Peter Solarz
KIROKAZE
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@theartofmadeline

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Xuebing Du
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Mike Driver
RMH

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Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
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trying on a metaphor
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@polyvoxx
Hey guys!!
It’s been so long since I’ve been on this blog-- sorry!
I’m due to start college next month, where I’ll be double-majoring in Spanish and Linguistics with a minor in Mandarin, which will be awesome!
I’m going to try to be on here more often <3
hey im really sorry to bother u but i've just started to learn korean and i was wondering if u have any tips on where to start??? and also chinese, i wanna learn chinese but its just so???intimidating??? like there are a million and one characters??? i can speak japanese a bit so i already know some chinese characters but wow there are alot and my brain is like no/
Hey dear, you don’t bother at all!
New things and concepts can be very intimidating. For me as a language learner, it’s very important to know what am I going to face when learning the language. Therefor I suggest you to read about the target language, it’s grammar and what is special about it. Here are some examples for Chinese:
THIS BOOK (very very good resource)
THIS YOUTUBE VIDEO (easy introduction)
THIS ARTICLE
People tend to focus on the hard side of the languages. But isn’t it amazing that Chinese doesn’t have cases? And no verb conjugation?No masculine and feminine? I can’t tell you all the advantages, but watch THIS video to see them.
Basically, first get into the touch with the language. And then you can plan out your studies and how the process of learning it will be. I suggest you buying a good text book. I’ve seen one for Chinese I’ll probably buy, but first I’ll see how my school course is.
Also about Korean, I can definitely suggest you the free PDF book “Korean from Zero”, you can download it HERE. I’m currently working with it and it is amazing, just as the “japanese from zero” books.
Don’t be too scared and just jump into the cold water. I hope this helped.
Many wishes <333
duolingo: Russian for English speakers coming 17th August!!
everyone in the Tumblr language community: okay... that sounds fake but okay
Tengo necesidad de un poco de soledad y de silencio, tengo necesidad de un sitio para mí.
Simone de Beauvoir - La mujer rota. (via hoja-latas)
Such a wild thing to observe: SKorea has developed so rapidly that our language has become riddled with foreign loanwords that our Northern counterpart can no longer understand - even if we speak the same language.
Excited to see technology being used as a powerful medium to better bridge the growing 70-year gap of our now two distinct cultures.
[captions]
Narrator: “27,000 North Korean defectors living in South Korea.”
[Students introduce themselves in Korean]
Narrator: “What is it called?”
[Students name objects in Korean]
Narrator: “Through 70 years of separation, languages of the two Koreas have grown apart. Would you mark any unfamiliar words? North Korean defector students could understand less than 50% of the terms in the textbooks. This led to them being neglected from regular education, and that led to disparity in employment and income. Even Google Translator could not solve the discrepancies in the language. So then we came to create our own translator. South Korean-North Korean translator. We designed it so that a simple scan of an unfamiliar South Korean word with a smartphone would translate it into North Korean. Translating several words all at once is also possible. It was hoped that with this app, the North Korean defectors would be able to get proper education. We of course plan to continue to help them adjust well to life in South Korea. Koreans were shocked, saddened, but motivated after seeing the translator for what had been the same language.”
[Dr. Huttman speaking German]
Narrator: “Nobody knows when the two Koreas will be reunified, but if the two Koreas are able to communicate without barriers through this translator, perhaps that day would come just a little sooner.”
lostintrafficlights bbalgangyi-appa
This is wonderful!
(Also, I always wondered what North Koreans called South Korea. 남한 is the obvious answer that I, of course, never thought of.)
This is interesting but I’m going to nitpick – North Korean dialect ( 조선말) didn’t naturally grow apart from South Korea’s ( (한국말 ). (The political distinction is right there in what each country calls their own language.) It’s been a conscious decision for North Korean officials since the 1950′s to not allow foreign loan-words. This is very much in line with the rhetoric of national purity at the heart of North Korean ideology. So the difference in dialect is completely by design and, from a North Korean perspective, makes their language “better” than that of the nasty, capitalistic, pro-American whores to the south. (North Korea doesn’t use nearly as many Chinese characters as the South either. Instead of loan words, neologisms are always created.)
So while the video paints a picture of North Korean dialect as ass-backwards compared to modern, loan-word loving South Korean, I think that’s an unfair depiction. For a nation built around narratives of cultural and ethnic purity, it’s actually kind of necessary, if not downright brilliant.
Also, it’s my understanding that if you said “South Korea” in the north you’d get in big trouble. You’d be acknowledging that there are two separate countries, carved up by US fiat way back when, in fact, they are and always have been one – according to the North Korean narrative, natch.
Wiki.
there are many countries around the world that have tried to limit the use of english loan words into their languages.
france, for example, has tried to impose neologized french words for a number of english ones as well as anglicisms, sometimes successfully (e.g. ‘ordinateur’ for computer), sometimes less so (’courriel’ for email, or mél).
in fact, there’s hardly a country in the world that hasn’t been impacted by a large number of english loan words in the last few decades. several, such as france and north korea, have taken political measures to limit them.
these are certainly artificially imposed, but it would be a mistake to assume that the proliferation of english loan words is a ‘free’ and ‘natural’ state of affairs. english words are imposed by cultural and linguistic hegemony. no one in south korea ‘elects’ to study english.
the limitations on the use of chinese characters isn’t just a north korean thing. in 1970 park chung-hee also banned the teaching of chinese characters in schools and though the ban was eventually lifted, the use of chinese characters in south korea has never really recovered. look at any korean newspaper before the 1970s and you’ll see a lot more chinese there. a lot of south koreans in their 50s, even well educated ones, sometimes struggle to read chinese characters.
i would hope that a reunified korea would adopt some of the north korean words. i think 어름과자, for example, is preferable to 아이스크림. most european languages simply use their own word for ‘ice’ to designate ice cream, and i don’t see why korean should be an exception.
also, in the video, the german guy is totally mistranslated in the subtitles. he doesn’t say that north koreans should play a key role in reunification, as the subtitles say, he simply makes the banal statement that without speaking the language of the land in which they live, north koreans can never be really be fully integrated.
50 Spanish Phrases for Essays
causa de - because of, on account of
a continuación - below, following
a partir de - from the time that, as of
caracterizarse por - to be characterized by
consistir en - to consist of
conviene - it is fitting, suitable, convenient
de hecho - in fact, as a matter of fact
de la perspectiva de - from the perspective of
de veras - really
ejemplificar - to serve as an example
en conexión - in connection
en realidad - really, in fact
es necesario - it is necessary
por ejemplo - for example
por la mayor parte - mostly, for the most part
bien pensado - well thought-out
de verdad - really
de vez en cuando - now and again, (every) once in a while
mejor dicho - more exactly, rather
querer decir - to mean
servir para - to serve to
significar - to signify, to mean
sugerir - to suggest
tanto mejor - so much the better
tener que ver con - to have to do with
todavía - still, yet
al fin y al cabo - in the final analysis, in the end, after all
como consecuencia - as a consequence, as a result, due to
de lo anterior - from the above
después de todo - after all
en breve - in short
en conclusión - in conclusion
en resumen - in conclusion
en todo - all in all
es preciso - must, it is necessary
llevar a cabo - to accomplish
parece que - it seems that
por consiguiente - therefore
por lo tanto - for that reason, therefore
por último - lastly
se ve que - one sees that
al final - in the end, finally
con cuidado - carefully
del punto de vista de - from the point of view of
de modo queso - so that, in such a way that
de nuevo - again
en cambio - on the other hand
mientras tanto - in the meanwhile
por fin - finally
por lo general - generally
Is there a partitive case in Spanish???
Not really a case…
Like you have the regular numbers… uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco
Then you have the ordinal numbers… primer(a), segundo/a, tercer(a), cuarto/a, quinto/a
And the the partitives which are medio/a “half” or la mitad “a half”, el tercio “one-third”, el octavo “one-eight” / “octave”…
And then basically anything past 10 gets an -avo for partitives.
So… doce = 12, duodécimo/a = twelfth, and el doceavo means “one-twelfth”
Or cien = 100, centésimo/a “hundredth”, and el centavo is “one one-hundredth”… which is why el centavo means “penny” in English. Since 100 pennies = 1 dollar, it’s un centavo 1/100
Spanish doesn’t really do case systems
Pinyin Resources
Basics
Introduction to Pinyin
Pīnyīn.info (a guide to the writing of Mandarin Chinese in Romanization)
Pinyin
Pronunciation
Mandarin Chinese Pinyin Chart with Audio (click on the pinyin to hear it pronounced)
Pinyin chart (similar to the first pronunciation link, but you can also see the IPA)
Yoyo Chinese Pinyin Chart (similar to the first pronunciation link, but you can watch video demonstrations of many of the sounds)
Reading
Chinese Annotation Tool (annotates Chinese character with the pinyin and translations)
Chinese Pinyin Phonetic Transcription Converter (converts simplified or traditional characters into IPA or pinyin; does other cool things like highlight HSK levels!)
Writing
Pinyin Editor (allows you to write pinyin directly on your computer)
Pinyin Tone Tool (converts pinyin with numbers into pinyin with tone marks)
Chinese Input Method Editor (converts pinyin to Chinese characters)
you're v cute
Ahhh thank you .//.
I haven’t been on a lot at all ugh D:
In other news, I think I might start to study Catalan soon!
Some numbers about Duolingo
There are 6,3 times more people learning Irish (882k learners) than there are native speakers of Irish in Ireland (140k speakers);
There are about 16,665,000 people learning German on Duolingo - that is almost the population of Austria and Switzerland combined (16,724,721 people in 2014, according to World Bank)
There are about 39,774,000 people learning Spanish on Duolingo, while the number of native Spanish speakers in Spain is of about 38,352,500 (82% of Spain’s population) according to this report
There are more people learning English (~99,288,600 learners) than the population of the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand combined (about 97,121,000 people)
when i’m drunk my linguistic skills go from being amateurish to thinking my target language is my mother tongue.
There’s actually a word for that in Japanese: ノミュニケーション (nommunication), from 飲む (nomu: to drink) + communication
I love this so much! I love languages.
“Don’t let any bastard with a full stomach tell you to be patient on hunger.”
Sorry for the inactivity, I've been really busy with life and stuff. D: I'll try to regularly be on here by next week!!
Notes from the Italian Duolingo
Duolingo User 1: “"Stasera sceglie lui il ristorante.“ Is there a grammatical reason for it to be “sceglie lui” instead of “lui sceglie?” Or are both correct?
Duolingo User 2: In this order it implies an imperative, so it’s more akin to “let’s let him choose”, while “lui sceglie” is matter-of-fact “he chooses”.
Duolingo User 3: “This is a great brainstorm for a sentence that can be somewhat confusing, so let’s flesh it out:
“Stasera lui sceglie il ristorante.” - Basic structure. He is making the selection and this is a fact. Because of the way simple present works in Italian, you’re right guiletheavenger, in English “will” or “is going to” would work as well.
“Stasera sceglie lui il ristorante.” - Moving the subject pronoun after the verb provides emphasis to who is doing what. That’s the simplest explanation for this strange structure and it works most other times you see it as well: emphasis.
Here are other sentences you might see:
Guido io. I’m driving (not you)
Andiamo noi. We’re going (we can take care of this)
What I believe User 2 was trying to explain is that highlighting lui like this makes it seem similar to the subjunctive or the imperative in that it is not matter-of-fact. You could compare this to another structure: “Che scelga lui” and if you’re familiar with Spanish, “que elija él”. One interpretation of this sentence indicates a wish or desire, just like the imperative and subjunctive, but it’s not the same mood or tense. Remember: verb + subject pronoun is for emphasis.