languagesandlinguistics

[languagesandlinguistics]

Look, I knew five languages by age 19 and now I am learning like 3 more. I work as a language instructor and a consultant. If I can give language learners only one advice, this is it.

STOP LEARNING WORDS ON ITS OWN.

You're doing yourself a disservice by learning lists of "30 words you must know!" "100 most common words!" like it literally means nothing if you cannot use those words in an appropriate context with proper grammar. So what you actually need to do is learn those words via example sentences.

Of course, sentences have more words so you may think you're learning less but you're actually learning the way to use it in context. That's what's important.

Language is about communication, which also means if you want to learn languages, you have to observe how people communicate with each other universally. Native speakers never have a list of words they know and they don't count every single new word they've learned. So why are you doing it to yourself? What native speakers do is listen to the new word, remember the context they're spoken in, and keep using that word in that context. And that's why people go "wait, you can use that word LIKE THAT?" all the time. So you, a language learner, are also allowed to do that. I'm not even saying those word lists are useless but they're the most useful AFTER you've known most of them and are trying to go over them for practice etc. Native speakers do click on those word lists to check out how many words they don't know or to remind themselves of those words or to learn some facts about each word. That should be your goal as well.

Learn sentences. Learn them in context. Do not fall into the "I must know xx amount of words or I'm a failure at language learning" trap perpetuated by bloggers or youtubers or whatever. Have fun with it!

#language learning

[languagesandlinguistics]

probably i just said it but i want to say it again:

- don’t apologise if you don’t know english.

- yes, english is the most common language on the internet but you are not forced to know it perfectly.

- your own language is beautiful.

- non-english people make a huge effort to write in English everyday on this website.

- support non-english people and don’t make them feel bad if they do not know English. 

- actually support all the languages.

- spread more language diversity on Tumblr.

thank you. 

[languagesandlinguistics]

I'm gonna reblog with some videos of people speaking various American Indian/indigenous American languages, because I think most people don't even know what they sound like. Not to be judgement of that—just, you know, I think people who want to be informed should know what they sound like!

[languagesandlinguistics]

ok, this is amazing. I found a great site with short stories in 34 languages!

"WorldStories is a growing collection of stories from around the world. The collection includes retold traditional tales and new short stories in the languages most spoken by UK children.

We are adding new stories, translations, pictures and sound recordings every week. So keep coming back to enjoy new content!"

#resources

[languagesandlinguistics]

Italian expressions with “mai”

mai e poi mai – never ever, never in a million years (lit. “never and then never”)

Mai e poi mai avrei pensato che potessero fare una cosa del genere. – I never thought they could do such a thing.

mai più – never again

Ho avuto così tanta paura sulle montagne russe che ho giurato di non salirci mai più. – The rollercoaster ride scared me so much that I swore I’d never set foot on it again.

mai come ora – now more than ever

Mai come ora dobbiamo prestare attenzione a queste cose. – We must pay attention to these things, now more than ever.

mai quanto me – lit. “not as much as I am/do” (meaning that, whatever it is that the other person told you, you know it as well if not better than they do)

A: Temo di essere troppo permaloso. – I’m afraid I’m too touchy. B: Tranquillo, mai quanto me. – Don’t worry, I’m definitely worse.

come mai…? – how come…?

A: Come mai oggi non sei venuta a scuola? – How come you didn’t come to school today? B: Non mi sentivo tanto bene. – I wasn’t feeling too good.

perché mai…? – why on earth…?

A: Pensavo che ci saresti rimasto male se te l’avessi detto. – I thought you would have been upset if I had told you. B: E perché mai? Fai bene a dirmi le cose come stanno. – And why on earth would you think that? It’s good to tell me things the way they are.

(ma) quando mai? – lit. “when has that ever happened?” (implying that the answer is “never”, and that you’re baffled the person would even suggest it)

A: Dove hai messo la mia macchina fotografica? L’ultimo a usarla sei stato tu! – Where did you put my camera? You were the last one to use it! B: Ma quando mai! Non l’ho proprio toccata. – No I wasn’t! I haven’t even touched it.

(non) sia mai [che…]! – heaven forbid [that…]! (often ironic)

Non sia mai che scriva un post senza un milione di esempi! – Heaven forbid I write a post without adding a million examples!

nel giorno / nel mese / nell’anno del mai – on the day / in the month / in the year of “never”

Sì, come no: ci vedremo nell’anno del poi, nel mese del mai. – Yeah, sure: we’ll see each other in the year of “later”, in the month of “never”.

mai dire mai – never say never

Mai dire mai: la vita può sempre sorprenderti! – Never say never: life can always surprise you!

mai vist* (visto, vista, visti…) – lit. “never seen him/her/it/them”, meaning I have no idea what/who that is

A: Sai di chi è quel gatto? – You know whose cat is that? B: No, mai visto. – Nope, never seen it before.

ora o mai più – now or never

Siete pronti? Ora o mai più. – Are you ready? It’s now or never.

hai visto mai? – you never know (lit. “have you ever seen?”)

Porto sempre una penna in più in ufficio; hai visto mai che a qualcuno servisse? – I always bring an extra pen to the office; you never know, someone might need it.

mai una gioia – lit. “never a joy” (meaning that things never go the way you want them to go; on-line slang-y and colloquial)

You can use it as an ironic comment to the everyday misfortunes of yourself and others.

se mai – if ever

Se mai dovessi passare di qui, fammi uno squillo. – If you ever happen to be around here, ring me.

#italian #mai #expressions

[languagesandlinguistics]

in my experience if you're learning a language but you're worried about not pronouncing it right or sounding ridiculous in front of native speakers, I'm here to tell you that most people do not care. they don't care if you have an accent or if your mother tongue is peeking through, because in all honesty, everyone has an accent. it's unfair and frankly unrealistic to expect people to bear no remnants of their native tongue when speaking another. you've spent your entire life speaking your language, interacting with the world in it; your understanding of language is built on your native one and its natural sounds. no one can expect you to entirely shift how your brain processes words and sounds. most native speakers will just appreciate you trying at all. if it's comprehensible, if the gist of what you're saying gets across, then it's good enough. if you're trying, your accent is fine.

[languagesandlinguistics]

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and all endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)

[languagesandlinguistics]

Heads up to not use Duolingo or to cease using it

In December 2023 they laid off a huge percentage of their translation teams, replacing them with ai and having the remaining members review the ai translations to make sure the translations are “acceptable” (Note how they use the world acceptable and not accurate)

Link to the tweet that informed me of this:

https://x.com/rahll/status/1744234385891594380?s=46&t=a5vK0RLlkgqk-CTqc0Gvvw

If you’re a current user prepare for an uptick in translations errors as I’ve already seen people in the comments say they’ve noticed

#duolingo #well that fucking sucks

[languagesandlinguistics]

Oooh thank you so much!! Funnily enough, I downloaded it right before this reply, but I haven't done much besides sign up. The gender options do suck but from a first pass this looks more up my alley. Thanks for the additional info!!

(Regarding Tandem as a dating app, I deleted my account and one of the reasons you can select for deleting is literally "It felt like a dating app". I guess they're aware of Tandem's vibes lmao. Hopefully HelloTalk is better in that regard)

I was scrolling Tandem to find folks to practice Italian with and maybe help with English (now that I haven't taken classes for a few years, my speaking/writing skills are piss-poor and comprehension is only slightly better lol) but... I feel like the people on Tandem and the people I actually want to chat with are NOT a venn diagram?? Does anyone else have this problem and know alternative resources for practice?

Grazie mille!!!

[languagesandlinguistics]

I was scrolling Tandem to find folks to practice Italian with and maybe help with English (now that I haven't taken classes for a few years, my speaking/writing skills are piss-poor and comprehension is only slightly better lol) but... I feel like the people on Tandem and the people I actually want to chat with are NOT a venn diagram?? Does anyone else have this problem and know alternative resources for practice?

Grazie mille!!!

#tandem #language learning #langblr #personal #every time i open the app it looks like a dating app in there. hello ???

[languagesandlinguistics]

The etymology of the interjection pog is so insane like:

1. People are saying "pog" because there is a twitch emote named pogchamp

2. It's called pogchamp because the face of the emote is this guy:

3. who is a youtuber and streetfighter player who made this face on a video because of a production mishap and later won a competition of the game Pog for which he made a video titled "Pog Championship" that featured this face

4. Pog is a game also referred to as "milk caps" where you stack disks and slam your disks into your opponent's stack to disrupt them. They look like this:

5. The game is called pog because it is commonly played with novelty bottle caps from a drink also called POG

6. The drink is called POG because it's an initialism for its ingredients passion fruit, orange, and guava

7. Passion fruit is native to South America and got its name because Portuguese missionaries used its five-part shape as an allegory for Jesus's stigmata to explain the crucifixion of Christ to the Brazilian natives

8. The word passion comes from the Latin patior which means "I suffer" in reference to the suffering of Christ on the cross

9. The Indo-European root of patior has been reconstructed as *peh- "to hurt" which is cognate with English fiend

[languagesandlinguistics]

there’s this post going around that’s like ‘what if alien languages had pronouns that didn’t include gender information!’ and there’s about five different enthusiastic replies and like, i get the excitement but i’m begging you to learn about languages other than english

#reblogging with your commentary! #this is out of my knowledge sphere so all the additions are interesting

[languagesandlinguistics]

there’s this post going around that’s like ‘what if alien languages had pronouns that didn’t include gender information!’ and there’s about five different enthusiastic replies and like, i get the excitement but i’m begging you to learn about languages other than english

[languagesandlinguistics]

Since my big Languages and Linguistics MEGA folder post is approaching 200k notes (wow) I am celebrating with some highlights from my collection:

Africa: over 90 languages so far. The Swahili and Amharic resources are pretty decent so far and I'm constantly on the lookout for more languages and more resources.

The Americas: over 100 languages of North America and over 80 languages of Central and South America and the Caribbean. Check out the different varieties for Quechua and my Navajo followers are invited to check out the selection of Navajo books, some of which are apparently rare to come by in print.

Ancient and Medieval Languages: "only" 18 languages so far but I'm pretty pleased with the selection of Latin and Old/Middle English books.

Asia: over 130 languages and I want to highlight the diversity of 16 Arabic dialects covered.

Australia: over 40 languages so far.

Constructed Languages: over a dozen languages, including Hamlet in the original Klingon.

Creoles: two dozen languages and some materials on creole linguistics.

Europe: over 60 languages. I want to highlight the generous donations I have received, including but not limited to Aragonese, Catalan, Occitan and 6 Sámi languages. I also want to highlight the Spanish literature section and a growing collection of World Englishes.

Eurasia: over 25 languages that were classified as Eurasian to avoid discussions whether they belong in Europe or Asia. If you can't find a language in either folder it might be there.

History, Culture, Science etc: Everything not language related but interesting, including a collection of "very short introductions", a growing collection of queer and gender studies books, a lot on horror and monsters, a varied history section (with a hidden compartment of the Aubreyad books ssshhhh), and small collections from everything like ethnobotany to travel guides.

Jewish Languages: 8 languages, a pretty extensive selection of Yiddish textbooks, grammars, dictionaries and literature, as well as several books on Jewish religion, culture and history.

Linguistics: 15 folders and a little bit of everything, including pop linguistics for people who want to get started. You can also find a lot of the books I used during my linguistics degree in several folders, especially the sociolinguistics one.

Literature: I have a collection of classic and modern classic literature, poetry and short stories, with a focus on the over 140 poetry collections from around the world so far.

Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia: over 40 languages and I want to highlight the collection for Māori, Cook Islands Māori and Moriori.

Programming Languages: Not often included in these lists but I got some for you (roughly 5)

Sign Languages: over 30 languages and books on sign language histories and Deaf cultures. I want to highlight especially the book on Martha's Vineyard Sign Language and the biography of Laura Redden Searing.

Translation Studies: Everything a translation student needs with a growing audiovisual translation collection

And the best news: the folders are still being updated regularly!

#resources #ooooooh my gosh

[languagesandlinguistics]

I remember seeing many maaaany years ago like within my first years of Tumblr, a handy post/chart for learning the differences between shared (and unshared) symbols used in Chinese, Korean and Japanese, and so I wanted to throw something together quick to help people learn the differences between languages using the Arabic script– they’re not all Arabic!! These are just some of the more common ones you see online.

Many many languages use a modified Arabic script, and I couldn’t possibly detail each and every one, so here are links to some info about others as well! Including:

Azerbaijani

Sindhi

Balochi

Luri

Mandinka

Arabi Malayalam

Kyrgyz

Pegon script (Javanese, Madurese, Sundanese)

This is also just a basic list of all languages current using a modified Arabic script in one way or another

#arabic #persian #kurdish #urdu #pashto #serto #estrangelo #syriac #arabic script #writing systems

[languagesandlinguistics]

Lou Jelenski

Source

#writing systems #lou jelenski

[languagesandlinguistics]

I actually really like the thing when you're starting to get the hang of a new language, enough to understand and say simple sentences but you gotta get creative to get more complex thoughts across, like a puzzle. I remember a time in the restortation school when a classmate who wasn't natively finnish and did her best anyway dropped something and sighed, telling me "every day is monday this week. I have had four mondays this week." And I understood.

I don't think I speak much of spanish anymore, but in the nursing school training period I did there, I did manage to get by with making weird Tarzan sentences. I got a nosebleed at some point and startled another nurse. Not knowing the words "humidity" or "stress", I managed to string together: "This is ok. It is hot, it is cold, I have a bad day, I am sad, I have blood. This is normal for me." And she understood.

And sometimes you just say things weird, but it's better than not saying it. One time, I was stuck in a narrow hallway behind someone walking really slowly with a walker, and he apologised for being in the way. I was not in any hurry, but didn't know the spanish word for "hurry", but I did know enough words to try to circumvent it by borrowing the english "I have all the time in the world."

The man burst into one of those cackling old man laughters that they do when something in this world still manages to surprise them. He had to be somewhere between 70 and a 100 years old, and I guess if there was one thing he wasn't expecting to hear today, it would be a random blond vaguely baltic-looking fuck casually announce that he is the sole owner and keeper of the very concept of time.

#language learning