Compulsive languag-holic

Alvina | 20 | France | EN, IT, ES, PL, DE, DK | INTJ     « Je parle espagnol à Dieu, italien aux femmes, français aux hommes et allemand à mon cheval. » - Charles Quint

[fremmedsprak]

me, when my mom says i’m good at my target language even though she doesn’t speak a word of it: wow. the absolute truth. i’m fluent.

me, when a native speaker says i’m good at my target language: they must be lying and are just trying to be nice so they don’t hurt my feelings

[estistudies]

Hungarian Easter Vocabulary

Húsvét - Easter

Kellemes Húsvéti Ünnepeket! - Happy Easter!

Húsvéthét - Holy Week

Virágvasárnap -  Palm Sunday

Nagycsütörtök - Maundy Thursday

Nagypéntek - Good Friday

Nagyszombat - Holy Saturday

Húsvétvasárnap - Easter Sunday

Húsvéthétfő - Easter Monday

feltámadás - resurrection

újjászületés - rebirth

Szokás - tradition

locsolkodás - sprinkling

meglocsol - to sprinkle

kölni - perfume

locsolóvers - /a poem told before sprinkling the girl/

tojást fest - to paint eggs

hímes tojás - painted egg

tojásvadászat - egg hunt

Étel - food

sonka - ham

tojás - egg

torma - horseradish

kalács - milk bread

Egyéb - other

bárány - lamb

nyúl - rabbit

csibe - chick

csokitojás - chocolate egg

csokinyuszi - chocolate bunny

[germanyinusa]

Ten German Baked Goods You Have To Try

Our diplomats spend much of their year away from Germany. Away from family, away from outstanding public transport, and most dramatically—away from German baked goods. If you have not yet visited Germany, your sweet tooth would like you to. With bakeries abound, in train stations and around the corner, you are never much more than an arm’s reach from a sugar high.

But don’t get us wrong! The best part about German baked goods are their subtlety. Slightly sweet but not overly so is the way of the German baker. So before we drool all over our desk writing this, we’ll share with you the ten items you must eat from a bakery in Germany!

Brötchen

We’re gonna ease you into the world of German baked goods with the staple of a German breakfast/Abendbrot/snack/anything—Brötchen. Loosely translated this a “roll” but gosh that just does not capture it fully. These are often fetched fresh from the bakery, in varieties with seeds and salt and all sorts of add-ins, sliced in half, and decorated with meats, cheeses, and spreads. It is essentially a delicious vehicle for more food. Warning: DO NOT cut this thing in half vertically. Horizontal or bust people.

Streuselschnecke

“Streusel” are on all sorts of cakes. They are crumbly round balls of sugary dough. A “Schnecke” is a snail, and refers to the curling backside, like in a cinnamon bun. These have zero nutritional value but oodles of mental health benefits.

Mohnkuchen

Here we’re getting a little adventurous for American palates. Mohnkuchen is poppy seed cake. Though bagels and muffins seem to have cornered the poppy seed market here, it’s more often found as a sweet filling in baked goods in Germany.

Bretzel

You just have to love a Bretzel. Originally a lent dish, and intricately shaped. So simple, goes with everything. What else can we say?

Bienenstich

The “bee sting” may have a fear-inducing name but is made with nothing but love. It is a softer cake with almond slices on top and whipped filling in the middle.

Marzipan

Also not a familiar treat in the U.S., marzipan is a thick paste of ground almonds, sugar, and egg whites. But Germans take it to like…next level. Sometimes marzipan is shaped in such realistic forms of fruit and animals it is hard to tell that you are supposed to eat it.

Käsekuchen

Vorsichtig friends. When Germans say cheese cake they mean kind of actually cheese tasting. If you are used to the sugary cream cheese American version, it’s German cousin may give you pause.

Berliner

I am a jelly donut. Made famous to Americans by one JFK, the Berliner is typically eaten for New Year’s Eve and Karneval in Germany but are hardly a staple of German breakfasts. People in Berlin call it Pfannkuchen.

Vollkornbrot

Hope you have an appetite. As Omi would say, the dense and hardy Vollkornbrot sticks to your bones and a loaf weighs that of a small child.

Stollen

We will leave you with a traditional German sweet to add your must-try list. Stollen is a fruit-cake like bread, often with Marzipan, eaten at Christmas time.

[sayitaliano]

Ciao! Sto provando a imparare l'italiano. Ormai, capisco le gente che parlano lentamente, però ho molto difficoltà per capire le conversazione e le serie o le film. ho provato a capire la serie Suburra, però era molto difficile per me. Forse tu conosci una serie più facile a capire o un' altra cosa che posso fare per megliorare il mio italiano? Grazie mille!! (and I am sorry for the mistakes in this ask I hope it's coherent)

Don’t worry I got it! :)Yep Suburra isn’t easy to follow and understand. In general also series/some movies might be a bit more though to follow if you still have some difficulties in understanding a fast dialogue / recognizing all the words, not to mention that in the Italian-born ones you might hear some more dialectal/specific use of words that can be hard to understand to non natives (that’s why I’d suggest you to watch them later on and maybe ask to natives if you don’t get a dialogue or a word).I’d suggest you instead to start with songs and interviews, TV news and maybe TV shows or youtubers. Short stuff, basically, and easy to listen to more times on repeat. You’ll find there the fast rhythm of speech you need.Documentaries, despite being annoying at times, might be easier than series because the used words are not too many and all about a specific and limited context: you could try them too. Or you can try cartoons as well: knowing the basic story in your language might help you follow the storyline also in Italian (this could work also for series and movies you already watched in your language).Try to listen/watch some of these for a while, recognize the words and pronounce them with the speaker maybe following subtitles or lyrics while you listen: this would be the best, it’d help you getting all the words’ pronunciations well (while learning English I noticed that I used to say some word in a way that wasn’t completely correct and it made it harder to get them when I had to listen to natives even just on a record). Every once in a while try again with something “more complex” as native Italian series or movies, just to check how much you need to keep working (but imo, the easier stuff will always be useful to you even when your problems will seem to be gone).

I’d suggest you, if you can/feel like, also to speak to natives or at least to listen to them speaking about a subject of your choice (on this matter, if you want, we can try to record something for you or ofc you can search on youtube).

Here you’ll find some links to TVs streaming websites and how they work/how to watch something online, radios, movies websites links (and plots), youtube links (youtubers, movies, cartoons..) and bilingual books / audiobooks. Here you can find a lot of music. And here, more audios (especially our own ones, with links to the written posts: basically it’s us reading our posts really easy stuff though).

If you need a translation of something or have doubts on how something works, write again. 

[bubblycider]

Watch Superquark! It’s a scientific divulgative show, very well loved (with some people bordering on obsession and worship of the 80something host, who in Italy has the same status of David Attenborough) and with a wonderful pronunciation.

And all. Those. Hand. Gestures.

[futurefrenchprof]

Synonyms of “Beaucoup”

8/2/2018

Saying “beaucoup” over and over can get tiring for you and for your audience so here are some ways to try and avoid using it too much.

Bien de(s) + nom + action (la plupart du temps) [formal]: Il y a bien des choses à faire. - There is a lot of stuff to do.

Bondé de + personnes : Il y a bondé de monde ici. - There are a lot of people here.

Des/un tas de + nom : J’ai signé des tas de papiers pour mon boulot. - I signed a lot/heap of papers for my job.

Énormément [formal]: Nous aimons énormément cette ville, mais on doit déménager. - We love this city a lot/tremendously but we have to move.

Plein de + nom [informal] : On a plein de raisons de te détester. - We have a lot of reasons to hate you.

Tarpin de + nom [informal, from the south of France] : Il y a tarpin (trop) de personnes à cette putain de fête. - There are a lot (too many) people at this fucking party.

Vachement de + nom [informal] : J’ai faim et on n’a pas vachement de choix. - I’m hungry and we don’t have a lot of options/choices.

Bonne journée !

[13-exp]

[wildersage]

non native english speaker culture is constantly switching between british and american spelling and writing words however you prefer without caring about consistency and you dont really always know which is which anyway

[er-cryptid]

Rare English Words 2

Corybantic – frenzied; agitated; unrestrained

Divagate – to wanter; stray

Circumlocution – a roundabout or indirect way or speaking; using more words than necessary

Progenitor – ancestor

Ideate – imagine

Ophidian – of, relating to, or denoting snakes

Lambent – playing lightly on or over a surface; flickering

Disenthrall – free; liberate

Ambrosial – exceptionally pleasing to taste or smell; delicious; fragrant

Perfervid – overwrought or exaggerated emotion; excessively fervent

[languagemoon-deactivated2018041]

Me when I’m not studying languages in school: I love studying languages!!!!@!@ All the time!!! All day everyday!!!

Me when I’m in school and have to study languages for homework: Homework??? 🙅🙅 uhm no thank you 💅 I’d rather play Skyrim in French for the billionth time. In fact, let’s start an entirely NEW language that I’ve never studied before!! :)) That should be fun!!! :))))

[kozacy]

norway: (does something good)

sweden: brodther i am so proud,i alwas belive in you

norway: (does something better than sweden)

sweden:

[tuktuk-polyglot]

@norsesuggestions

[dailyrussian]

Я нутром чую - I have a gut feeling (lit. I feel with [my] inside)

[digmandarin]

(一)边……(一)边……

Try to make a sentence with this pattern.

Check more: http://bit.ly/2oDKtsU

[allthingseurope]

Piazza di Spagna, Rome (by Svetla)

[salutcavaouiettoi]

Things french people do…

THAT CAN BE DIFFERENT FROM OTHER NATIONALITIES

1- The “how many kisses” awkward situation in schools

In French schools, we greet our friends with kisses on the cheek (la bise), but depending on the region from where you come from, it depends how many kisses you give. Example: In the east of France, it tends to be three, but in Paris it will be two.

Everyday we can get awkward situations where you tend your cheek for a third kiss for example, but the other person is already done. This is why we now tend to prevent these embarrassing moments by saying “attention, j’en fais deux” (be careful I only do two kisses)

2- We never call any of our teachers or professors by their name, just “monsieur” or “madame”, or else it’s considered rude and mocking

3- We use social media differently

French kids between the ages of 12 and 15 all have in common this tradition of tagging all their closest friends on their profile pictures on Facebook, and for each person they write a long text under the description of the profile picture. Many people like me find this category of French people “ridicule”. Here’s an example of a friend of my brother’s text:

“Hugo, t’es mon tout t’es ma vie je t’aime plus que tout mon bébé coeur d’amour mon homme” (Hugo, you’re my everything my life i love you more than anything my baby love, my man) ……….and she’s 12……

Not all kids do this, I didn’t, but so many did, and they were considered the popular ones.

4- The war between the ones who prefer “beurre salé” (salted butter) or “beurre doux” (normal) on their butter in the morning (by the way, salted butter is definitely better obviously)

5- It has become a common national dislike in France for a singer called “Jul” because we find his raps ridiculous (for example a song called “Wesh alors” which means “yeah so”) and so when you say “j'aime Jul” everyone starts 😅. For fun we also do his special ✋ sign that gets people cracking: you put your fourth finger and pinky down on both hands and then stick your hands together.

6- We don’t say “phew” when we’re reassured by something: we say “ouf”

7- The song “Sardines” by Patrick Sébastien is our traditional funfair song, and everyone knows it cause it’s super funny

8- We’re so used to greeting people with two kisses on the cheek that we’re surprised when international people look at us shockingly when we get too close to them to greet them

5- We have a lot of publicity on french radio, so we start learning them by 💛 in the 🚗, and sometimes with friends we have fun singing the jingles together. For example “carglass répare, carglass remplace” “gifi des idées de génie”

9- We like distinguishing two kinds of summer vacaction french families: either the ones who go to “Le sud” or the ones who go to “Bretagne” which are two very different kinds of beaches in different regions of France

10- Our markets are usually on Saturday mornings and we have everything but especially a lot of 🧀, like a lot, and from all our french regions (they are so so good)

11- We make fun of “les aristocrates” who have names such as “de la Tour”, “de Courlet-Vrigelles”, who have castles in France and who seem to only hang out with each other. They organise their own parties called “rally” where they dance rock and maybe meet their futur boyfriend/girlfriend from the same category as them

Of course this doesn’t suggest all french people can relate, but as a french person who has traveled around the world I have remarked that these things distinguish us from others! :)))

[languageaddict]

💘*hugs you real tight* Would you please send this to the first 10 people in your dash? Make sure someone gets a hug today and stay safe! 💗💗💗

[mysmall-studies]

concept: me actually becoming good at a language instead of crying over how difficult it is

[teacupful-of-languages]

You know you love your target language when you’re studying it late at night and you’re tired but you don’t want to go to sleep because you’re having so much fun learning new vocabulary and grammar rules.