Language learning journey

Native: 🇭🇷 Fluent: 🇬🇧 Learning: 🇩🇪, 🇨🇿,🇮🇹 Day 1 -> fluency Documenting every day

[lara-learns-languages]

Hello, fellow language lovers!

My name is Lara (any pronouns), I'm a 23 year old trying to get into a physiotherapy program at uni, but this blog is about my language learning journey.

I'm restarting my language learning journey. I used to speak Italian in Kindergarten, and I studied German for a few years. I sadly forgot most of those two :(

I'm starting Czech from absolute zero.

I want to document my journey to fluency.

If you're also learning any of these languages (or any other language), or just want a study buddy, send me a message.

I'll share daily/weekly progress, little victories, struggles, and new words and phrases I learn

It's always more fun to learn together!

Feel free to follow along and share your own experiences.

[kutyozh]

If i may give one (1) tip to A0-A2 learners of Slavic Languages:

Study both verb aspect forms from the get-go.

Slavic languages have a grammatical category called 'verbal aspect' which, simply put, expresses either that you are/were/will be in the process of doing something (imperfective aspect) or that you have or will have gotten a certain result (perfective aspect).

What do I mean by 'study them from the get-go':

Personally I use Anki (beloved) for vocabulary study, but I guess you can apply this to whatever suits you best.

Russian example sentence in the text book: "Вчера я купил яблоки." [Včerá ja kupíl jáblka. Yesterday I bought apples.]

In the vocab list* I find the infinitive of купил [kupíl; bought]: купить [kupít'; to buy].

I head over to wiktionary and type in the search bar the infinitive form and hit enter. You should now see something like this:

What we're looking for is the 'Verb' section, and, specifically, that first line of the paragraph that mentions the infinitive, an abbreviation for its aspect [ipf. = imperfective, pf. = perfective] and, in brackets, the 'opposite' verbal aspect. In this example, we learn that купить has the perfective aspect, and its imperfective equivalent is покупать [pokupát'].

This is how I structure my Anki card then:

(german is my mother tongue so it's russian - german - spanish. the latter is there just as a reminder for myself, please ignore lol)

I always put the imperfective form on the left - then slash - then perfective form. I highly recommend to maintain a consistent order.

How I study:

So, our textbook example mentioned only one form. That is the one I am going to be studying actively. Meaning: When the card 'to buy' pops up, I try to remember only the word that came up in class/read in the textbook etc., in this case купить. I turn the card and check if I got it right, then read both forms (optional, but helpful: read them aloud).

What this does is that it familiarises you with both aspect forms without putting the pressure of learning twice as much vocabulary on you.

You will have to learn both aspects at some point, but it will be so much easier when you're already actively familiar with one form and passively familiar with the other. I started doing this during my second semester and it was SO WORTH IT.

Let me know if you have any questions or if this was helpful to you! <3

*in absence of a vocab list, I use this website for Russian and this website for Czech. you can type the exact verb form as you encounter it (in this example купил) and it will show you the entire conjugation table. extremely useful to have at hand

[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.

[linguistness]

My German 🇩🇪 Masterlist

Resources:

Some other German tumblr blogs for German learners

German Sign Language Resources

Vocab, grammar, idioms:

A little text style guide

LGBT+ Vocab

Idioms: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10

German idioms with colours 🎨🖌️

Some funny German words #1, #2, #3

Fun German animal names

Movies, TV shows, books, music:

Movies/TV shows:

German TV show, movie, & book recommendations for German learners

Fairy Tale Films

German Comedy Show from the 90s: "Kentucky Schreit Ficken"

Some classic German TV shows I watched as a child & teenager

Books:

German TV show, movie, & book recommendations for German learners

German comic books / graphic novels

Books about German folklore, myths, and legends

German Publishers & Book Shops

Some classic German literature recommendations

Some disturbing German children’s stories

Music:

German-speaking Singers / Bands

German folk music / traditional children's songs

German Culture & Other Stuff:

German School & Education System

The Berlin Wall (1961-1989)

20 German culture things

German bread

The "Nürburgring"

German food, desserts/sweet snacks & cakes

German currency before the Euro (€): "Deutsche Mark"

Biggest ethnic groups in Germany

German sausages

Some content creators who show what it's like living in Germany

1st of May celebrations in Germany

How to become a beekeeper in Germany 🌸🐝🍯

The German font "Sütterlin"

German Comedy Show "Knallerfrauen"

Some Iconic German Characters

Supplemental ID for trans people in Germany 🏳️‍⚧️

Germans have two different names for dandelions

German ‘Kraut’ & ‘Kohl’

European Bisons (aka. Wisents)

The famous German pirate / buccaneer Klaus Störtebeker 🏴‍☠️

Typical German sweets & candies

"Rettungsgasse"

Coat of arms of Germany and its federal states

Turkish-German culture 🇹🇷🇩🇪

German Seasons:

Early spring in Germany

German Shorthand / Stenography:

Learning stenography: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13

[linguistness]

My Czech 🇨🇿 Masterlist

Resources:

Resources for learning Czech

Textbook: Czech step by step

Vocab:

Duolingo vocab 🦉: Czech 🇨🇿 - Section 1: Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 3, Unit 4, Unit 5, Unit 6, Unit 7, Unit 8

Grammar:

Alphabet & accents

How to pronounce Czech letters

Noun genders

Formal vs. informal speech

Accusative case (singular)

Pronouns in all grammatical cases

Czech prefixes

Grammar exercises:

Demonstrative pronouns - exercise sheet

Possessive pronouns - exercise sheets

Accusative case (demonstrative pronouns, adjectives & nouns) - exercise sheets

Possessive pronouns in the accusative case - exercise sheets

Reflexive possessive pronouns in the accusative case - exercise sheets

Czech culture:

Iconic songs

Czech children's books

[linguistness]

My Linguistics Masterpost

Hej! I’m Espen and I’m a master’s student in linguistic studies. This is my masterpost about all the linguistic topics i made posts about:

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-> 💬 Linguistics Challenge 📚 - January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November

-> The Big Lingblr Community Challenge

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Linguistic Branches

What the linguistic branches mean and what they analyse

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Phonetics & Phonology 

Linguistic abbreviations, consonants, and vowels

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

Pronunciation of English consonants & vowels

Stress in sentences

Unstressed [i] & [u]

Phonetics #1: Basic Acoustics

Phonetics #2: Types of Sounds

Speech Production & Voicing

Linguistic Liaison

Phonological Assimilation

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Morphology 

Morphemes

Allomorphs of {-s} and {-ed}

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Word formation 

Word formation

How new words are created

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Syntax 

Word classes (sentence structure #1)

Phrases (sentence structure #2)

Clause elements & clause types (sentence structure #3)

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Semantics 

Ferdinand de Saussure: Sign, Signifier & Signified

Sense relations

Basic Colour Terms

Components of Meaning & Componential Analysis

What is a ‘lexical item’?

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Pragmatics

Speech Acts

Indirect Speech Acts

Deixis & distance

Cooperative Principle & Gricean Maxims

Implicature

‘Face’ and Politeness

Conversation Structures

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Text Linguistics:

What is a text?

Text types, text forms, and text form variants

Coherence & cohesion

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Sociolinguistics:

Dialects & accents, pidgins & creoles (language varieties #1)

Style and Register (language varieties #2)

Pidgins & Creoles

General American

AAVE (African American Vernacular English)

Australian English & New Zealand English

South African English (SAE)

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Language Acquisition:

Characteristics of Human Language

How do animals communicate?

How did languages emerge? (Continuity vs. discontinuity hypotheses)

Linguistic Relativity vs. Linguistic Universalism

Language Acquisition - how do children learn languages?

First Stages of Speech Production in Children

What is a 'wug’?

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Historical Linguistics:

The periods of the English language (History of English #1)

Diachronic vs. synchronic (History of English #2)

Proto-Languages (History of English #3)

Language Families (History of English #4)

Old English: 450 (700) - 1100

Middle English: 1100 - 1500

Early Modern English: 1500 - 1700

What happened in the year 1066 and why it was so important for the English language

Why is English such a global language?

i-mutation

Great Vowel Shift (GVS)

Inkhorn terms

Chain shifts

The 'minim problem’

Association/Consociation vs. Dissociation

Processes of Meaning Change

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English Linguistics:

Loan words in the English language

Loan words #2: Doublets

English tenses #1 - present tense

English tenses #2 - past tense

English tenses #3 - some differences between the tenses

English tenses #4 - future tenses & expressions with future meaning

Kachru’s Model of World Englishes

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Other Linguistic Topics:

Analytic vs. Synthetic Language

Translation strategies

Translations: Functional Analysis of the Source Text

Corpus linguistics

Bouba & Kiki

What is a 'hapax legomenon’?

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My recommendations:

Book/film recommendations for language enthusiasts & advanced linguistic topics

Recommendations for Reading/Activities before starting Linguistic Studies

Sources for Research on English Linguistics, Literature, and Culture

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-> you can find all my answered asks by searching for #ask, #ask response or #request

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[linguistness]

Masterlist for learning languages

Brick-by-brick language learning challenge

Best language learning tips & masterlists from other bloggers I’ve come across

my tips for a language study plan

topics for new vocabulary

how to find a language partner

my tips for how to practice writing in your target language

Recommendations for Learning Languages & Other Stuff

Learning a language = learning a culture

Vocab list templates: #1, #2, #3

Some easy Fantasy books to read in your target language

Language Learning Tips: #1, #2

6 tips for learning languages

App for organizing your language-learning (and anything else): Trello

Apps i use to learn languages

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Requests / Asks:

-> you can find all my answered asks by searching for #ask, #ask response or #request

Indo-European Language Families

Improving your vocab

German infinitive & when to use it

English word order

How to find a language learning partner

Changing a game to your target language & "harmful" learning strategies

Can you get away with just using "das" the majority of the time in Germany?

Do you have any tips on how to improve your writing in your target language?

Do you have any resources/methods about how to reach an academic level in the language you’re learning (& how to improve your writing)?

Do you have any linguistic recourses on Ruhrpott-Deutsch?