaking moments for the visitiors the event will also bring sustainable improvement in local communities.

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