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kurobomber · 1 year

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Okinawan Language Resources

What is considered Ryukyuan Languages spans from the Amami Islands to Yonaguni but for this list, I am focusing on the islands which exist in Okinawa Prefecture which are islands which span from Iheya to Yonaguni.

If you don’t know anything about Okinawan languages, I suggest watching this video by Byron Fija about Ryukyuan Languages (there are subtitles in English and Japanese).

Okinawa Hogen may either refer to Uchinaguchi or Uchinaguchi-Japanese. Uchinaguchi is the language of the capital of the Ryukyu Kingdom but is just one of the Ryukyuan Languages that exists. There are several languages and many, many local dialects.

Online Semi-Dictionaries:

JLect (English -> Okinawan Languages+Hogen)

Hougen-Ajima (Japanese -> Okinawa Hogen)

University of the Ryukyus Database (JP -> Okinawan Languages)

Miyako-Ikema Online Dictionary (JP -> Ikema Dialect of Myaakufutsu)

Books + Dictionaries:

Okinawan-English Wordbook

沖縄語辞典―那覇方言を中心に (Okinawa Dictionary, Naha Dialect ie. Uchinaguchi)

Handbook of the Ryukyuan Languages

Okinawan Textbook for Beginners

Dictionaries of the Different Okinawan Languages

Below from UH Manoa:

Okinawago Jiten : Naha hogen o chushin ni/ 沖縄語辞典 : 那覇方言を中心に

Okinawan-English wordbook : a short lexicon of the Okinawan language with English definitions and Japanese cognates (ENG version)

Okinawa Kogo Daijiten / 沖縄古語大辞典

Ryukyugo Jiten : 那覇・首里を中心とする沖縄広域語準拠 / 琉球語辞典

Zusetsu Ryukyugo Jiten / 図說琉球語辞典

Dialect Dictionaries / 方言辞典 (including Okinawan dialects)Hyojungo Biki Nihon Hogen Jiten / 標準語引き日本方言辞典

Gendai Nihongo Hogen Daijiten / 現代日本語方言大辞典

Nihon Hogen Daijiten / 日本方言大辞典

Hogen Zokugo Gogen Jiten / 方言俗語語源辞典

Ishigaki Hogen Jiten / 石垣方言辞典

Accent (Pronunciation) Dictionaries / アクセント (発音) 辞典

Nihongo Hatsuon Akusento Jiten / 日本語発音アクセント辞典

Zenkoku Akusento Jiten / 全国アクセント辞典

Okinawa Script/Writing:

Omniglot

IMABI

Revolvy

Phrases/Vocabulary/Grammar:

Gyokusendo (JP -> Okinawa Hogen/Uchinaguchi)

Okinawan Language Chart (ENG -> Uchinaguchi)

Introduction to the Okinawan Language (ENG)

Click Okinawa (ENG -> Uchinaguchi)

Digital Travel Notes (ENG -> Uchinaguchi)

Yaeyaman Grammar (ENG)

Yonaguni Phasebook (ENG)

Life of Okinawa (ENG)

Audio-Picture Books for Children:

Yonbaru

Kin Town

Uchina De Asobo / うちなーであそぼ

Okinawan Princess

Courses:

Hamajima Shoten, Heart of Okinawa (JP -> Okinawa Hogen)

Memrise (ENG -> Uchinaguchi)

Podcasts:

Podcasts in Okinawa, many that are spoken in Okinawa Hogen/Uchinaguchi

Youtube (Culture, Lifestyle, Language):

Uki Uki Chat: Okinawan Language

Let’s Sing Uchinaguchi

Okinawan Culture

方言系列！東京方言跟沖縄方言！哪裡不一樣？

098TV

ハイサイ探偵団の休日

ワラしがみ

Gibo Kazuya Official

OkinawaBBtv

きいやまTV

世界のウチナーネットワーク

Okinawa Language Lesson 1

Miyako Language

おきなわ新喜劇　ホテルちんすこうへようこそ！

Conversation in the Okinawan Language (Kume Island)

イヤササしまくとぅば/うちなー昔話【黄金瓜】(Children Story)

沖縄語のいま ①

AlohaUchinaaguchi

Ikema-san talks about her Yonaguni Dictionary

Kumiodori:

Hanahuu (Ryubu, Videos)

Okinawa Dance (Ryubu, Videos)

紫老爺 (Ryubu, Videos)

Ryukyuan Dance

Eisa:

愛草

昇龍祭太鼓

Nava80000

Blogs:

Uchinaguchi (Portuguese/JP -> Uchinaguchi)

Haisai (JP -> Uchinaguchi)

Okinawa Association of America

Ono Okinawa

Documentaries:

Invisible Languages: Okinawa

Ryukyu Language Documentary: ～みろく世へぬ思い立ち～ Miruku yu yhe nu Umuitachi

Posts Made on Tumblr/Reddit:

The Okinawan Language (ENG)

Bielzabussy (ENG)

Some Okinawan Words

Language of the Week

Okinawan Resource List (ENG) - Has more links that I did not include on this resource list!

Collection of Uchinaguchi Resources - A few links were taken from this resource post!

A Year in Language: Okinawa

Okinawa: History and Language from Prehistory to Reversion

Papers:

Grammatical Study of Luchuan - Verb Forms in Shuri Dialect by Arakaki, Tomoko (ENG)

Small linguistics: phonological history and lexical loans in Nakijin dialect Okinawan (ENG)

Academia

Uchinaa-Yamatoguchi (ENG)

JLECT Resources of Ryukyuan Languages (Mix of Languages)

Sources: UH Manoa, Omniglot, Okinawa Prefecture, Endangered Language Project (South-Central Okinawan, Miyako, Yaeyama, Yonaguni).

This is a growing list so please share any suggestions! Including resources from languages apart from Japanese and English!

#okinawa

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kurobomber · 8 years

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Japanese Dialects Masterpost

Dialects can be fun and offer cultural insight. They may be useful to learn, though usually only if you have geographical links to a specific area of Japan- perhaps you have family there, personal heritage there, you live there, or are going to do a language exchange in a specific area. Linguists may also be interested just because they are really interesting.

In almost all instances for non-Japanese people learning to understand a dialect when it’s spoken/written (rather than produce it in your own speech) would suffice for communication. As far as I can see the best reason to learn to actually speak a dialect is because you want to communicate with elderly people from that region specifically; most young people have had far more media exposure so they can easily use ‘standard Japanese’/ Tokyo dialect.

If a non-native Japanese speaker learns a dialect and can’t speak standard Japanese, they may find they are seriously limited in conversations and people will inevitably find it weird. They might just find they are incomprehensible:

’I spent three years living in Nemuro, the easternmost town in Hokkaido. […] Hokkaido-ben is often misunderstood outside Hokkaido, Nemuro-ben can’t be understood even in the next town over. So it’s basically useless unless you’re planning a trip to Nemuro (which I would recommend.) However, it does show how many variations there are in dialect, even within one island.’ [Tofugu, my emphasis]

Someone with a low communicative ability in English who could only speak using Cockney rhyming slang, but didn’t know standard English unfortunately would sound ridiculous to natives of that area. It would seem crazy to know ‘You’re ‘aving a bubble mate!’, but not ’You must be joking!’. They’d sound odd and in many instances their language would sound antiquated. Be aware that you may well get a similar reaction if you pepper your speech with regional dialect as a non-Japanese person without being conversationally fluent in standard Japanese. I’m not saying don’t learn dialects, please do if they interest you, learning to understand them when you hear them, rather than necessarily use them in your own speech, is a great idea. If you want to speak in them, please try to do it all in good time and in a respectful way that is not accessorizing the language and culture.

For beginners:

Many of the resources here will be only in Japanese, as this post is aimed at higher intermediate and advanced learners. The section below is in mostly English and will give you a general overview if you’re interested:

lingualift article (scroll down past their email sign up stuff to read)

FluentU will teach you a few basic phrases in a variety of dialects

Wikibooks has links to a few examples of phrases in different dialects

The wikipedia article will give you an informative introduction

Tofugu has a few articles on dialects: Hokkaido | Tohoku | Kansai

Japan Times article on dialects

For intermediate and Advanced learners:

I’ve organised this by prefecture, but it’s worth noting that some prefectures contain several dialects and I’m by no means an expert, I hope the Tumblr Japanese learning community can contribute to and help improve this post. General:

Dictionary for dialects in EVERY prefecture

Short animations about various dialects　

Women from every prefecture saying I love you in their regional dialect

Japanese dialect Wiki

There tend to be Line stickers on sale for dialects, as people think they’re cute and want to show local pride, try searching the Line sticker store for the dialect you want and you can use them in conversations, which will give you a little practise.

Big Weblio guide to all prefectures’ dialects

方言で話そう on Twitter will show you phrases in a variety of regional dialects from around the country

Project Guttenburg article which gets more into the linguistics of Kansai ben

I made a post on Kansai ben a while back and @similarjapanesewords made a post about it before too

video comparing local variations of the same phrase spoken by native speakers 1 2

This Youtube channel has a lot of different dialect tutorials (all Japanese)

There’s another Youtube channel here too (all Japanese)

hougen-japan

ALC dialect quizzes

The Japanese Wikipedia page has a lot more detailed information than the English page, naturally.

Kansaibenkyou

Maps of where some dialects are spoken

Wikipedia has a lot of basic introductory information on dialects, there are almost certainly dialects I’ve missed from this list, if you search for the prefecture or geographical location and the word 弁 or 方言 then you’re likely to find a dialect, even if it isn’t simply called [place name]弁.

Hokkaidō | Hokkaidō ben dictionary | Hougen.u-biq | Tofugu introducation to Hokkaido ben

Aomori | Goo Aomori ben dictionary | Japanesepod101 1 2 3 4 5 | animation about Aomori ben | Kindle book written in Aomori ben

Iwate | Phrase guide | dialect dictionary

Miyagi | Hougen.u-biq | Vocabulary | Introduction to Miyagi ben | Sendai ben

Akita | Akita ben course | How to use け in Akita ben | How to use こ in Akita ben

Yamagata | A few introductory phrases | Yamagata ben phrases | Yamagata ben dajare | Yamagata ben grammar

Fukushima | Fukushima ben Dictionary | Usage guide

Ibaraki | Ibaraki ben dictionary | Learn Ibaraki ben phrases

Tochigi | Tochigi ben guide to pronunciation and expressions | Tochigi ben dictionary |

Gunma | Five page vocabulary guide | 7 lesson course in speaking Gunma ben

Saitama | North Saitama dialect vocabulary | Phrases | More vocabulary | Saitama ben dictionary on Goo

Kanagawa | 10 phrases | Yokohama and Kanagawa dialect dictionary | Kanagawa ben on chaku wiki

Niigata | Niigata ben dictionary | Japanesepod101 1 2 3

Ishikawa | Ishikawa ben Dictionary on Goo | Wikibooks Ishikawa dialect guide | Kanazawa ben guide | English book on Kanazawa ben

Fukui | Fukuiben.com | Hokuriku dialect (spoken in several prefectures)

Yamanashi | Koshu Dialect Laboratory | Koshu ben dictionary | Yamanashi ben on Goo | There are a couple of posts here in English

Nagano | Goo Nagano ben dictionary | Nagano prefecture guide to Nagano dialect | Matsumoto dialect page

Shizuoka | Page with links to several local dialects found in Shizuoka | Shizuoka ben version of a commerical | 10 funny phrases

Aichi | Hougen.u-biq | Nagoya ben website

Mie | phrase guide | features of Mie ben

Shiga | large word and phrase list | vocabulary list

Kyoto | Hougen.u-biq | vocabulary list | More vocabulary

Osaka | Hougen.u-biq | video tutorial | Kansai ben/Osaka ben word list

Hyōgo | vocabulary list | Hyogo ben on chaku Wiki |

Nara | Nara dialect on Chaku Wiki | Video discussing the subtelties of Nara dialect within Kansai ben | vocabulary list

Tottori | dictionary | large word and phrase list | another vocabulary and phrase list

Shimane | Izumo-ben 出雲弁 | Izumo ben in detail

Okayama | large word and phrase list | Okayama ben corner | Interesting Okayama ben

Hiroshima | Hougen.u-biq | Hiroshima dialect

Yamaguchi | Yamaguchi ben | Vocabulary | quiz

Tokushima | Awa ben video tutorial | vocabulary list | large phrase and vocabulary list

Kagawa | vocabulary and phrase list | phrase list

Ehime | Some Iyo vocabulary | Iyo dialect guide

Fukuoka | series of videos on how to use Hakata ben | video tutoiral | verb conjugations

Saga | Saga ben dictionary | Goo Saga ben dictionary

Nagasaki | Nagasaki ben resource with recordings of sample dialogues | Goo Nagasaki ben dictionary | A story book written in Nagasaki ben (available on Kindle)

Kumamoto | How to use Kumamoto ben | Kumamoto ken vocabulary, a lot of these seem rough/rude

Ōita | video | Goo Ōita ben dictionary

Miyazaki | Miyazaki ben explanation | vocabulary and explanation

Kagoshima | Vocabulary | big word list | More vocabulary and phrases

Okinawa | Traveller’s guide to Okinawan dialects | Huge list of Ryukyuan vocabulary | Uchinaguchi dictionary

There are books on dialects, typically designed for native speakers, such as this dialect dictionary, or this Tosa ben guide available in Japan, but you’d need some very advanced Japanese to be able to access them, in which case I doubt you’d be following my blog.

Beyond regional dialects there are also many languages that are native to Japan that are not Japanese. If you’re interested in learning Ainu, one of the Ryukyuan languages, Japanese sign language, or another language from Japan that is not standard spoken Japanese then this Tofugu article may interest you. Many of these languages are endangered. Thanks to these bloggers who helped contribute to this post:

@suzustarlight @tomatograffiti @grapefruitcake Disclaimer: There are a massive number of regional dialects in Japan, I am neither Japanese, nor an expert, so inevitably I will miss some off this list. If you want to share information about a dialect from a part of Japan you’ve visited or lived in please reblog and add some information or resources, so that we can get this post to a point where it’s as comprehensive as possible. Many thanks!

#japanese

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kurobomber · 9 years

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In linguistics, a filler is a sound or word that is spoken in conversation by one participant to signal to others that he/she has paused to think but is not yet finished speaking. These are not to be confused with placeholder names, such as thingamajig, which refer to objects or people whose names are temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, or unknown.

In Afrikaans, ah, em, and eh are common fillers.

In Arabic, يعني yaʿni (“I mean”) and وﷲ wallāh(i) (“by God”) are common fillers.[2][3][4]

In American Sign Language, UM can be signed with open-8 held at chin, palm in, eyebrows down (similar to FAVORITE); or bilateral symmetric bent-V, palm out, repeated axial rotation of wrist (similar to QUOTE).

In Bengali, mane (“it means”) is a common filler.

In Catalan, eh /ə/, doncs (“so”), llavors (“therefore”), and o sigui (“it means”) are common fillers.

In Czech, tak or takže (“so”), prostě (“simply”), jako (“like”) are used as fillers. Čili (“or”) and že (“that”, a conjunction) might also be others. A person who says jako and prostě as fillers might sound a bit simple-minded to others.[5]

In Danish, øh is one of the most common fillers.

In Dutch, eh, ehm, and dus are some of the more common fillers.

In Esperanto, do (“therefore”) is the most common filler.

In Filipino, ah, eh, ay, and ano are the most common fillers.

In Finnish, niinku (“like”), tota, and öö are the most common fillers.

In French, euh /ø/ is most common; other words used as fillers include quoi (“what”), bah, ben (“well”), tu vois (“you see”), and eh bien (roughly “well”, as in “Well, I’m not sure”). Outside of France, other expressions are tu sais (“you know”), t’sais’veux dire? (“you know what I mean?”), or allez une fois (“go one time”). Additional filler words include genre (“kind”), comme (“like”), and style (“style”; “kind”)

In German, a more extensive series of filler words, called modal particles, exists, which actually do give the sentence some meaning. More traditional filler words are äh /ɛː/, hm, so /zoː/, tja, and eigentlich (“actually”)

In Hebrew, eh is the most common filler. Em is also quite common.

In Hindi, matlab (“it means”) and “Mah” are fillers.

In Hungarian, common filler words include hát (well…) and asszongya (a variant of azt mondja, which means “it says here…”).

In Icelandic, a common filler is hérna (“here”). Þúst, a contraction of þú veist (“you know”), is popular among younger speakers.

In Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia), anu is one of the most common fillers.

In Italian, common fillers include “tipo” (“like”), “ecco” (“there”) and “cioè” (“actually”)

In Irish Gaelic, abair /ˈabˠəɾʲ/ (“say”), bhoil /wɛlʲ/ (“well”), and era /ˈɛɾˠə/ are common fillers, along with emm as in Hiberno-English.

In Japanese, common fillers include eetto, ano, sono, and ee.

In Kannada,Matte for also,Enappa andre for the matter is are the common fillers.

In Korean, eung, eo, ge, and eum are commonly used as fillers.

In Lithuanian, nu, am and žinai (“you know”) are common fillers.

IN Maltese and Maltese English, mela (“then”), or just la, is a common filler.

In Mandarin Chinese, speakers often say 这个 zhège/zhèige (“this”) or 那个 nàge/nèige (“that”). Another common filler is 就 jìu (“just/precisely”).

In Norwegian, common fillers are øh, altså, på en måte (“in a way”), ikke sant (literally “not true?”, “no kidding”, or “exactly”), vel (“well”), and liksom (“like”). In Bergen, sant (“true”) is often used instead of ikke sant. In the Trøndelag region, skjø’ (“see?” or “understand?”) is also a common filler.

In Persian, bebin (“you see”), چیز “chiz” (“thing”), and مثلا masalan (“for instance”) are commonly-used filler words. As well as in Arabic and Urdu, يعني yaʿni (“I mean”) is also used in Persian. Also, eh is a common filler in Persian.

In Portuguese, tipo (“like”) is the most common filler.

In Romanian, deci /detʃʲ/ (“therefore”) is common, especially in school, and ă /ə/ is also very common (can be lengthened according to the pause in speech, rendered in writing as ăăă), whereas păi /pəj/ is widely used by almost anyone.

In Russian, fillers are called слова-паразиты (“vermin words”); the most common are Э-э (“eh”), это (“this”), того (“that”), ну (“well”), значит (“it means”), так (“so”), как его (“what’s it [called]”), типа (“like”), and как бы (“[just] like”).

In Serbian, znači (“means”) and ovaj (“this”) are common fillers.

In Slovak, oné (“that”), tento (“this”), proste (“simply”), or akože are used as fillers. The Hungarian izé (or izí in its Slovak pronunciation) can also be heard, especially in parts of the country with a large Hungarian population. Ta is a filler typical of Eastern Slovak and one of the most parodied features.

In Slovene, pač (“but”, although it has lost that meaning in colloquial, and it is used as a means of explanation), a ne? (“right?”), and no (“well”) are some of the fillers common in central Slovenia, including Ljubljana.

In Spanish, fillers are called muletillas. Some of the most common in American Spanish are e /e/, este (“this”), and o sea (roughly means “I mean”).[6], in Spain the previous fillers are also used, but ¿Vale? (“right?”) and ¿no? are very common too.

In Swedish, fillers are called utfyllningsord; some of the most common are öhm, ja (“yes”), ba (comes from “bara”, which means “just”), asså or alltså (“therefore”, “thus”), va (comes from “vad”, which means “what”), and liksom and typ (both similar to the English “like”).

In Ukrainian, ой /ɔj/ is a common filler.

In Urdu, yani (“meaning…”), falan falan (“this and that”; “blah blah”), umm, and aaa are also common fillers.

In Telugu, ikkada entante (“Whats here is…”) and tarwatha (“then…”) are common and there are numerous like this.

In Tamil, paatheenga-na (“if you see…”) and apparam (“then…”) are common.

In Turkish, yani (“meaning…”), şey (“thing”), “işte” (“that is”), and falan (“as such”, “so on”) are common fillers.

In Welsh, de or ynde is used as a filler (loosely the equivalent of “You know?” or “Isn’t it?”). Ym… and Y… are used similarly to the English “um…”.

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kurobomber · 9 years

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Hi Tian Tian ! May i ask you a question if you don't mind ? What kind of chinese-english and english-chinese dictionaries are you using ? Because lately i've found quite struggling to look up chinese words. There are some dictionaries that i'm currently using but sometimes they don't give me correct meaning of a few chinese words, so i'm quite frustrated. Btw, can you suggest me some online dictionaries as well ? Thank you so much ^^

Hi khotaudainhan! Ah dictionaries. The only physical book ones I have are:

Tuttel’s Mini Chinese Dictionary, as a backup for when I can’t use my phone. It’s small but seems to have most common things I want, and also is good about idioms and set phrases that are often harder to find in print dictionaries

中文字譜: A Genealogy and Dictionary, not really something you’d want to use to quick look up a word, but is cool because it has a lot of info about characters which sometimes helps me remember them. There’s also an online version here, though it’s a little weird.

What I actually use is mostly online ones, and sometimes I put answers from one into another and see if I still get the same translations as a sort of “check.” Translation is just really messy and so at some point it’s better to get an approximate meaning and then use context, or ask a native speaker. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

LINE Dict: English Chinese (so both directions). only simplified, but I go to it because it has example sentences

MDBG Dict: English Chinese, Cantonese. Simplified and Traditional. Also has stroke order animations, common words, all kinds of goodies you just have to play around. Can do idioms/phrases too.

those are my go-to ones, this is just some back up:

HanziCraft : breaks down characters for you and tells you the most common words they’re in

Linguee: English Chinese, this is like a regular dictionary but also gives you translated chunks from online so you can see a word in context and make sure it means what you think it does. (Like what if I want “fired” as in lost a job, not “fired” as in a piece of pottery.)

Lingro: English Chinese I don’t actually use this, but it’s one of those sites where you put in a webpage and it makes it clickable so you can lookup words.

zdict: Chinese Chinese, good if you want an idiom “in other words,” also has old alternative ways of writing things. otherwise too intense for not advanced people D:

baidu: Basically a Chinese google translate but a bit better, sometimes handy

Pleco: The Best Dictionary. This saved my ass in Harbin, but unfortunately there’s only an app version :/

a note on Google: you probs know but seriously don’t ever try to use Google translate for reals unless you already kind of know what something says. The only time I use google is to turn simplified traditional, or to get pinyin.

Hope this helps! Dictionaries are so weird and cool to think about, and China has a really long history of them too of course…

#ref #mandarin

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kurobomber · 9 years

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Moedict (萌典) is a free Taiwanese dictionary that gives results for three major dialects in Taiwan: Taiwanese Mandarin, Hakka, and Taiwanese Hokkien (Minnan). Some cool features that I’ve noticed:

audio files for not only Mandarin entries but for the Hakka and Hokkien entries as well (the audio tends to act up a lot on mobile, not so much online)

Mandarin entries will also include English, and occasionally French and German definitions

the app is available on Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, and has an online version as well

STROKE ORDER GIFS and radical search

Zhuyin, Pinyin, and standardized romanization for Hakka and Hokkien

a section on their website dedicated to specialized Mainland Chinese vocabulary

Android | iOS | Windows & Mac | Website

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kurobomber · 9 years

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Resources for learning Japanese - my recommendations

Seeing lists of resources is always cool, so have some of my recommendations. This is the list of things (websites, apps) I’m using or I had been using in the past and that I can really recommend. It doesn’t include textbooks or random Japanese sites I use for practicing my reading, because it was getting way too big. It’s not an entry level list (although I think some of these will be helpful for people new to Japanese, too), so I skipped the stuff for learning kana. I hope at least some of those will be helpful to you! VOCABULARY Memrise – yeah, I know, everybody knows memrise by now, but I honestly can’t recommend it enough. My favorite Japanese course at the moment is Core Japanese Vocabulary - I like it, because unlike many other courses, it doesn’t have separate levels for hiragana and kanji (those are kinda pointless, in my opinion, making you type the same thing twice as often) and I like the way the words are organized. There’s a lot of basic words that I already know, but the ignore function is there for a reason.

I also enjoyed 2136 Joyo Kanji by Grade - the course I used to learn the meaning of all the joyo kanji. I’m a bit hesistant recommending it, because it only has English meanings and no example words – but for me it was really great, because just recognizing general meaning of the character greatly improved my reading comprehension. It’s not a method for everybody - you can try for yourself and see if it’s something you wanna do.

Iknow – this one is not free (the only non-free resource on this list) and I was wary of it, because with Japanese, there is a lot of paid apps/websites that offer basic things you can easily get for free elsewhere… But I found a promo code for 3 free months on there, gave it a shot and I’m absolutely in love. It’s similar to Memrise, only it has official courses made by staff and they have example sentences for every word, read by professional Japanese voice actors, as well as sentence making exercises and several different ways to check if you know the words you’re studying. I can honestly recommend it.

Renshuu - Renshuu is not only a vocab site, it also has grammar explanations, a language forum (which seems to have more newbies than native or very advanced users, so be careful while reading other people’s Japanese) and games/discussion prompts, so it’s pretty cool. I think it’s best for the vocab, though. It has many, many lists, some for JLPT, some using vocab from textbooks. There’s also a custom list creator and it’s really easy to use.

Kanji Sempai – a really nice vocab app, it shows you words and then quizzes you on them. The name is a bit misleading, because it doesn’t focus on kanji all that much, but it’s a solid vocab app.

Kotoba chan – a simple vocab quiz app with example sentences (that sometimes show sentences with the homophones of the words they were supposed to show, but oh well), very easy to use.

DICTIONARIES

www.jisho.org – Simple and great, jisho has been my friend since I’ve started learning Japanese. They have a lot of entries, not only words, but also idioms, they have a special section for kanji and example sentences, too. They are also better (although not perfect) than many other dictionaries when it comes to slang.

http://vvlexicon.ninjal.ac.jp/db/ - a pretty awesome dictionary of compound verbs. It has a Japanese-English version (and also Chinese-English and Korean-English), but I feel it works best as a monolingual dictionary. Just reading the definitions and figuring out what those compound words mean make for a nice reading practice, I think.

http://kotowaza-allguide.com/ - a monolingual dictionary of Japanese proverbs, really fun and informational.

Rikaichan – it’s a pop-up dictionary for Mozilla Firefox (it has versions for other browsers, too, but I haven’t tested those) that shows you the meaning of the word when you hover your mouse over it, as well as the furigana. It’s really, really helpful. Some people say that it’s easy for something like that to become a crutch and I see their point, but I think it’s good for me, as it keeps me from getting discouraged while reading longer texts. Definitely my favorite resource ever.

LISTENING

Delvin Language - this one isn’t really for advanced students (after a placement test I was starting from the most advanced level, and my listening skills leave MUCH to be desired – and I still find some of what I get to be too easy), but it’s a nice practice, since it uses clips from Japanese drama/anime or informative youtube videos about Japan. It’s both listening comprehension practice and a way to acquire new vocabulary.

Nihongo no mori – it’s an absolutely amazing youtube channel ran by very lovely native Japanese speakers. I put this in the listening category, but those videos are about grammar and vocab, so watching them helps in so many ways. I’m watching the N3 and N2 stuff, but I know they also have some videos for beginners and N1 students.

KANJI

Anki Aniki – it’s an iOS app for learning kanji. It’ll show you a set number of kanji every day, along with their meaning and possible readings, and then quiz you on it. I find it pretty helpful, even though there are no example words and I usually don’t like the idea of learning the readings without any context – but as a supplement to learning kanji in a more conservative way it’s pretty good.

GRAMMAR

Jgram- it’s kind of a grammar wiki. Many, many entries, with a lot of example sentences (some of their translations to English are really weird sometimes, but most of it is perfectly fine).

Maggie Sensei – a site that is not only absolutely adorable, but also very helpful. It has detailed explanations, many example sentences and a lot of lessons available. A lot of cute doggie pictures, too.

Japanese test 4 you- this site has a lot of information about grammar for all JLPT levels, with many example sentences and also all kinds of tests (grammar, listening, vocab, kanji). I’ve just found it recently, but it’s already proven really useful to me.

#japanese #ref

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kurobomber · 9 years

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DICTIONARY MASTERPOST

pons [Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Turkish]

shabdkosh [Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu]

wordreference [Arabic, Chinese, Czech, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Turkish]

dict.cc [Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Latin, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish]

bab.la [Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Swahili, Turkish]

linguee [Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish]

cambridge [Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese]

dicts.info [73 languages]

dict.com [30 languages]

larousse [French, German, Italian, Spanish]

hablaa [73 languages]

glosbe [2150 languages]

freelang [267 languages]

Afrikaans rieme.co.za

Albanian argjio

Amharic abyssinica, amharicdictionary

Arabic arabdict, almaany, firdaous

Armenian nayiri, english2armenian

Bengali / Bangla bword, english-bangla, ovidhan

Burmese burmese-dictionary, myordbok

Cantonese cantodict

Catalan catalandictionary

Croatian hrvatski-rjecnik

Czech seznam, slovnik

Dutch vandale

Estonian sõnastik, dukelupus, eki.ee

Farsi dictionary-farsi, farsidic, aryanpour, ariadic

Finnish kaannos, findc

Georgian lang.interes, translate, targmne, nplg.gov, margaliti

German langenscheit, leo

Greek greek-language

Hawaiian hawaiiandictionary

Hebrew morfix

Hindi hindi-english, hinkhoj, hindi wordnet

Hungarian sztaki, dictzone, topszótár

Icelandic snara

Indonesian kamus, sederet

Irish irishdictionary, potafocal

Italian garzantilinguistica

Japanese tangorin, excite, jisho

Javanese kamusjawa

Kazakh lugat

Korean naver, daum, zkorean

Khmer angkor-planet, kheng

Latvian letonika, latvianforyou

Lithuanian anglu-lietuviu, dict.lt

Macedonian time, off.net.mk

Malay bhanot, kamus

Maltese mlrs.research, englishmaltesedictionary

Mandarin dict.cn, mdbg

Mongolian bolor toli, englishmongolian

Norwegian ordnett

Palauan tekinged

Polish pitt.edu, ling.pl

Portuguese portuguesedictionary

Punjabi ijunoon, learnpunjabi

Russian multitran

Spanish spanishdict

Swahili kiswahili, africanlanguages

Swedish ord

Tagalog pinoydictionary, tagalog-dictionary, tagaloglang

Tamil tamildict, tamilcube, agarathi, tamildictionary

Telugu andhrabharati, telugupedia

Tibetan eng-tib

Thai thai-language, thai2english, longdo, linedict

Turkish tureng, turkishdictionary, turkishclass

Ukrainian slovnenya, cybermova

Urdu urduword, urduenglishdictionary, urdu123, studypart

Uyghur uyghurdictionary, yulghun

Uzbek zangorikema

Welsh geiriadur

Vietnamese vietdictionary, vdict

Zulu isizulu

#ref

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kurobomber · 9 years

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Wonderful Language resource

Hello guys, gals and non gender binary individuals,

I have found a wonderful language learning resource that is like internet gold. It is a website that allows you to read children’s books from hundreds of languages, in their script. You may also view translations of the book into your native language, therefore making sure that you have concrete understanding!

The website is childrenslibrary.org Best of all it is completely free, which is helpful for those that want to learn languages, but live on a low financial fund.

Happy studies!

#ref

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kurobomber · 9 years

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RESOURCES FOR ALL LANGUAGES

language.ws

FREE PDFS and audio for thousands and thousands of language textbooks.

There are 2 pages of resources for languages like lakota

22 for Serbian

and 314 for French.

Don’t even get me started on Spanish

Just make an account, search a language, and download.

Yes, it is that easy.

No, it’s not too good to be true.

BOOM

*drops mic*

#ref

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kurobomber · 9 years

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LEARN HAWAIIAN

This great post

Memrise course

Digital Dialects Hawaiian

Youtube - Learn Hawaiian

Omniglot

Hawaiian-Words / Common Words / Dictionary

Google Play app: Hawaiian Tutor

Hawaiian SAIVUS / Pronunciation

Words and phrases

Hawaiian Dictionary

ʻŌlelo of the Day

Google books search - Hawaiian language

UH at Manoa resources links (This doesn’t have to do with the language but these are great links nonetheless)

Hawaiian Pidgin - Teacher’s guide

Pidgin/English Dictionary

Eye of Hawaii-Pidgin

If you have any more links to share, reblog and add them!

#hawaiian

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kurobomber · 9 years

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KOREAN TEXTBOOKS MASTERPOST

ENGLISH

Colloquial Korean - the complete course for beginners [AUDIO]

Integrated Korean - Level 1 [AUDIO]

Integrated Korean - Level 2 [AUDIO]

Teach Yourself Korean [AUDIO]

Seoul National University - Korean 1

Seoul National University - Korean 2

Seoul National University - Korean 3 [AUDIO]

Seoul National University - Korean 4 [AUDIO]

Korean for dummies [AUDIO] [CHEAT SHEET]

My Korean 1 [AUDIO]

My Korean 2 [AUDIO]

Korean Advanced Course. Level 1

Korean Advanced Course. Level 2

Active Korean 1 [AUDIO]

Frequently Used Korean Dialogues 2000 Sentences [AUDIO]

College Korean

Beginner’s Korean [AUDIO]

Basic Korean - A grammar and workbook

Intermediate Korean - A grammar and workbook

Korean Through English 1 [AUDIO]

Living Language Korean Course [AUDIO]

Modern Conversational Korean

Hanyang Korean 1 [TEXTBOOK - GRAMMAR&PATTERNS - WRITING PRACTICE]

Essential Korean [AUDIO]

Pathfinder in Korean - Beginner [STUDENT BOOK - WORKBOOK]

Continuing Korean [AUDIO]

Korean Grammar for International Learners

The sounds of Korean - a pronunciation guide [AUDIO]

Using Korean: A Guide to Contemporary Usage

The Korean Language Structure, Use and Context

Tense and Aspect in Korean

Korean Honorifics and Politeness in Second Language Learning

A Korean Grammar on Semantic-Pragmatic Principles

Korean (London Oriental and African Language Library)

The Korean Language (Cambridge Language Surveys)

A History of the Korean Language

—

A Korean-English dictionary

Collins Korean Phrasebook

Easy to learn Korean Language

In-Fight Korean [AUDIO]

VocabuLearn Korean [LEVEL 1 | LEVEL 2]

Slang dictionary

Dirty Korean Everyday Slang

—

Korean Headstart Cultural Notes

Frommer’s South Korea Travel Guide

An Illustrated Guide to Korean Mythology

Korean Folk Tales

The Korean Wave: a New Pop Culture Phenomenon

A Brief History of Korea

The Rough Guide to Seoul

Culture and Customs of Korea

North Korea though the Looking Glass

Foods of Korea

A History of Korea from Antiquity to the Present

RUSSIAN

Корейский язык Вводный курс [AUDIO]

Корейский язык. Вводный курс (Вон Гван) [AUDIO]

Корейский язык. Основной курс (Вон Гван) [AUDIO]

Начальный курс корейского языка

Пособие по корейскому языку для начинающих [AUDIO]

Китайские иероглифы в корейском языке

Корейский язык Курс для продолжающих (Вон Гван)

Пособие по переводу с русского языка на корейский

Учебник корейского языка. Средний уровень

FRENCH

Manuel De Coréen Volume 1

Grammaire coréenne

SPANISH

El coreano básico

SLOVENIAN (not sure, please corect me if i’m wrong)

Uchebnik Koreyskogo Dialoga 1

Uchebnik Koreyskogo Dialoga 2

GERMAN

Kauderwelsch Koreanisch Wort für Wort [AUDIO]

BOOKS

Harry Potter series

Children books (post by unyounglearnskorean)

——————-

(feel free to add more links)

#korean

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kurobomber · 9 years

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SLANG 대박~ awesome! Swag! 멘붕~mental breakdown (comes from 멘탈붕괴) 심쿵~sound of a settling heart. When something is cute 헐~ wow. (sarcastically) 훈훈하다~heart warming 훈남/훈녀~a heart warming guy (rather than good looking) 미남/미녀~a physically attractive guy 엄친아~mother’s friend’s son (abr. of 엄마의 친구의 아들) 행쇼~”peace” or be happy (“peace” as in “peace out” or bye. Comes from 행복하십쇼) 갑 vs 을~superior versus subordinate 알바~part time job (comes from 아르바이트) 광광당하다~to be pwned 연관광~pwnage (lol pwned and pwnage still exist?) 개소리~ nonsense (literally: dog noise) 게거품 물다~ to be extremely angry (literally: foaming at the mouth like a crab) 까다~ to criticize

Ahhh. (°_°) so many slang words~ obviously there’s more, but let’s move on to texting.

TEXTING ㅇㅋ~ okay ㄱㄷ~ wait. (from 기다려주세요) ㅇㅇ~Informal yes (from 응) ㅎㅎ/ㅋㅋ/푸하하하~ laugh/laugh/evil laugh respectively ㄴ/ㄴㄴ~ no ㅎㅇ~ hi (from 하이) ㅇㄷ~ where? (From 어디?) ㅃ/ㅃㅃ/ㅃㅇ/ㅂㅂ/ㅂㅇetc.~ bye ㄱㅊ~ it’s okay (괜찮아) ㅈㅅ~ sorry (죄송해) ㅉㅉ~ tsk tsk ㅊㅋ~ congratulations (축하해) ㄱㅅ~ thank you (감사해) ㄷㄷ~ shivering noise ㄷㅊ~ shut up (닥쳐) ㅅㄱ~ “peace” (kind of similar to 행쇼 except more of a goodbye than a be happy) (수고해라/수고)

EMOTICONS ㅠㅠ/ㅜㅜ~ crying ^^/^-^ ~ smiling eyes ㅡㅡ ~ wth straight face. Like -_- orz/OTZ/OTL~ a dude kneeling over (I’ve known this for a very long time and I STILL read it as “orz” “O-T-Z” and “O-T-L” ㅎㅎ) ㅗ~ I hope you don’t encounter this. Can you guys guess what it is? ㅋㅋㅋ (hint: it looks like something)

I hope this helped you guys understand any native texters that are texting you these weird things that you can’t understand. I suppose it is like an American texting a person learning English “lol wats up brah. U doin gud? Lolz k me 2” ㅎㅎ Anyway~ if someone texts you some weird thing that doesn’t translate on the translator or dictionary, chances are, it’s probably slang. Just ask that person to write it out as a full word, or give you the meaning in English. If not, it’s probably online!

행쇼! ☆*:.｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆

~특별한 짱보라

#korean

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kurobomber · 9 years

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Your project for this summer: learn a language.

If you’re on this blog, then it’s probably safe to assume that you’re awesome and that you’re a budding linguist whose projects for this summer include learning a language or two.

I’ve been using several online sites to learn various languages for a while now. They’re all free (to an extent; some offer premium memberships and let you do really brilliant things, but I’m a student and also a self-confessed stinge, so that’s out of the question for me).

Here’s a short list I’ve compiled (I’ve rated them out of five stars):

- http://www.busuu.com/ * * * *

Languages: Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese (Brazilian), Turkish, Polish

I’ve been on this site the longest, but only because it was the first site I found, thanks to an ad in WordReference. It’s attractive, clear, good for learning vocabulary. There are reading, writing and listening exercises. Speaking is for premium only. You go through units and levels and are rewarded ‘busuuberries’ (these don’t actually do anything - they merely look pretty on your profile.) There are tests at the end of each unit, and you can ‘star’ vocabulary so you can look through it again.

It’s a very community-based site, so you mark people’s writing exercises and natives will mark yours. You can chat to people from all over the world, which is great for speaking/writing practice.

The only downside is that it isn’t very helpful on grammar, even if you’re on premium.

- http://www.livemocha.com/ * * * * *

Languages: Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Mandarin, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu

I haven’t been on this site long; the layout confuses me a bit at the moment, but I’m sure that once I get used to it, it’ll be fine.

It’s a lot more thorough than Busuu. The grammar units are a lot more helpful (and you don’t need to be a premium member). And of course, the variety of languages is absolutely astounding. If only my life were longer and my memory better - I would attempt them all!

You earn ‘mochapoints’ and also get a ‘Teacher Score’ - again it’s a community-based site where users help one another. This ‘Teacher Score’ aspect is good in controlling the quality of people’s marking, something Busuu doesn’t have.

Like Busuu, you can chat to people from all over the world. There are reading, writing, listening and speaking exercises (and you don’t have to be a premium member!) as well as tests; you can also create flashcards.

- http://www.lingq.com/ * * * *

Languages: French, Russian, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Swedish, Korean

A great variety of languages. I haven’t been using this site for long, but from what I see, it’s really useful. Its structure is different to Busuu and LiveMocha. You can download podcasts and their transcriptions for free. You can save your vocabulary and create flashcards. Another community-based website, it allows you to Skype with native tutors using Skype - at the end of the discussion, you get a report, which is added to your database (I think you have to be premium to get this though).

Again, you have to be a paying subscriber to get access to all of LingQ’s materials, but from what I gather, members can get access to it if they create and upload lessons.

There are other sites that are useful in language-learning too:

- http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/

The BBC has the best resources for everything. Their lessons here are completely free and interactive, but I find they are rather brief. They’re more for people who are in a hurry to learn a language before going on a holiday etc. The lessons offered are very practical though.

- http://polyglotproject.com/

Languages: French, German, Russian, Spanish, English, Polish, Danish, Italian

When I found this site, I couldn’t contain my excitement (OK, I know, I’m a language nerd). It’s a fairly new site, but they recently added Russian (and some other languages), which made it a hundred times more awesome.

This site allows you to read classic literature in their original languages, completely free and online. If there’s a word you don’t know, all you have to do is click on it to get a translation; this word is then added to your own personal vocab list. Bear in mind that the translations can be quite literal because it uses Google Translate.

- http://www.about.com/education/

Languages: French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish

Yes, I know, unfortunately there isn’t Russian. I’ve subscribed to French and Spanish. There are different writers for different languages, of course, and they all do things a little differently. About.com is a great source to refer to; there are clearly structured lessons and there’s pretty much everything you need to know about the grammar of a language. If you subscribe, you’ll receive a weekly newsletter about the language and/or the culture. Laura K. Lawless, the French Language guide, writes articles in French and provides an English translation next to it; Gerald Erichson, the Spanish Language guide sends a daily ‘Word of the Day’ in Spanish, as well as the weekly newsletter.

- http://www.conversationexchange.com/

This site allows you to contact natives from different countries for language exchanges. There are three different types: Face to face (of course, you’ll have to be living in the same area for that), Correspondance (i.e. a PenPal scheme), and Text/Voice chat (via Skype, MSN etc.). It’s simple and fulfils its purpose.

- http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php

I haven’t actually used this site (yet), but it looks amazing. Developed by the US government, the range of languages is absolutely incredible (it even has Amharic!). It’s quite basic, but it’s still impressive.

- http://ikindalikelanguages.com/index.php

Just found this. Its lessons are quite short and few in number, but this site is worth taking a look.

- http://russiantvradio.blogspot.com/

This site lists some great links to Russian TV, radio and films.

I also recently found a user on Youtube who uploads full-length films in Russian with English subtitles (YES!) : http://www.youtube.com/user/PyccoTypucmo

Finally, this blog has a page dedicated to Russian karaoke, if that’s something you’re into… http://russianlessonsonline.com/

Right, that’s it! I’ve provided you with all the sites you need to become fluent in a language, so there’s no excuse not to learn a language now! GO GO GO!

#ref

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kurobomber · 9 years

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Spoken Cantonese vs. Written Chinese (essentially Mandarin)

This isn’t a comprehensive list, but it shows some of the basic differences between Cantonese and Mandarin.

Source: [x]

#cantonese

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kurobomber · 9 years

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Attention Polyglot side of Tumblr

Those of you learning French and using Duolingo to do so, there’s also a website called Lingvist. It also has an app! I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks now and I feel like I’ve learned more French vocabulary using it than I have from Duolingo! It teaches you more practical sentences and for me, I’ve gotten a couple of PDF files emailed to me from them. One was a grammar “cheat sheet” and the other taught you small talk! I really like the website and all y’all French scholars ought to try it as well!

#french

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kurobomber · 9 years

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Important Phrases

Since moving to Seoul, I’ve come up with a short list of phrases I’ve found extremely important to know in daily life that aren’t always included in those masterposts of common phrases:

테이크 아웃 할게요. – “Take-out, please.” You can say this after you’ve ordered to let them know it’s to-go. This works with pretty much any form of take-out except for coffee/drinks. If you’re at Starbucks or something, you’d use 포장해 주세요.

저기요, 혹시 ___ 있어요? – “Excuse me, is there perhaps ____?” When trying to familiarize yourself with new stores (grocery stores in particular), it’s good to know how to ask whether they carry what you need/want so you’re not wandering aimlessly for hours.

감사합니다, 수고했어요. – “Thank you, you worked hard!” This translates a little weirdly into English, but it’s a pretty common saying to someone who’s just made your food/drink.

네? 다시 천천히 말씀해주세요. – “Sorry? Please say that again slowly.” Honestly if you say this they’ll probably just switch into English for you, but you should still try your best in Korean.

여기서 예약하셨어요. – “I have a reservation for here.” When you first arrive at your apartment/hotel/hostel, this is probably the first thing you’ll need to say.

신용 카드 받으세요? – “Do you take credit cards?” Some places such as 포장마차 (street food stalls) are cash-only, so if all you’ve got on you is a credit card it’d be good to check beforehand.

___이/가 어디에 살 수 있어요? – “Where can I buy ___?” Not a particularly formal phrase, but when you’re desperate for somewhere to get toilet paper it’ll get your point across.

죄송해요, 한국어를 잘 못해요. – “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Korean well.” If you know you’re not going to be able to get through the conversation in Korean, use this phrase. They’ll almost certainly switch into English for you. However, I try to avoid it unless I’m certain I won’t be able to get my point across in Korean.

#korean

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