Top 25 language blogs 2014 – a belated thank you (we came third!)

“Words to good effect” is one of the winning language blogs in the Top 25 Language Professionals Blogs 2014 competition organised by LexioPhiles and bab.la. We came third, and are totally chuffed!

A (belated) big “Thank You” to everyone who voted for us, and to LexioPhiles and bab.la for organising the competition.

Great things about the Language Lovers competition include:

1. It’s eclectic. The Top Language Twitterers, Language Professionals Blogs, Language Learning Blogs, Language Facebook Pages and Language YouTube Channels for 2014 featured: French, Spanish/Catalan, US English, a Polish translator/interpreter writing in English, Italian, Terminology, Verbal branding, Grammar, Korean, Video Games, Phonetics, Swedish, Irish and Danish polyglots, tea-drinkers (one of them a tiny dot in the middle of the Ocean – that’s you, Cath! , and the other a translation team effortlessly carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders), Norwegian, American slang, Romanian, Thai, Russian, German…

2. It’s democratic, in that anyone in the various categories can be nominated and winners can just as easily be one-man or -woman bands as big “Language Service Providers”; just as easily be students or newcomers to their language profession as old hands. Also, 50% of the ranking is decided by voters and 50% by the organisers, on the basis of objective criteria. So even if you rope in all your friends and cronies and colleagues and clients and cousins, even if you pay people to vote for you, the team at LexioPhiles/bab.la will still have the last word.

3. It’s a great motivator for the nominees and winners – and by “winners” I mean anyone in the top 25 of each of the categories. Many folk using social media for professional as opposed to personal purposes get tired and give up before long. But it’s lovely to find out, through a competition like this one, that people read – and like – your blog (or Twitter account etc), and a spur to go on writing.

So once again: thanks to everyone who voted for Words to good effect, and a special thanks to LexioPhiles and bab.la for all their hard work on the organisational side.

By Marian Dougan