Today's Document
RMH
Keni
Andulka
One Nice Bug Per Day
tumblr dot com
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
NASA
Sade Olutola
#extradirty
izzy's playlists!
🪼
Peter Solarz
styofa doing anything
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
Cosimo Galluzzi
if i look back, i am lost
roma★
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
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@polyglottica
why do all the words sound heavier in my native language?
— @metamorphesque, Yoojin Grace Wuertz (Mother Tongue), Still Dancing: An Interview With Ilya Kaminsky (by Garth Greenwell), Jhumpa Lahiri (Translating Myself and Others), @lifeinpoetry
˗ˏˋ☕ˎˊ˗
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]
HOW DO I REBLOG THIS FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE
THAT’S NOT EVEN THE FULL POST. Wonder why they cut out this part:
why are french people rude?
Ah well, the safest explanation when an entire country’s people are stereotyped as rude is that they have their own culture with different criteria for politeness than the ones you are used to. It’s probably easier for Americans to forget this than for the rest of the world, because they consume less foreign media than the rest of us (from literature in translation to foreign films) and are less exposed to aspects of foreign cultures that could inform them about different norms of politeness (online interactions happen in their own language and follow their own (anglo) social codes.) With this insular worldview it's easy to take it for granted that American good manners are universal. They are not!
A very common gripe against American tourists in Paris is that they talk so loudly in public spaces, which is definitely rude here but I assume that in the US, people just have a different threshold for what constitutes 'loud' (I wonder if it is due to being used to having more space than Europeans). I also remember a discussion I had with one of my translation professors about the American concept of ‘active listening’ and how negatively it is perceived in France. It may be that in the US it is polite to make 'listening noises' at regular intervals while someone is speaking to you, ‘uh huh’, ‘right’, ‘yeah’, ‘really?’, and that you would perceive someone who just stands there silently as disinterested or thinking about something else. In France it is more polite to shut up and listen (with the occasional nod or ‘mmh’) and it's rather seen as annoying and rude to make a bunch of useless noise while someone is speaking.
There are of course countless examples like that. The infamous rude waiters in Parisian cafés probably seem a lot more rude and cold to people who have a different food culture... People from other cultures might consider a waiter terrible at his job if he doesn’t frequently check on them to make sure they don’t wait for anything, but the idea that a meal is a pleasant experience rather than just a way to feed yourself (esp when eating out) means we like having time to chat and just enjoy our table for a while, so we don’t mind as much waiting to order or for the next course. French people would typically hate if an overzealous waiter took the initiative to bring the note once we’re done with our meal so we don’t have to wait for it, as it would be interpreted as “you’re done, now get out of my restaurant.”
The level of formality required to be polite is quite high in France, which might contribute to French people being seen as rude by people with a more casual culture. To continue with waiters, even in casual cafés they will address clients with the formal you and conversely, and won’t pretend to be your friend (the fact that we don’t have the American tip culture also means they don’t feel the need to ingratiate themselves to you.) I remember being alarmed when a waitress in New York introduced herself and asked how I was doing. “She’s giving me her first name? What... am I supposed to with it? Use it?” It gave me some insight on why Americans might consider French waiters rude or sullen! It might also be more accepted outside of France to customise your dish—my brother worked as a waiter and often had to say “That won't be possible” about alterations to a dish that he knew wouldn’t fly with the chef, to foreign tourists who were stunned and angry to hear that, and probably brought home a negative opinion of French waiters. In France where the sentiment in most restaurants is more “respect the chef's skill” than “the customer is king”, people are more likely to be apologetic if they ask for alterations (beyond basic stuff) as you can quickly be seen as rude, even by the people you are eating with.
And I remember reading on a website for learning English that the polite answer to “How are you?” is “I’m fine, thank you!” because it’s rude to burden someone you aren’t close to with your problems. In my corner of the French countryside the polite thing to do is to complain about some minor trouble, because saying everything is going great is perceived negatively, as boasting, and also as a standoffish reply that kind of shuts down the conversation, while grumbling about some problem everyone can relate to will keep it going. (French people love grumbling as a positive bonding activity!)
Basically, before you settle on the conclusion that people from a different place are collectively rude, consider that if you travel there and scrupulously follow your own culture's social code of good manners, you might be completely unaware that you are being perceived as obnoxious, rude or unfriendly yourself simply because your behaviour clashes with what is expected by locals.
Word order is important:
Un gelato italiano = an Italian ice cream
Un italiano gelato = an ice-cold Italian
Does anyone else ever get… overwhelmed… by the number of words in your target language? Like, you’ll think “hell yeah, I know a whole lot of words!” but then you come across more of them, and there are so many of them, and they just keep coming out of nowhere, crawling up through the floor, falling from the sky, just endless swarms of words you do not know in articles and textbooks and vocab lists and dictionaries, and you cannot fathom possibly ever learning them all.
Honestly the biggest disappointment I had researching ABC was that medieval authors did not, in fact, see the creatures they were describing and were trying their best to describe them with their limited knowledge while going “what the fuck… what the fuck…”
Instead all those creatures you know came about from transcription and translation errors from copying Greco-Roman sources (who themselves got them from travelers’ tales from Persia and India - rhino -> unicorn, tiger -> manticore, python -> dragon, and so on).
So unicorns are real
behold… a unicorn
I always thought animals in medieval manuscripts looked like the result of having to draw say. A Tree Kangaroo, but your only source for what it looked like was your friend who heard it from a fellow who knows a man who swears he saw one once, whilst very drunk and lost, and I am SO PLEASED to find out this is, in fact, the case.
Questing Beast
- Neck of a snake
- body of a leopard
- haunches of a lion
- feet off a hart (deer)
So is it
Or….
don’t forget that some of the legendary creatures they were describing were from other people’s mythos which were passed down in the oral tradition for gods know how long. You know what existed in Eurasia right around the time we were domesticating wolves into dogs?
these beasties. For a long time, science had them down as going extinct 200 thousand years ago, but then we found some bones from 36 thousand years ago. Which, y’know, is quite a difference. Since you can bet that any skeleton we find is not literally the last one of its kind to live, many creatures have date ranges unknowably far outside the evidence.
In South Asia there were cultures that described a man-beast/troll forrest giant who’s knuckles dragged the ground, and everybody from the west was sure it was superstitious mumbo jumbo, but you know what used to live there?
And did you know that some of the earliest white colonizers of the Americas heard accounts that there were natives still alive who had seen and hunted and eaten a great hairy beast, shaggy like the buffalo but much bigger, with a long thin nose like a snake and two giant fangs… so, like, mammoths, you know? but they were totally discounted because europeans of the time were like, elephants live in Africa and aren’t hairy, you can’t fool us, pranksters!
Anyway, the point is between the early writing game of telephone description thing talked about by OP, and the discounting of native cultural accuracy, I’m pretty sure most legendary creatures are in fact real animals one way or another
It can’t explain every single legendary creature, but yes, this is super important. Because History relies on written sources, it tends to sweep oral tradition under the rug, even if there’s a lot of interesting informations in it.
And it’s not just living animals that were badly described, or which descriptions got exaggerated over the course of centuries or through translation errors. Sometimes, people finding fossil bones of extinct animals might have also influenced some myths!
By now this is pretty well-known but it has been theorised that the Greek myth of the cyclops was started when people found Deinotherium skulls. Now you might say, uh, how is it possible to think a cousin of the elephant is a huge human dude with one eye?
Well-
- the big nasal opening kinda looks like an eye if you have no idea what kind of animal had this kind of skull (you can read more about this theory in this old National Geographic article if you like).
Here’s a less well-known one; the griffin is a mythological hybrid with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. The earliest traces of this myth come from ancient Iranian and ancient Egyptian art, from more than 3000 BC. In Iranian mythology, it’s called شیردال (shirdal, “lion eagle”). Now, it’s been the subject of some debate and it’s not confirmed, but there’s a theory that people might have seen some Protoceratops and Psittacosaurus fossils in Asia and might have interpreted it as “a lion with an eagle’s head”:
Check the “origin” part of the wikipedia page for “griffin” if you want to find more sources for this theory and for the arguments against it! Again, it’s just a theory, but I think it’s super cool.
This is a pretty well accepted theory for why dragons (or animals we group as like dragons, eg wyverns and drakes) are seen in mythos almost worldwide - because people found dinosaur bones, looked at them, and went “oh fuck what’s that? some big…. lizardy thing?” and then created dragons.
So, our Lung is on fire.
It is already threatened by huge deforestation, to the point it lost 20% of its wildth in less than 30 years.
It’s been burning for around two weeks and almost no word has been uttered about it. I, sincerely, have come to find out about it just now. I’m shooketh ™️ because we’re really burning away this planet.
The Amazon Rainforest holds 20% of global waters, it’s an area of incredible value in termns of biodiversity and, nevermind, it’s a crucial climate regulator. Spread awareness, demand help.
We have families too!
Whether adopted, biologically ours, thru marriage or designated as their guardian- they’re our children.
We want the best for them!
We have hopes and aspirations for them !
We Exist, and MANY of us are of color.
This ain’t nothing new, just more visible.
Did you know there are 2 type of sleep in Japanese words?
For sleeping as in “go to bed/lying down to take a nap”, it is 寝る (Neru). And the opposite is 起きる (Okiru), which means to get up from the lie down posture).
For sleeping as in “you’re in train/classroom and fell asleep” (not necessarily lying down), it is 眠る (Nemuru). So to wake up someone who’s sleeping on a train, you will need to use 目覚める (Mezameru), which means to open their eyes and be sober.
The key here is in the posture! :D But sometimes they are also interchangeable. One thing to note though, when you’re talking about “What time do you go to sleep at night?” or anything similar, you always use 寝る (Neru).
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Help us to increase our lessons quality, speed, and realization of many future ideas to make learning Japanese much easier! You can support us via gumroad with this link here: [support us] We will really appreciate it! ｡ﾟ✶ฺ.ヽ(*´∀`*)ﾉ.✶ฺﾟ｡ ………………………………………… Happy learning!
Linguistics and Language Podcasts
Looking for podcasts about language and linguistics? Here’s a comprehensive list with descriptions! I’ve also mentioned if shows have transcripts. If there are any I missed, let me know!
Linguistics
Lingthusiasm A podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne (that’s me!). Main episodes every third Thursday of every month, with a second bonus episode on Patreon. (Transcripts for main episodes)
Talk the Talk Every week Daniel, Ben, and Kylie cover the news in linguistics and tackle a particular topic.
The Vocal Fries Every episode Carrie Gillon & Megan Figueroa tackle linguistic discrimination in relation to a particular group. (Transcripts for some episodes)
Language
The Allusionist Stories about language and the people who use it, from Helen Zaltzman (Transcripts for all episodes) (my review)
Grammar Girl Episodes are rarely longer than 15 minutes, but they’re full of tips about English grammar and style for professional writing, and more! (Transcripts for all episodes).
The World in Words From PRI, The World in Words has been delivering wonderful interview-drive stories about language and life since 2008.
Conlangery Particularly for those with an interest in constructed languages, they also have episodes that focus on specific natural languages, or linguistic phenomena.
Subtext a podcast about the linguistics of online dating.
Canguro English a podcast about language for people learning languages.
English
History of English Meticulously researched, professionally produced and engaging content on the history of English. I have already reviewed it three times (episodes 1-4, episodes 5-79, bonus episodes).
Lexicon Valley Hosted by John McWhorter, with a focus on English.
That’s What They Say Every week linguist Anne Curzan joins Rebecca Kruth on Michigan public radio for a five minute piece on a quirk of English language.
A Way With Words A talk-back format show on the history of English words, cryptic crosswords and slang.
Dictionaries
Word For Word From Macquarie dictionary, with a focus on Australian English.
Fiat Lex A podcast about making dictionaries from Kory Stamper & Steve Kleinedler.
Words/etymology
Words for Granted In each episode Ray Belli explores the history of a common English word in around fifteen minutes.
Very Bad Words A podcast about swearing and our cultural relationship to it.
Lexitecture Ryan, a Canadian, and Amy, a Scot share their chosen word each episode.
Animology Vegan blogger Colleen Patrick Goudreau uses her love of animals as a starting point for exploring animal-related etymologies.
Translation
Speaking of Translation A monthly podcast from Eve Bodeux & Corinne McKay.
LangFM Stories of people from the world of language, including interpreters, translators, dialect coaches and many more.
Troublesome Terps The podcast about the things that keep interpreters up at night.
Back catalogues and Odds & Ends
There are also a number of podcasts that have only a few episodes, are no longer being made, or are very academic in their focus:
Language Creation Society Podcast (8 episodes, 2009-2011)
Given Names (four part radio series from 2015, all about names. My review)
Speculative Grammarian Podcast (from the magazine of the same name, about 50 episodes from Dec 2009-Jan 2017)
Linguistics Podcast (on YouTube, around 20 episodes in 2013 introducing basic linguistic concepts)
Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library (8 episodes 2018), from the British Library.
How Brands are Build (season 1 of this show focuses on brand naming)
The Endless Knot is not strictly a language podcast, but they often include word histories, fans of the Lingthusiasm colour episode may find their colour series particularly interesting
Word of Mouth (BBC 4, also available as a podcast)
LingLab (very occasionally updated podcast from graduate students in the Sociolinguistics program at NC State University)
Silly Linguistics (ad hoc episode posting, but episode 7 is an interview with Kevin Stroud for History of English fans)
WACC Podcast (guest lectures at Warwick Applied Linguistics)
Sage Language and Linguistics
Let’s Talk Talk
Queer Linguistics has a couple of episodes, with a bit of classroom vibe
This is a completely revised listing from June 2018. The March 2017 list kept growing (yay!) so I’ve now completely restructured it based on themes. I’m always excited to be able to add more podcasts to the list, so if you know of any linguistics/language podcasts not here, please let me know! (I usually wait until a show has at least 3 episodes before I add it to the list)
I’ve done a full refresh and update of the Languages and Linguistics podcast list!
If you know any I’ve missed, let me know!
🐞 Why there’s 虫 bug in 虹 rainbow?🌈
虹「にじ」 rainbow. You know, this one bothered me for a while. I always mistake it for some sort of insect at the first glance because of that 虫 bug radical. Why is it here anyway? Thankfully I’m not alone in my bewilderment! Google-sensei got me covered.
In short, Chinese character 虫 originally represented not an insect but a snake.
As explained here, ancient people probably swiped all kinds of weird creatures that didn’t have fur, feathers or fins and scales into 虫 category. And that why 虫 eventually appears (either by itself or as a radical) in a lot of words for various creatures that are definitely not insects: 蛇「ヘビ」 snakes, 蜥蜴「トカゲ」 lizards, 爬虫類「はちゅうるい」 reptiles, 蛙「カエル」 frogs, 蛸「タコ」 octopi and even 蝙蝠「コウモリ」 bats. And the actual character for ’insect’ originally looked like this 蟲 with not one but three (3) 虫 radicals in it.
Now, to ancient people rainbow looked like a giant two-headed serpent that lowers its heads down to drink some water after rain. So 虫 in 虹 ’rainbow’ represents this serpent. As for 工, it is here as phonetic component. In case with Japanese, it’s indicating character’s on-yomi 「こう」 虹彩 「こうさい」 iris of the eye.
Reference: （１）（２）（３）（４）（５）
German expressions
1. (Go ahead) Do it: Trau dich 2. (I have) No idea: Keine Ahnung 3. A little: Ein bisschen 4. All in all: Alles in allem 5. All the best: Alles Gute 6. Alright: Na gut 7. An apple doesn’t fall far from the tree: Ein Apfel fällt nicht weit vom Stamm 8. Be careful: Passen Sie (gut) auf 9. Be quiet: Sei still 10. Believe it or not: Sage und schreibe 11. By no means: Auf keinen Fall 12. Don’t give it a thought: Machen Sie sich keine Gedanken 13. Everything under the sun: Gott und die Welt 14. For example: Zum Beispiel 15. For heaven’s sake: Um Himmels Willen 16. For the most part: Im Großen und Ganzen 17. Fun to be with: Lustig beisammen sein 18. Get well soon: Gute Besserung 19. God forbid: Gott behüte 20. Good dog: Braver Hund 21. Good luck: Viel Glück 22. Have fun: Viel Spaß 23. Heartfelt good wishes: Herzlichen Glückwunsch 24. How about: Wie wär’s mit 25. Hurry up: Beeil dich 26. I don’t get it: Es will mir nicht in den Sinn 27. I’ll drink to that: Darauf trink ich 28. In the meantime: In der Zwischenzeit 29. It doesn’t matter: Das macht nichts 30. It’s about time: Es wird Zeit 31. It’s me: Ich bin’s 32. Last but not least: Zu guter Letzt 33. Make yourself at home: Fühlen Sie sich wie zu Hause 34. Money isn’t an issue: Geld spielt keine Rolle 35. Move it: Beweg dich 36. No pain, no gain: Ohne Fleiß kein Preis 37. No problem: Kein Problem 38. No wonder: Kein Wunder 39. Not at all: Gar nicht 40. Of course: Na klar 41. Out of curiosity: Aus Neugierde 42. Quite close by: Ganz in der Nähe 43. See you later: Bis später 44. So far so good: So weit ganz gut 45. So to speak: Sozusagen 46. Take a look: Werfen Sie einen Blick 47. Thank God: Gott sei Dank 48. That’s a pity: So ein Pech 49. That’s fine with me: Das ist ganz in meinem Sinne 50. That’s life: So ist das Leben 51. That’s not my problem / business: Das ist nicht mein Bier 52. That’s the point: Da liegt der Hund begraben 53. Time will tell: Kommt Zeit kommt Rat 54. Until next time: Bis zum nächsten Mal 55. What a mess: So ein Mist 56. What a shame: (Wie) Schade 57. What are you waiting for?: Worauf wartest du? 58. What does it come to?: Was macht das? 59. What nonsense: Was für ein Unsinn 60. What will that accomplish?: Was bringt das? 61. What’s for lunch?: Was gibt es zum Mittagessen? 62. What’s your point?: Worauf willst du hinaus? 63. Will that do / work?: Geht das? 64. Yet again: Schon wieder 65. You can say that again: Das kannst du laut sagen 66. You included: Sie mit eingerechnet 67. You shouldn’t do that: Das sollst du nicht 68. You’re kidding me: Du bindest mir einen Bären auf
Source and audio
http://quizlet.com/10790980/german-expressions-flash-cards/
language learning made easy
I’ve summarized professor Alexander Arguelles’ video, because I think this is crucial for language learning.
There is no magic trick that will help you become fluent in 1 month, but there are very effective approaches to learning a new language and if you combine them, you will surely become fluent.
If you’re learning a new language, the most important thing you need to consider is – what type of language learner are you?
1. If you:
have a more deductive approach, which means that you’re better at listening to and observing the language first and learning through that, rather than starting with plain grammar points from a textbook
have a fair degree of intuition
like to observe a phenomenon
feel somewhat comfortable with ambiguity for a while, until things become clear
are someone who can feel comfortable being corrected when they realize they were wrong, rather than getting confused and frustrated because they went down an initial path that turned out not to be correct (so you actually learn from being corrected and you don’t get confused by it)
then, these manuals are best suited for you: the Assimil Language Series, the Linguaphone Series, the Cortina Methods.
2. If you:
have a desire to have things explained to you beforehand in a nice and clear way
have a logical and analytical mind (which is usually the product of education in general)
have a need for a systematic approach (basically if you’re most comfortable with a book which is going to introduce the grammar according to an agreed set of methods or an organized plan)
then, you should try out some of these manuals: the Hugo Series, the Made Simple Series, the Teach Yourself Series, the Buske Series.
3. PAY ATTENTION TO PATTERNS!!!
the most important part are the patterns of a language
no matter what type of language learner you are, I think it’s really clever to incorporate this method into you learning.
a language is actually made up of patterns which constantly repeat themselves and that is THE KEY TO FLUENCY
repeating the patterns over and over again, until they become natural, until you no longer have to conjugate the verbs in your head before speaking
when you become really good with patterns, your sentences will come out naturally, and patterns are what will get you to fluency
I’ve provided the links, where you will find a review of the books, so that you can have an idea of what they look like. You can find most of these on amazon.
There is also an amazing blog on here, which provides free books, and I think that you can find half of these series for free there. @lovelybluepanda
Caffinate your cool down:
minusthenegative.com
