Monday, August 27, 2007

English for Runaways #268

So your company publishes a catalogue or a brochure regularly? Maybe you do it every year? This doesn't mean you have a 'yearly' (sic.) catalogue. What you have is an 'annual' catalogue.

You may read a 'daily' newspaper, a 'weekly' magazine. Publications may appear every fortnight (every fourteen nights), which in English is the term used for every two weeks. If something happens every other month we say it is 'bi-monthly'. 'Quarterly' would be once every quarter. There is however no English for the German 'halbjährlich', we revert by saying 'twice a year'.

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