J'aime ta langue

I'm Q. French, 36, I live in Belgium. This is my language blog because I love languages. I speak English, Italian, and Greek - learn some Romanian, Dutch, Russian, Spanish, and German.

[jaimetalangue]

Check out my vocab posts

> Pants in |English & French|

> Anatomy vocab in |Ελληνικά| |Español| |Русский| |Français| |Italiano| |Deutsch| |Nederlands|

> Harry Potter vocab in French |HP vocab tag| |HP vocab masterpost|

> False Friend of the Day |FFOTD|

> Colours in

|Ελληνικά, Español, Русский, Français, Italiano, Deutsch, Magyar|

|Ἑλληνικὴ γλῶττα|

|IS, NL, PT, RO, PL, SL, CS, LV, BER| contributions I

|JA, ZH, KO, TR, UZ, TK, OS, AR, FA, PS| contributions II

|CA, HR, SR, HY, NO, DA, SV| contributions III

|FI| contributions IV

[ older posts in |Ελληνικά| |Español| |Русский| ]

> Family vocab in |Ελληνικά| |Español| |Русский| |Français| |Italiano| |Deutsch|

> Countries and nationalities in |Русский|

> Days of the week in |Français, Ελληνικά, Русский|

I ultimately created this page on my blog that summarises all this :)

[yvanspijk]

Legendary gerundives

What do Miranda, legend, and agenda have in common? They come from Latin gerundives: verbal forms that express obligation. For instance, Latin mīranda means ‘she who is to be admired’. Zoom in on my new infographic to learn more about the gerundive, discover other gerundives in English, and explore the significant difference between the gerundive and the gerundio in Romance languages.

[real-language-facts]

well what if i don't want to stress syllables, this world is stressful enough as it is for a small and innocent syllable

[accessibleaesthetics]

Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of free resources for different sign languages:

American Sign Language (ASL)

Australian Sign Language (Auslan)

Black American Sign Language (BASL)

British Sign Language (BSL)

Chinese Sign Language (CSL)

Emirati Sign Language (ESL)

French Sign Language (LSF)

Indian Sign Language (ISL)

International Sign Language (IS)

Irish Sign Language (ISL)

Japanese Sign Language (JSL)

Mexican Sign Language (LSM)

Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL)

Ukrainian Sign Language (USL)

Please feel free to add on if you know of others, be it more resource for one of the sign languages above, or resources for learning any of the other 300 plus sign languages.

[mihai-florescu]

Languages tend to peak at their word for butterfly. Never seen 2 that are the same, either. Papillon. Mariposa. Borboleta. Fluture. Vlinder. Schmetterling. Pillangó. Babochka. Farfalla. Sommerfugl. Perhonen. Farasha. Titali. Chōchō. Nabi. Húdié. Buom buom. Great job guys, i really mean it.

[o-craven-canto]

Alternate timeline in which all Greek and Latin roots are swapped:

catastrophe -> contraverse cephalopod -> capitoped chlorophyll -> viridofolia democracy -> populimpery homicide -> anthropoctony homosexual -> equigamic kilometer -> millimensure interregnum -> mesarchy magnanimous -> megapsychic manuscript -> chirography motorcycle -> ergatorote microscope -> parvovisor oxygen -> acidofex polyamory -> multierasty television -> remotoscope universe -> monostrophe

[polysprachig]

August Polyglot Challenge!

Pull up a new tab, crack open your dictionaries and hold on to your glossaries, kids. ‘Cause it’s time for an August Polyglot Challenge!

If there’s one bane at the core of many a language learner’s existence, it’s vocabulary and how to learn it. Which is why this month we’re going to not just learn a manageable amount of new words, but become mini-experts on them.

Your Challenge: 

To choose 25 words at random from the dictionary in your target language to learn each week. Well, not entirely at random. Do some perusing. These words should stand out to you in some way, whether they be related to your interests, have a wickedly sweet pronunciation or cool letter combination, character or sign, or simply not be directly translateable into your native language. By the end of the month, you will have extensively learned 100 new vocabulary words that appeal to you in your target language.

How It Works:

Choose one language for the challenge to focus on throughout the entire month. If you want to choose your native language, go ahead. If you’re learning more than one language, consider doing the challenge for a different language next month. 

At the start of each week, use a dictionary to make your list of 25 words. Include part of speech, meaning, pronunciation notes or even IPA if you’d like. More information will be added to the list throughout the week.

Listen to the pronunciation of your words on an online dictionary or ask a native/proficient speaker to say them if possible. Discover the etymology of the words. Break the words down. Do they contain affixes? Are they obsolete, irregular, a staple of every speaker of that language’s basic vocabulary? Do they have multiple definitions? Find quotes or example sentences using the words. Expand your initial vocab list with the tidbits you learn throughout the week.

Write your own sentences using the vocabulary. If you’re a beginner in that language, you can write a description of the word in your native/proficient languages or write a bilingual sentence where you insert the word where it’s appropriate. Write at least one sentence for each vocabulary word. The more, the better.

At the end of each week, check to see how well you recall the words you’ve learned. You might consider writing out the words with their meanings by memory, playing a matching game with your words and their definitions, blurring out the word in your example sentences and filling in the blanks, quizzing yourself with flashcards or whatever you would usually do to make sure you know all the words you learned that week. Then choose your 25 words for the next week, take a deep breath, and repeat.

Langblrs are encouraged to:

Share the words you’ve learned with the langblr community so everyone can increase their vocabularies together. Share the resources you used, pictures of your notes, your struggles, frustrations and triumphant moments of learning your vocabulary, whatever you’d like. (:

Additional Rules:

This is an opportunity to learn neat, phenomenally beautiful words in your target language. Don’t settle for memorizing a list of basic vocabulary provided to you by your learning textbooks - YOU NEED TO MAKE UP YOUR OWN VOCABULARY LIST FROM SCRATCH. If you don’t have a print dictionary, use an online dictionary or Wikipedia to start. Cognates are considered cheating for obvious reasons (they’re hardly a challenge to learn) and are forbidden. 

Let the August Polyglot Challenge begin!

- @polysprachig​

[dany-japanese-study]

Putting all my Japanese Resources in one place.

Well, I wanted to make my life easier by cataloguing my resources, and I guess it might be helpful to someone so… This is gonna be  long. (sorry for spelling mistakes)

Main Tools: what I use frequently

Dictionaries

Jisho (Web) - Classic, Clean and Easy, probably the best Dictionary out there.

Takoboto (App/Web) - really like this one it has a grammar section, and the App has JLPT lists.

Akebi (App) - You can search by writing the Kanji, very useful, but not a very eye pleasing design.

Memorization

Memrise - LLJ Series of decks (Kanji, Tae Kim’s Grammar and Core Vocab), a think because Memrise uses a multiple choice system it works better for me, more than Flashcards.

Anki -  With Anki, I use Mostly Anime decks, for example, Japanese Like A Breeze. Jo-Mako decks: Core Anime Deck, Yotsuba, Your Name (Jo-Mako decks are really well done).

YouTube

Comprehensible Japanese -  AMAZING resource, her videos are all in Japanese and they range from complete beginners to intermediate.

Japanese Ammo with Misa - Explains grammar, has Pacific vocab videos and even breakdown music lyrics.

Cure Dolly - More grammar, she has the most eye-opening explanations I’ve ever seen, some might get annoyed by the robotic voice but ITS worth it.

The Japanese Page - Less Known but cool short videos about kanji, vocab, idioms, etc.

Game Gengo - Learn with games, his N5 Grammar video is great if you’re lazy like me

Japanese with Shun - Great Genki Podcast.

Immersion (aka. The best part)

Anime (How you can study with anime)

Immersion Kit Dictionary - PLEASE USE THIS! If you’re like me and the sentences provided by normal dictionaries never stick in your brain, this is perfect for you, you insert a word or sentence and it will find an Anime/drama/game with it. You can even send sentence cards to Anki.

Animelon - Made to Learn Japanese with dual subtitles, translation history and quizzes.

Animebook - Video player Works With Yomichan and Anki, I use this notation type (Eminent Note Type V2) drag video file and subs in this page and Done.

Kitsunekko - Subs for Anime and J-drama

Nyaa - Anime Raw Files (No subs)

Japanese with Anime -  If I could hug this person I would, very informative  Manga/Anime Slangs and grammar in general.

Japanese Anime & Manga - Cool site with an interactive manga, kanji games, and quizzes.

JPDB beta - Has already Built decks of Animes, Texbooks, Novels and more, also if you insert a sentence, it explains each part of the sentence to you.

Ichi.Moe - Same thing  it explains each part of the sentence to you, but it’s easier to use.

Manga (and reading in general I guess)

Manga.reader.to - I use this site to read my manga it has quite a big collection. Better Scans, and has Japanese options in most mangas

Docsumo Free OCR Software - Now let’s say you don’t know a word and want to search for it use this OCR, really easy to use and works quite nicely. There are better  options specifically for manga, but again, I’m lazy so…

Aozora - This site is for public domain novels (EX The Little Prince) Audiobook on YouTube.

Japanese.io -  You can read articles and news

Raikun - Pop- up dictionary for Words and Kanji. Simple and Quick

Yomichan - Now this one is a little more complicated, pop- up dictionary, but you have to download and set up the dictionary, Much more customisable than Raikun and create Anki cards

[thearcaneuniversity]

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!"

[real-language-facts]

language mama to their unwanted language child: you were an accent

[drlinguo]

Source: itsbobbyfinn

[lingthusiasm]

Small dog, long word! A Lingthusiasm tinyzine

Why does "ie" turn "dog" into itty bitty "doggie"? In this Lingthusiasm zine, Leah Velleman gets enthusiastic about diminutives. Yes, this one is extra tiny, it's a diminutive zine about diminutives! A zinelet? Or zineling?

Print and fold your own copies

8½ x 11 paper

A4 paper 

How to cut and fold a minizine (for this extra special tinyzine, cut the paper into quarters first along the dotted lines, then fold and cut four tinyzines like a usual minizine)

Learn more

Things we wish English had: diminutives

(She's right, we fudged a little! The -ie in "doggie" only works on some words in English. It would be cool to have a version that worked on every noun, like some languages have. Alternatively: be the change you want to see in the English language?) 

Abso-bloody-lutely, on the only infix in English

Lingthusiasm Episode 100: A hundred reasons to be enthusiastic about linguistics 

YouTube channel of Upper St'át'imc nation, one of the groups who speak St'át'imcets, including lots of words and phrases in the language.

More from Lingthusiasm

More zines that are enthusiastic about linguistics!

We also make a podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics!

Support these zines and more linguistics enthusiasm on Patreon — patrons get new zines early!

[aletheyass]

tes THDPSSSSPS 💜

[apas-95]

wgat did u say

[translatingpostsintolatin]

Hello there! I really enjoy Latin as well but have always struggled to find accessible materials/teachings to grasp the basics. Do you have any advice for a relative novice trying to expand their knowledge?

Hi hi! Personally, all the Latin I know I’ve learnt in school, so I’m not very familiar with whatever resources you may find online and/or in English, but I can redirect you to this post by @latinare which has a fair few links to grammar and vocabulary resources!

When doing my translations I mostly use Wiktionary, the Olivetti Latin dictionary, and Lewis&Short (either on alatius.com or logeion.uchicago.edu) to look up vocabulary.

Fortuna tuis in studiis tibi adsit :>

[lurking-latinist]

A couple of years ago I compiled a list of free Latin and Greek resources for a friend. Here it is! For a beginner I would especially recommend Legonium.

Free Classics Resources

Perseus – http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/ - A huge collection of digitized Greek and Latin texts, including translations, commentaries, and easy dictionary lookup by clicking on any word. Almost all major classical texts are included. Some translations and notes may be outdated, but all are still usable.

Dickinson College Commentaries - https://dcc.dickinson.edu/ - Greek and Latin texts selected and annotated for intermediate students, as well as audio recordings of some texts and useful maps. Also check out the Core Vocabularies and the digitized version of the indispensable Allen and Greenough, the standard Latin grammar.

A Latin Macronizer - https://alatius.com/macronizer/ - Handy resource for anyone experimenting with reading or writing Latin poetry. This digital tool marks all the long vowels in a text, allowing quicker and easier understanding of the meter.

Whitaker’s Words - https://archives.nd.edu/words.html - Somewhat superseded by Perseus’ digitization of the standard Latin dictionary (Lewis and Short), this is still a useful resource for quick lookups and English-to-Latin dictionary searches.

Legonium - http://www.legonium.com/ - Simple Latin stories, intermediate texts broken down for easy reading, and some fun and games (including Bella Stellaria – Star Wars!), all entertainingly illustrated with Lego figurines. Great for incorporating multi-media input.

Helma Dik - https://classics.uchicago.edu/people/helma-dik/nifty-greek-handouts - Professor Helma Dik’s “Nifty Greek Handouts” are one of the best resources I’ve found for mastering and reviewing specific points of Greek grammar and syntax.

Textkit - https://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&p=213636 – In addition to hosting a forum for classical language learners, the Textkit website links to a valuable array of public-domain textbooks available online through archive.org. Some notes and translations may be outdated, but the books are still useful.

Polytonic Greek Keyboards - https://www.smith.edu/sites/default/files/media/Documents/Classics/Typing_In_Greek.pdf - To type classical Greek correctly, with all the breathing and accent marks, you’ll need to activate a specific keyboard setting on your computer. Sarah Abowitz has prepared a guide which will help both Windows and Mac users.

LacusCurtius - https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/home.html - This passion project by Bill Thayer has an extraordinary array of digitized Greek and Latin texts and translations (especially historians and historical sources), reference works, and images of Roman sites in Italy.

Rogueclassicism - https://rogueclassicism.com/ - The Rogueclassicist (David Meadows) collects and curates Internet articles and links of classical interest. Check out in particular his list of classics-related podcasts, including some in the Latin language.

An Introduction to Greek and Latin Metre - https://antigonejournal.com/2021/05/introduction-greek-latin-metre/ - Videos covering every major Greek and Latin meter. Disclaimer: I haven’t actually used this, but I can’t imagine it’s less helpful than the approach I did use, which was sitting alone in a room trying to write and rewrite macrons in a textbook from about 1950. 

[yvanspijk]

Chez casa mia

Chez moi is the French way of saying ‘at my place’. The preposition chez has a fascinating origin: it comes from the same word as Spanish casa (‘house’): Latin casa.

Casa originally meant ‘hut’, but it was destined for a great future: it would become the common word for ‘house’ in almost all Romance languages.

What was the original Latin word for ‘house’ and what happened to it? And where does the current French word maison come from? My new infographic tells you all about it and shows a wide selection of Romance descendants of Latin casa.

[enki2]

[hylianengineer]

@copperbadge this seems up your alley

[copperbadge]

If the system ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess! Accounting may not be the oldest profession, but someone had to keep the books for them.

I mean, in theory I know that Excel is based on the structure of earlier accounting technology that's been around for hundreds of years -- what do we think we did to track commerce before computers? -- but it still kind of blows my mind to, for example, look at my ancestor's journal from a whaling voyage in 1770 and see spreadsheets in the back.

[charaznablespeteevee]

[self-loving-vampire]

According to the book I'm reading, proto-Cuneiform writing seems to have actually started as spreadsheets to keep track of resources rather than as a way to record language or express ideas.

The administrators of that extremely early city had to keep track of lots of things, and doing this by memory alone was a nightmare. These spreadsheets were devised as a solution to that as an evolution of an earlier system that used clay tokens and balls.

Spreadsheets are older than written language as we currently understand it.

[succumbing-song]