[greyteagraymatter]

I'm deactivating my side account and this is now a stemblr + studyblr + langblr blog B)

[amer-ainu]

Outsiders are not not saving a language by learning it.

While I’m personally grateful services like Tribalingual exist, creating some academic access to Indigenous languages, particularly for Indigenous diaspora (if they can afford it), I’m extremely dubious of the notion that a outsiders learning an Indigenous language is somehow “saving” it. There was a testimonial from some white American girl learning Ainu itak, and she spoke of it as if she were collecting some rare Pokemon card before it went out of print or something, framing it in typical dying Native rhetoric. What is she going to do with Ainu itak, except as some obscure lingual trophy?

If you want to save a language, save the people.

Language means nothing without history and culture breathing life into it, and in turn we are disconnected from our history and ancestors without it. Support Indigenous quality of life, ACCESS to quality education, quality health services (mental and physical), land and subsistence rights, CLEAN DRINKING WATER, advocate against police brutality and state violence, DEMAND ACTION FOR MISSING AND MURDERED INDIGENOUS WOMEN.

Damn, if you really want to “save the language” pay for an Indigenous person’s classes for them to reconnect to their mother tongues. I’m not saying outsiders shouldn’t learn languages they’re invited to learn, but don’t pretend like you learning conversational Ainu itak is saving it from extinction.

[inkskinned]

i can't believe i have to fucking say it because i'm an educator so like how is it possible nobody else has said this.

unless a person is actively making materials/etc for children, they do not need to worry about your kid.

your child gets respect as a human. that's it. nobody's private life/artistic endeavors/unrelated interests must be controlled for the sake of your kid.

educators and athletes and artists do not have to live in chastity because your kid might see us on our days off. we do not owe it to your kid to only write poems about bunnies and only sing songs about tying your shoes. i do not care how much a person has given to children, if they are acting as an adult in adult spheres, they are allowed to. they are adults. it is your job as a caregiver to raise your kid and keep them out of adult spheres, not our job to keep ourselves out of those spheres just in case.

guess what! adult role models are going to bars and hooking up and dancing and being adults! this is so they have the mental energy to do all the child-centric things.

"it makes me feel weird to picture them like that!" i don't know how to tell you this but actors aren't actually their roles. the customer-service personality your waitress has is probably not her actual personality. the way teachers interact with students is not the way that they interact with their private lives, and it shouldn't be.

"this tells kids this kind of behavior is okay!" actually it's showing kids a normal and natural progression of a person's life, boundaries, and bodily autonomy. it's showing kids that adults are dynamic human beings. kids already know this. they know there's places they're not allowed and things they don't understand yet. it's just that you have icky feelings because you were raised in a society with black-and-white morality.

celebrities don't owe your children perfection, modesty, sobriety. and you know something? it's way healthier when they don't. "this is a person, who gets up every morning and does their job - but also has adult interests, which you'll learn about later" is way healthier as a role model than "you should be perfect like the curated image of this person and if you're not perfect you should be deeply ashamed."

anyway. idk why "think of the children!!!!" is making a comeback as a popular stance. but to be clear? it's a way of saying "this makes me feel uncomfortable, but i don't know why, and i don't feel like untangling it, so i'll blame you for it and hope you feel guilty about my children."

[inkskinned]

hi, op here. do not make this about "fandom drama." don't do it.

it is about the policing of black bodies, of minority communities, of queer expression, and of women in the workforce.

it is about real people in the real world. the notes are full of people who express the same thing: teachers who cannot buy wine with their dinner, social workers who have to cover up perfectly appropriate tattoos, queer folk who worry about bringing up their partner in the workplace. there are real-life, horrific, and ongoing consequences for this. real people get fired because they were in a picture holding a single beer, or they were seen wearing a too-saucy costume at halloween, or they kissed their partner in public on their day off. women have been fired for being the victim of revenge porn; their illegally distributed image instead just being seen as evidence against their character. there are queer artists that are actively being silenced because of this rhetoric. trans people fear using the fucking bathroom because of this rhetoric.

this is about the return of white nationalist slogans to a public stage. this is about how we are even seriously debating the phrase "think of the children". the children are not thought of during discussions of climate change, gun control, educational spending, free health care, student debt, access to childcare, access to food, or just getting the fucking vaccine and wearing a mask.

they do not care about the children. they want to protect their own bigotry by manipulating your empathy towards kids. that's what this post is about.

please acknowledge the systemic, ongoing process of erasing identity and freedom. it is not just some "internet discussion". it is a legitimate, scary, and powerful force that is hugely detrimental to the lives of those around you.

[dreg-heap]

Can't let British people have air conditioning because first they'd call it something twee like "the climate fixer" and then in 20 years they'll call it "the climb" or "the climmy"

[dreg-heap]

French kids would call it "le climot", frustrating language officials who would prefer they call it "machine pour le contrôle du climat froide à l'interieure de l'édifice"

[earththings]

𝑀𝑜𝑜𝒹𝒷𝑜𝒶𝓇𝒹 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝐿𝑜𝓊𝓃𝒶 🥹 @earthscent 🌼☘️

[lass-uns-studieren-deactivated2]

14 Day Langblr/ Languages Challenge by lass-uns-studieren

On a whim one lazy morning, I thought I ought to create a langblr challenge. You don’t see many of these around as you do regular studyblr challenges so I felt like making one specifically for all the langblrs out there. Have fun!

Your target languages and why you want to learn them

Favourite word in your target language(s)

Post a progress pic from Duolingo or Memrise or Quizlet

Make a recipe in your target language. If you can’t do that, translate a recipe from your native to your targer ot vice versa

Fave quote in your target language(s)

Show us your language resources/ exercise books

Hardest thing about your target language(s)

Your favourite songs/bands in your target language(s)

Show us how you write in your target language(s); in any alphabet

If your native language wasn’t x, what’d you want it to be and why? If you like your native language, why would you stick with it? 

If you could wake up one day speaking another foreign language, what’d it be? (it can’t be any of the ones you’re currently studying!)

Read the news in your target language(s) and summarise what you’ve learnt of current events

What is your favourite untranslatable word/phrase and why?

Write out something random in your target language(s), in any level of proficiency. Just go random!

[linguisten]

Hello! Sorry for the stupid question, but what is wrong with using flags to represent languages?

There is simply no 1:1 correspondence, or only in a few special cases like The Faroe Islands, and maybe Nauru or Kiribati. 

Homogeneous nation-states are an illusion, mostly carried by the similarity between big national languages and country names (Spanish : Spain, French : France, etc.). Furthermore, language borders rarely coincide with political borders to an extent that would justify equaling nations and languages.

Problem type 1: one language – many countries

German is spoken as official language in Austria, Belgium (parts), Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Switzerland (parts). 

Don’t start counting the dozens of options for Arabic (26 countries), English (59), French (29), Portuguese (10) or Spanish (21).

Which country flag should we take?

Problem type 2: minority, diaspora and suppressed languages

Romani, Jiddish, Kurdish, Basque and other languages are spoken across several countries but do not have official status in any.

Show me one Kurdish speaker who’d accept being represented by e.g. the Turkish flag. 

Problem type 3: languages considered dialects

Catalan, Asturian, etc. are usually considered languages of their own, and at least for Catalan i know that there is a strong identification with being Catalan, not Spanish. 

Yes, Catalunya has a flag. But then what about Andorran Catalan? And no, suggesting the Spanish flag would set a cat among the pigeons...

Problem type 4: one language – or two – or three?

Hindi/Urdu on the one hand and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian on the other are usually considered to be politically motivated distinctions with a rather weak basis in linguistic genealogoy.

Which flag to take for the undivided linguistic entity?

Problem type 5: one county – many languages

Papua New Guinea has about 850 indigenous languages, 2 official languages.

Nigeria has over 500 indigenous languages, 1 official language

Indonesia has over 700 indigenous languages, 1 official language

Brazil has around 230 indigenous languages, 1 official language

South Africa has more than 35 indigenous languages, 11 official languages.

Even a tiny country like the Vatican has more than one language.

So, which language gets represented by the Papua New Guinean, the Nigerian, the Indonesian, the Brazilian, the South African flag? All? None? Which flag should the other languages get, then? 

And to open yet another can of worms:

Problem type 6: The residual category

Which flags should these languages get: 

Esperanto, Toki Pona, Elbish, Klingon, Na’vi, Solresol

Russonor, Space Pidgin, Pitcairnese

See here for an overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_official_languages_by_country_and_territory

[linguistness]

German LGBT+ Vocab

sexual orientation = die sexuelle Orientierung

homosexuality = die Homosexualität

gay (mlm) = schwul

lesbian (adjective) = lesbisch

the lesbian (noun) = die Lesbe

homosexual = homosexuell

bisexual = bisexuell

pansexual = pansexuell

asexual = asexuell

gender = das soziale Geschlecht 

sex = das biologische Geschlecht

androgynous = androgyn

nonbinary = nicht-binär

intersex = intersex, intersexuell

transgender = transgender, (sometimes ‘transsexuell’, but that term is outdated)

ftm = FzM

mtf = MzF

hormones = die Hormone

testosterone = das Testosteron

shot = die Spritze

estrogen = das Östrogen

girlfriend = die feste Freundin

boyfriend = der feste Freund

monogamous = monogam

polyamorous = polyamorös

gay rights = Schwulenrechte

gay marriage = gleichgeschlechtliche Ehe

gender dysphoria = die Geschlechtsdysphorie

sex reassignment surgery = die geschlechtsangleichende Operation

top surgery = die (subkutane) Mastektomie

to be in the closet = noch nicht geoutet sein

to out oneself = sich outen 

Note: unfortunately, there is technically no gender neutral pronoun in the German language (there are some neopronouns or you could use the equivalent to ‘it’)

[metalgearsolid2]

i love how delusional some articles of clothing are, like you read the tag and its like “hand wash only/tumble dry on low” son you are a cotton tshirt. youre going in the warsh and whatever happens in there is in gods hands

[nordic-language-love]

I see a lot of my followers in their early-mid twenties panicking about how they’re “running out of time” and they feel pressured to achieve things NOW before it’s too late so I just want to tell you about how my first year in my thirties has gone:

Doubled my hourly rate as an online English teacher (which I only started doing in late July last year)

Passed my advanced Norwegian exam, confirming I’ve actually managed to reach C1 level (which I never expected to do) and opening up other future possibilities

Learned basic Japanese

Accepted a job on the other side of the world, finally pursuing my life-long dream of moving abroad

Travelled solo to my favourite country twice and explored lots of new places and made new friends

Met my favourite musician/one of my biggest inspirations and spoke to him in his native language (which he told me I speak very well!)

Finally met an online friend I’ve known and admired for years

Started learning to draw

Organised (or at least helped organise) our studio’s first ever showcase

Choreographed and performed two routines with equipment I’d never choreographed a routine for before

Concluded with my therapist that I no longer need therapy

Tl;dr: at age 31, my life is finally starting. I feel like a real adult with the confidence and finances to achieve what I want to achieve instead of just getting by and panickedly trying to figure out what the fuck I’m supposed to be doing. So if you’re in your early-mid twenties and you’re worried that your life is over and you’re running out of time to be successful and achieve your dreams, you’re not. People say life begins at 30 (and 40 and 50, actually) for a reason. Your 20s are not supposed to be the time you succeed or even particularly thrive. You’re finding your feet, you’re figuring it out. Embrace it. Try things. Suck at things. Backpedal when you get things wrong.

I also just want to mention that I had an eating disorder and struggled with self-harm/depression/anxiety in my teens/early twenties. I probably wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told me life gets this good. I’m so happy I stuck around to see it! Please don’t lose faith in your future; you’ll make your own place in this world and you won’t regret waiting it out.

[angeliken]

There's so much funny things to being billingual and getting slangs on both of them

For example, tea, in English, means you have gossip to spread

I'm Portuguese, however, means really good, amazing, otherworldly sex.

So, "I will give you the tea" is a great sentence in both, but in very different ways

[greyteagraymatter]

palavras que aprendi hoje

12.31.22 | 60 Minute Lesson

to guide - guiar

to hold - sugrar

to fight - lutar

gaslight - gaslight, manipular 

to fixate on - fixar

to quit - desistir 

to fire/quit - se demitir

to graduate - se formar

to get a job - conseguir um emprego

to decline - recusar

to add, attach - anexar

to mishear - não ouvir/escutar bem

to stay, linger - demorar

deal with it - você que lute

sleep schedule - o meu sono/meu horário de sono

rules - regras

shoelaces - cadarços

mainly - principalmente 

potentially - potencialmente

luckily - com sorte

a very long journey - uma jornada muito longa

sounds - os sons

certification - certificado, certificação

job offer - oferta de trabalho

i can’t even do ____ - nem posso ____

representation - representatividade, representação

nonbinary - nonbinário

irish accent - um sotaque irlandês

australians - os australianos

braces - aparelho (dental)

pimples - espinhas

STEM majors - diplomas de STEM

backgrounds - origens

a Foreign Language Student Residence apartment - um apartamento do residência estudantil de língua estrangeira

campus - o campus

humanities - cursos de humanas

from overseas - do estrangeiro/do exterior/de fora

a love for foreign language - um amor por uma língua estrangeira

not one of them - nenhum deles

invitations - convites

seems fake but okay - parece fake/falso mas tudo bem

[greyteagraymatter]

I just had my last Portuguese lesson of the year and my tutor told me when she was listening to a hematology reading practice video I sent her, her partner overheard the last bit and asked if she was studying bacteria or something. When she said she was checking a student’s pronunciation, he asked if I spoke Spanish because my R’s were so good! Ahhh! I feel like there’s hope for me to reach C1 if I can overcome grammar!!!

[ihearthisto]

🎅 Have a Howelly-Jolly Christmas 🎄‬

A festive finding in the blood of an asplenic patient 💉‬

i❤️histo

A Howell–Jolly body is a cytopathological finding whereby small remnants of nuclear DNA are present in normally anuclear circulating erythrocytes.

During development in the bone marrow, late orthochromatophilic erythroblast normally expel their nuclei. However, in some cases, a small portion of DNA remains (the purple dots in the erythrocytes wearing the Santa hats).

Under normal circumstances if these irregular erythrocytes make it into the blood, they are removed from circulation by the spleen.

As a result, the presence of erythrocytes with Howell-Jolly bodies in peripheral blood smears like this usually signifies a damaged or absent spleen - because a healthy spleen would normally filter this type of red blood cell.

📷 by exlibrisadpugno via reddit‬

[crisis-vision]

permanganate is such a pretty colour💜

[greyteagraymatter]

palavras que aprendi hoje

12.30.22 | 180 Minute Lesson

to glue - colar

to waste - desperdiçar

to threaten - ameaçar

to take over - dominar

to print - imprimir

to intervene - intervir

to interfere - interferir

to lead - levar

to wade through - percorrer

to cope - lidar

to regret - se arrepende

to borrow/to loan - emprestar

to fuck up - fazer merda/fazer estraga

to donate - doar

to hint - insinuar

to enlarge - alargar, dilatar

to invite to go out - convidar pra sair

to sound like - parecer que

interrupted sleep - sono interrompido

the flowers - as flores

the handle - a descarga

Croatia - Croácia

in case - no caso

lazy - preguiçosa

friendly - amigável

advantages - vantagens

my spine - minha coluna

often - frequentemente

knowledge - conhecimentos

understandings - entendidos

misunderstandings - desentendidos

alcoholics - os alcoólatras

all of us - todo mundo

drugstores - farmácias/drogarias

fourth floor - quarto andar

third grade - terceira série

dumb mistakes - erros estúpidos

an essay - uma redação

elementary school - ensino fundamental

citations - citações

coding - codificação

computer science - ciência da computação

briefly - brevemente

master's degree - um mestrado

at least - ao menos

was dropped/kicked out - foi expulsa

the same way - mesmo jeito/mesma maneira

hard-headed/opinionated - cabeça dura

stubborn - teimosa

how nice - que gentil

American Sign Language - língua de sinais americana

the deaf community - a comunidade surda

hearing people - ouvintes

is my window being open too noisy? - É a minha janela aberta tá sendo muito barulhenta?

I didn't say anything - não está mais aqui quem falou

[chenopodiumlang]

No zero days in 2023 langblr challenge

The idea is to spend every day of 2023 engaging in both of my languages (Icelandic and German) every single day. Even if it's just a few minutes on an app or a short video, I have to spend at least a little bit of time with each of my languages. The underlying concept is to force myself to develop some sort of routine.

I will be filling out a google sheet-based heatmap to visualize my progress, which can be found here (you can make a copy!), and I'll post screenshots of it every day, as well as telling what I did that day in both languages!

If you want to participate with me, you can! You don't have to do it for the whole year, you can pick a month or a season or whatever feels right. The tag I'll be using will be #no zero days 2023 langblr. You can tag me in your posts as well, I'm excited to see your progress!

Catch me in January :)

[lang-learner]

저도! I’ll try doing this in January. I don’t start uni until the 23rd so I can focus on language learning and im also taking French at uni ✨

[greyteagraymatter]

I made one copy for a language goal and one copy edited to be a cry counter for school lmao