[writing-prompt-s]

You have been sentenced to death in a magical court. The court allows all prisoners to pick how they die and they will carry it out immediately. You have it all figured out until the prisoner before you picks old age and is instantly transformed into a dying old man. Your turn approaches.

[dycefic]

I think I’d have minded less if I’d committed a truly heinous crime. Something that warranted death. Or even if I was the kind of person who would enjoy flinging a last defiance at my execution.

It was all just a show, anyway. They did it every year. They brought out a selection of criminals, and the Sorcerer who ruled us showed his power by bringing about their deaths by magic. Just to show, every year, what happened to anyone who crossed him.

There was a time, probably, when the people he executed really were rebels or assassins. In latter days he had to take what the dungeons offered. I was dragged up in chains between a pickpocket, sobbing in terror, and a man who’d killed another man in a brawl. There were few criminals of any note, by then. So instead of choosing the wickedest criminals, they chose based on appearance. The man who’d been in the brawl had a face like a clenched fist, and looked like a ruffian. The pickpocket, aging and with hands beginning to tremble, was a different kind of example. As was I.

“There aren’t many pretty ones, this year,” the man who chose me had said, examining me. “But this one will do. Not young, but not old, a woman, well-favoured enough for the gallows… what was her crime?”

The warder shrugged. “She tried to kill one of the sheriffs.”

The man looked down at me and I shrugged. “I hit him with a washing stick, because he tried to extort money from me, and he was a baby about it.” I refused to treat this as anything but pathetic, even after my sentencing. “I didn’t even break any bones.”

“Treason, then,” the man said, nodding. “Attacking the servants of the law. That will look well on the list. Send her.”

I had been debating ever since what to choose. Something quick? Something painless? I considered demanding that I suffer the attack I supposedly made on the sheriff, but then I realized the Sorcerer would only give me what the man had said I was going to do, and that was not a pleasant way to die. I had all but decided on something swift and relatively painless. Beheading with the sharpest of blades sounded good. It would be quick. 

Keep reading

[deeplylearning]

A No-Nonsense Guide to Choosing a Language Learning App

There are so many out there. Find the right one for your learning journey.

The most useful part of this article is the table. I did research to find the highest quality language learning apps out there, all the languages they offer, the cost, etc. So you can search for a language you want to learn and the table will filter results based on what’s available for your target language!

If you find this helpful, please give a few claps on Medium!

[homunculus-argument]

Wonderful things about people learning a new language:

 When they have no idea how to balance the formality of their word choices and the severity of their cursing, so it’s neutral at -

nvm I can’t explain it eloquently with words, I made a chart.

[nordic-language-love]

After receiving so much positive feedback from people saying they’d love to join me in my latest quest to improve my speaking, I’ve decided to create an official langblr challenge: #SpeakingIn20

Background: I’ve always neglected my speaking skills in Norwegian, and I decided that for the remainder of the year I want to try to do 10 minutes dedicated speaking practice 6 days a week, clocking a total of an hour a week, and thus have 20 hours under my belt by the end of the year. I recorded an intro with the intention of rerecording a similar intro at the end of the year and seeing how much I’ve improved in that time.

Because this was born from the goal of using the last 20 weeks of 2019 to do 20 hours of dedicated speaking practice, so that in 2020 I’ll actually feel like I can speak Norwegian to some (small) degree, I felt like #SpeakingIn20 worked!

The goal of this challenge is to get in a set amount of speaking practice every week, and see how much you’ve improved by the end of the year.

The Rules Of This Challenge Are:

Start by picking a challenge level:

Chill - do the challenge 1-2 days a week

Medium - do the challenge 3-4 days a week

Hardcore - do the challenge 5-7 days a week

Pick a time goal for each day. (Eg 2 mins, 5 mins, 10 mins etc - this is totally up to you!)). You’re going to try to speak for that amount of time every day you do the challenge! Note: you don’t have to do it all in one go - if you can’t talk for 5 minutes straight, it’s okay to break it down into 5x1 minute sessions.

Record a little introduction. You don’t have to share it with tumblr if you’re too self-conscious; you just want to have a record of your starting point, so you have something to compare to at the end of the year. It can be as long or as short as you like!

You can talk about whatever you want, however I will be posting prompts at the start of every week and will keep a masterpost with all the previous prompts, so if you get stuck you can look to that for inspiration.

You can use notes if you want (eg vocab lists, things you want to mention, other visual prompts), but try to avoid just reading out something you’ve pre-written if possible. (It’s totally okay to write something out to start with so you can get an idea of holes in your vocab, just condense it down to notes before you try speaking!)

You can also do pronunciation drills such as repeating words you find difficult, practising tongue twisters, reciting the alphabet etc.

Record yourself speaking if possible. Again, you don’t have to upload anything if you don’t want to - you can just post about how you’re getting on - but you can if that helps to keep you accountable! Once you’re done, make sure you listen back to your recording and make a note of what you did well and what you need to work on still.

Use the hashtag #SpeakingIn20 so we can find each other. You can also hashtag with the level you’re doing and the language you’re learning like so: eg #SpeakingIn20Chill #SpeakingIn20German etc

If you want to do multiple languages, go for it! Just try to be consistent with what you do (ie don’t start skipping out on one language)

Anyone can join at any time! So if you miss the start now, or if you fall off the wagon, you can still (re)join later

Please reblog and spread the word! Speaking’s so difficult, it’d be awesome to have as many of us as possible cheering each other on!

[escapetoluna]

How to learn a language when you don’t know where to start:

General Plan:

Weeks 1 and 2: Purpose:

Learn the fundamentals sentence construction

Learn how to spell and count

Start building a phrase stockpile with basic greetings

The Alphabet

Numbers 1 - 100

Subject Pronouns

Common Greetings

Conjugate the Two Most Important Verbs: to be and to have

Basic Definite and Indefinite Articles

Weeks 3 and 4: Purpose:

Learn essential vocabulary for the day-to-day

Start conjugating regular verbs

Days of the Week and Months of the Year

How to tell the time

How to talk about the weather

Family Vocabulary

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Weeks 5 and 6: Purpose:

Warm up with the last of the day-to-day vocabulary

Add more complex types of sentences to your grammar

Colours

House vocabulary

How to ask questions

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Forming negatives

Weeks 7 and 8: Purpose:

Learn how to navigate basic situations in a region of your target language country

Finish memorising regular conjugation rules

Food Vocabulary and Ordering at Restaurants

Money and Shopping Phrases

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Weeks 9 and 10: Purpose:

Start constructing descriptive and more complex sentences

Adjectives

Reflective verbs

Places vocabulary

Weeks 11 and 12: Purpose:

Add more complex descriptions to your sentences with adverbs

Wrap up vocabulary essentials

Adverbs

Parts of the body and medical vocabulary

Tips for Learning a Foreign Language:

Learning Vocabulary:

What vocabulary should I be learning?

There are hundreds of thousands of words in every language, and the large majority of them won’t be immediately relevant to you when you’re starting out.Typically, the most frequent 3000 words make up 90% of the language that a native speaker uses on any given day. Instead try to learn the most useful words in a language, and then expand outwards from there according to your needs and interests.

Choose the words you want/need to learn.

Relate them to what you already know.

Review them until they’ve reached your long-term memory.

Record them so learning is never lost.

Use them in meaningful human conversation and communication.

How should I record the vocabulary?

Learners need to see and/or hear a new word of phrase 6 to 17 times before they really know a piece of vocabulary.

Keep a careful record of new vocabulary.

Record the vocabulary in a way that is helpful to you and will ensure that you will practice the vocabulary, e.g. flashcards.

Vocabulary should be organised so that words are easier to find, e.g. alphabetically or according to topic.

Ideally when noting vocabulary you should write down not only the meaning, but the grammatical class, and example in a sentence, and where needed information about structure.

How should I practice using the vocabulary?

Look, Say, Cover, Write and Check - Use this method for learning and remembering vocabulary. This method is really good for learning spellings.

Make flashcards. Write the vocabulary on the front with the definition and examples on the back.

Draw mind maps or make visual representations of the new vocabulary groups.

Stick labels or post it notes on corresponding objects, e.g when learning kitchen vocabulary you could label items in your house.

How often should I be practising vocabulary?

A valuable technique is ‘the principle of expanding rehearsal’. This means reviewing vocabulary shortly after first learning them then at increasingly longer intervals.

Ideally, words should be reviewed:

5-10 minutes later

24 hours later

One week later

1-2 months later

6 months later

Knowing a vocabulary item well enough to use it productively means knowing:

Its written and spoken forms (spelling and pronunciation).

Its grammatical category and other grammatical information

Related words and word families, e.g. adjective, adverb, verb, noun.

Common collocations (Words that often come before or after it).

Receptive Skills: Listening and Reading

Reading is probably one of the most effective ways of building vocabulary knowledge.

Listening is also important because it occupies a big chunk of the time we spend communicating.

Tips for reading in a foreign language:

Start basic and small.  Children’s books are great practice for beginners. Don’t try to dive into a novel or newspaper too early, since it can be discouraging and time consuming if you have to look up every other word.

Read things you’ve already read in your native language. The fact that you at least know the gist of the story will help you to pick up context clues, learn new vocabulary and grammatical constructions.

Read books with their accompanying audio books. Reading a book while listening to the accompanying audio will improve your “ear training”. It will also help you to learn the pronunciation of words.

Tips for listening in a foreign language:

Watch films in your target language.

Read a book while also listening along to the audio book version.

Listen to the radio in your target language.

Watch videos online in your target language.

Activities to do to show that you’ve understood what you’ve been listening to:

Try drawing a picture of what was said.

Ask yourself some questions about it and try to answer them.

Provide a summary of what was said.

Suggest what might come next in the “story.”

Translate what was said into another language.

“Talk back” to the speaker to engage in imaginary conversation.

Productive Skills: Speaking and Writing

Tips for speaking in a foreign language:

If you can, try to speak the language every day either out loud to yourself or chat to another native speaker whether it is a colleague, a friend, a tutor or a language exchange partner. 

Write a list of topics and think about what you could say about each one. First you could write out your thoughts and then read them out loud. Look up the words you don’t know. You could also come up with questions at the end to ask someone else.

A really good way to improve your own speaking is to listen to how native speakers talk and imitate their accent, their rhythm of speech and tone of voice. Watch how their lips move and pay attention to the stressed sounds. You could watch interviews on YouTube or online news websites and pause every so often to copy what you have just heard. You could even sing along to songs sung in the target language.

Walk around the house and describe what you say. Say what you like or dislike about the room or the furniture or the decor. Talk about what you want to change.This gets you to practise every day vocabulary.

Tips for writing in a foreign language:

Practice writing in your target language. Keep it simple to start with. Beginner vocabulary and grammar concepts are generally very descriptive and concrete.

Practice writing by hand. Here are some things you can write out by hand:

Diary entries

Shopping lists

Reminders

What could I write about?

Write about your day, an interesting event, how you’re feeling, or what you’re thinking.

Make up a conversation between two people. 

Write a letter to a friend, yourself, or a celebrity. You don’t need to send it; just writing it will be helpful.

Translate a text you’ve written in your native language into your foreign language.

Write a review or a book you’ve recently read or a film you’ve recently watched.

Write Facebook statuses, Tweets or Tumblr posts (whether you post them or not will be up to you).

Write a short story or poem.

Writing is one of the hardest things to do well as a non-native speaker of a language, because there’s no room to hide. 

There are lots of ways to improve your writing ability, but they can be essentially boiled down to three key components:

Read a lot

Write a lot

Get your writing corrected

[languagesinthenight]

its almost 2 am and i just learnt the entire bsl alphabet for some reason

[pompadourpink]

A few useful expressions

Je vous/te laisse imaginer… : imagine… (ex : he hadn’t slept in two days, je te laisse imaginer how long he napped)

Je te le donne en mille : You’ll never guess (ex : and what do you think she did? Je te le donne en mille : she said no and ran!)

Je te prends au mot : I take your word for it

Je te connais par cœur : I know you perfectly

Je ne te le fais pas dire : You’re telling me!

Je crains/j'ai peur que non : I’m afraid not

Je ne sais pas : I don’t know

Je regrette : I’m sorry, I wish I hadn’t (Je regrette de t'avoir fait mal

Je t'ai posé une question : i asked you something (angry)

Je te le rends bien : It’s mutual

Je t'en prie : You’re welcome

Je t'en supplie : I’m begging you

Je t'en foutrai, du/de la/des x : I’ll give you x (angry)

Je t'en veux : I’m mad at you

Je compte bien… : I fully intend to…

Je m'en fiche/fous (rude) : I don’t care

Je veux bien : I’d love to

Je le jure : I swear

Je fais de mon mieux : I’m doing my best

Je garde espoir que… : I remain hopeful that…

Je demande à voir : I’ll believe it when I see it

Je disais donc que… : As I was saying…

J'ai envie de : I want, I feel like

J'ai tout laissé tel quel : I left without changing/touching anything

J'ai failli lui dire : I almost told him/her

J'ai changé d'avis : I changed my mind

J'ai besoin d'y réfléchir : I need to think about it

[pompadourpink]

Common prepositions

A :

À : to (Je vais à la plage : I’m going to the beach), at (Elle est à la mairie : She is at the town hall), indirect object/complément d’attribution (C’est à moi : It’s mine), adverbial phrase of way (Une peinture à l’huile : An oil painting), adverbial locution introducer (À l’instant : Just now), price indicator (Le kilo de pommes est à deux euros), infinitive form introducer (C’est à pleurer : It really is pathetic), approximation introducer (C’est à dix minutes d’ici : It’s about ten minutes away), against (Dos à dos), after (Pas à pas), until (Aimer à la folie)…

Après : after (Je te rejoins après le travail : I’ll join you after work)

Avant : before (Je me suis levée avant toi : I got up before you did)

Avec : with (Je vis avec mes deux chats : I live with my two cats)

C :

Chez : at X’s (- where are you ? - chez mon père)

Concernant : regarding, about (Concernant le courrier, a-t-il été envoyé ? : About the mail, has it been sent ?)

Contre : against (Je suis contre ta décision : I stand against your decision, Il est assis contre le mur : He’s sitting against the wall)

D :

Dans : in (Je suis dans la baignoire : I’m in the bathtub)

D’après : according to (D’après Victor Hugo, Fantine est blonde)

De : of (Au bout de la rue : At the end of the street)

Dedans : inside (Is Sophie out of the garage ? Non, elle est encore dedans)

Dehors : outside (Va dehors, il faut beau : Go outside, it’s a beautiful day)

Depuis : since (I’ve been swimming since I was nine : Je nage depuis que j’ai neuf ans), from (Tout était beau, depuis la décoration jusqu’aux couleurs : Everything was lovely, from the decoration to the colours)

Derrière : behind (Elle est juste derrière toi)

Dès : as soon as (Je te préviens dès que j’arrive : I’ll let you know as soon as I get there), immediately (If I could, je partirais dès maintenant)

Dessous : under (la clé était dessous le lit : the key was under the bed)

Dessus : on (le chat est assis dessus : the cat is sitting on it),

Devant : in front of (j’attends devant la maison : i’m waiting in front of the house)

Durant : during (il est mort durant la famine : he died during the famine), for (elle a vécu là-bas durant des années : she lived there for years)

E :

En : at (Je suis nul en Français : I’m bad at French), material indicator (Une table en bois : A wooden table), change indicator (Elle s’est transformée en une belle femme forte : She turned into a beautiful, strong woman), division mood (Couper en deux : Cut in two pieces), during (En hiver, j’ai toujours un rhume : During winter, i always get a cold), gerundive element (elle tomba en criant : she fell, screaming), shape/appearance indicator (Un arbre en fleurs : A blossoming tree)

Entre : between/out of (Entre tous les garçons, Louis est le plus grand : Out of all of the boys, Louis is the tallest)

Envers : towards/to (Il est méchant envers elle : He’s mean to her)

Ès : in (Licencié-e ès sciences : Bachelor of sciences) - rare, uni titles

Excepté : except (Exceptée Louise, elles sont toutes arrivées)

H :

Hormis : except (Hormis Pierre, nous avons tout le permis : Except from Pierre, we all have a driving license)

Hors : out of (Il est hors de lui : He’s beside himself)

J :

Jusque/jusqu’à : until (Elles s’aimèrent jusqu’à ce que la mort les sépare : They loved each other until death parted them)

M :

Malgré : despite (Il est venu malgré sa grippe : He came despite his flu)

Moyennant : in exchange for (Moyennant un changement de comportement, tu pourras rester : If you change your behaviour, you’ll be allowed to stay)

N :

Nonobstant : in spite of (”Charles Myriel, nonobstant ce mariage, avait, disait-on, beaucoup fait parler de lui” Les Misérables) - rare

O :

Ôté : taken of from (6 ôté de 10 égale 4)

Outre : besides (Outre mes deux cafés, je n’ai encore rien bu aujourd’hui : Besides my two cups of coffee, I haven’t drunk anything today)

P :

Par : by (La Joconde a été painte par Léonard de Vinci), direction indicator (Il est parti par là : He went that way), with (Son nom commence par une voyelle : Her name starts with a vowel), per (J’en prends trois par jour : I take three per days)

Parmi : amongst (Parmi mes amies, tu es la plus petite : You’re the smallest of all of my friends)

Passé : after/past (Passé les grandes villes, tu ne trouves de tofu dans aucun magasin : Past big cities, you can’t find tofu in any store)

Pendant : during (Je t’appellerai pendant ma pause : I’ll call you during my break)

Pour : for (Je suis là pour toi : i’m here for you), to (Je pars pour Paris : I’m going to Paris), according to (Pour moi, tu fais une erreur : I think you’re making a mistake)

Près : near (Je suis près de Strasbourg : I’m near Strasbourg)

S :

Sans : without (Je suis sans voix : I am speechless)

Sauf : except (J’aime tout sauf les pruneaux : I’ll eat everything but prunes)

Selon : according to (Selon moi, tu as tort : I’d say you’re wrong)

Sous : under (J’ai des cernes sous les yeux : I have bags under my eyes)

Suivant : according to (Suivant ce que j’ai entendu, il ne reviendra pas : According to what I’ve heard, he won’t come back)

Sur : on (J’ai laissé les clés sur la table : I’ve left the keys on the table), about (C’est un film sur la guerre : It’s a movie about the war), towards (Regarde sur ta droite : Look on your right), out of (Deux enfants sur trois ont les yeux marron : Two kids out of three have brown eyes)

V :

Vers : towards (Elle avance vers moi : She’s coming towards me), somewhere around (Elle habite vers l’église : She lives near the church), about (Elle est rentrée vers minuit : She got home around midnight)

Voici : here is/are (Voici mon fils : Here’s my son)

Voilà : there is/are (Et voilà les miens : And there are mine), it’s been (Voilà deux ans que je ne les avais pas vues : It had been two years since I saw them)

Vu : given (Vu la situation, c’est mieux comme ça : Given the circumstances, that’s better that way) - casual

[frenhblr]

Omg thanks for this!

[ourspanishblog]

Any sites you may recommend for learning Spanish? I'm taking Spanish 2 in High School in a couple months, but I want to stay ahead and learn as much as possible (: Plus, it'd be easier and stressfree.

¡Hola!

I recommend:

Todo Claro - Here you can check the grammar and vocabulary by levels.Study Spanish - Easy explanations and exercisesMi vida loca - A series of a foreigner going for the first time to Spain. Learn survival Spanish. You can also find some printouts of every chapter.Lingolía - Easy explanations and exercisesSpanishDict - Language guide and quizzes SpanishPod 101 Youtube Channel

I hope this helps :) 

[pompadourpink]

Online classes

Vivre en France - A1

Vivre en France - A2

Cours de FLE - A2

Vivre en France - B1

Travailler en France - A2/B1

Paroles de FLE - B2

Préparer et réussir le DELF B2 et le DALF C1

[organizedstudy]

Ok but I just love the fact that Swedish has all three of these verbs. This touch starved people really said all of these are very specific things and they need their own verb. Snudda, nudda and röra someone are all very different things

[sophiemandolin]

How I learn languages

So, depending on the level of interest people have in my way of doing things, I might create a more thorough guide in the future. However, in the interest of brevity I will create a very rough step by step guide for people because why not.

1. Pick a language - Pick one you like; don’t worry about it being “practical” or “useful.” If you don’t like the language you’re studying, it’s going to be a miserable experience and learning languages should be fun!

2. Learn IPA - Learning how to read IPA characters (International Phonetic Alphabet) is imperative to being a successful language learner. If you haven’t already, put some time into learning how to read IPA transcriptions because it will save you a lot of time and give you a much better accent when learning the sounds of your target language. Avoid “english-y” transcriptions (e.g. très = TRAY) like the plague. They’re bad and people who make them should feel bad.

3. Learn the alphabet/writing system - Usually it doesn’t take a super long time, and if you’re studying a language like Japanese or Chinese it’s best to get used to using the writing system from the very beginning. You’re gonna have to deal with it eventually so you may as well hop right in. Relying on latin character transcriptions will only put off the inevitable.

4. Learn the pronunciation of your target language - I advocate a pronunciation-first approach. This will be easier or harder depending on how many unfamiliar sounds there are in your TL, but it’s worth going over the phonology (sound system) of your language early and getting used to how its sounds interact. If you don’t learn proper pronunciation in the beginning, you’ll ingrain incorrect pronunciations into your brain which will be hard to undo later on. You don’t have to try to make your accent perfect, accent reduction can come later, but it’s worth spending some time on. This is especially true for language with odd sounds or features (tones, voicing distinctions, etc.)

5. Pick ONE course/book - A problem I see a lot, and one that I have fallen into many times myself, is hording language learning resources. In the beginning, and especially for beginner polyglots, it is better to pick ONE really good course or book to follow, and focus on mastering the material within. If you try to split your time between too many resources or books or websites, you’ll quickly become overwhelmed. Some books/courses/series I recommend that can commonly be found for all languages are: Teach Yourself, Assimil, Duolingo, Linguaphone, and Pimsleur among others. You can always use one of those while you keep searching for more resources, but resist the temptation to dig into multiple books at once.

6. Use an SRS to learn vocabulary/grammar - SRS’s (Spaced Repetition Systems) are my bread and butter when it comes to memorization. Put simply, they are tools for spending your studying time more efficiently, and they warrant an entire post by themselves. Rote memorization is for the birds, so use a spaced repetition system such as Anki, Supermemo, a Leitner Box, or Memrise to avoid wasting your time. (Use Anki. Just use Anki. You’ll thank me later.)

7. Don’t translate - I used to learn vocabulary and grammar using English translations, but you’ll soon find that it’s only useful to an extent as your vocabulary gets bigger and you start running out of unique ways to translate synonyms. A more robust approach to flash card creation can be found in the book “Fluent Forever” by Gabriel Wyner, which I would definitely recommend reading. The short version is: use pictures instead of English translations for picturable words, for more abstract words and grammar concepts, use example sentences with cloze deletion cards (easy to create using Anki. seriously, just use anki.)

8. Speak the language! - Probably the only thing I actually learned from He Who Shall Not Be Named (anyone who’s been in the polyglot community for longer than 30 seconds knows who I’m talking about.) It seems simple but you should really speak the language as much as you can straight from the beginning. “But how can I speak the language if I’m not fluent or if I’ve just started?” Simple, use what you know, and do whatever it takes to make yourself understood. It really doesn’t take much, maybe 100 words or so (a day’s worth of work if you’re dedicated) to start to be able to put sentences together. Learning phrases is even better for this. For this reason, a phrasebook (Lonely Planet is a popular choice) is a worthy investment.

9. Immerse yourself as much as possible! - Watch TV, read books, nespapers, and articles, and listen to music in your TL. Get yourself used to being around the language. Ideally, you’d be able to move to the country or region where the language is spoken and truly immerse yourself, but for many total immersion can be either unrealistic or overwhelming. It’s totally possible to give yourself enough contact with the language and even create a 100% immersion environment all from the comfort of your home. The important thing is to have contact with the language and get used to being around it. This is where you’ll pick up on the rhythms of the language, tonality, intonation, all that good stuff. More importantly, it will get you used to how FAST people talk.

10. Keep looking for things you don’t know. - This is probably the best advice I could give anyone. There are things out there that you don’t even know you don’t know, so the best thing to do is to keep surrounding yourself with new facts, new vocabulary, new grammar structures, etc. If you’re looking for a new course/book, look for one that seems like it has a lot to teach you. Don’t rehash things you already know, it’s a waste of time. This is the basic principle of SRS’s, don’t review until you forget. Going back over concepts you already know is pointless and it contributes to “plateau syndrome” (when it feels like you’re not making any progress in your TL). Review what you need to, when you need to, only so long as you need to. Learning one new concept is worth more than going back over two you’ve already mastered.

11. HAVE FUN - The road to fluency is long. Like super long, I can’t stress this enough. You may not be fluent in 3 months, a year, two years, maybe even 5 years. It all depends on how much time you are willing to spend on the language and to a VERY VERY SMALL DEGREE how talented you are. The important thing is to not rush it and enjoy the experience. If you’re not having fun, modify your goals and your approach until you are.

This is nowhere near everything I have to say, but it’s a start. These are just some things I wish I had known when I started studying languages. So if it helps at least one person well hey that’s enough for me. :D

[languagebender]

reasons english is more complicated than u might think: the 's’ sound at the end of words

it’s used for plurals (“cats”)

it’s used for possessives (“john’s cats”)

it’s used for plurals and possessives at the same time (“john’s cats’ food bowl”)

it’s used to mean “is” (“john’s cats’ food bowl’s empty”)

it’s used to mean “has” (“john’s cats food bowl’s empty and he’s run out of food”)

it’s used to mean “does” (“when’s he go to the grocery store?”)

it marks third person singular in the present tense (“he goes every weekend”)

sometimes the word just ends in an s e.g. (”focus”)

[nordic-language-love]

A lot of people saying 6 sounds unnatural in the comments. I agree - it’s really jarring to see it written down and I don’t know many people who’d speak that way - but actually it is a feature of some working-class British dialects (and maybe some others). I can imagine it being used in a context like:

“How’s that work?”

“What’s he do for a living?”

It’s not a correct form of written language, as far as I’m aware, and it’s not commonly used in spoken language either. Even when people speak quickly it’s more like a “ds” than just an “s” sound normally.

[langblrwhy]

[lagom-languages-deactivated2022]

me recreating a conversation i had with a native speaker 4 hours ago with higher-level vocabulary and grammatically correct and complex sentences:

[languagesinthenight]

i have a Spanish test tomorrow but I literally haven't used any spanish in over 2 weeks due to me being in France and so

so now I don't know how it's gonna go and im too tired and have a headache so i can't really revise anything atm

so we'll see how it goes

[vangoghs-other-ear]

The Solar System in French

Mercure - Mercury

Vénus- Venus

La Terre- Earth

Mars

Jupiter

Saturne- Saturn

Uranus

Neptune

Pluton- Pluto

La planète- planet

planètes telluriques- rocky planets

 géantes gazeuses- Gas Giants

planète naine- dwarf 

Le Système solaire- solar system

une étoile- star

la Ceinture d'astéroïdes-  asteroid belt

Les anneaux de Saturne (m)- saturn’s rings

orbiter- to orbit

Me Voici Tout Mignon, Je Suis Une Nouvelle Planète Nébuleuse- Here I am, all cute, i’m a new planet nebula. A mnemonic to remember the names of the planets. Had to be change after we dropped Pluto.