Languages

German native speaker Learning: English (C1), Spanish (B1), French (B2), Norwegian (B1), Korean (A2) Interested in: Polish, Dutch

[loveletter2you]

dropbox containing linguistics textbooks

contains 34 textbooks including etymology, language acquisition, morphology, phonetics/phonology, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, & translation studies

dropbox containing language textbooks

contains 86 language textbooks including ASL, Arabic, (Mandarin) Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hebrew (Modern & Ancient), Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovene, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh

dropbox containing books about language learning

includes fluent forever by gabriel wyner, how to learn any language by barry farber, polyglot by kató lomb

if there’s a problem with any of the textbooks or if you want to request materials for a specific language feel free to message me!

[luminar-a]

i think as a long-term guest in the country i should share some silly and not-so-silly things i like about germany and that make me happy to be here:

the may-june asparagus craze

rhubarb and any use thereof

public transport in big cities, can get you to many places and it’s quite surprising considering how germans love their cars

safety, at least in the city where i live

sounds like a stereotype but trust me when i say that german potatoes play in a different league

DM MY BELOVED

pfand, a very nice concept we don’t have in italy

package and postal services, way above italian standards

the multitude of milk products i don’t understand

workers’ rights and work culture, even if my specific position is somewhat outside these rules, but i do appreciate the difference for other workers as compared to the italian awful work culture

honestly, ehegattensplitting (there can be serious tax advantages if you’re married)

take-away coffee of any size, sounds silly but it’s not common in italy where you’d have an espresso at the counter in 3.4 milliseconds so there’s no need for take away

broad international choice for places for eating out, at least in big cities

[turgidturnip]

Pros of living in Hamburg:

Great public transportation

Low COL compared to other major European cities

Lots of green spaces

Cons of living in Hamburg:

North German cuisine

Terrible weather

Wolves

[shabbytigers]

in other developments re german/anglo cultural exchange on breadstuffs, this image was posted to a facebook group yesterday

the following events ensued:

1. predictable lively discussion on the preparation of Wienerschnitzel, in which natives and wurstaboos are pro-puff and everybody else is like *confused dog head tilt* why wouldn’t you want the crust to stay ~attached to the thing you put it on? as with other fried foods?

2. thirty “Bad Schnitzel is my band name” jokes

3. thirty “Bad Schnitzel is my stripper name” jokes

4. one “ah yes, Bad Schnitzel! a lovely spa town” joke

5. this absolute masterpiece:

[pompadourpink]

Complex pronoun order/placement

A. Pronoun categories (alphabetical)

Direct object pronouns (COD)

Replace the direct object of a verb (answers who/what, directly affected by the action)

Forms: me (m’), te (t’), le/la (l’), nous, vous, les

Je lis le livre - Je le lis (I read it)

N.B.: me/te/le/la are elided when followed by a vowel or mute h- (j'habite VS je hais)

En

Replaces a noun introduced by de (including partitives and quantities).

Il parle de ses projets - il en parle (he speaks about it)

Indirect object pronouns (COI)

Replace the indirect object; noun preceded by à, usually indicating to/for whom

Forms: me (m’), te (t’), lui, nous, vous, leur

J’écris à ma sœur - je lui écris (I write to her)

N.B.: je lui vends X - I sell X to... VS je la vends - I sell her

Reflexive pronouns

Used with reflexive verbs (actions performed on oneself)

Forms: me (m’), te (t’), se (s’), nous, vous, se (s’)

Elle se brosse les cheveux - she brushes her hair

Relative pronouns

Introduce subordinate clauses

Forms: qui, que, dont, où, lequel...

Le pain que j’achète est bon - the bread that I buy is tasty

Stress pronouns (pronoms toniques)

Used for emphasis, after prepositions or in isolation

Forms: moi, toi, lui, elle, nous, vous, eux, elles

C’est pour lui - it’s for him

Y (pronom adverbial)

Replaces a location or a thing introduced by à (except for people)

Je pense à mon travail - j’y pense (I think about it)

B. Pronoun order rules

1. Before a conjugated verb

Subject + (ne) + pronouns in order + verb + (pas)

First group: me, te, se, nous, vous (reflexive/object pronouns for 1st/2nd persons)

Second group: le, la, les (direct object pronouns)

Third group: lui, leur (indirect object pronouns for 3rd persons)

Fourth group: y

Fifth group: en

Il me le donne - he gives it to me

Tu nous les montres - you show them to us

Elle ne lui en parle pas - she doesn’t talk to him about it

Je le lui explique - I explain it to him

N.B.: the direct object (le) precedes the indirect (lui)

2. Before an infinitive

Pronouns are placed directly before the infinitive: conjugated verb + pronouns in order + infinitive

Je vais te le dire - I am going to tell it to you

Il doit nous en parler - he must talk to us about it

3. In the imperative

Affirmative imperative: pronouns follow the verb+are hyphenated; verb + le/la/les + moi/toi/lui/nous/vous/leur + y + en

N.B.: me becomes moi, te becomes toi

Donne-le-moi - give it to me

Parlez-nous-en - talk to us about it

Vas-y - go (there)

Negative imperative: pronouns revert to the standard order before the verb (in the infinitive form)

Ne me le donne pas - don’t give it to me

Ne nous en parle pas - don’t talk to us about it

C. Special cases/exceptions

Adverbial pronouns: when y and en appear together, y comes first; il y en a trois - there are three of them

Reflexive pronouns: the reflexive pronoun comes first; je me le demande - I wonder about it

Causative faire (faire+infinitive; used when the subject has a second person do a job for them): object pronouns precede faire; je le lui fais réparer - I have him repair it

Imperative with en: when following a pronoun ending in a vowel, an apostrophe is used; donne-m’en - give me some (not donne-moi-en)

Negation: pronouns remain between ne + verb (or + infinitive in compound structures); je ne le lui ai pas donné - I didn’t give it to him

Fanmail - masterlist (2016-) - archives - hire me - reviews (2020-) - Drive

[mapsontheweb]

What Pedestrians Look Like Across Europe

[thotticus-binch]

[aletheyass]

horse girls fuck each other when the horses aren't looking btw

[aletheyass]

no idea who bibi und tina are but im glad you’re enjoying this post my german friends

[soulindisarray]

Original handwritten lyrics, Psycho Killer by Talking Heads, c.1975.

[duchessvongooseberg]

david byrne tryna figure out how the fuck u spell "qu'est-ce que c'est":

[samuelroukin]

one thing i hate about english is your open compound words. what do you mean it's a light switch and not a lightswitch or a water bottle instead of a waterbottle. get real

[samuelroukin]

why won't you let your words frot.

[chronicle-ingenius]

I miss the words “bunt” and “farbenfroh” in english. “colorful” doesn’t convey the joy of color german does here

[cinemaphobic]

it's unreal how bad german network tv is at advertising their online services. zdf has the great, killing eve and normal people for FREE on their website and no one even knows about it........

[sprachgefuehle]

how do you even start to explain the sheer stupidity of the whole whale drama going on in germany right now

[spatenhirn]

[just-an-evil-immortal]

As a native german speaker I sometimes need to remind myself, when writing in english, that I cant just keep going with a sentence and that, unlike german, where you can make a sentence go on for as long as you want if you're a true lover of Nebensätze, english sentences are usually shorter and aren't supposed to go on for multiple lines or god forbid a whole paragraph.

[ibikus]

Also, you guys who don’t see German news don’t even know, I‘m so sad about Baltic Sea humpback whale. Baltic Sea humpback whale who held the country together for a little while, who gave me hope that humans aren’t all horrible. But nature is tragic and perhaps we have to accept that we can only do so much sometimes. I love you Baltic Sea humpback whale </3

[what-even-is-thiss]

Free or Cheap General Language Resources Because idk I Just Wanna Help

All resources either have a free tier or have a low ($10 USD/month or less) subscription fee or a one time purchase option below $100 USD. All prices I give are in USD because I live in the US and this list was already hard to put together okay I'm not also doing conversions

Find language specific lists here.

I have given the links in text format because tumblr has a link limit. Copy and paste into your browser to look at them.

These are generalized. Not for your specific language.

LinQ, a website for reading: https://www.lingq.com/en/

You can click on words you don't know and get a definition and save a flashcard. They provide readings for all levels from beginner to advanced and you can upload your own texts and podcast or video transcripts and there's stuff uploaded by other users to browse through. The website also has some texts with audio included. You can also purchase books through the website. This is all included in the free tier. The paid tier allows you to save an unlimited number of flashcards and includes some forum and tutoring options. It's either $15 a month or $120 for a full year.

Languages available in full: Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian

Languages partially supported or with incomplete beginner courses: Afrikaans, Armenian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Catalan, Traditional Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Georgian, Gujarati, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Khmer, Macedonian, Malay, Persian, Punjabi, Serbian, Slovenian, Swahili, Tagalog, Turkish, Vietnamese

Migaku, a web extension and app: https://migaku.com/

Paid service at $10 a month. It has beginner courses and allows for dual language subtitles on things like netflix or youtube. It also allows users to save flashcards from subtitles or articles and sync flashcards between devices

Supported languages: Cantonese, Mandarin, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese

Storylearning Books: https://storylearning.com/books

These are short story, dialogue, or history books by Olly Richards written for beginner to intermediate learners that in my experience at least are written to not be boring for adults. Each chapter of a book includes a key vocabulary list and comprehension questions. Storylearning also has online courses available but they're too expensive for what you get in my opinion. The books are way cheaper, though depending on the language you may have more or less books to buy. The books are usually in the $15-$20 range new but they're often available at used bookstores both online and irl for much cheaper.

Books available in: Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Arabic (MSA), Brazillian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, Icelandic, Korean, Norwegian, Swedish, Turkish, Irish

Mango Languages, a pretty standard language app: https://mangolanguages.com/

This is actually a pretty pricey one at like $20 a month but the reason I bring it up is that a lot of people can get it free through their local library and it has a large selection of languages.

Languages supported: Armenian, Azerbaijani, Egyptian Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, Levantine Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), Bengali, Cantonese, chaldean Aramaic. Cherokee, Mandarin, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dari, Dutch, Dzongkha, English, Tagalog, Finnish, French (European and Canadian), German, Greek (modern, ancient, and kione), Hatian Creole, Hawaiian, Hebrew (modern and biblical), Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Igbo, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kazakh, Korean, Latin, Malay, Malayalam, Norwegian, Farsi, Polish, Potawatomi, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Scottish Gaelic, Serbian, Shanghainese, Slovak, Spanish (castillian and latin american), Swahili, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Tuvan, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Yiddish

Comprehensible Input Wiki, a website for finding language specific comprehensible input resources: https://comprehensibleinputwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

Comprehensible input is input in a language you understand the message of, not necessarily input you understand every word of. It's good for you to get a lot of it from day one. This website gathers resources like podcasts, kid's shows, youtube channels, books, etc. that are perfect for this sort of thing.

Languages currently on the website as I am writing this: American Sign Language, Arabic (MSA), Armenian, Basque, Biblical Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Haitian creole, Hakka, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Irish, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Occitan, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Romanian, Sanskrit, Sardinian, Serbo-Croatian, Sicilian, Slovak, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Toki Pona, Tunisian Arabic, Turkish, Ukranian, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yoruba, Zulu

Drops, a vocab app: https://languagedrops.com/

Drops teaches vocab through pictures and matching and spelling games, though you can also customize your settings to show translations and different alphabets or not. The free tier has ads and a daily time limit. The lifetime subscription is technically against my personal rule for this post because it's $160 but it often goes on sale for half off or $80. There's also a monthly or yearly payment option. At the paid tier you can practice for an unlimited time without ads and choose which types of vocabulary words you want to learn.

Supported Languages: Ainu, English (American and British), Arabic (MSA), Bosnian, Portuguese (Brazilian and European), Cantonese, Spanish, (Castilian and Mexican), Catalan, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galacian, German, Greek, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Igbo, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Maori, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Sanskrit for yoga, Serbian, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Yoruba

Anki, a general flashcard app: https://apps.ankiweb.net/

You can make your own flashcards on Anki or download flashcard packs that other users have made. It also allows for importing of audio and visual aids. It has a spaced repetition system that a lot of people swear by. Some companies like Refold also sell premade flashcard packs specifically for Anki. Free on desktop, I believe about a $20 one time purchase on iOS.

Muzzy In GondoLand (1986): https://archive.org/details/muzzy-in-gondoland-level-i-1986

No, really! The old Muzzy movies from the 80s made to teach kids foreign languages are fairly easy to find for free on archive.org or on youtube. The new Muzzy with workbooks and an app and whatnot requires a paid subscription to the BBC but the older ones are much easier to find. They're available in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Chinese, Korean, Esperanto, and Welsh.

Easy Languages, a connected group of Youtube channels: https://www.easy-languages.org/

Easy Language channels are channels where people interview speakers of the language on the street about everyday topics like dating, tourism, and shopping for example. They have dual language subtitles in their videos in the target language and English. Many of them also have series about useful phrases for beginners and intermediate podcasts. Most also have bonus worksheets and other learning materials on their patreons but the free content available is already a lot.

Current active channels: Arabic, Catalan, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish

wordreference.com

A website that lets you look up words in another language. It's better than google translate. It has pronunciation in multiple dialects and in depth explanations that some other websites don't have.

Supported Languages: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Swedish, Icelandic, Russian, Polish, Romanian, Czech, Greek, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic

edX, a website for taking college courses, often for free: https://www.edx.org/learn/language

I can't tell you precisely what's available because it changes year to year but they usually offer a wide variety of courses. You can also often get real college credit through these if that's something you're interested in. Programming languages are often mixed in with spoken or signed languages though so you may have to do some digging through the lists to fins what you want.

[organsizing]

there is no amount of language learning that is useless. I think it obviously scales up in wonderfulness as you learn more, but even just being at the point where you can recognize what language is being spoken or written is still a more useful thing than not knowing that. it is lovely to say hi to people in their language! any attempt to learn is important. you don't get fluent overnight. and you don't have to get fluent overnight. more knowledge is better than none. it isn't just all or nothing.