Lego Snowflake

Passionate about languages, literature, traveling and learning in general. Fluent in English and French (DELF B2), fairly good at Latin (I studied it for 4 years), studying Swedish at uni, and learning Russian, Korean, Sanskrit, Japanese and Italian on the side. Proudly Slavic

[antiandrogen]

if you can read this rn learn american sign language

[antiandrogen]

as a place to start i strongly recommend Dr. Bill Vicars’ free lessons on youtube and at lifeprint.com (which also has a huge ASL dictionary and lesson plans/outlines). there are also freelance ASL tutors online who can help personalize your learning experience and give you opportunities to observe and practice signing naturally, if you don’t already have Deaf friends/family

[lesbianjaxa]

Gallaudet University, a university designed for Deaf and Hard of Hearing students, offers a few online lessons for ASL! https://www.gallaudet.edu/asl-connect/asl-for-free

I also have used this website to practice fingerspelling, https://asl.ms/. You can select the speed, and though it’s designed to help your receptive skills in knowing what the spelling was, you can practice your own fingerspelling by signing along with it.

The ASL App is also pretty good, though you do have to pay for most of the lessons, beyond the basics.

[pinkmanthedog]

I am Deaf and used to TA the ASL program at the University of Missouri and I currently teach workshops about LGBTQ ASL and intersectionality and I wholeheartedly recommend lifeprint.com as a place to start!

But!

1. You can’t learn a language, and certainly not a visual language, alone. If you want to learn conversational ASL, you will need to seek out opportunities to connect with the Deaf community in your area. Dialects and accents vary greatly, and signs you learn online may not actually apply to your IRL conversations.

2. Don’t. Learn. From. YouTube. It is full of hearing people with one or two ASL classes under their belts “teaching” flat out incorrect signs. Related! If you are not a fluent ASL user (and you know if you are or aren’t) don’t. Post. “Instructional”. Videos. It is a huge pet peeve of mine and I find it disrespectful to the Deaf community.

That being saaaaaid, covid has cancelled most of my gigs for the rest of the year and I have been doing private ASL tutoring to earn some extra money. If you’re interested in learning (and putting money into the Deaf community!) send me a PM and we can talk lessons!

[therussianmajor]

*is trained in Chomskian/generative linguistics but works with indigenous languages so is very aware how shit his theories are*

[therussianmajor]

Sure! So Chomskian/generative linguistics, especially his theories of syntax (both Minimalism and P&P), are verrrrrry English-centric, at best Euro-centric. Chomsky is not multilingual and frankly he doesn’t care about languages outside of his purview. He’s moved on from linguistic theory to neurolinguistics, so the theories will never be revised by him/it’s up to modern linguists to fix our theories. The syntactic phenomena of many, many languages, especially non-Indo-European languages, do not easily fit in to generative theories. What might explain English or French in a few steps would take pages upon pages upon pages of mental gymnastics to explain some (*cough* the majority *cough*) of the world’s languages. Why stick with this when we can modify/specify/develop new theories that are not decades old?

@joghurtbrot @pardon-my-venting

[lego-snowflake]

I mean, why do some universities stop at Chomsky (or worse, Saussure)? I know there are universities in Norway (I think) who are strictly structuralist. I was trained in conceptual theory mostly - there's no going back.

[thebingsoo-deactivated20200302]

Korean Textbooks Master Post

Hello everyone! Here are some textbooks I had time to scan and upload (marked with an asterisk) or had found somewhere online. I hope you find something here that helps you! This post will be updated as I get more time to scan books, purchase more books, or if I happen to find more books online.

Can’t find the textbook you’re looking for on this list? Please feel free to hit up my ask! I may have it, but just haven’t scanned it yet. 

Ewha Korean

Ewha Korean 1-1 Ewha Korean 1-2 Ewha Korean 3-2 Ewha Korean 4 Ewha Korean 5 Ewha Korean 6

KIIP Korean 

KIIP Korean 0 KIIP Korean 1 KIIP Korean 2 KIIP Korean 3 KIIP Korean 4 KIIP Korean 5 KIIP Korean 6

Korean Grammar in Use

Korean Grammar in Use Beginner Korean Grammar in Use Intermediate Korean Grammar in Use Advanced

Sejong Korean

Sejong Korean 1 Sejong Korean 2 Sejong Korean 3 Sejong Korean 4 Sejong Korean 5 Sejong Korean 6 Sejong Korean 7 Sejong Korean 8

Sejong Korean Conversation 1 Sejong Korean Conversation 2 Sejong Korean Conversation 3 Sejong Korean Conversation 4

Sogang Korean

Sogang Korean 1A Sogang Korean 1B Sogang Korean 2A Sogang Korean 2B Sogang Korean 3A Sogang Korean 3B

TOPIK 

빈도별 토픽 중고급 어휘* 빈도별 토픽 중급 문법* TOPIK Essential Grammar 150 Hot TOPIK 2 Reading

Yonsei Korean

Yonsei Korean Grammar 1-1 Yonsei Korean Grammar 1-2 Yonsei Korean Grammar 2-1 Yonsei Korean Grammar 2-2 Yonsei Korean Grammar 3-1 Yonsei Korean Grammar 3-2 Yonsei Korean Grammar 4-1 Yonsei Korean Grammar 4-2 Yonsei Korean Grammar 5-1 Yonsei Korean Grammar 5-2 Yonsei Korean Grammar 6-1 Yonsei Korean Grammar 6-2

Yonsei Korean Reading 1 Yonsei Korean Reading 2 Yonsei Korean Reading 3 Yonsei Korean Reading 4 Yonsei Korean Reading 5

Miscellaneous: 

Korean Stories for Language Learners*

Last updated: 7/28/2019

[lego-snowflake]

Halcyon

just a random English word I like

[japaneseblr-deactivated20170725]

Advanced English Nouns

Dearth  - A scarcity or lack of something

Iconoclast - A person who attacks or criticizes cherished beliefs or institutions

Diatribe - A forceful and bitter verbal attack against someone or something

Panegyric - A public speech or published text in praise of someone or something

Chicanery - The use of deception or subterfuge to achieve one’s purpose

Guile - skillful deceit

Quisling - A traitor who collaborates with an enemy force occupying their country

Aegis - The protection, backing, or support of a particular person or organization

Eminence - Fame or acknowledged superiority within a particular sphere

Quintessence - The most perfect or typical example of a quality or class

Raconteur - A person who tells anecdotes in a skilful and amusing way

Alacrity - Brisk and cheerful readiness

Sedition -  Conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch

Dilettante - A person who cultivates an area of interest, such as the arts, without real commitment or knowledge

Acumen - The ability to make good judgements and take quick decisions

[lego-snowflake]

Fun fact: Quisling is the last name of a Norwegian politician who collaborated with the Nazis, and now his last name is used in a similar context to Judas'

[medoisa]

but what, might we ask, is truly the biggest mood? indicative? imperative? subjunctive? optative?????

[gofod-alle-rymd]

Little Princess in different languages

This is another UK kids show that has been dubbed into many languages. It’s around A2 level

French

Greek

German

Danish

Polish

Norwegian

Spanish

Swedish

Other shows

Miraculous Ladybug

LazyTown

Charlie and Lola

[lego-snowflake]

I love this cartoon

[missangorian]

new favorite Swedish Thing

Tvättbjörn.

Tvätt = ‘clean’

Björn = ‘bear’

Clean-bear.

What does this word mean, you ask?

Mother. Fuckin. RACCOON!

Tvättbjörn. the more you know.

[lego-snowflake]

Kinki Japanese : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Kinki Japanese - The dialect of the Kansai region

Here's a great book about the the Kinki region dialect, it's really well written, with lots of humor, which makes it rather interesting, even though this topic may seem to be a bit boring for the not primarily linguistics-oriented learners. However, I'm sure most people would enjoy it, even if just for the funny examples and introduction.

[damienhaaas]

[artchiculture-deactivated201901]

FAMOUS AUTHORS

Classic Bookshelf: This site has put classic novels online, from Charles Dickens to Charlotte Bronte.

The Online Books Page: The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.

Project Gutenberg: This famous site has over 27,000 free books online.

Page by Page Books: Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.

Classic Book Library: Genres here include historical fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, romance and children’s literature, but they’re all classics.

Classic Reader: Here you can read Shakespeare, young adult fiction and more.

Read Print: From George Orwell to Alexandre Dumas to George Eliot to Charles Darwin, this online library is stocked with the best classics.

Planet eBook: Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.

The Spectator Project: Montclair State University’s project features full-text, online versions of The Spectator and The Tatler.

Bibliomania: This site has more than 2,000 classic texts, plus study guides and reference books.

Online Library of Literature: Find full and unabridged texts of classic literature, including the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and more.

Bartleby: Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.

Fiction.us: Fiction.us has a huge selection of novels, including works by Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.

Free Classic Literature: Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.

TEXTBOOKS

Textbook Revolution: Find biology, business, engineering, mathematics and world history textbooks here.

Wikibooks: From cookbooks to the computing department, find instructional and educational materials here.

KnowThis Free Online Textbooks: Get directed to stats textbooks and more.

Online Medical Textbooks: Find books about plastic surgery, anatomy and more here.

Online Science and Math Textbooks: Access biochemistry, chemistry, aeronautics, medical manuals and other textbooks here.

MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources: Find free videos, textbooks and more on the subjects of mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry and more.

Flat World Knowledge: This innovative site has created an open college textbooks platform that will launch in January 2009.

Free Business Textbooks: Find free books to go along with accounting, economics and other business classes.

Light and Matter: Here you can access open source physics textbooks.

eMedicine: This project from WebMD is continuously updated and has articles and references on surgery, pediatrics and more.

MATH AND SCIENCE

FullBooks.com: This site has “thousands of full-text free books,” including a large amount of scientific essays and books.

Free online textbooks, lecture notes, tutorials and videos on mathematics: NYU links to several free resources for math students.

Online Mathematics Texts: Here you can find online textbooks likeElementary Linear Algebra and Complex Variables.

Science and Engineering Books for free download: These books range in topics from nanotechnology to compressible flow.

FreeScience.info: Find over 1800 math, engineering and science books here.

Free Tech Books: Computer programmers and computer science enthusiasts can find helpful books here.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

byGosh: Find free illustrated children’s books and stories here.

Munseys: Munseys has nearly 2,000 children’s titles, plus books about religion, biographies and more.

International Children’s Digital Library: Find award-winning books and search by categories like age group, make believe books, true books or picture books.

Lookybook: Access children’s picture books here.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

Bored.com: Bored.com has music ebooks, cooking ebooks, and over 150 philosophy titles and over 1,000 religion titles.

Ideology.us: Here you’ll find works by Rene Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, David Hume and others.

Free Books on Yoga, Religion and Philosophy: Recent uploads to this site include Practical Lessons in Yoga and Philosophy of Dreams.

The Sociology of Religion: Read this book by Max Weber, here.

Religion eBooks: Read books about the Bible, Christian books, and more.

PLAYS

ReadBookOnline.net: Here you can read plays by Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and others.

Plays: Read Pygmalion, Uncle Vanya or The Playboy of the Western World here.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: MIT has made available all of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories.

Plays Online: This site catalogs “all the plays [they] know about that are available in full text versions online for free.”

ProPlay: This site has children’s plays, comedies, dramas and musicals.

MODERN FICTION, FANTASY AND ROMANCE

Public Bookshelf: Find romance novels, mysteries and more.

The Internet Book Database of Fiction: This forum features fantasy and graphic novels, anime, J.K. Rowling and more.

Free Online Novels: Here you can find Christian novels, fantasy and graphic novels, adventure books, horror books and more.

Foxglove: This British site has free novels, satire and short stories.

Baen Free Library: Find books by Scott Gier, Keith Laumer and others.

The Road to Romance: This website has books by Patricia Cornwell and other romance novelists.

Get Free Ebooks: This site’s largest collection includes fiction books.

John T. Cullen: Read short stories from John T. Cullen here.

SF and Fantasy Books Online: Books here include Arabian Nights,Aesop’s Fables and more.

Free Novels Online and Free Online Cyber-Books: This list contains mostly fantasy books.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Project Laurens Jz Coster: Find Dutch literature here.

ATHENA Textes Francais: Search by author’s name, French books, or books written by other authors but translated into French.

Liber Liber: Download Italian books here. Browse by author, title, or subject.

Biblioteca romaneasca: Find Romanian books on this site.

Bibliolteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: Look up authors to find a catalog of their available works on this Spanish site.

KEIMENA: This page is entirely in Greek, but if you’re looking for modern Greek literature, this is the place to access books online.

Proyecto Cervantes: Texas A&M’s Proyecto Cervantes has cataloged Cervantes’ work online.

Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum: Access many Latin texts here.

Project Runeberg: Find Scandinavian literature online here.

Italian Women Writers: This site provides information about Italian women authors and features full-text titles too.

Biblioteca Valenciana: Register to use this database of Catalan and Valencian books.

Ketab Farsi: Access literature and publications in Farsi from this site.

Afghanistan Digital Library: Powered by NYU, the Afghanistan Digital Library has works published between 1870 and 1930.

CELT: CELT stands for “the Corpus of Electronic Texts” features important historical literature and documents.

Projekt Gutenberg-DE: This easy-to-use database of German language texts lets you search by genres and author.

HISTORY AND CULTURE

LibriVox: LibriVox has a good selection of historical fiction.

The Perseus Project: Tufts’ Perseus Digital Library features titles from Ancient Rome and Greece, published in English and original languages.

Access Genealogy: Find literature about Native American history, the Scotch-Irish immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, and more.

Free History Books: This collection features U.S. history books, including works by Paul Jennings, Sarah Morgan Dawson, Josiah Quincy and others.

Most Popular History Books: Free titles include Seven Days and Seven Nights by Alexander Szegedy and Autobiography of a Female Slave by Martha G. Browne.

RARE BOOKS

Questia: Questia has 5,000 books available for free, including rare books and classics.

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

Books-On-Line: This large collection includes movie scripts, newer works, cookbooks and more.

Chest of Books: This site has a wide range of free books, including gardening and cooking books, home improvement books, craft and hobby books, art books and more.

Free e-Books: Find titles related to beauty and fashion, games, health, drama and more.

2020ok: Categories here include art, graphic design, performing arts, ethnic and national, careers, business and a lot more.

Free Art Books: Find artist books and art books in PDF format here.

Free Web design books: OnlineComputerBooks.com directs you to free web design books.

Free Music Books: Find sheet music, lyrics and books about music here.

Free Fashion Books: Costume and fashion books are linked to the Google Books page.

MYSTERY

MysteryNet: Read free short mystery stories on this site.

TopMystery.com: Read books by Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, GK Chesterton and other mystery writers here.

Mystery Books: Read books by Sue Grafton and others.

POETRY

The Literature Network: This site features forums, a copy of The King James Bible, and over 3,000 short stories and poems.

Poetry: This list includes “The Raven,” “O Captain! My Captain!” and “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.”

Poem Hunter: Find free poems, lyrics and quotations on this site.

Famous Poetry Online: Read limericks, love poetry, and poems by Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Lord Byron and others.

Google Poetry: Google Books has a large selection of poetry, fromThe Canterbury Tales to Beowulf to Walt Whitman.

QuotesandPoem.com: Read poems by Maya Angelou, William Blake, Sylvia Plath and more.

CompleteClassics.com: Rudyard Kipling, Allen Ginsberg and Alfred Lord Tennyson are all featured here.

PinkPoem.com: On this site, you can download free poetry ebooks.

MISC

Banned Books: Here you can follow links of banned books to their full text online.

World eBook Library: This monstrous collection includes classics, encyclopedias, children’s books and a lot more.

DailyLit: DailyLit has everything from Moby Dick to the recent phenomenon, Skinny Bitch.

A Celebration of Women Writers: The University of Pennsylvania’s page for women writers includes Newbery winners.

Free Online Novels: These novels are fully online and range from romance to religious fiction to historical fiction.

ManyBooks.net: Download mysteries and other books for your iPhone or eBook reader here.

Authorama: Books here are pulled from Google Books and more. You’ll find history books, novels and more.

Prize-winning books online: Use this directory to connect to full-text copies of Newbery winners, Nobel Prize winners and Pulitzer winners.

[rarestcat-deactivated20150809]

Thank you, angel who made this.

[amor-intellectualis]

YOU GUYS THIS SO BEAUTIFUL I WANT TO CRY THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY. IT MAKES ME SO SO SO HAPPY.

[lego-snowflake]

Not all heroes wear capes

[languagessi-deactivated20210423]

By “not-so-popular languages” I mean languages that not many people in the langblr community are learning. Armenian Memrise Mango Languages Loecsen BABADADA Azerbaijani Memrise Mango Languages BABADADA Bengali Memrise Mango Languages Goethe Verlang BABADADA Burmese Memrise Loecsen Cebuano Memrise Digital Dialects BABADADA Filipino/Tagalog Memrise Mango Languages Innovative Language Digital Dialects Internet Polyglot BABADADA Easy Languages

Georgian Memrise Goethe Verlang Hebrew Memrise Duolingo Mango Languages Mondly Loecsen Innovative Language Digital Dialects Goethe Verlang Internet Polyglot BABADADA

Hindi Memrise Duolingo Mango Languages Mondly Loecsen Innovative Language Digital Dialetcs Goethe Verlang Internet Polyglot BABADADA Easy Languages

Indonesian Memrise Duolingo Mango Languages Mondly Loecsen Innovative Language Languages Online Digital Dialects Goethe Verlang Internet Polyglot BABADADA Easy Languages Javanese Memrise Mango Languages Digital Dialects BABADADA Kannada Memrise Goethe Verlang Kazakh Memrise Mango Languages BABADADA Khmer Memrise BABADADA Kurdish Memrise Digital Dialects BABADADA Kyrgyz Memrise BABADADA Malay Memrise Mango Languages Digital Dialects BABADADA Easy Languages Malayalam Memrise Mango Languages Marathi Memrise Goethe Verlang BABADADA Mongolian Memrise Digital Dialects BABADADA Nepali Memrise BABADADA Pashto Memrise Mango Languages Digital Dialects BABADADA Persian Memrise Mango Languages Mondly Loecsen Digital Dialects Goethe Verlang Internet Polyglot BABADADA Punjabi Memrise Mango Languages Goethe Verlang BABADADA Tamil Memrise Mango Languages Digital Dialects Goethe Verlang Internet Polyglot BABADADA Easy Languages Telugu Memrise Mango Languages Goethe Verlang Thai Memrise Mango Languages Mondly Innovative Language Digital Dialects Goethe Verlang Internet Polyglot BABADADA Easy Languages Tibetan Memrise Digital Dialects Turkish Memrise Duolingo Mango Languages Mondly Loecsen Innovative Language Languages Online Digital Dialects Goethe Verlang Internet Polyglot BABADADA Easy Languages BaBaDum Urdu Memrise Mango Languages Innovative Language Digital Dialects Goethe Verlang BABADADA Vietnamese Memrise Duolingo Mango Languages Mondly Loecsen Innovative Language Digital Dialects Goethe Verlang BABADADA Easy Languages

[polskieserce]

“In fact, Finns joke that at the prehistoric separation of Hungarian and Finnish, the Finns went north with the vowels, while the Hungarians went south with the consonants.”

— Ruth H. Sanders, The Languages of Scandinavia: Seven Sisters of the North

[polyglos]

genuinely curious people: how many languages do you actually speak?

me, being useless: i learn several and i speak none of them

[organizedstudy]

Scandinavian langblr culture is seeing someone practicing writing in a Scandinavian language that isn’t yours and you’re like I don’t know if they are making mistakes or if the whole language is wrong

[thelibraryofcontext]

Korean Resources

I’ve updated the Korean Resources section of The Library and I’ve made it rebloggable for those that prefer that :)

Korean

Routledge Grammar - Basic Korean - A Grammar and Workbook (second source) (third source)

Routledge Grammar - Intermediate Korean - A Grammar and Workbook (second source)

Using Korean - A Guide to Contemporary Usage

Korean Grammar for International Learners

Colloquial Korean - The Complete Course for Beginners

Korean Level 1 (Seoul National University)

Essential Korean [Ellen K. Yoon]

Dirty Korean: Everyday Slang from “What’s Up?” to “F*%# Off!” [Haewon Geebi Baek] (second source)

Korean Grammar for International Learners [Ho Bin Ihm, Kyung Pyo Hong, Suk In Chang]

Korean Word Book [Marshal R Pihl]

My First Book of Korean Words: An ABC Rhyming Book [Henry J. Amen IV, Kyubyong Park]

Using Korean: A Guide to Contemporary Usage [Miho Choo, Hye-Young Kwak]

College Korean

Intermediate College Korean [Clare You, Eunsu Cho]

Elementary Korean [Ross King, Jae-Hoon Yeon]

Hippocrene Beginner’s Series - Beginner’s Korean

Korean From Zero 1

Korean Grammar in Use: Beginning to Early Intermediate

Korean through English, Book One

Korean: A Complete Course for Beginners [Jaemin Roh]

My Korean 1 [Young-A Cho, In-Jung Cho, Douglas Ling]

My Korean 2 [Young-A Cho, In-Jung Cho, Douglas Ling]

Step by Step: Korean through 15 Action Verbs [Dr In Ku Kim-Marshall]

Beginner TOPIK Grammar & Vocabulary

Intermediate TOPIK Grammar

TOPIK Elementary Adjectives

TOPIK Elementary Grammar

TOPIK Elementary Nouns

TOPIK Intermediate Adjectives

TOPIK Intermediate Grammar

TOPIK Intermediate Nouns

TOPIK Intermediate Verbs

TOPIK Listening Files

Korean In Action: For International Learners [Gi-Hyun Shin, Adrian Buzo]

Making Out in Korean (second source)

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone [Korean]

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets [Korean]

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban [Korean]

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire [Korean]

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix [ Korean]

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince [Korean]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows [Korean]

[mythwoven]

Alternate universe where I literally just to go to school forever (for free) so I can just learn about art and literature and history and languages for 100 years. No job skills. No credit requirements. No student loans. Just learning.

[lego-snowflake]

Y E S

[secifosseluce]

zodiac sign as untranslatable italian words:

Aries: Trasecolare. (lit. being outside the century; transcending the century; being outside of reality) – verb. losing one’s mind; reaching a state of ecstatic not-being-there through exhaltation, stupor or rage. an extreme, incontrollable state of disbelief and anger. to be out of yourself. used for the medieval hero Orlando in Tasso’s Orlando furioso.

Taurus: Meriggiare. (der. of meridies ‘meriggio’, midday, the hottest hours of the day) – verb. to rest outside immersed in nature, under the shade of a tree. to spend the hottest moment of the day under the cool shade of a tree or building, resting. found in the splendid poem Meriggiare pallido e assorto, by poet Eugenio Montale.

Gemini: Chiacchierone/a. (lit. someone who chats) – noun. someone who talks a lot, sometimes when they shouldn’t; a social butterfly; someone who, however pleasant, has troubles keeping secrets for themselves. used in both a positive or negative way. 

Cancer: Strappacuore. (lit. something that carves the heart out of you) – noun. something so strongly moving that it troubles you deeply; that invokes pathos & true, deep sorrow. something that lacerates your heart because of how sad, humane, moving it is.

Leo: Solleone. (lit. Lion-Sun) – noun for the time period from mid-july to mid-august, when the sun’s at its harshest, fullest, most glorious point. on the calendar, it’s when the sun is in Leo; but it’s also used to describe a very powerful day of sun, when the heat is heavy, the light is overwhelming, and the sun reigns over all other elements.

Virgo: Pignolo/a. (from pigna, lit. a pine cone, referring to its hardness and compactness) – someone who’s very precise, nitpicky and meticulous. the type of person who notices an error and points it out straight away. 

Libra: Sfizio. (lit. whim, fancy) – noun. a caprice, a fanciful desire; the type of wanting you get for something superfluous that appeals to your senses. you crave to indulge in it, just for the fun of it. to indulge in the sfizio is said as togliersi lo sfizio, literally to take the sfizio out of oneself. 

Scorpio: Struggimento. (der. of destroy. meaning, to being destroyed) – noun for  the act of being strutto, which means being dissolved, melted, untied. being in a state of desperate, burning longing; experiencing a tearing-apart of the self. an all-consuming sense of emotional turbulence. 

Sagittarius: Rocambolesco. (der. of Rocambole, the protagonist of a xix series of adventure novels) – adjective for something that’s bold, picaresque, marvelous in its daring. a journey, a story or a dream that presents an almost dream-like quality of being adventurous, risky and full of incredible moments of adrenaline. 

Capricorn: Menefreghismo. (der. of me ne frego, lit. i couldn’t care less) – noun. a lack of caring for what may happen to others; an attitude of detached disinterest; individualism and non-malicious lack of concern for other people’s struggles, victories, needs. 

Aquarius: Dietrologia. (lit. the logic of what’s-behind) – noun, attributing secret meanings to everything. seeing patterns & conspiracies behind ordinary events. often used in political debates, to accuse the opposite party of being paranoid and excessively hypothetical. 

Pisces: Magari. (der. of greek makárie, meaning ‘happy’) – exclamation, used to express a deep desire for something that cannot happen. sometimes used in the form magaraddìo (magari to God!), meaning a wishful if only God wanted it to be so…!