My languages: Irish (Native) English (Native) French (B1) Spanish (A2) Dutch (How do you say level 0 in dutch?) I still post about lots of other languages
Why you should watch 乘风破浪 and 披荆斩棘 to learn Chinese
What are these shows?
Both 披荆斩棘 and 乘风破浪 follow the same basic format: 30+ celebrity contestants, mostly actors and singers ages 30+, form teams and compete in singing and dancing over several rounds. Viewers vote on their favorite performances and contestants, and 1-3 contestants are eliminated each round. The top contestants form a temporary "group" and appear on a follow-up reality show.
Why you should watch
1. Exposure to different accents
Contestants come from all over the Chinese-speaking world: Dongbei, Sichuan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and even Malaysia. I can personally say that watching these shows has vastly improved my ability to understand the Hong Kong Mandarin accent.
2. Pop culture knowledge
Because the contestants are celebrities, you'll be introduced to dozens of famous actors, singers, etc. Also, you'll hear the many iconic songs that they cover. I've impressed several native speakers with my with knowledge of pop culture and music.
3. Branch out to new media
These shows serve as a gateway to Chinese music, movies, and TV. if you really like the contestants who are actors, you can check out their shows and movies. If you enjoy a certain song or like a contestant who's a singer, you can explore more music.
4. Casual and formal registers
You’ll get to hear casual, unscripted speech while watching the behind-the-scenes and rehearsal clips. But you’ll also get to hear more formal speech when they’re announcing rules and also from the MC who hosts the actual live performances.
5. Incredible talent
Also, you should watch for the awesome performances and general fun. I love seeing the contestants' friendships, and I’m also obsessed with the amazing sets. There are some incredibly talented performers on these shows, and I love getting to see them shine.
Where to watch
All seasons are free to watch on YouTube! Sometimes clips may be muted or missing, probably due to YouTube's restrictions. But the vast, vast majority is available, and when a clip is missing, you can usually do a separate search and find it. I also pay for a Mango TV subscription, which is $1.99 USD/month.
乘风破浪 full episode playlist links:
乘风破浪的姐姐1
乘风破浪的姐姐2
乘风破浪3
乘风2023
乘风2024
披荆斩棘 full episode playlist links:
披荆斩棘的哥哥1
披荆斩棘2
披荆斩棘3
披荆斩棘4
To help you get started, below is a YouTube playlist of my some of my favorite performances (5 per season, except for the most recent season of each). Cause why not! Also, below the cut I'll put more details along with direct links to my favorite performances.
And if you're a fellow fan emotionally preparing for the 披荆斩棘4 finale 🥲, feel free to message me and commiserate!
See similar posts:
I watched all the Chinese idol survival shows so you don’t have to (but you should anyway)
Tips for finding Chinese-language media you like
Sisters Who Make Waves
Chinese title: 乘风破浪的姐姐 (S1-2) / 乘风破浪 (S3) / 乘风 (S4-5)
English title: Sisters Who Make Waves (S1-3) / Ride the Wind (S4-5) *I call it Sisters for short
This series is the original, having started in 2020. The focus was on female empowerment, particularly of women 30+. A lot of the celebrities had slowed down in their careers, and the show served as their reintroduction to audiences. While female empowerment is still a theme today, I do feel it has lessened in prominence.
Season 1
The original, iconic season. You can tell they had a limited budget and not a ton of space, but it doesn't detract at all thanks to the incredible talent and energy of the contestants. And they had no idea what a phenomenon the show was going to be! Many of my most rewatched performances come from the season.
得不到的爱情
大碗宽面
相爱后动物感伤
FLOW
新物种
Season 2
This season has a special place in my heart as the first one I watched! It's the only one I've seen twice (when it originally aired and rewatched with friends). Compared to season 1, you can definitely tell they had a bigger budget and started to refine the format. Also, some of my all-time favorite contestants are from this season.
现在不跳舞要干嘛
归零
快乐宝贝
给自己的歌
我
Season 3
This season was the first with the show's "modern" and fully-developed format, which remains to this day. For example, they started to include more complex sets and recruited more diverse contestants, such as dancers, an athlete, etc. Also, my favorite performance of the entire series, 雾里, is from this season.
雾里
梦中人
山海
孤独颂歌
有吗炒面
Season 4
This season was the first time I felt there wasn’t improvement over the previous season. I think the stage design took a step backward, and I didn't love the international focus. It was hard to identify my favorite performances because I didn't feel strongly about many. That being said, my friends and I still enjoyed this season.
从头
千里万里
下个，路口，见
归途有风
I'm Not Yours
Season 5
Though this season has already ended, I'm not done yet. I watch with friends, so we move at a slower pace. So far, it seems largely in line with season 4. I'll update this post after we finish.
Call Me By Fire
Chinese title: 披荆斩棘的哥哥 (S1) / 披荆斩棘 (S2-3)
English title: Call Me By Fire *I call it Brothers as a nickname
A show about female empowerment gets a male spin off? Out of skepticism, I did not plan to check out this show when it premiered in 2021 (after Sisters S2). But at some point I changed my mind, mostly because I had to run out of other shows. Little did I know I would arguably become a more devoted fan of this show than the original!
Season 1
This season had too many iconic performances to count, and in particular, the Hong Kong contestants really took the world by storm. Due to scandals, they edited out 2 contestants (Huo Zun and Li Yundi), which admittedly does make for an awkward viewing experience at times, but you should totally watch anyway.
凄美地
MMA
飞云之下
达拉崩吧
如果还有明天
Season 2
Looking back, season 2 did not have as many stand out performances as season 1, but it does boast my favorite performances of the entire series, 新地球. It also features a fantastic group of contestants, probably my favorite overall cohort of the show.
新地球
袖手旁观
私人生活
理想
凤毛麟角
Season 3
This was the first season to air after I started watching, though I didn't watch it live because I was still on season 2. While it's probably impossible to top the iconic status of season 1, I think season 3 was an improvement over season 2 in terms of memorable performances. We also got the iconic 0713 (2007快乐男声全国13强) contestants.
行走的鱼
爱人错过
Joker
走麦田
有没有一首歌会让你想起我
Season 4
This season is sadly coming to an end, although I have not started the finale yet. I'll start this weekend and update this post in the future after I've had some time to gather my thoughts.
Now I have to go finish 披荆斩棘4 episode 11 so I can watch the finale. Bye!!!
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WRITING
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✅🛠All Verb Conjugations Cheatsheet
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LISTENING
✅🛠Language Pal Pack: Questions to Kickstart Conversation
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✅🛠Language Pal Pack: Questions to Kickstart Conversation
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✅🛠Jisho.org
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✅📚Dictionary of Japanese Grammar and Verbs
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⏫📚A Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar
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✅🖥️JLPT Website
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TEXTBOOKS
✅📚Nihongo So Matome
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✅📚Dictionary of Japanese Grammar and Verbs
✅📚New Kanzen Master
⏫📚A Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar
⏫📚Nihongo Bunkei Jiten
🔼📚A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar
🔼📚Tobira: Gateway to Advanced Japanese
⬇️📚A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar
⏬📚Elementary School Dictionary
⏬📚All about Particles
⏬📚Genki Series
⏬📚Japanese from Zero
- podcast recommendations in spanish for bookworms
hello! lately i’ve been using podcasts to augment my readings, find new things to read, and expose myself to new tactics of literary criticism, so here are some podcasts i’ve been enjoying. as a general tip, if you put the name of the book you’re reading or its author in the spotify search bar you will probably find an analysis or an interview, so try it out! ¡feliz lectura!
tema libre: my favorite on the list. from editorial anagrama, two authors discuss whatever they’d like (hence the name). my favorite episode is this one with mariana enríquez and kiko amat.
un libro una hora: just what it sounds like. they pick a book each episode and talk about it. meant for after you’ve read the book, since they do go into spoilers. they talk about literature from all over the world, not just from spanish speaking authors
tropebusters: not specifically literature, but they analyze a popular trope in literature, film, and pop culture in each episode. here’s one about humans vs ai
las ñoñas: discussion of varied authors with thematic music to accompany. i found them while looking for reviews on cadáver exquisito, so check out this episode.
cine aparte: it’s actually film, sorry! i’m in a film class right now so i’ve been treating film like literature for studying. this podcast analyzes both new releases and cult classics.
patio interior: another podcast of discussion of varied authors, but the episodes tend to be shorter so you can give it a quick listen and see if you want to read what they’ve recommended.
Reading rec list for chinese learners. This is not exhaustive, if you find stuff that works for you then go for it! This is also not perfect, you may find stuff a bit easier or harder is more ideal for you. (By "know" below I mean you recognize the word as familiar, have studied or looked it up at some point, and so if you need to look it up again in reading you will learn it longer term fairly easily because of the repeated exposure to it in reading).
Know ~500 words?
Mandarin Companion Graded Readers. I recommend the Sherlock one, and the Journey to the Center of the Earth one. All Mandarin Companion books are excellent for beginners though.
Pleco Graded Readers - I recommend The Butterfly Lovers. There are a lot of Pleco Graded readers though, so you can pick based on amount of unique words (some Graded readers on Pleco go up to 2000 unique words).
Know ~1000-1500 words?
Sinolingua Chinese Graded Readers. There are several, and I started with the 500 word one. They somewhat match up with HSK and I found them more challenging than the Mandarin Companion graded readers. They have a vocabulary list in the back of the book and footnotes to help you study. They are a good bridge to get you from graded readers to other materials. I found the 1000 and 2000 word book equally difficult.
Pleco Graded readers, which include readers from 1000-2000 unique words.
Start delving into manhua! If you're ready and feel like it! Easier manhua will be slice of life setting ones, and ones based on something you're already familiar with. So if you've watched the Untamed or read 魔道祖师, then the manhua will be easier for you. If you've watched The Lost Tomb Reboot, then try out the slice of life comedy manhua spin off 盗墓笔记重启日常向 https://m.ac.qq.com/comic/index/id/649452. My Story 他们的故事 is a gl manhua which is slice of life and easy to read, as is 19天. There's also more genre specific manhua which I waited a bit to read, but if you're familiar with the story they may be doable like 2ha's manhua and 破云 manhua.
Know ~1500-2000 words?
Start getting into easier novels. Suggestions include 活着 (anything by this author is often recommended to learners, I have not actually read anything by him yet), 小王子 (this was my first not-graded-reader novel I finished reading in chinese, it was a bit challenging, I used a english/Chinese copy so I could look up words occasionally), 笑猫日记: 会唱歌的猫 (I highly recommend this series of books, they're for kids and fairly straightforward, set in a city so decently useful words are used, with a lot of chengyu that's commonly used so they're worth learning, I read 2 of these novels), 他们的故事 by 一根黄瓜丝儿 (a bl novel that's first person, generally uses a lot of common daily life words, and is fairly straightforward, I've read half and it was the first real novel I tried to read in chinese). These novels can be tried earlier on if you're more willing to use a click dictionary, which is what I did (except for 小王子 since I had a print copy). 论如何错误地套路一个魔教教主 The Wrong Way to a Demon Sect Leader (a fairly easy wuxia bl read).
Also in general anything you've read before in a language you understand, is going to be easier to read in chinese than something brand new.
Feeling brave? Up for a challenge?
撒野 and anything by that author uses a lot of more everyday language and is an easier read than some other webnovels. 盗墓笔记 does not use particularly hard language outside of the tomb genre words which if you're reading then you need to look up and learn anyway eventually (the slang in it is a bit hard but also worth learning so the cursing etc trips you up less later in other stuff you read), if you've seen the show before its doable to read. Scum Villain Self Saving System is on the easier end of mxtx novels to read, especially if youre already familiar with the plot.
Know ~2000 words?
The same novels as before apply. But now you may need a dictionary a bit less. Stuff like 撒野 will now be a bit less difficult, still challenging. Now other novels will start to be doable as desired, if you're using a dictionary. So go have fun looking into whatever webnovels you're interested in.
(I made a list of difficulty ratings of various webnovels in my rec list tag, you may want to check out that list. A quick gadget though is like... 撒野 author is easier than 盗墓笔记 author, then mxtx, then priest (and tian ya ke and zhenhun are easier than silent reading and sha po lang), and poyun was higher on the difficulty scale, 2ha was fairly hard. Basically the more vocabulary or thicker the paragraphs, the harder it's gonna be. Or the less familiar you are with a given genre).
At ~2000 words or more I'd say reading with a click dictionary feels quite doable, although a slog if you pick a harder novel so gauge what feels an okay level for you personally to read. And if you feel like reading without a dictionary, you'll have to explore a bit to see what's comprehensible to you without one.
Over the past 2 days I've added new resources to my resources page! They're instagram/social media tutors but I've complied a mini list here. Some I like more than others, but I would recommend all of them to supplement your studies! Full reviews are on the page~
I also updated a few ratings and pricing for some of the resources as well, which I've made note of in the descriptions on the page.
Here are the new ones I added!
Zita Wong Chinese - insta, adorable and kind and progressive, great functional and colloquial vocab, real-life conversations and interviews with native and nonnative speakers in China
Leila Laoshi - non-native speaker who has translated chinese professionally, great vocab, fascinating lifestyle living in bali
Chilling Chinese - awesome podcasts, actually affordable membership
Sabine Hui Chinese - funny, functional & colloquial vocab
Learn Chinese with Jian - pronunciation guides & functional vocab
This post was originally published on the Mutual Intelligibility mailing list.
Mutual Intelligibility has been a year-long project to curate online linguistics resources. As teaching and learning shifted rapidly to internet-based mediums in early 2020, we wanted to help guide instructors and learners through some of the amazing linguistics content that’s already freely available online.
Below is a full collection of all of the posts that featured on Mutual Intelligibility. Our thanks to everyone who created the resources that we featured, to Liz McCullough for her editorial work, and to the Lingthusiasm patrons who helped us fund this project.
We currently do not have plans to continue with regular Mutual Intelligibility newsletters, but we will keep these existing posts publically available and you can keep an eye out for the occasional future email as we have relevant plans to share. For a more regular correspondence, you can get a monthly email when there’s a new Lingthusiasm episode (including supplementary links on that topic), by signing up at lingthusiasm.substack.com.
Crash Course
To accompany the 16 weeks of 10-12 minute introductory videos on Crash Course Linguistics, we created a newsletter with supporting resources and related activity/activities, curated by Liz McCullough. The activities are mostly from the International Linguistics Olympiad and various national olympiads, which are a huge treasure trove of linguistics puzzle sets.
Week 0 - Preview
Week 1 - Introduction
Week 2 - Morphology
Week 3 - Morphosyntax
Week 4 - Syntax
Week 5 - Semantics
Week 6 - Pragmatics
Week 7 - Sociolinguistics
Week 8 - Phonetics, Consonants
Week 9 - Phonetics, Vowels
Week 10 - Phonology
Week 11 - Psycholinguistics
Week 12 - Language acquisition
Week 13 - Historical linguistics and language change
Week 14 - Languages around the world
Week 15 - Computational linguistics
Week 16 - Writing systems
Resource Guides
These six Resource Guides provide a comprehensive lesson plan (like a textbook’s supplementary material but entirely online), and were compiled with the assistance of Kate Whitcomb. They are also available in PDF and Doc format.
Introduction to IPA Consonants - Resource Guide 1
Introduction to IPA Vowels - Resource Guide 2
Introduction to Morphology - Resource Guide 3
Introduction to Constituency - Resource Guide 4
Introduction to World Englishes - Resource Guide 5
Introduction to Linguistic Diversity - Resource Guide 6
3 Links Posts
3 Links posts are quick highlights lists of three relevant links about a specific topic, with a short description for each of the three resources. We produced twenty-three 3 Links posts in 2020, most of which were edited by Liz McCullough, with other contributors noted on the posts themselves.
3 Links about Linguistics Teaching
3 Links for Second Year Syntax Videos
3 Links for Second Year Phonology
3 Links for Natural Language Processing
3 Links for Semantics and Pragmatics
3 Links for Sociolinguistics
3 Links for Second Year Psycholinguistics
3 Links for Field Methods
3 Links for Articulatory Phonetics
3 Links for Writing Systems
3 Links for Gesture Studies
3 Links for Linguistics Communication (lingcomm)
3 Links for Evidentiality
3 Links for Linguistic Discrimination
3 Links for Linguistics Careers Outside Academia
3 Links for Schwa
3 Links for the Linguistics of Emoji
3 Links for Proto-Indo-European
3 Links for Second Language Acquisition
3 Links for Zero Morphemes
3 Links for Internet Linguistics
3 Links for Language Revitalization
3 Links for Online Teaching
Thanks to everyone who has been following us and sending in questions and links over the past year. It’s been our privilege to help make a rough year somewhat easier for you.
Lauren, Gretchen, Liz, and the rest of the Mutual Intelligibility team
About Mutual Intelligibility
Mutual Intelligibility is a project to connect linguistics instructors with online resources, especially as so much teaching is shifting quickly online due to current events. It’s produced by Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch, with the support of our patrons on Lingthusiasm. Our editor is Liz McCullough.
Mutual Intelligibility posts will always remain available free, but if you have a stable income and find that they’re reducing your stress and saving you time, we’re able to fund these because of the Lingthusiasm Patreon and your contributions there.
If you have other comments, suggestions, or ideas of ways to help, please email [email protected].
Today I am sharing with you guys all my collection of language textbook pdfs :D They are mostly for Russian and Mandarin, but I have a few Korean resources too. Please note that I have not personally used all of these books, so I cannot vouch for their quality. If any of the links are broken, please let me know! All links are to dropbox files.
Mandarin
A Kaleidoscope of China (advanced)
A New China (intermediate)
All Things Considered (advanced)
Anything Goes (advanced)
Basic Chinese (workbook)
Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar (grammar)
Chinese: An Essential Grammar (grammar)
Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar (grammar)
Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar (workbook)
Reading to Write: An Advanced Textbook of Chinese (advanced)
Schaum’s Outlines: Chinese Grammar (grammar)
The Routledge Advanced Chinese Multimedia Course (advanced)
The Routledge Course in Chinese Media Literacy (advanced)
Russian
Ultimate Russian (advanced)
Using Russian: A Guide to Contemporary Usage
A Comprehensive Russian Grammar (grammar)
A Russian Grammar Workbook (workbook)
Colloquial Russian 2 (intermediate)
Russian Verbal Prefixes (grammar)
Glossika Guide to Russian Pronunciation and Grammar
Intermediate Russian: A Grammar and Workbook (intermediate)
An Advanced Russian Tabloid Reader (advanced)
A Living Russian Grammar (grammar)
Basic Russian: A Grammar and Workbook (beginner）
Russian in Exercises (beginner)
Russian Verbs of Motion
Using Russian Vocabulary (vocab)
The Big Silver Book of Russian Verbs (vocab)
Live From Russia Stage 1 Volume 1 (beginner)
Live From Russia Stage 1 Volume 2 (beginner)
Korean
Basic Korean: A Grammar and Workbook (beginner)
Intermediate Korean: A Grammar and Workbook (intermediate)
Using this tool to determine unique amount of words in a text (and generating a vocabulary list). Since it can’t handle a huge amount of input I’m just going to do maybe a chapter or half a chapter of each story and see the result: http://www.zhtoolkit.com/apps/wordlist/create-list.cgi
This tool is useful for figuring out how difficult a text is compared to something else you’ve read, and it generates word lists! So you have something to study from (if you aren’t using Pleco, want like a Graded Reader experience with intensive reading word lists, etc). You can think of meanU as the “easiness rating” - the higher it is the easier the text is to read.
**This list gets long below the cut, but will hopefully help serve as a reference. For a rough estimate I’d say anything from 1.9+ seems to be manageable for someone who knows HSK 4 words and is using a click-dictionary (like Pleco, Zhongwen Chrome Extension, Mandarinspot.com Annotator Bookmarklet, eReader dictionary, etc). Some ~1.9 ones are easier or harder depending on genre familiarity. For example I think 论如何错误地套路一个魔教教主 is extremely easy if you’re used to wuxia genre as its very simple for the genre, versus something like 魔道祖师, also if wuxia vocab isn’t an issue for you then priest novels like 天涯客 tend to be easier than 镇魂). For ease’s sake, ones 2+ seem to be the most ‘doable’ for actual extensive reading though. Again, this depends on which genres you’re more familiar with - but in general the ones scored 2+ below are novels I had more success reading without dictionary lookup in general.
Anything marked *** I would recommend as ‘easier,’ and anything as ** I would recommend as possibly easier depending on your genre familiarity.
Update: I have gone through this list and now most text samples analyzed were generally between 1900-2100 words, so now the scores should be more comparable. While a 1.9 may or may not be easy based on your level, in general if something is scored lower it will still be harder and if scored higher will still be ‘easier’ than a 1.9. Your genre familiarity will also affect things. So when looking for “similar difficulty” material and “slightly” harder or easier, these scores should hopefully be a bit more useful now.
* Unique unknown is the count of the Chinese words not in the public common word filter, nor in your user known word list
* meanU is the average frequency of all words. Here, it is the average of the log(10) frequencies. It is a very rough measure of text difficulty. A value of ~1.9 is somewhat difficult, and ~2.6 is probably easier. (Ref: [http://www.soc.cornell.edu/hayes-lexical-analysis/])
First, novels I’ve heard recommended as ‘easier’ to read:
***小王子
Characters:3196
Word Count:2192
Unique Words:744 (33.9%)
Unique unknown*:608 (81.7%)
meanU(log10)*:2.004
**So it’s ease rating is 2, fairly easy! That makes sense, at least based on my experience reading it right now.
***地图 by 倪匡
Characters:3005
Word Count:2094
Unique Words:681 (32.5%)
Unique unknown*:551 (80.9%)
meanU(log10)*:2.072
**This author was recommended as very approachable on chinese learning forums, sci-fi short stories (around 100 pages per story) for people who know HSK 4+. (Also again shout out to this text analyzer tool because the vocabulary lists it generates are super useful for looking through ahead of a reading to help prepare).
***他们的故事 by 一根黄瓜丝儿
Characters:3085
Word Count:2172
Unique Words:730 (33.6%)
Unique unknown*:613 (84.0%)
meanU(log10)*:2.008
**Score of 2 makes sense, it was the first webnovel I was able to read (with the help of Pleco Reader click-definitions). It’s definitely on the easier side. If there’s unknown words in this, a huge portion of them are very common daily life words or simple novel description words so they were worth learning for me.
***论如何错误地套路一个魔教教主
Characters:2403
Word Count:1766
Unique Words:691 (39.1%)
Unique unknown*:565 (81.8%)
meanU(log10)*:1.962
**This is The Wrong Way To A Demon Sect Leader and I recommend it hands down as an intro wuxia or bl novel. The reading is actually fairly easy, and if its not then learning any of the words here are pretty basic wuxia genre words you will keep using. (Also its a great listening reading method novel to do since its audiobook matches perfectly to the text, and it’s english translation is pretty literal).
I’m not studying any Greek or Roman this coming year (I sacrificed intro classical languages for gender & history), but I will be doing a Roman history module and engaging with the language is always useful. I know a few people who have been looking for Greek/Latin learning resources, which is how this list came about. It includes MOOCs, youtube videos and websites. Not really knowing much Latin or Greek I can’t vouch for them 100% but my googling skills are pretty on point, so they should be okay. Feel free to correct me or add to this.
Latin
Getting started on classical Latin
Duration 10 hours
Introductory level
This free course, Getting started on classical Latin, has been developed in response to requests from learners who had had no contact with Latin before and who felt they would like to spend a little time preparing for the kind of learning that studying a classical language involves. The course will give you a taster of what is involved in the very early stages of learning Latin and will offer you the opportunity to put in some early practice.
Continuing classical Latin
Duration 4 hours
Intermediate level
This free course, Continuing classical Latin, gives you the opportunity to hear a discussion of the development of the Latin language.
FLVS Latin
As we build our Via Latina, we will travel back to ancient Rome. On our travels we learn about their culture, history and literature.
National Archives: Beginner’s Latin
Welcome to the beginners’ Latin tutorials. These lessons cover the type of Latin used in official documents written in England between 1086 and 1733. This can be quite different from classical Latin, as used by the Ancient Romans.
Learn Latin
Here are two dozen short lessons on learning Latin designed for “mountain men” (and women: montani montanaeque), engineers, philosophers, and anyone else looking for entertainment and with lots of free time by the campfire. My course is quite different from Peter Jones’ Learn Latin (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1997), but it is just as devoted to interesting you in Latin.
Learn Latin (Learn101)
I would like to welcome you to the Latin lessons. I’m here to help you learn Latin, by going step by step. All the lessons contain audio and are all offered for free.
The London Latin Course
170 videos
Learn Latin from the ground up. This is a serial course, structured to bring you to a high level of Latin fluency. The pace is slow and unhurried. This course is suitable for all ability levels. Restored Classical Pronunciation.
Latin Online
Latin is probably the easiest of the older languages for speakers of English to learn, both because of their earlier relationship and because of the long use of Latin as the language of educational, ecclesiastical, legal and political affairs in western culture.
Latin Excercises
Welcome to UVic’s practice exercises for Wheelock’s Latin (6th edition). There are 40 units comprising many hundreds of exercises to help you consolidate your progress in the classroom and with the textbook.
Ancient Greek
Introducing Ancient Greek
If you are starting to learn Ancient Greek, this site is for you! This site will help you prepare for a Beginner’s Ancient Greek course.
Classical Greek Online
Greek has been important in the intellectual life of western civilization, but not to the extent of Latin except for ecclesiastical matters. In years past, Latin was introduced in the first year of High School, followed by Greek in the third year.
Ancient Greek Online
This site was designed to be a learning environment for students as well as a reading room for scholars. The large print Greek is easy on the eyes. The Internet has returned us to the scrolling method of reading texts, which lends itself particularly well to the project at hand.
Teach Yourself Ancient Greek
The material presented here will be of use to anyone beginning ancient Greek, but is specifically designed to accompany our book.
Ancient Greek Grammar
103 videos
Including pronunciation tips. I haven’t personally watched this and there’s no real description, but it looks pretty comprehensive from what I can see.
Greek & Latin
Introducing the Classical world
Duration 20 hours
Intermediate level
How do we learn about the world of the ancient Romans and Greeks? This free course, Introducing the Classical world, will provide you with an insight into the Classical world by introducing you to the various sources of information used by scholars to draw together an image of this fascinating period of history.
Discovering Ancient Greek and Latin
Duration 12 hours
Intermediate level
The free course, Discovering Ancient Greek and Latin, gives a taste of what it is like to learn two ancient languages. It is for those who have encountered the classical world through translations of Greek and Latin texts and wish to know more about the languages in which these works were composed.
Textkit
Textkit began in late 2001 as a project to develop free of charge downloads of Greek and Latin grammars, readers and answer keys. We offer a large library of over 180 of the very best Greek and Latin textbooks.
here is a list of some really helpful mandarin resources that i found recently! all of the underlined ones are live links :)
chinese-grammar: i’m gonna be honest here, this grammar website is IMPRESSIVE. it provides 22 lessons and an extensive and detailed explanation of chinese script and characters (with a really long list of characters). i only just recently came across this website but i totally see myself using this, like, all the time. i highly highly highly recommend it!
chineseboost : this website is definitely an awesome long-term resource! it provides lessons for pretty much all levels of chinese (a1-c1, hsk1-hsk5) so everything is in one place! it also has some super helpful tools such as as a hanzi to pinyin translator and a blog where they have tips and study strategies!
LTL mandarin school : although the posts on this blog are a little limited, i feel like the posts that they do have are pretty helpful, especially their “complete guides” to basic chinese grammar! this is definitely not a primary resource, but since it has some helpful stuff i decided to include it :)
HSK 1: i find myself coming back again and again to this app! it’s a super super accessible resources and really interesting as a beginner chinese learner since it kind of throws you in the deep-end with its built-in games, and it’s honestly quite refreshing. it also provides a huuuuge bank of vocabulary as well as sentences!
HSKOnline: this app is most useful to people who plan to take the hsk exams. i believe it provides all 5 hsk levels with practice exams, exercises, and important vocabulary! i personally have not completely dived into this app since i am very much not exam ready haha, but i can see how it would be very very helpful for people who want to formalize language learning. (honestly it’s great for casual language learners as well since you can just pretend that they are practice tests or fake tests)
Infinite Chinese: this app is great if you are a beginner and you want a fun and interactive way to dive into the language! it’s also a great warmup activity. infinite chinese is basically an app that has a game very similar to quizlet’s meteor game thing (i hope you know what i mean) and it also covers quite a lot of vocabulary. it’s great for review as well! :) i’ve used this app multiple times for entertainment too, so it really helps you pick the language up a little faster!
pleco chinese dictionary : needless to say, it’s super important to have a mandarin dictionary since the vocabulary and script is so expansive. i feel like this dictionary is particularly awesome since there is handwriting input (you can write out a character using your own hand) that will give you the definition and pinyin of whatever you wrote! this is great since it’s sometimes easy to mix up definitions and pronunciations since the language is so nuanced. ans, because it’s an app, it’s nice and accessible and not to mention portable lol
scripts: this app has been something i find myself coming back to over and over again for not only mandarin, but other languages as well! for mandarin specifically, it gives you a really strong foundation on chinese radicals (if you are new to the language: radicals are the fundamental and most basic strokes that makes up the mandarin script- it’s super important to learn them because it will help you write and also sometimes help you with the definition of words you may not know quite yet) which is super helpful, especially in the long run.
lingodeer: honestly speaking, lingodeer is a great app to learn mandarin! even though it somewhat forces you to go through all the basics before jumping into the meat (but that’s pretty much every language learning app so i’m not surprised about it), it provides a good review of things you already learned and does it pretty thoroughly. a lot better than duolingo
Here are some podcasts for French since I started the language. Many you can find on iTunes, on Android using Pocket Casts, or on their own websites/RSS feed. There are several more podcasts in French, but these should be enough for now. Other Podcasts: Arabic| German | Italian| Russian |Spanish| Ukrainian| Eurasia
Language Learning
Coffee Break French
FrenchPod101
French Your Way
Je French
Learn French with Alexa
Mot du Jour
One Minute French
Real Deal French
Spotify- Learn French
Survival French Phrases
Listening For Beginners-Advanced
Cultivate Your French: Intermediate-Advanced.
Daily French Pod: Beginner-Advanced. Transcripts can be bought.
Easy French Poetry: Beginner-Int. Includes transcripts.
Français Authentique: Intermediate-Advanced. Includes transcripts.
French Podcasts: A2-B1. Includes transcripts.
Journal en français facile: Intermediate. Includes transcripts.
Learn French by Podcast: Beginner to Advanced. Includes transcripts and grammar lessons.
Native French Speech Podcast: Int.-Advanced. Transcripts can be bought.
News in Slow French: Beginner to Intermediate. Includes transcripts.
One Thing in a French Day: A2-B2. Includes transcripts.
The French Podcast: Beginner to Intermediate. Transcripts can be bought.
French Only
AnthroStory: Anthropology.
AppLoad: Gadgets and technology.
Bienvenue à Valnuit: French version of Welcome to Nightvale
La Conversation scientifique: Science.
Grosses Têtes: News & culture.
L’histoire du soir: Medieval literature.
LSD, La série documentaire: Culture & news.
Les Nouveaux chemins de la connaissance: Philosophy.
Les Pressés de l’Expression: Language and linguistics.
Parler Cuisine: Food and cooking.
Podcasts d'Europe: Culture, economics, politics.
Podcast Science: Science.
Poésie et ainsi de suite: Poetry
Positron: Music, film, TV.
Le RDV Jeux: Gaming.
Les Regardeurs: Art.
Rendez-Vous Avec X: History
Le rendez-vous Tech: Technology.
Le Salon noir: History.
Franceculture: Several podcasts can be found here and sorted by theme.
Franceinter: Website that hosts several more podcasts.
When I say “technology” I refer to Information Technology, such as computers and smartphones.
You can find the pronunciation of any word in Forvo.com (:
I added an (f) to nouns that are feminine and an (m) to nouns that are masculine.
Some things have different names depending on the country, so I added [Am. Lat.] referring to Latin America and [España] referring, of course, to Spain.
hardware (m)- hardware
computadora (f) - computer
computadora de escritorio (f) - desktop computer
laptop (f) - laptop
computadora portátil (f)- laptop, portable computer
monitor (m) - monitor
pantalla (f) - screen
ratón (m) - mouse
bocinas (f) - speakers [Am. Lat.]
parlantes (m) - speakers [Sur Am., Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras]
altavoces (m) - speakers [España]
micrófono (m) - microphone
cámara web (f) - webcam
audífonos (m) - earphones/headphones
diadema (f) - headset (with microphone)
cascos (m) - headphones [España]
teclado (m) - keyboard
teclas (f) - keys
teclear - to type
disco (m) - CD
CD (seh-deh) - CD
memoria USB [oo-ehseh-beh] - USB memory
prender / encender - to turn on
apagar - to turn off
cable (m) - cable
cargador (m) - charger
conectar - to connect
software (m) - software
programa (m) - program
instalar - to install
desinstalar - to uninstall
programar - to program
programación - programming
juego (m) - game
video juego (m) - video game
imagen / imágenes (f) - image / images
fotos (f) - picture(s)
video(s) - video
escritorio (m) - desktop
fondo de pantalla (m) - wallpaper
protector de pantalla (m) - screen saver
ventana (f) - window
abrir una ventana - to open a window
cerrar una ventana - to close a window
minimizar una ventana - to minimize a window
maximizar una ventana - to maximize a window
pestaña - tab
ícono (m) - icon
pantalla completa - full screen
captura de pantalla (f) - screenshot
copiar - to copy
pegar - to paste
cortar - to cut
copiar y pegar - copy and paste
cursor (m) / puntero (m) - cursor
flecha (f) / flechita (f) - arrow / little arrow = cursor
arrastrar - to drag
editar - to edit
dar click (en) - to click (on)
dar doble click (en) - to double click (on)
dar click derecho / izquierdo (en) - to right / left click (on)
correo electrónico (m) - e-mall
dirección de correo electrónico (f) - e-mail address
@ arroba - at
. punto - point
- guión - dash
_ guión bajo - underscore
/ barra - bar
/ diagonal - bar
enviar / mandar - to send
reenviar - to resend
enviar / entregar - to submit
recibir - to receive
borrar - to erase
eliminar - to delete
guardar - to save
publicar - to post
publicación (f) - post
compartir - to share
página web (f) - webpage
ir a la página - to go to the webpage
navegador (m) / explorador (m) - browser (Chrome, Safari, Explorer)
buscador (m) - browser, Internet search (Google, Bing)
buscar - to search
”googlear” - to google
usuario (m) - user
registrarse - to sign up
iniciar sesión / abrir sesión - to sign in, login
cerrar sesión - to logout
contraseña (f) - password
configuración (f) / configuraciones - settings
herramientas (f) - tools
marcadores (m) - bookmarks
emoticón / emoticono (m) - emoji
carita feliz :) (f)- happy face
archivo (m) - file
carpeta (f) - folder
formato (m) - format (.pdf, .jpg)
archivo adjunto (m) - attached file
subir - to upload [Am. Lat.]
colgar - to upload [España]
descargar / bajar - to download
cargar - to load
cargando - loading
celular (m) - cellphone [Am. Lat.]
móvil (m) - cellphone [España]
dispositivo (m) - device
llamada (f) - calling
llamar - to call
mensaje (m) - message
mandar / enviar un mensaje - to send a message
“mensajear” - to text
contestar - to reply a text, to answer a call
mensaje de voz (m) - voice message
video llamada (f) - video call
video conferencia (f) - video conference
mala conexión (f) - bad connection
bloquear - to block
desbloquear - to unblock
reportar - to report
contactos (m) - contacts
aplicación (f) / aplicaciones - application / applications
app (f) / apps - app / apps
wi-fi [wah-ee fah-ee] or [wee-fee] (m) - wi-fi
clave de Internet (f) - Internet key
ubicación (f) - location
GPS [heh-peh-ehseh] (m) - GPS
perfil (m) - profile
muro (m) - wall
cronología (f) - chronology
página de inicio (f) - home page
inicio - home
liga (f) / link (m) - link
dar “me gusta” - to give a like
dar “manita arriba” - to give thumbs up
reaccionar - to react
toque (m) - poke
dar un toque - to poke
rebloguear - to reblog
etiqueta (f) - tag
etiquetar - to tag
mención (f) - mention
mencionar - to mention
comentario (m) - comment
comentar - to comment
seguir - to follow
seguidor(a) / seguidores/as - follower / followers
suscribirse - to subscribe
suscriptor(a) / suscriptores/as - subscriber / subscribers
solicitud de amistad (f) - friend request
amigos/as - friends
conocidos/as - acquaintances
grupo (m) - group
foro (m) - forum
administrador(a) / admin - administrator / admin
actividad (f) - activity
notificación (f) / notificaciones - notification / notifications
meme [meh-meh] (m) - meme
atajos (m) - shortcuts
ayuda (f) - help
historial (m) - history
retwittear - to retweet
pantalla táctil - touch screen
tocar - to tap (touch screen)
tocar dos veces - double tap
*We also use:
pinchar / picar - to tap (to poke)
pinchar / picar dos veces - to double tap (poke)
deslizar el dedo - to swipe your finger
deslizar el dedo hacia arriba / abajo / la derecha / la izquierda - to swipe your finger up / down / right / left.
deslizar el dedo por la pantalla - to swipe your finger on the screen
presionar / oprimir un botón - to press (a button)
batería (f) - battery
batería baja (f) - low battery
cargar - to charge
volumen (m) - volume
subir el volumen - to turn up the volume
bajar el volumen - to turn down the volume
brillo (m) - brightness
subir el brillo - to increase the brightness
bajar el brillo - to decrease the brightness
reproducir (un video) - to play (a video)
pausa (f) - pause
pausar / poner pausa - to pause
adelantar - to skip forward
retroceder - to skip backward
reproducción automática (f) - autoplay
reproducción aleatoria (f) - shuffle
lista de reproducción (f) - playlist
agregar a una lista - to add to a list
repetir lista de reproducción - to repeat a playlist
Irish is NOT hard.
It is NOT hard to learn.
It is NOT impossible to learn.
Irish is actually quite an easy language. The keyword here is that it’s different. It’s a different kind of language. Not your Standard European Average language like German or French. There is a lot of influence from Semitic languages, which is attributed to either substratum, language contact and…coincidence?
Here’s a list of reasons why Irish is not hard to learn.
1. It’s phonetic.
Once you learn the rules of reading it, you can read almost any word, no matter how confusing and long it is. It’s phonetic. So each letter or group of letters correspond to one sound. There may be slight alterations in the various dialects, but you can’t go horribly wrong like you can in English.
2. It’s regular.
There are only 11 irregular verbs and out of those, only 6 are pretty crazy and have to be looked out for, other than that, there are very few exceptions.
3. Look out for mutations
Lenitions and eclipses. They mark grammatical meaning (like inflections do in other languages, for example) and they make a huge difference. Sometimes, there are disputes between dialects (ar an bhus and ar an mbus, i’m looking at you Ulster and Munster), but you’re not going to make a huge faux-pas when you say mo teaglach instead of mo theaglach. You’re going to be understood, you’ve just made a mistake.
4. The few resources there are are actually very good.
I’m going to be posting about these in the crash courses I’m planning to do.
5. Look out for genitive
Genitive is tricky and sneaky. But it can be looked up if you’re having trouble since again, it is very regular.
6. The Irish speakers are the most welcoming and supporting language community I’ve met
No shade towards other communities (honestly, still scared of French people), but if you show just a little bit of knowledge of Irish, you will be praised and everybody is going to be so happy. If you make a mistake, no problem, everybody makes mistakes, you learn from mistakes. That’s the kind of approach I’ve experienced so far anyway.
If fears of difficulty are keeping you from learning Irish, don’t let them. Irish is NOT hard and it’s not worth being scared of.
5th century - Primitive Irish transitioned into Old Irish
597 - oldest literary text in Irish
10th century - Middle Irish
12th century - Middle Irish evolved into modern Irish in Ireland, into Scottish Gaelic in Scotland and into the Manx language in the Isle of Manx
13th century - Early Modern Irish
1366 - ban of Irish by the English occupation
17th century - Modern Irish
1922 - independence of Ireland
Irish is unusual in that, like English, fluent learners outnumber native speakers, and studies have shown that about one third of those who speak it daily are not native speakers. On the other hand, some native Irish speakers living in English-speaking parts of Ireland (known as the Galltacht, the “area of foreign speech”) may rarely have the opportunity of speaking Irish. There is a rather extreme form of politeness in vogue–the entry of one English-speaking monoglot can make a room full of Irish speakers switch to English. The areas where Irish remains the community language are known as the Gaeltacht.
Writing system and pronunciation
These are the letters that make up the alphabet: a á b c d e é f g h i í l m n o ó p r s t u ú.
Grammar
Irish grammar is very complex. There is extensive initial mutation, i.e. the beginnings of words change, for example a cosa (her legs), a chosa (his legs); a gcosa (their legs). There is no verb “to have”, but the verb “to be” reflects both the ser/estar distinction of Spanish and the jest/bywa distinction of Polish.
Nouns decline for 3 numbers (singular, dual, plural), 2 genders (masculine, feminine), and 4 cases (nominative-patient, vocative, genitive, prepositional-locative).
Adjectives agree with nouns in number, gender, and case. They generally follow nouns, though some precede or prefix nouns.
Verbs conjugate for 3 tenses (past, present, future), 2 aspects (simple, habitual), 2 numbers (singular, plural), 4 moods (indicative, subjunctive, conditional, imperative), 2 relative forms (the present and future relative), and in some verbs, independent and dependent forms.
Irish has separate sets of numerals for counting humans and non-humans.
In common with Hungarian, Irish describes one of a pair as “half”.
Dialects
Irish is represented by several traditional dialects and by various varieties of “urban” Irish. The latter have acquired lives of their own and a growing number of native speakers. Differences between the dialects are felt in stress, intonation, vocabulary and structural features.
Roughly speaking, the three major dialect areas coincide with the provinces of Munster (Cúige Mumhan), Connacht (Cúige Chonnacht) and Ulster (Cúige Uladh).
Not really a polyglot but I'm getting there @friendlyneighbourhoodpolyglot - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
