MJ (They/he)

A teen author who keeps trying (and failing) to motivate themself to learn languages and to conlang. Main writeblr is @mj-is-writing

[mj-is-learning-languages]

¡Hola! Esta es un blog donde hablaré de mis experiencias de aprender español. Mi lengua nativa es inglés, así que sé que hay y habré muchos errores aquí. Si hablas español, por favor corrígeme. Mi blog principal es @mj-is-writing y allí hablo de escritor un libro (a veces. La mayoridad del tiempo es solo memes). Me llamo MJ y cuando hablo de mi mismo, usó el masculino. En inglés mis pronombres son they/them y he/him.

Hello! This is a blog where I will talk about my experiences learning Spanish. My native language is English, so I know that there are and will be many mistakes here. If you speak Spanish, please correct me. My main blog is @mj-is-writing and I talk about writing a book there (sometimes. Most of the time it’s just memes). My name is MJ, and when I talk about myself in Spanish, I use the masculine form. In English my pronouns are they/them and he/him.

Languages I want to learn // idiomas que quiero aprender

French 🇫🇷

German 🇩🇪

Japanese 🇯🇵

Korean 🇰🇷

Hebrew 🇮🇱

Danish 🇩🇰

(Brazilian) Portuguese 🇧🇷

Italian 🇮🇹

Greek 🇬🇷

Irish 🇮🇪

Welsh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Languages I am learning right now // idiomas que aprendo ahora

(Latin American) Spanish 🇲🇽

[arisefairsun]

Hello! I don't know if you've discussed this before, but you mentioned your first language was Spanish, I was wondering how Shakespeare's writings translates into other languages? Like if they're able to keep the rhyme and meter and such? Thank you!

Hello dear! Oh my, I’m majoring in translation studies, you know, so I have a lot of feelings about this—I actually wish to become a Shakespeare translator in the future.

My knowledge is limited to the languages I understand, of course (so Spanish, Portuguese, Galician, French, and Italian), but in my experience, a translation is ultimately a metamorphosis. Each language has a different vibrancy, a sort of uniqueness that defines it; they embody reality in their own peculiar way, and the speaker’s thoughts flow differently through the shape of its words. What distinguishes a language is its own rarity and its personal beauty.

The act of translation must be conceived within these differences; it is about changing a text, furnishing the words with new colors. That is, you have to cheat on Shakespeare in order to do him justice: in your translation, Mercutio and Romeo might not play with the word ‘goose’ in 2.4, but they shall play with another animal or thing which is related to race, folly, and women in your language. Ultimately, what we must do is alter the flesh of the text, its words, and hopefully keep its true essence intact: we must learn to discern that wordless beauty which lies beneath the language of the play and let it flow it in our own text with new words. It’s a constant paraphrase. To quote Juliet, we need to drink from the utterance of the characters’s tongues. To translate a Shakespeare play is to delve into all its complexity—a translator must be a reader, an editor, a critic, a writer all at once. One must bare the play entirely, and then dress it again.

Keep reading

[bodhrancomedy]

Listen, for people wanting to call out colonialism, there are way too many of you mocking Irish, Welsh, and Scottish names.

No, they’re not alphabet soup, no they do not look like “you’ve thrown letters at a wall and used what stuck,” they are living, breathing languages which we did CPR on after the British Empire shot them.

Like, people DIED to keep them alive.

Every time I see some (English/American) interviewer make an entire segment forcing Saoirse Ronan to list off Irish names, I die a little inside. It’s particularly galling to see the same people ooh-ing over how “mystical” they sound, or claiming ancient heritage to us.

Realise there’s a world beyond your myopic lens and just accept sometimes you’ve got new stuff to learn. Fuck knows I do.

[spyld]

Speak Your Language Day

BRINGING BACK THE DAY OF LANGUAGES!!!

This year's 7th of May 2023 we use our own language again!

A few basic rules (this is very much copied from the original UYLD creators):

If your language is something other than English, on May 7th you can speak that language all day!

Speak whatever language feels good for you! Any and all!!

You’ll blog in your language all day: text posts, replies, tags (except triggers and organizational tags), the whole nine yards. Regardless of what language people choose to speak to you, you answer in your own.

Midnight to midnight according to your own time zone

English native speakers, if you wanna participate you can practice a second language you’re learning

The tag is gonna be #Speak Your Language Day or #spyld

Non-verbal, non-written languages (like ASl, dialects, otherwise non-written languages) are more than welcome!

Tag me in any and all non english posts! Or submit to your liking!

[sic-semper-amicis-deactivated20]

There's also International Mother Language Day on 21 February if you wanna do a trial run or are itching to participate sooner than May!

[atlasmountaingirl]

My friend needs your feedback!! He runs a website [Lingopie] where you can learn a language by watching TV shows and movies.

As a polyglot, he is super passionate about learning and teaching languages and wants to help students and language learners succeed. He has been working on this project 24/7, so your feedback would make his day! Here is the problem:

His website is still young, so they have limited funds to obtain licenses for movies and television shows. To help as many people as possible, he is wondering what languages you would like to learn or have exams for, so he can focus on expanding the media collection for these languages. I really like him and want his project to succeed, so I created a form where you can vote.

The following languages are available at the moment: Japanese 🇯🇵, Korean 🇰🇷, Spanish 🇪🇸, French 🇫🇷, German 🇩🇪, Italian 🇮🇹, Portuguese 🇵🇹 and English 🇺🇸

Which language are you most interested in? Please vote here!

[hopelessbutcoping]

but...do they have any lgbtq shows?

[atlasmountaingirl]

Not yet, but I just asked and he said he would love to obtain licensing if there is enough interest!!!

I have updated the form. You can vote HERE (X)

[c-again]

omg I've always wanted to learn spanish in gay!

[hopelessbutcoping]

GO VOTE EVERYONE! I NEED THIS!

[quaking-closethedoor]

okay i just checked out their website and making flashcards out of tv scenes seems quite useful. feedback sent

[mj-is-learning-languages]

Just a reminder that grammatical gender is not the same as the gender that people have. I see a lot of people online who think that all gendered languages are a problem, and they can be frustrating, but a lot of that seems to come from a lack of understanding on what grammatical gender even does.

Like, first of all, the categories themselves are arbitrary for the most part. “Masculine” and “feminine” for nouns doesn’t actually mean that your chair is a woman. The word for chair in Spanish is feminine, which means that it gets described with feminine articles (la, una, las, unas), adjectives (usually ending in an -a), and objective pronouns (la). Again, none of this has anything to do with the chair actually being female. It’s just the category that the word falls under, and that category tells us how to talk about it in a sentence. The grammatical genders could literally be anything; maybe some words are purple and some are green, and you have to describe purple words differently than green ones.

Second, some words even to describe people have a specific gender that does not ever change. La persona is a feminine word regardless of the gender of the person being talked about. Soy una persona, even though I’m not a woman. Even in a gendered language, there are some words that don’t gender the person in question.

It definitely can be frustrating and does mean that a lot of situations that don’t need to be gendered are gendered (for example, saying a sentence about my teacher would automatically gender the teacher, depending on if I say profesor or profesora), but a lot of people don’t even seem to realize that in grammar, gender means something different. Which is honestly a shame, because overall it opens up new ways to be more descriptive. For example, if I’m in another room and drop something, and sigh está rota (it’s broken), you automatically know that whatever I broke is a feminine object. So it can’t be, for example, a plate (un plato). Maybe it’s a cup (una taza). Sure, it’s not necessary, but it can be very interesting.

[jabalinya-deactivated20230507]

I would add here perhaps that in Afroasiatic languages that maintain their gender distinctions there is an interplay between perceived social gender and grammatical gender—most relevant cultures here (pretty much all that I’ve seen but I don’t want to assume) have a fairly strict gender binary specifically in regards to animate nouns and referents. It certainly finds itself much more abstract and dare I say meaningless for inanimate nouns but many of these languages lack a neuter gender which can be found in various parts of Indo-European where there’s languages that have a third, common gender that in itself is not the default. In most Afroasiatic languages there’s no real distinction specifically between masculine and common gender and usually when gender is leveled, most commonly in the plural (such as in many Arabic varieties in Yemen), the masculine form becomes the common gender. If they do have a neuter it tends to be part of a wider areal phenomenon (like in South Cushitic).

They also have a pretty common phenomenon known as gender polarity where say, the plural form of a masculine noun takes on feminine markers and perhaps adjectival agreement but that’s highly variable—it doesn’t change the perceived gender of the noun but it changes the grammatical marking for sure. So in, er, Gorwaa (a Cushitic language from Tanzania) you have:

[t͡sʼaχwáj t͡ɬʼéːr] ‘a long grasshopper’

[t͡sʼaχwáj t͡ɬʼét] ‘a long swarm of grasshoppers’

While there’s of course other things going on here the difference between the singular masculine [-éːr] and plural feminine [-ét] does of course incorporate an interplay between gender and number that has nothing to do with the perceived gender of the noun in this case.

It would be really helpful for more people to be aware that this topic varies between language phyla at times rather heavily, albeit most grammatical gender people see and for some odd reason criticize is definitely in Romance languages.

[mj-is-learning-languages]

Yes! My example was Spanish because that’s the language I’m learning and know the most about but this definitely is a topic that applies to more than just Romance languages.

[shrews-studies]

How to get good at pronunciation

Some of these you might already do, some not, but I hope it helps a bit!!

Listen to lots of music

And not just listen, read the lyrics (you can also use this opportunity to learn new words) and say them! Sing them, read them out, mutter under your breath on public transport, try to mimic the exact way the singer says it, try to get your mouth accustomed to the way the words are shaped.

Listen to podcasts, if possible

This makes you more accustomed to the sound of the language as it is in an everyday context. In music, people often give words a different rhythm than natural, or slur their speech and omit syllables, so podcasts can help provide you with more "usual" speech too.

Study phonetics

Actually take a book on phonetics and study it, with rules and exceptions and preferably audio example.

Every time you learn a new word, check the pronunciation

This goes especially for languages with inconsistent pronunciation or where the stress changes the word a lot! Listen to the Google/Yandex translate audio of it, or check wiktionary, and try to say it out loud too. Sounds frustrating and pointless but does genuinely help

When you encounter a new word, don't type it into the translator, use voice recognition instead

Say the word until it recognises, check the meaning and the correct pronunciation, and if you were wrong at first, say it a few times out loud again. This helps build your intuition about correct pronunciation

If it's possible, ask the opinion of native speakers

They can give you feedback and point out any consistent mistakes, it helped me more than I expected

Talk as much as you can!

Remember, practice makes perfect

Most importantly, remember that it's okay to have an accent and it sounds really pretty :]

Most native speakers find it pretty if you have an accent in their language! The main goal is just to be understood, your accent doesn't make you bad at the language. Keep up the amazing work 💜

[mj-is-learning-languages]

No he practicado mi español mucho en los meses pasados… ¿alguien tiene ideas para incorporar español en mi vida? Nadie en my familia lo habla y no tengo amigos que lo hablan así que is difícil encontrar caminos para practicar.

[thequeenwanderer]

Polyglots and language lovers,

English is such a bizarre choice to become the universal language as it is slowly becoming. It's hard to learn, even harder to master, and a ridiculous blend of a bunch of other languages.

If you could pick which language to make the universal, which would you pick and why?

[mj-is-learning-languages]

It’s a hard question because what is considered “hard” to learn varies by one’s native language, and if I were to designate the universal standard I would want it to be the “easiest” to learn so that no one is starting with an inherent advantage (aside from the native speakers of that language, I suppose, but that can’t really be helped). A Romance language would probably be the best for much of the western world since the Latin alphabet is widely used, but Asian languages have their own scripts and the speakers would still have to learn the alphabet. The reverse is true if an Asian language become the standard. I don’t know nearly enough about other language families (African languages, Indigenous American, etc.) to even talk about how they relate or not to Romance and Germanic languages.

The true ideal, I guess, would be a conlang with its own script, truly phonetic spelling, and grammar that is as simple as possible. But that has obviously never worked when tried in the past (Esperanto) and still has the issue that it will have to have grammar based on something and therefore will have similar issues as picking an existing language in regards to being easier for some people to learn than others (for example, I don’t speak Esperanto but if I recall correctly it’s most similar to the Romance languages?).

So in summary, I really can’t pick anything because it’s a nearly impossible choice. I think Japanese is cool though.

[doitinanotherlanguage]

“To say there is no worth in learning a language that isn’t economically useful is like saying there’s no point in being friends with somebody unless they’re going to help you get a better job. It’s a spectacular, cynical miss of the point.”

—

Rhona NicDhùghaill, “Don’t Neglect the UK’s Indigenous Languages”

The whole article is great, but this quote is especially stellar. 

(via allthingslinguistic)

[learnlanguageswithani]

making connections between what you're learning while studying a language is so satisfying. figuring out elements of grammar and what certain words mean by context clues is one of the best things.

[fluencylevelfrench]

A big thank you to all of the native speakers out there who take the time to read and correct posts. Without you the langblr community wouldn’t be the same! We learn from mistakes, so keep correcting :)

[earhartsease]

[ID: youtube comment from Hal Sawyer:

My favorite relic English still used everywhere is the word “the” used in phrases like: “the more I look at this, the stranger it seems, or “the bigger they come, the harder they fall”. This “the” is not the article of any noun, it is a different word, a conjunction descended from the old English “þā”, pronounced “tha” which means either “when” or “then”. Back in early Middle English the structure “if - then” had not taken over and if you wanted to express an if - then relationship you said “þā whatever, þā whatever”, meaning “when such-and- such, then such-and-such”. “þā” sounds almost the same as “the” and the spelling of the two converged, but the meaning remained totally different. “the more, the merrier” literally means “when more, then merrier” or “if more, then merrier’; same as centuries ago.

end ID]

this is so cool

[mortimermcmirestinks]

WHAT THE FUCK!?

[watermelonmountaindew]

i need to know every language immediately

[mj-is-learning-languages]

Just a reminder that grammatical gender is not the same as the gender that people have. I see a lot of people online who think that all gendered languages are a problem, and they can be frustrating, but a lot of that seems to come from a lack of understanding on what grammatical gender even does.

Like, first of all, the categories themselves are arbitrary for the most part. “Masculine” and “feminine” for nouns doesn’t actually mean that your chair is a woman. The word for chair in Spanish is feminine, which means that it gets described with feminine articles (la, una, las, unas), adjectives (usually ending in an -a), and objective pronouns (la). Again, none of this has anything to do with the chair actually being female. It’s just the category that the word falls under, and that category tells us how to talk about it in a sentence. The grammatical genders could literally be anything; maybe some words are purple and some are green, and you have to describe purple words differently than green ones.

Second, some words even to describe people have a specific gender that does not ever change. La persona is a feminine word regardless of the gender of the person being talked about. Soy una persona, even though I’m not a woman. Even in a gendered language, there are some words that don’t gender the person in question.

It definitely can be frustrating and does mean that a lot of situations that don’t need to be gendered are gendered (for example, saying a sentence about my teacher would automatically gender the teacher, depending on if I say profesor or profesora), but a lot of people don’t even seem to realize that in grammar, gender means something different. Which is honestly a shame, because overall it opens up new ways to be more descriptive. For example, if I’m in another room and drop something, and sigh está rota (it’s broken), you automatically know that whatever I broke is a feminine object. So it can’t be, for example, a plate (un plato). Maybe it’s a cup (una taza). Sure, it’s not necessary, but it can be very interesting.

[juliainfinland]

In German, we have some gender triplets (m/f/n), for example for cutlery: spoon (m), fork (f), knife (n). So, for example, when someone drops something and you know it was a piece of cutlery (say, you know they're setting the table in the other room and you hear a cluttering sound that can only come from a piece of cutlery hitting the floor), you may hear them exclaim, "Oh [REDACTED], jetzt ist der(m)/die(f)/das(n) mir runtergefallen!" (now I've dropped him/her/it!). Or when you're setting the table together, you could ask the other person something like, "Gibst du mir mal einen(m)/eine(f)/eins(n)?" (could you give me one(m)/one(f)/one(n)). In both cases, it would be perfectly clear which piece of cutlery you're talking about.

(And then there's that joke about where little tables come from: When a German table (m) and a French table (f) love each other very much, well...)

[bpd-dylan-hall-deactivated20190]

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again but it is absolutely an example of civilizational inadequacy that only deaf people know ASL

“oh we shouldn’t teach children this language, it will only come in handy if they [checks notes] ever have to talk in a situation where it’s noisy or they need to be quiet”

[raginrayguns]

My mom learned it because she figured she’ll go deaf when she gets old

[manyblinkinglights]

My family went holiday SCUBA diving once, and a couple of Deaf guys were in the group. I was really little and I spent most of the briefing overcome with the realization that while the rest of us were going to have regulators in our mouths and be underwater fairly soon, they were going to be able to do all the same stuff and keep talking.

[tell-the-stars-hello]

The only reason some form of sign language is not a standard skill is ableism, as far as I can tell.

[emoracreations]

For anyone interested in learning, Bill Vicars has full lessons of ASL on youtube that were used in my college level classes. 

https://www.youtube.com/user/billvicars

and here’s the link to the website he puts in his videos:

https://www.lifeprint.com/

[naurielrochnur]

Update: you guys this is an amazing resource for learning asl. Bill Vicars is an incredible teacher. His videos are of him teaching a student in a classroom, using the learned vocabulary to have conversations.

Not only is the conversation format immersive and helpful for learning the grammar, but the students make common mistakes which he corrects, mistakes I wouldn’t have otherwise know I was making.

He also emphasizes learning ASL in the way it’s actually used by the Deaf community and not the rigid structure that some ASL teachers impose in their classrooms

His lesson plans include learning about the Deaf community, which is an important aspect of learning ASL. Knowing how to communicate in ASL without the knowledge of the culture behind it leaves out a lot of nuances and explanations for the way ASL is.

Lastly, his lessons are just a lot of fun to watch. He is patient, entertaining, and funny. This good natured enthusiasm is contagious and learning feels like a privilege and not a chore

And it’s all FREE. Seriously. If you’ve ever wanted to learn ASL

[puddox]

I see the original post going around every so often and it saddens me a little that it's never accompanied by this thread explaining why it's completely understandable how a child would arrive at these spellings in accordance with english phonetics

[mj-is-learning-languages]

When it’s pointed out to me that the letter I’m told is in that word isn’t the sound that is actually there, it blows my mind.

Try and pronounce “jragon.”

It doesn’t sound any different than “dragon,” does it?

English spelling rules don’t make ANY sense.