The Alternative Life. @mickybyrd - Tumblr Blog

NEW WEBSITE

Hey guys! So for all of you that enjoyed my language learning post, I have a really awesome announcement!

https://mickybyrd1996.wixsite.com/travelaltlife

Home

I MADE A WEBSITE!!

So I’ve decided to document all of my traveling and language learning on my website and on my brand new Facebook page!

Please check it out and pass it around if you find it interesting; I’ve been working really hard on writing some new posts about all of the countries I visited last summer! <3

Lil Update

It has been so so long since I have done a new post on here, but I’ve got a few coming in the next little bit.

OMG I CANNOT BELIEVE THE LOVE MY LANGUAGE LEARNING RESOURCES POST HAS GOTTEN.

Almost 50k notes, that is crazy guys!

I’ve got a Part 2 planned for that, hopefully it'll be helpful to you all!

To all the new followers: Hello and welcome!

I hope to get to know a lot of you, it seems a lot of us love to travel and learn languages, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Until next time!

#update #2018 #little update

Hey, do you know any translation-interpreting students' blogs?

I do not unfortunately, but if you know of any offhand, Id love to know too, since I’m taking a translation class!

Hey! I'm sure this has already been asked, but I took a leisurely scroll through your blog and didn't find it, but do you have any tips on learning Japanese? I know you're studying it, so how do you go about doing that? I'm going on exchange next year, so I want to start learning! Thanks!!!

Sorry that I’m answering this really really late! I had gotten a book specifically to learn hiragana and katakana, and from then on I used the Yookoso textbooks. Otherwise, I just use the same resources as in my language learning post. I hope your exchange program went/is going well! Sounds exciting!

I saw your post on how you learned languages and since I'm planning on learning Hindi (spanish too, but that's more manageable since I do have some background with it from school), I've got 2 questions: one, is there any methodology/plan you recommend for learning languages with a different alphabet?; and two, any tips on how to retain the language, especially if you can't really speak to other people in it?

So I completely understand the struggle of learning foreign alphabets. When I’m learning Russian, Arabic, Japanese, and Hindi, it can get pretty overwhelming. So for learning alphabets, what I do is copy the letters over and over and over, until I have them down. Practice makes perfect, that’s really all you can do. Also, for retaining a language, I would recommend buying books in that language and using apps like HelloTalk! HelloTalk lets you talk with native speakers of your target language, so that would help you get practice all the time!! I’ve made a bunch of friends from that app, so I really love it. I would also watch alot of Youtube videos in my target language, that way you can get a feel for how words are used. I wish you luck, Hindi is a really awesome language!

Hallo, I am interested in German. I've been learning it for a while. Are there specific websites, learning tools or methods for this specific language? Thanks

I’ve actually never looked into learning German, so for specifically German language resources, I don’t have any suggestions. However, if you search on here for German resources and language learning masterposts, I’m sure that there are HUNDREDS of resources! Also, my language learning post contains many many resources that I’m sure cover German, so I would start with that! I wish you luck in learning German!

You should put the Rosetta Stone Software in your list. Rosetta Stone is proprietary computer-assisted language learning software published by Rosetta Stone Inc. The software uses images, text, and sound to teach words and grammar by spaced repetition, without translation. It can use a persons microphone to help correct pronunciation. Around the world, indigenous communities are working to preserve and revitalize their languages with Rosetta Stone. Only problem is price.

I would’ve, however, I’ve never tried it out before, so I can’t really recommend it. I’ve heard that it really only helps you associate pictures with vocabulary, and it doesn’t really help you understand grammar or understand how sentences are formed together. However, this is only what I’ve HEARD. I honestly have no clue how good it is, but someday I may decide to try it out! But the fact that indigenous communities are using the system to preserve their languages is really awesome!

How many languages do you speak?

I speak French to a high-intermediate/low-advanced level, I’m advanced in Arabic, advanced in Chinese, a beginner in Russian, a beginner in Japanese, a beginner in Hindi, and I’ve casually studied alot of languages, like Icelandic, Hawaiian, Brazilian Portuguese, Irish, Welsh, Latin, Korean, etc.

Hey! I saw your language post, I was wondering if you knew the app hinative? It's an app that you can ask natives questions about the language, like if this sentence sounds right, to translate, if your pronunciation is correct, or what certain words mean. It's pretty useful ^.^

I’ve never heard of it, I’ve just looked it up and it looks awesome! Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll definitely try it out!

sorry quiCK QUEstion-- which 3 are your favourite language learning apps? ty ;w;

Definitely Duolingo, Memrise, and Mondly!

absolutebearings

IT’S NOT ‘PEEKED’ MY INTEREST

OR ‘PEAKED’

BUT PIQUED

‘PIQUED MY INTEREST’

THIS HAS BEEN A CAPSLOCK PSA

owlbearcounter

THIS IS ACTUALLY REALLY USEFUL THANK YOU

ranetree

ADDITIONALLY:

YOU ARE NOT ‘PHASED’. YOU ARE ‘FAZED.’

IF IT HAS BEEN A VERY LONG DAY, YOU ARE ‘WEARY’. IF SOMEONE IS ACTING IN A WAY THAT MAKES YOU SUSPICIOUS, YOU ARE ‘WARY’.

ALL IN ‘DUE’ TIME, NOT ‘DO’ TIME

‘PER SE’ NOT ‘PER SAY’

THANK YOU

tassiekitty

BREATHE - THE VERB FORM IN PRESENT TENSE

BREATH - THE NOUN FORM

THEY ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE

WANDER - TO WALK ABOUT AIMLESSLY

WONDER - TO THINK OF IN A DREAMLIKE AND/OR WISTFUL MANNER

THEY ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE (but one’s mind can wander)

cestnepasuneblog

LOSE - TO MISPLACE SOMETHING

LOOSE - UNATTACHED

YOU LOSE SOMETHING BECAUSE IT IS LOOSE

DEFINITELY NOT DEFIANTLY

COULD OF - NOT A THING

COULD HAVE/COULD’VE - YES A THING

thetinybabiesareafterme4-deacti

YOUR - YOURS YOU’RE - YOU ARE THERE - OVER THERE THEY’RE - THEY ARE THEIR - THEIRS

khirsahle

I COULDN’T CARE LESS- I am so over this shit

I COULD CARE LESS- I am still emotionally invested in this shit

truxi-twice

YEAH - Casual assent, as in: “Yeah, right.” “Yeah, sure.” “Yeah, uh-huh.” Probably the word you are thinking of.

YEA - Formal, archaic assent, as in: “Yea, verily, I say to thee.” “Yea or nay?” Probably not the word you are thinking of.

BEMUSED - is not “amused.” It is “confused.” And honestly, at this point, just…find another word, unless you can make it really clear that you do mean confused, because I don’t know about y’all, but I don’t trust “bemused” when it pops up half the time anymore, because I don’t know how the author meant it, and it can usually read both ways. I am bemused by bemused.

belphegor1982

WHO // THEY - as in “Who saw you?” Subject of the verb.

WHOM // THEM - as in “Whom did you see?” Object of the verb.

presumenothing

SNEAK PEEK NOT SNEAK PEAK

language-untamed

WHEN: EVENT OCCURRING ONE TIME IN THE PAST

WHENEVER: EVENT OCCURRING REPEATEDLY IN THE PAST

**THERE ARE OTHER USES BUT THE PAST ACTIONS TIE MOST PEOPLE UP (I’VE NOTICED)

thepolyglotblog

EN ROUTE NOT ON ROUTE

nnapulitanerd

What I Did After Duolingo

I think this is one of the biggest struggles of the langblr community because once you’re done with duolingo it’s kind of like you’ve just been thrown out on your own with no direction. In all honesty it took me a LOOONG time to figure out what to do with myself and how to keep progressing once I finished the tree, but now I’m at a point in my language journey where I speak my L2 every single day with my native friends. I wouldn’t consider myself fluent, but I’m definitely conversational.

Do the reverse tree I seriously cannot stress this enough. Go through and do the reverse tree of your language (if it’s available, of course). What I mean by this is when I finished the Italian tree for English speakers, I went through and did the English tree for Italian speakers. It may seem redundent, but at least for those two trees, the vocabulary the two trees offered was actually quite different and I ended up learning loads of new vocabulary. Not just new vocabulary, but you’ll have access to the duolingo forums in your target language. You can ask questions to an unrestricted amount of natives, and you could possibly offer help to a bunch of natives who have questions. Also for all of the brave ones out there learning more than 1 language at a time, try to see if there’s a duolingo tree for your L2 to your L3 (for a while I was learning French for Italian speakers)

Flashcards & Vocab Remember to be SMART about the vocab you learn. Learn words that you’ll actually use in day-today conversation. IF you never speak in your native language about a topic, don’t waste your time learning the words in your target language. Vocab isn’t just about acquisition of words, it’s about acquisition of words you will actually need and use. Memrise is my go-to for new and GOOD vocabulary. All of the vocab lists are user-submitted, so you’re guaranteed to get good, commonly used, and NATURAL vocab words that have been put into lists created by native speakers! There are so many thousands of lists for hundreds of languages and it’s honestly a gold mine. They have a mobile app for which you can download lessons so that you have access to them when you’re offline (aka perfect when you don’t want to use cell data or you have crappy service) AND THE BEST PART IS THAT WHATEVER YOU DO OFFLINE GETS SAVED AND YOU CAN JUST PICK BACK UP WHERE YOU LEFT OFF. Not only that, but they have an “ignore” option so that you don’t have to repeat any words that you already know. I love memrise. I’ve even made a few of my own lists just because I’m a hoe for a good deck of flashcards and I love the repetition method of memrise. Also, Memrise is a lot like duo in the aspect that you can add a bunch of friends and it keeps track of your experience points so that you can compete with people if that’s something that helps keep you motivated. They even have different rankings once you accumulate a certain amount of experience (personally, this is a HUGE motivator for me). All in all I love memrise. ALSO it has lots of other things completely unrelated to languages, so even if you dont study languages I would still check it out! ALTERNATIVELY: Anki! Just find somewhere to MAKE FLASHCARDS AND STUDY THE DAMN THINGS. I’ve never used Anki before so I can’t really give a good review on it (however if someone who has used anki wants to shoot me a message, I can add their review to the post or smth). I, personally, used an app called StudyBlue (there’s a desktop version as well) when I was making flashcards because it would let me make decks of like 1,000 words and then I could take quizes (you have the option of doing multiple choice, true/false, and fill in the blanks) and it’ll keep track of your progress and stuff. Also, you have access to other user-submitted flashcard decks so it’s pretty cool in that sense!

LEARN THE DANG GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURES (Honestly you’d think this one would go without saying) I think people get too caught up in the accumulation of new words to stop and realize that knowing 8,000 fancy words is completely pointless if you don’t know how to put them in a sentence. To me, this is 900000000% more important than vocabulary, because if you don’t know a word you can quick do a simple search for a single word and slap it into a sentence, but if you don’t know an entire sentence structure you’re dead meat, kid. Please make notes and try to form simple sentences for all of the grammatical conventions, different verb tenses, etc. Also, don’t just learn HOW to use them, but WHEN to use them. — A really good website for explaining grammatical conventions in super simple terms is about.com. They have AMAZING resources! Lots of vocab lists, information on grammatical structures, verb conjugations, verb charts, etc. Plus, you can even sign up for newsletters, “word of the day” emails, and things of that nature. Here are the language subsections of the website that I’m aware of: Italian About, Spanish About, French About, German About. There might be more, but I’ve never checked. It should be easy to find out if they have a subsection for the website that you’re looking for, just type in “LANGUAGEHERE.about.com” into the browser and try your luck! — If there isn’t an about page for your language, google is your BEST FRIEND I PROMISE.

Switch to your target language This one is pretty simple: change your phone and all of your social media over to your target language. If you’re feeling really brave; change your entire computer over to your target language. This one didn’t particularly do a whole lot for me as far as learning new vocabulary and sentence structure, but I’ve always been really bad at trying to remember days of the week, names of the month, telling time, etc. and changing my phone over to my target language helped solidify that information in my brain and now I can throw out dates and times like I was born to do it. – ALSO: Since I know you’re on tumblr if you’re reading this post, FOLLOW BLOGS THAT POST CRAP IN YOUR TARGET LANGUAGE. I follow so many Italian blogs, and honestly it’s just super great exposure for my dash to be half Italian, half English.

YOUTUBE God I frickin love youtube. There are LOTS of super great language-learning youtubes out there, and lots of channels that have subtitles. BASICALLY YOUTUBE IS AN UNLIMITED BOX OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LISTENING SKILLS. You like watching monthly favorites videos? Plug the line “my monthly favorites” (in your target language ofc) into the search bar and BOOM. You like watching pokemon letsplays? FIND U A DAMN POKEMON LETSPLAY SERIES IN YOUR TARGET LANGUAGE. You wont understand everything at first, but trust me just hearing the language makes life easier. One thing I like to do is listen to asmr videos in my target language because people tend to speak more slowly in ASMR vidoes and it’s far easier for me to understand them.

NETFLIX On the note of listening skills, WATCH NETFLIX IN YOUR TARGET LANGUAGE. There’s this really great google chrome extension called “Hola!” (the picture is a little flame with a face on it) that is basically a proxy extension so you can change what country you’re browsing the internet from, and–in turn–access netflix in different countries. This lets you have access to web-series’ and movies that might not be on the netflix in your country (fun fact, the first two Kung Fu Panda movies aren’t on America’s netflix list, but they’re on Italy’s netflix list in case you want to watch), and also access to films and series that were CREATED IN YOUR TARGET LANGUAGE!!! Not to mention access to subtitles, which is always a wonderful thing. (p.s. you can use Hola! for any website you want to, and it doesn’t slow your internet down ;) )

MUSIC PLEASE LISTEN TO MUSIC IN YOUR TARGET LANGUAGE. Not only will you feel super cool and empowered once you can start singing along to songs in a foreign language, but you’ll feel even MORE super cool and empowered when you start understanding the lyrics of the songs you’ve learned. Also: please, please, please look up the lyrics to the songs you’re listening to. It’ll prevent you from singing along and mis-singing (is that a word lmao) lyrics and making silly errors, you feel me. A big bonus of listening to music is that you inadvertently pick up pronunciation skills! It’s great fun, I love music. – One way you can find foreign music is through spotify. You can go to the top 50 charts of different countries, and that’s a great way to get exposure to boppin’ tunes in your target language. Just go to the main menu then to charts, and then click “top 50 by country” and find the country you’re looking for and TADA. // CONVERSELY: If you don’t like spotify, use pandora, or find some songs you like in your target language and plug them into the youtube search bar and then weed through the recommended videos on the sidebar and find new music that way!

Children’s books This might not be for everyone, but sincerely googling and reading children’s books in your target language is a great way to get used to sentence structure. You might not know all the words, but sometimes it’s just such a wonderful thing to read such simple sentences and to just practice that sort of stuff. – If reading children’s books isn’t your style, then read books that you ARE interested in. Read translations of your favorite books, read books that were written originally in your target language, just read books man.

ASK QUESTIONS PLS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD This one can get to be a little tricky because it might be hard to find someone to ask questions to, but please keep in mind that there are lots of different native languages in the langblr community and we’re all here for the sole purpose of helping each other out so please don’t be afraid of asking a native (or even someone who’s fluent) to explain something or to correct your sentences, etc.

Find speaking partners Personally, I think this should be the LAST thing on your list of priorities. I KNOW LOTS OF PEOPLE WILL DISAGREE WITH ME BUT HEAR ME OUT: I think it’s rather discouraging to try and pressure yourself to speak your target language and realize “wow I’m not as good as I thought I was”, or to feel like you’re bad because you know so many words and you study your verb tenses but you still can’t make good conversation, etc. I THINK YOU SHOULD WAIT A WHILE BEFORE FINDING A SPEAKING PARTNER, but you definitely need to do it. I would wait until you’re comfortable reading and understanding your target language as well as forming basic sentences and stuff like that. JUST A WARNING, FINDING A LANGUAGE PARTNER IS HARD AS HELL. IT’S LITERALLY A NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK ORDEAL. I used Hellotalk to find all of my language partners, however you could probably just as easily find language partners on other social media outlets like tumblr, facebook, twitter, etc. (Actually, using those types of social medias might be more comfortable for most people). A good way to find people on facebook is to join a bunch of language groups on facebook, and even if you don’t find language partners you can still see posts in your target language. REMEMBER IT’S ALL ABOUT EXPOSURE FOLKS. The more exposure the better. Like I mentioned: I do think you need to hold off a bit on finding a speaking partner, but I will say that for absolute certain speaking partners are astronomically more helpful than anything I’ve mentioned on this list. You can listen and read and make flashcards and write sentences to yourself, but at the end of the day is netflix REALLY going to fix that grammatical error you made?

Last but not least: please don’t be so hard on yourself. Making mistakes is ONLY NATURAL. Just think of learning a language like any other kind of skill; you make lots of mistakes when learning how to do anything but you learn from your mistakes and soon enough you stop making those mistakes and keep refining your skills. a quick vote of confidence for you all before you leave: I once confused the italian word for panties(mutande) with the word for snacks(merende) and basically told my friend “I BOUGHT SO MANY PANTIES IM GOING TO EAT THEM UNTIL I DIE”. And like two days ago I mixed up the word for the color lavender(lavanda) and the word for laundry(lavanderia) and told my friend she should wear a laundry-colored dress to her sister’s wedding. OKAY– in all seriousness, it’s really important to remember that mistakes are natural and they’re nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, once you learn that making mistakes is totally normal to do, you’ll enjoy yourself much more and learn way better. HAVE FUN AND STUDY HARD I BELIEVE IN YOU ALL.

smegmabinch-deactivated20200425

300 Basic French Words and Phrases

Based on the method created by funwithlanguages!

First Verbs 1. Be - être 2. There is - il y a 3. Have - avoir 4. Do - faire 5. Go - aller 6. Want - vouloir 7. Can - pouvoir 8. Need - devoir, avoir besoin 9. Think - penser 10. Know - savoir (facts, how to do something), connaître (people, be familiar with) 11. Say - dire 12. Like - aimer, apprécier 13. Speak - parler 14. Learn - apprendre 15. Understand - comprendre Conjunctions 1. That (as in “I think that…” or “the woman that…”) - que 2. And - et 3. Or - ou 4. But - mais 5. Because - car, parce que 6. Though - cependant 7. So (meaning “therefore”; e.g. “I wanted it, so I bought it”) - donc 8. If - si Prepositions 1. Of - de 2. To - à 3. From - de 4. In - en 5. At (a place) - à 6. At (a time) - à 7. With - avec 8. About - à propos, sur 9. Like (meaning “similar to”) - comme 10. For - pour 11. Before (also as a conjunction) - avant 12. After (also as a conjunction) - après 13. During - pendant Question Words 1. Who - qui 2. What - quoi, que 3. Where - où 4. When - quand 5. Why - pourquoi 6. How - comment 7. How much - combien 8. Which - lequel/laquelle/lesquels/lesquelles Adverbs 1. A lot - beaucoup 2. A little - un peu 3. Well, good - bien, bon 4. Bad, badly - mal, mauvais 5. Only - seulement, juste 6. Also - aussi 7. Very - très 8. Too (as in “too tall”) - trop 9. Too much - trop 10. So (as in “so tall”) - tellement, si 11. So much - beaucoup 12. More (know how to say “more … than …”) - plus (que) 13. Less (know how to say “less … than …”) - moins (de) 14. As … as … (e.g. “as tall as”) - aussi (… que) 15. Most - la plupart, le/la/les plus 16. Least - moins 17. Better - mieux 18. Best - meilleur 19. Worse - pire 20. Worst - pire 21. Now - maintenant 22. Then - puis 23. Here - ici 24. There - là 25. Maybe - peut-être 26. Always - toujours 27. Usually - habituellement 28. Often - souvent 29. Sometimes - parfois 30. Never - jamais 31. Today - aujourd’hui 32. Yesterday - hier 33. Tomorrow - demain 34. Soon - bientôt 35. Almost - presque 36. Already - déjà 37. Still - toujours 38. Even - même 39. Enough - assez Adjectives 1. The, a - le/la/les, un/une/des 2. This - ceci, cela/ça 3. That - ceci, cela/ça 4. Good - bon 5. Bad - mauvais 6. All - tout, tous 7. Some - quelque(s) 8. No - aucun(e)(s) 9. Any - n’importe quel(le)(s) 10. Many - beaucoup 11. Few - peu 12. Most - plus 13. Other - autre(s) 14. Same - même 15. Different - différent 16. Enough - assez 17. One - une 18. Two - deux 19. A few - quelques 20. First - premier 21. Next - suivant 22. Last (meaning “past”, e.g. “last Friday”) - dernier 23. last (meaning “final”) - dernier 24. Easy - simple, facile 25. Hard - compliqué, difficile 26. Early - tôt 27. Late - tard 28. Important - important 29. Interesting - intéressant 30. Fun - amusement 31. Boring - ennuyeux 32. Beautiful - beau(x)/belle(s) 33. Big - grand(e) 34. Small - petit(e) 35. Happy - heureux 36. Sad - triste 37. Busy - occupé 38. Excited - enthousiaste 39. Tired - fatigué 40. Ready - prêt 41. Favorite - favori 42. New - nouveau 43. Right (meaning “correct”) - bonne 44. Wrong - mal 45. True - vrai Pronouns Know them in the subject (“I”), direct object (“me”), indirect object (“to me”), and possessive (“my”) forms. 1. I - je (subject), moi (object), mon/ma/mes (possessive) 2. You - tu (subject), toi (object), ton/ta/tes (possessive) 3. She - elle (subject), elle (object), son/sa/ses (possessive) 4. He - il (subject), lui (object), son/sa/ses (possessive) 5. It - il, ça/c’ 6. We - nous (subject), nous (object), notre/nos (possessive) 7. You (plural/ formal) - vous (subject), vous (object), votre/vos (possessive) 8. They - elles, ils (subject), elles, eux (object), leur(s) (possessive) Nouns If your language has grammatical gender, then learn each noun as “the [noun]” with “the” in the correct gender. (e.g. in Spanish, instead of learning language = “idioma”, learn language = “el idioma”.) This will help you remember the gender. 1. Everything - tout 2. Something - quelque chose 3. Nothing - rien 4. Eeveryone - tout le monde 5. Someone - quelqu’un 6. No one - personne 7. French - Français 8. English - Anglais 9. Thing - une chose 10. Person - une personne 11. Place - un endroit 12. Time (as in “a long time”) - le temps 13. Time (as in “I did it 3 times”) - une fois 14. Friend - un(e)(s)/des ami(e)(s), pote(s) 15. Woman - une femme 16. Man - un homme 17. Money - de l’argent 18. Country - un pays 19. United States of America - Des Etats-Unis d’Amérique 20. City - une ville 21. Language - une langue 22. Word - un mot 23. Food - une nourriture 24. House - une maison 25. Store - un magasin 26. Office - un bureau, un travail 27. Company - une entreprise 28. Manager - un manager 29. Coworker - un collègue 30. Job - un travail 31. Work (as in “I have a lot of work to do”) - un travail 32. Problem - un problème 33. Question - une question 34. Idea - une idée 35. Life - une vie 36. World - un monde 37. Day - un jour 38. Year - une année 39. Week - une semaine 40. Month - un mois 41. Hour - une heure 42. Mother, father, parent - une mère, un père, un parent 43. Daughter, son, child - une fille, un fils, un enfant 44. Wife, husband - une femme, un mari 45. Girlfriend, boyfriend - une copine, un copain More Verbs 1. Work (as in a person working) - travailler 2. Work (meaning “to function”, e.g. “the TV works”) - fonctionner 3. See - voir 4. Use - utiliser 5. Should - devoir 6. Believe - croire 7. Practice - s’entraîner 8. Seem - sembler 9. Come - venir 10. Leave - quitter 11. Return - retourner 12. Give - donner 13. Take - prendre 14. Bring - apporter 15. Look for - chercher 16. Find - trouver 17. Get (meaning “obtain”) - obtenir 18. Receive - recevoir 19. Buy - acheter 20. Try - essayer 21. Start - commencer 22. Stop (doing something) - arrêter 23. Finish - finir 24. Continue - continuer 25. Wake up - se réveiller 26. Get up - se lever 27. Eat - manger 28. Eat breakfast - manger le petit déjeuner 29. Eat lunch - déjeuner 30. Eat dinner - manger le dîner 31. Happen - se produire 32. Feel - ressentir 33. Create (aka “make”) - créer 34. Cause (aka “make”) - faire 35. Meet (meeting someone for the first time) - rencontrer 36. Meet (meaning “to bump into”) - rencontrer 37. Meet (an arranged meeting) - retrouver 38. Ask (a question) - demander 39. Ask for (aka “request”) - demander 40. Wonder - se demander 41. Reply - réponse 42. Mean - signifier 43. Read - lire 44. Write - écrire 45. Listen - écouter 46. Hear - entendre 47. Remember - se souvenir de 48. Forget - oublier 49. Choose - choisir 50. Decide - décider 51. Be born - né 52. Die - mourir 53. Kill - tuer 54. Live - vivre 55. Stay - rester 56. Change - changer 57. Help - aider 58. Send - envoyer 59. Study - étudier 60. Improve - améliorer 61. Hope - espérer 62. Care - se sentir concerné Phrases 1. Hello - bonjour 2. Goodbye - au revoir 3. Thank you - merci 4. You’re welcome - je t’en/vous en prie 5. Excuse me (to get someone’s attention) - excuse(z) moi, pardon 6. Sorry - désolé(e) 7. It’s fine (response to an apology) - ce n’est pas grave 8. Please - s’il te/vous plait 9. Yes - oui 10. No - non 11. Okay - ok 12. My name is - Je m’appelle 13. What’s your name? - Quel est votre nom? 14. Nice to meet you. - Enchanté. 15. How are you? - Comment allez-vous? 16. I’m doing well, how about you? - Je fais bien, que diriez-vou? 17. Sorry? / What? (if you didn’t hear something) - Comment? 18. How do you say ______? - Comment dite-on ______? 19. What does ______ mean? - Que veut dire ______? 20. I don’t understand. - Je ne comprends pas. 21. Could you repeat that? - Pourriez-vous répéter? 22. Could you speak more slowly, please? - Pouvez-vous parler plus lentement, s’il vous plait? 23. Well (as in “well, I think…”) - eh bien, alors 24. Really? - Vraiment? 25. I guess that - Je suppose que 26. It’s hot. (talking about the weather) - Il fait chaud. 27. It’s cold. (talking about the weather) - Il fait froid.

mickybyrd

Going to Canada soon, so imma need this 👌🏻

fusdoq

An Introduction to Arabic Grammar

So I have thought about making a quick and simple intro to Arabic grammar, this mysterious and beautiful language that is hard to grab and take hold of easily! (I know what I am talking about because, even I am a native speaker, I faced a huge problem to simplify and make things clear in this post!!). Thus, here are some general points about Arabic grammar (نحو و صرف):

Arabic sentence structure:

English is an SVO language: Subject+ Verb+ Object/Adjective/ Adverb. Arabic can follow this order too, but it is so heavy and unnatural. Actually, Arabic has 2 different types of sentences;

the verbal sentence (الجملة الفعلية ) and the nominal sentence (الجملة الإسمية). The verbal sentence has a general form of VSO: Verb+ Subject+ Object/ Adjective/Adverb… Ex: ذهب أحمد إلى المدرسة (‘went Ahmed to school’= Ahmed went to school).

The nominal sentence has the form of Object/ Subject (noun) + adjective/adverb/verb (but it is rare for the latter case). Ex: رنيم فتاة رائعة (‘Ranim girl wonderful’ = Ranim is a wonderful girl). What is the difference? The first structure is used for sentences where there is a verb (as the name indicates), and the other one for the rest.

But wait; is there a sentence without a verb?!!! That leads us to the next point!

There is no verb “to be” in Arabic:

Ok this may sounds crazy to some, especially whose first language is romance or Germanic one, but believe me, there are other languages that doesn’t have “ to be” too. In Arabic, it is simple, no “to be” at all, not in the present, in the past nor in the future! It is so easy, just pull away this verb. Ex: you want to say “I am happy”, say ‘I happy’ ـة /أنا فرح

Articles (the/ A):

There is only the offset of « the » which is ‘al’ ( الـ), applies for all gender and number ( because some languages do have some differences but not Arabic). There is only a problem of the pronunciation sometimes, which I’ll treat in another post.

Remember! No “a”!!

Gender and number:

Ahhh! This!! We have a lot of pronouns, a loooot(!!!) which are based in specified gender and number.

Let’s take an example of “you”; there are anta (أنت singular masculine), anti (أنتِ singular feminine), antouma (you two masculine and feminine), antom ( أنتم plural masculine) and antona ( أنتنَ plural feminine ). Imagine this with all the other pronouns!! And of course, there is an accordance with verbs and adjectives depending on that! (But don’t worry, in the majority of Arabic dialects, things are a lot easier and some pronouns are never used).

Roots system:

Arabic language is based over a system of roots and there are like “templates” that help construct words. Roots are mostly formed o 3 letters (sometimes 4 letters), and everything can be derived of them.

Let’s take an example: the root ( ك.ت.ب) =write and the derivations : the verb kataba كتب( write), kiteb كتاب (book), kateb كاتب (writer), maktaba مكتبة (library), the verb taketaba تكاتب ( exchange messages, letters, anything written), etc… I’ll make another more detailed post about that if you want

Pronunciation and conjugation:

This is the most difficult part! The pronunciations of words depends on their function in the sentence and their conjugated form!! I am not only talking about verbs, I am talking about every single word in the sentence!

Well to be honest, it’s not ALL the word that changes in pronunciation, only the last syllable. And there are three possibilities: الضم (addam) which add the sound ‘oo’, الفتح (al-fat’h) which add the sound ‘a’ and الكسر (al-kassr) which add the sound ‘ee’. I’ll try to make a post about that; the functions in the sentence and which modification has its one.

These modifications are called علامات الإعراب (literal translation: Arabisation signs) and I think this is so accurate! Because this is so specific to Arabic, but it is also pretty hard to learn ( don’t forget the gazillion exceptions that there are!!). Even native speakers make mistakes in that. Actually, the majority of our generation mispronounce everything (and this is very sad :/), so don’t worry! Don’t put too much effort in this! But if you master them, you’ll be an amazing and beautiful Arabic speaker!! This will make you so special!!

This is what I managed to remember about Arabic specific Grammar, and I should mention here that I’m talking about the standard Arabic, Fus’ha that is recognized in every country talking Arabic, dialects differ! I hope this help you get an idea about how Arabic functions, good luck in your learning and if you need any help in Arabic, have any questions or suggestions, please tell me! I’ll be more than happy to help ^^ more posts are coming!

mickybyrd

This is so helpful ❤️

ricardastudies-deactivated20170

DICTIONARY MASTERPOST

pons [Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Turkish]

shabdkosh [Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu]

wordreference [Arabic, Chinese, Czech, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Turkish]

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bab.la [Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Swahili, Turkish]

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cambridge [Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese]

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Macedonian time, off.net.mk

Malay bhanot, kamus

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Mandarin dict.cn, mdbg

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Norwegian ordnett

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Uzbek zangorikema

Welsh geiriadur

Vietnamese vietdictionary, vdict

Zulu isizulu

spraak-och-lunnefaaglar

So here’s a folder containing grammar from eVERY LANGUAGE I CAN THINK OF holy shit

Seriously, there’s like even 10 Aboriginal languages

Enjoy it lol

obsessedwithlanguages

omg

polyglotweekly

POLYGLOT WEEKLY’S REBLOG OF THE WEEK

I feel bad about not following all of my lovely followers back. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to get sucked into social media and not come up for air if my Dashboard is too full. So as a compromise, I decided to add this feature. Once a week, I’ll browse my followers’ blogs to find something pertinent to the blog and reblog it to help spread the love and information.

So for the other grammar nuts like me, this is pretty freaking incredible. There is even a separate folder for sign languages with multiple resources. Beautiful resource.

Hi! I really appreciated your post with the language resources, but would it be possible for you to add which ones are free, for android, for iPhone, etc.?

I'm glad you liked it! And sure, I'll get right on that!

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