Une deuxième langue, c'est une deuxième âme

I'm Hannah. I have 22 years and a lot of feelings about languages. Linguist ≠ Polyglot, but I like to masquerade as both. (As of 08/01/15)

[glossikos-blog]

Hi friends! Sorry for the complete lack of posting, I didn't have time for sitting on a computer while I've been in Italy because tbh I'm not guna be on me death bed like "wow I wish I'd spent more of my year abroad inside by myself on the computer", so yeah, y'know. BUT I'm back in England now, I've had to withdraw from my year abroad early but will probably make a proper post about the whole thing at some point. Until then, feel free to follow my personal blog @trascendjamo (I can't link it for some reason but there ya go). I'll be back posting properly here soon. Hope you are all well! ❤️

[glossikos-blog]

I feel like the Spanish word for cheese just comes from someone looking at it like "The fuck's this??" ¿Qué es eso? ¿Qué...so? ¡Queso!

[spanishskulduggery]

So, guys, probably more reliable than Google Translate is in many cases there’s Linguee.

Linguee is a sort of dictionary filled with examples and sentences from all over the internet so you can look up individual phrases or words and see how they’re used and in what contexts.

So if you want to type in an actual phrase or something in English or Spanish (or a different language if you pick it) you can see your words used in sentences and see how actual sentences look… rather than relying on Google Translate to mess up the grammar or false cognates.

And more than that, you can also check the sources they take the example sentences from.

I highly recommend Linguee for people who are trying to figure out specific phrases rather than particular words (which I would use WordReference for).

[glossikos-blog]

Linguee is a god send!

[party-seacombe-deactivated20170]

how to say “I know everything you are saying, motherfucker” in ten different languages. inspired by Ezra Koenig

[surprisebitch]

alot of people in french class keep forgetting that it’s “le problème” (masculine), not “la problème” (feminine). so our french teacher told us to remember that men are the cause of many problems (le problème) and women are the solution (la solution).

[glossikos-blog]

Language milestone: it's easier to write straight away in your target language instead of writing in your native tongue and translating it.

[glossikos-blog]

Feeling super smug because I got full marks in my exam (in a foreign language hooray!) and then walked home in this.

[glossikos-blog]

I've moved back to Bergamo for exams so I'm not great at posting but in the mean time here are some more things I've seen recently!

[allthingslinguistic]

What can you do with a degree in linguistics?

Some useful linguist career advice in a slide show from Anna Marie Trester, including a list of companies that you might not have realized hire linguists and some general advice on framing linguistics and the job search. I especially liked these two slides: 

Previously from Anna Marie Trester: a few links about interesting linguistics-related jobs, as well as an interview about being a “career linguist”. 

[italianformygirlfriend]

[bellalinguista-deactivated20231]

[linguadolce]

Resources for learning Italian

Here is a list I have compiled from various internet resources that I have found to aid in the adventure of learning the language of opera. This list will try not to repeat anything from this lovely blog. No, this will not contain a list of Italian-related tumblr blogs. Find those yourself.

Wikibook Duolingo Memrise TV series with Italian subtitles Read classics in Italian WordReference Italian forums Italian/English dictionary Documentaries/speeches/videos in Italian sub/dub Lombard dialect (Italian site) Grammar e-book Linguistic map of Italy Il Piccolo Principe Manga in Italian Disney songs 101languages babelnation effectivelanguagelearning Learning games Pronunciation dictionary Apps, podcasts, etc Website dedicated solely to learning Italian Audio/PDF courses (This has Italian in it somewhere) Blog post with Italian stuff

[polandballcomics]

Personal Space

via reddit

[glossikos-blog]

True story

[allthingslinguistic]

One of the things that linguists have noticed is that if you want to combine two things with “and”, they have to be the same part of speech: two nouns, two verbs, etc. So it’s fine to say: Wash the dishes and sweep the floor. (2 verbs+objects) Wash the dishes and the floor. (2 nouns) Clean and press these pants. (2 verbs, same object) But when it comes to fuck, things get, well, fucked up: *Wash the dishes and fuck you. *Fuck you and sweep the floor. *Describe and fuck communism. (Remember, this was written in the sixties.)

A Linguist Explains the Syntax of “Fuck”

I’m on The Toast talking about the classic article “English Sentences Without Overt Grammatical Subject" and several further investigations into the syntax of "fuck" and other swears. 

(via allthingslinguistic)

[glossikos-blog]

I am a little bit sad because being in Italy has meant I’ve only focused on Italian and my other languages have suffered :-( I wanted to continue Spanish or French but it meant doing an obligatory extra 15 hours of classes a week and NOPE. However Erasmus is joyous and there’s a tonne of Spanish people (this seems to be an Erasmus thing, everything is Spanish people? Everywhere? All the time?) and I’ve befriended some really lovely french girls so I’ve picked up a fair bit absent-mindedly :-) I can definitely understand a lot more than I used to be able to.

On another note, I went to Kraków in November and I bloody love Polish, oh my God. I just need to figure out how to make my mouth bend into that many consonants in a row first...

[linguisticious-blog]

'Raddoppiamento Fonosintattico' or 'Syntactic Doubling' or how 'it was supposed to be just one consonant but I swear I can hear two'

Syntactic Doubling is a gemination phenomenon that occurs in Standard Italian and some of its varieties, alongside with other Romance languages such as many of the dialects of Southern Italy (and not only, but mainly). It consists in the doubling of the initial consonant of the second phonological word of a series of two. So, to put it simply, you write

vado a casa (I go home)

but you hear

vado a ccasa

Where the preposition a is the first phonological word, hence ω1, and casa the second one, hence ω2. So, if ω1 ends in a vowel, or it is a vowel itself, and the initial consonant of ω2 is followed by another vowel (casa), then such consonant will undergo gemination (doubling). 

Such phenomenon occurs also if ω1 ends in a vowel that is the main stressed syllable of the phonetic group:

perchè(ω1) vieni(ω2)

where perchè and vieni form a phonetic group together whose main stressed syllable is the ending vowel of ω1 (perchè)

perchè vvieni

perchèvvieni

However, not only consonants can be reinforced. Depending on the language or the variety we take into account, also [-consonantal] sounds can be reinforced:

che jella (what bad luck) -> che jjella; che uomo (what a man) -> che uuomo

but such doubling takes place in Central/Southern Standard Italian, and not in Standard Tuscan Italian. Sometimes, Syntactic Doubling can be lexicalized:

abbassare (to lower) comes from a(d) bassare -> a bassare -> a bbassare -> abbassare

And that’s how you create a verb! ;)

[happyfade]

[glossikos-blog]

Bergamo ti amo <3