How I see myself as a language learner

Originally created for a class project, this tumblr has "outlived" its original purpose and is now a place where I share my interests in linguistics and languages in general. As I kept this tumblr active over time, my interests in linguistics have shifted a bit. As you can tell, this blog posts language/language learning related content from various languages. Most of this languages I have actually studied at some point in my life, others are what I would like to learn in the future. Bilingual German/English #langblr #studyblr

[samsstudygram]

types of study breaks for every situation

if you realize you’ve been studying for hours: grab a snack to refuel your body and watch a sitcom to refuel your brain. then back to the books.

if you’re feeling stressed out: take some deep breaths, text your friends, maybe stare at a wall for a few minutes. gather yourself.

if you can’t seem to focus: get moving and get outside. take out the garbage, check your mail box, maybe walk your dog. just get moving and get fresh air. it’ll help bring you back.

if there’s something else going on in your life and you can’t get it off your mind: write down what’s going through your head, sort of like a diary entry. it’ll help you work things out.

if you’re just mentally and physically exhausted: set a timer for 25-30 minutes and take a nap. any longer and you’ll hit REM and you’ll wake up feeling just as tired. once you wake up, get some caffeine in you.

if the material is boring as hell: find another way to study. see if there’s a crash course video online about it or draw out what you’re trying to learn in diagrams and pictures to make it fun.

if people around you won’t shut up: listen to some music. soundtrack and classical music is always good because they won’t absorb you as much as music with lyrics. white noise (like ocean waves, rain sounds, etc.) also works.

if you only half understand a concept: call/message a friend who’s not in the class and try to teach the material to them. this will help you mentally work through the material and will help you remember it as well.

[lingthusiasm]

Lingthusiasm Episode 17:  Vowel Gymnastics

Say, “aaaaaahhhh…..” Now try going smoothly from one vowel to another, without pausing: “aaaaaaaeeeeeeeiiiiiii”. Feel how your tongue moves in relation to the back of the roof of your mouth as you move from one vowel to the next. When you say “ahhhh” like at the dentist, your tongue is low and far back and your mouth is all the way open. If you say “cheeeeese” like in a photo, your tongue is higher up and further forward, and your mouth is more closed: it’s a lot harder for the dentist to see your molars. 

In this episode, your hosts Lauren Gawne and Gretchen McCulloch explain how the position of our tongue when we make vowels can be described in the shape of a trapezoid: it can go up and down, forward towards the teeth and backwards towards the throat, and there’s a bit more space for movement higher up towards the roof of your mouth. 

Vowels don’t just exist in a trapezoid, they move around inside it: sometimes they squish up against their neighbours, sometimes they expand into less-occupied corners of the trapezoid for more elbow room. These vowel gymnastics explain so many things: why is the first letter in the alphabet named “ay” in English, but “ah” in most other languages that use the Roman alphabet? Why is “e” in “coffee” pronounced one way and “cafe” another, when they’re clearly related? Why is English spelling so difficult? What’s the difference between a California accent and a Kiwi accent? It’s all about VOWEL SHIFTS.

This month’s Patreon bonus episode is about constructing languages for fun and learning. 

Here are the links mentioned in this episode:

Pink trombone (note: link makes sound!)

Using lollypops to explore vowels

Vowel space in the face (from Wuglife)

IPA vowels with keywords

pin/pen merger (Dialect blog)

The Great Vowel Shift

New Zealand vowel shift

Californian vowel shift

SNL skit with Californian vowels

Best of Bret McKenzie - Flight of the Conchords

Australian Indigenous Languages with three-vowel systems

Number of vowels in a language (WALS map)

Some more vowels:

All of the English vowels

GIF of a tongue moving in the vowel space

Bernie Sanders vowel trapezoid animated video

Vowel jokes

Vowel space tattoo

Embroidered Wells lexical set

Wells lexical set as emoji, in the vowel space

Emoji IPA vowels

Cardinal vowels cross-stitch

Cardinal vowels original Daniel Jones recording

Schwa cross-stitch

Schwa cookie-cutter (3D print your own)

Nasal vowels

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, iTunes, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening, and stay tuned for a transcript of this episode on lingthusiasm.com.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm advertising-free by supporting our Patreon. Being a patron gives you access to bonus content and lets you help decide on Lingthusiasm topics.

Lingthusiasm is on Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, and Twitter. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic. Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our audio producer is Claire Gawne, our editorial producer is Emily Gref, our production assistant is Celine Yoon, and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles

[superlinguo]

We had a lot of fun making very silly sounds this episode.

One thing we didn’t get to talk about were Cardinal Vowels. You can make vowel sounds anywhere in the vowel trapezoid (cf. this episode). Phoneticians needed an agreed-upon way to talk about vowels. They decided that some vowels would be canonical reference points that others could be measured against. The most commonly used system was devised by Daniel Jones in the early 20th Century. This was one of the main starting points of the International Phonetic Alphabet, which filled in the rest of the space with common sounds.

You can hear Daniel Jones recite them in this video recording. I turned the eight main vowels into a cross-stitch a few years ago:

[theyuniversity]

[languageduck]

🇩🇪 German Notes Printable! 🇩🇪

Hey guys~ I compiled a bunch of notes from wikibooks as well as my own notes and textbook (Deutsch Na Klar (7th ed) - Di Donato & Clyde), and thought I’d share them!

Topics include:

pronouns in accusative, nominative, dative and genitive cases

possessive pronouns

gender patterns so you can more easily guess a noun’s gender

relative pronouns

reflexive pronouns

coordinating and subordinating conjunctions

passive voice

subjunctive I and II

adjective endings (including a brief explanation of weak nouns)

prepositions arranged by which case they take

and a whole bunch of verbs that take certain prepositions (including case and translation)

Just click on the title to download! they’re available in both pdf and word so you can edit if you need to x and please let me know if you find any mistakes so I can edit them!

Enjoy! 🦆

[linguajunkie]

(via How to Learn Hebrew: The NICE, Ultimate Guide for Beginners)

[languageoclock]

when a non native english speaker apologises to me for their “bad accent”

[ambivalencerelations]

Taken from: Philosophy Memes For Fantastic Philistines (FB)

[sinesalvatorem]

This is a very serious fight that I am honoured to see trivialised in meme form

[psychofactz]

[invaderxan]

when you a words writing and meaning sense make words to

[lord-kitschener]

If you hard

Then you hard

[chapmangamo]

Inspired by this ridiculous joke that I’m still cross about.

More Worldly Words of Wisdom

[byaliciagrace]

My Favourite Language Resources! (that you may not know about)

I hope you enjoyed this post! Here are some of my favourite Langblrs that posts really useful and resourceful content: @suplanguages @lovelybluepanda @gofod-alle-rymd To find more of André Klein’s books the website is here: https://learnoutlive.com/author/andreklein/ and Tumblr: @learnoutlive 

What are some of your favourite language apps or resources? I really want to find some more!

[languagessi-deactivated20210423]

Language facts

There are between 6000 and 7000 languages in the world - spoken by 7 billion people divided into 189 independent states.

There are about 225 indigenous languages in Europe - roughly 3% of the world’s total.

Most of the world’s languages are spoken in Asia and Africa. 

At least half of the world’s population are bilingual or plurilingual, i.e. they speak two or more languages.

In their daily lives, Europeans increasingly come across foreign languages. There is a need to generate a greater interest in languages among European citizens.

Many languages have 50.000 words or more, but individual speakers normally know and use only a fraction of the total vocabulary: in everyday conversation people use the same few hundred words.

Languages are constantly in contact with each other and affect each other in many ways: English borrowed words and expressions from many other languages in the past, European languages are now borrowing many words from English.

In its first year, a baby utters a wide range of vocal sounds; at around one year, the first understandable words are uttered; at around three years, complex sentences are formed; at five years, a child possesses several thousand words.

The mother tongue is usually the language one knows best and uses most. But there can be ‘perfect bilinguals’ who speak two languages equally well. Normally, however, bilinguals display no perfect balance between their two languages.

Bilingualism brings with it many benefits: it makes the learning of additional languages easier, enhances the thinking process and fosters contacts with other people and their cultures.

Bilingualism and plurilingualism entail economic advantages, too: jobs are more easily available to those who speak several languages, and multilingual companies have a better competitive edge than monolingual ones.

Languages are related to each other like the members of a family. Most European languages belong to the large Indo-European family.

Most European languages belong to three broad groups: Germanic, Romance and Slavic.

The Germanic family of languages includes Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, German, Dutch, English and Yiddish, among others.

The Romance languages include Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian, among others.

The Slavic languages include Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Bulgarian and others.

Most European languages use the Latin alphabet. Some Slavic languages use the Cyrillic alphabet. Greek, Armenian, Georgian and Yiddish have their own alphabet.

Most countries in Europe have a number of regional or minority languages – some of these have obtained official status.

The non-European languages most widely used on European territory are Arabic, Chinese and Hindi, each with its own writing system.

Russia (148 million inhabitants) has by far the highest number of languages spoken on its territory: from 130 to 200 depending on the criteria.

Due to the influx of migrants and refugees, Europe has become largely multilingual. In London alone some 300 languages are spoken (Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish, Berber, Hindi, Punjabi, etc.).

[germanlanguagerocks]

{listen} if there is one or more videos that don’t work in your country, use spotify because there you can find almost all the songs too!

1. Bligg - Musigg i dä Schwiiz // 2. Baschi - Bring en hei // 3. Plüsch - Heimweh // 4. Pegasus - Streets of my Hometown // 5. DJ Bobo - Chihuahua // 6. Stefanie Heinzmann - The Unforgiven // 7. DJ Antoine - Ma chérie // 8. Patent Ochsner - W.Nuss vo Bümpliz // 9. Baby Jail - Tubel Trophy // 10. Gölä - Schwan // 11. Manillio - Monbijou // 12. Patent Ochsner - Bälpmoos 

[residentevils-moved-deactivated]

when u accidently type me instead of my 

[endoshan]

accidentally typing “yeha” instead of “yeah”

[fuck-you-im-australian]

accidentally typing olay instead of okay

[shiny-mimikyus-deactivated20170]

accidentally typing “oy” instead of yo

[kuriyamababe-blog]

accidentally typing “god” instead of “good”

[tquila-squared]

accidentally typing ‘thy’ instead of ‘they’

[wontforgets]

accidentally typing “beliebe” instead of “believe”

[dismalboii]

typing “hte” instead of “the” 

[vibinwitch]

typing “laso” instead of “also”

[cardassiansunrise]

typing “oaky” instead of “okay”

[uninspiredlanguageblog]

*talking with native speaker in target language*

Native: Oh, I couldn’t help but notice your accent! Where are you from?

My brain: *I couldn’t help but notice your accent*

*I couldn’t help but notice your accent*

*I couldn’t help but notice your accent*

[midwestlaw]

IF YOU STUDY FRENCH, LISTEN UP:

 Bon Patron will save your life. 

What is it?

 a free grammar checker that was developed by French professors

 not extremely sophisticated and won’t catch all of your errors 

but WILL prevent you from making dumb conjugation or agreement mistakes. 

MUCH BETTER THAN MICROSOFT WORD

What does it look like?

What’s it do?

it marks what mistakes you made (writes them out and you can also hover over them - I couldn’t screenshot the entire list because it is VERY THOROUGH) 

(I feel like I need to mention this is an automatically generated example, I’m bad at french but I’m not that bad)

says what type of mistake it is 

and what you can do to fix them.

What do I do with it?

Obviously don’t rely on it 100%, but if you’ve been staring at an essay for five hours it’s so nice to be able to run it through and have it catch the article you misused in the middle of the fourth paragraph. 

make sure you check again after correcting the errors because sometimes new ones will be flagged 

double check your work, sometimes it suggests corrections that you don’t need to make (since it’s a computer program and you’re a person)

BUT GO FORTH AND IMPROVE YOUR FRENCH GRADES (& share the good news)

[writeroftheprompts]

WriterofthePrompts Ultimate Ask Masterlist

I’ve decided to make a masterlist of asks I’ve done to make them easier to find for you guys (and for myself). I split them into categories as best as I could by genre and topic. Also, some asks have some helpful tips in the notes as well to check out (some are marked but not all) and if you have anything to add that you think would help, feel free to reply or reblog with your addition. I’ll try to keep it updated with future asks.

Now without further ado, the strangest and most wonderful list I’ve ever made.

World Building

Urban fantasy prompts/creating urban fantasy world (also linked under fantasy)

Links to help with world building

Creating a pantheon of gods

Things to research when writing a historical novel (also linked under Historical)

Using metaphors in descriptions

Too much world building?

Asking questions to develop a magic system

Wizard school ideas

Why magic would drain from a world

Tips for descriptions

Reasons for civil war

Character Development

Writing confusion in your character

Obstacles to character goals: traveling abroad

Reactions to sadness

Reactions to a devastating event

Showing a character’s anxiety towards something

Showing a character’s secret without revealing it

Reasons a character would die for another

Secrets in a character’s past

Culture shock with loss of rules

Growth of a trainee witch

Characters provoking other characters

Dealing with moving to a completely new place

Why a 19yo would allow a strange boy to live with her

Why a character would want a do-over in life

Showing a character going from good to bad

Possible good messages when the villains aren’t reformed

Kid growing up surrounded only by adults

Quirks for characters

Showing friendship with reserved characters

Introducing an antagonist

Introducing side characters

When you don’t think your character’s backstory fits

Writing Different Types of Characters

Writing antiheroes

The reluctant hero

Writing a violent character afraid of their mind

Making an immoral character likeable

Not a normal girl

Sympathetic villain

Making sure your character isn’t just a flirt

Writing intelligent characters

When your hero isn’t very heroic

Confident characters

Writing an antisocial character

Character Family

Visiting family for the first time

Showing closeness in siblings (opposite twins)

How a joker and a quiet character can become friends

Daughter of a party organizer prompts

Parent jobs where the kid needs to keep up appearances

The mom that left comes back…a vampire

Including character’s parents

Why a character would leave another

Sibling relationships

character with an abusive father (and how to show fear)

Romance

Writing a slow paced love story

love interest vs the ex revamped

Platonic male x female relationships

Random places to get married

Suspense and romance with a “different” male lead

sad relationship prompts

Asexuality and romance

Mutual pining

Romance with large age differences

Childhood friends falling in love

Fluffy unique first kiss

Ways of showing commitment in characters (vampire edition)

Friendship to romance

Small situations for a couple story

fantasy creature and human fluff

characters meeting and falling in love during war

Why best friends might fall in love

Unlikely soulmates prompts

Sci Fi

Using dreams as energy

Time travel prompts (asked for male x female protags)

Time travel: how saving someone can go wrong

Reliving memories

Android characters

Writing humanoids in post apocalypse

Consequences of growing a baby in an artificial womb (theoretical)

The evil AI that characters can’t (shouldn’t) destroy

Girl and guy get trapped in the same body

Rich people in post apocalypse

Discovering you have a doppelgânger

Superheroes

Teenagers, hormones and their superpowers

Weird superpowers

Superhero kids reluctant to be superheroes

Aliens

beings traveling to Earth

Why an alien wouldn’t be able to leave Earth

Reasons an alien would be sent to live on Earth

Human/alien team surviving on hostile planet together

Fantasy/Paranormal

Urban fantasy prompts/creating urban fantasy world (also linked under world building)

gods losing their powers

creations turning on their creators

How elemental powers might work

Why NOT to destroy the world when it’s your goal

Mistreated genies

Tropes of a fantasy (also linked under Writing Motivation/Tips)

Male character ideas in a fantasy

Immortal woman prompts

Beauty and the Beast revamp

How Death and a teenage girl become adventure teammates

Powers for magical beings writing down history

Girl meets demon from forest behind her house

Reverse fairytale prompts

Revamped fairytale prompts 2

Manatees being confused by mermaids

a princess befriends a baby dragon

Making a character believe in a cure for a curse

Egyptian gods living among us

A love between the sun and the moon

What fantasy creatures do on Halloween

Human and fantasy creature become pen pals

Creatures

Monsters and urban legends

Fantastic creatures

A little bit on dragons

Kind dragons

Magic and Witches

witch x wizard romance

witch prompts

Witch being protective over a human-turned-doll

magical boarding school

Ideas for curses

A young witch exploring the boundaries of her powers

Traps a wizard could set for a thief

Angels and Demons

Angels and demons

Angel as a human on earth

Jobs for angels and demons who fall in love

Physical impacts on a demon who keeps dying and coming back

Demons hunter prompts

Vampires

Human meets vampire 1

Human meets vampire 2

How to hide your vampirism from your family

Royal vampires

Vampire hunter gets bitten by a vampire

Reasons a locked up vampire would go after your character

Why a vampire and vampire hunter would work together

Vampire x werewolf forbidden love

Ghosts

Helpful ghost prankster prompts 1

Helpful ghost prankster prompts 2

Human and ghost solving mysteries together

1776 woman with supernatural abilities prompts

A medium whose friend is in a coma

Medium question Pt. 2: their fatal flaws

Battle Scenes

Writing Battle Scenes Tips

How to lead up to an action scene

Keep reading