Sweet Seals For You, Always
$LAYYYTER
todays bird
Sade Olutola
Kaledo Art
roma★
tannertan36
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Stranger Things
oozey mess
noise dept.
Misplaced Lens Cap
Love Begins
Cosmic Funnies
One Nice Bug Per Day
Peter Solarz
Origami Around
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
No title available
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Argentina
seen from Canada
seen from Canada
seen from Canada
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Singapore
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Czechia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Canada
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
@sheilastudying
It is not too late to dream big. It is not too late to discover your passions. It is not too late to create the life you have always dreamed of. No matter how far you might be from it, no matter how far you have drifted away from yourself; it is not too late to rediscover who you are. So, keep your head up, my love; you are not lost - you are on the way to finding the best version of yourself, the amazing person you are meant to be.
What up ladies and dudes, I have 6 days to learn a crazy amount of information... And worse, remember it all (cries)
I feel ya, best of luck to the both of us!
Asjduwbks!!!!!! I have polls! Now :
By the end of the year, how many more new or returning languages will you have added to the one(s) you're learning right now?
0 because I have self control and/or limited free time
only 1, or at least that's what I like to tell myself
2 to 5 because life's too short not to try to learn more of them!!
AhaH! We all know I'll try to learn more than that because LaNGuAgES ✨️
not into languages rn, just want to click on the poll
What to do during lockdown
(and work on your French):
Work on your pronunciation
Read some classics
Read some fanfiction
Listen to podcasts
Listen to TED Talks
Listen to music
Listen to the radio
Watch french movies (detailed, by period and type)
Watch dubbed/subtitled movies: The Simpson, Cesar and Cleopatra, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Red Shoes, La Vérité
Watch cartoons
Watch youtubers
Watch let’s plays: 1 2 3 4 5
Work on some MOOCs
Learn about black holes, Pompei, giant animals, gladiators, the Dreyfus affair, Charles Manson, ants, Leonardo da Vinci, Rome, smelly cheeses, Mozart, the Bermuda triangle, meditation…
Follow french subreddits
Search our social media
Visit the Louvre online
Check my practice tag
And make sure your priorities are in order!
23/08/2021
A lot of stuff has happened. I'm in my second year of university. But I decided to start growing plants again and keeping myself accountable by keeping a gardening diary I sewed myself from scrap paper from my notebooks.
I'm trying to grow strawberries, and I'm not really rushing. I just want something to destress with.
Creating a University Studyblr Group Chat
Studying in times of covid has been hard. At least for me it has been quite difficult! So maybe we can spice that up a little bit!
Let’s create a group chat on Whatsapp or iMessage and support each other, be there for one another! Stop the loneliness! Stop the procrastination!
I want to creat a space where everyone feels accepted and understood! <3
Tell us about your plans and dreams and let’s motivate each other!
Who’s in? ❤️ Send me a message and introduce yourself :)
Do you have any advice for Japanese learners who struggle to overcome the intermediate plateau? You are so knowledgeable about Japanese, I'd love to hear your experiences on how you learn and keep improving! Thank you ^_^
Aww man you’re just too sweet. I’m still in the process of learning too. 💗
That intermediate plateau is the hardest thing to overcome. It’s something that was talked a lot about in some of the second language acquisition courses I took back in uni. Let’s delve further into it, because this is something that all language learners will struggle with, regardless of what language you’re learning.
What is the Intermediate Plateau?
👆 a visual representation of the plateau lol
When you first start learning a new language, most learners experience quick and satisfying progress. “Oh man, learning the “te” form was way easier than I thought it’d be!” or “Okay, I got this list of verbs down right away!” “Alright, I got this hiragana down!”
But then you move on to the kanji. The whole kudasaru, yaru, kureru, ageru, sashiageru, morau, itadaku mess, and you start to struggle a bit. But you can still do it! You’re still learning the words and the grammar and it’s challenging, but you can feel your progress and success.
But then you finish your textbooks (Probably Genki I, Genki II, and An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese), and suddenly those bursts of success become less and less, until you can no longer feel any progress.
You read manga and you see lots of words you know, but lots more words that you don’t know. You watch anime and you can catch some sentences, but there are still a lot that you wouldn’t have understood without the English subtitles to help you out.
This feeling of a lack of progress, of a stagnation, is called the “intermediate plateau.”
My Experiences with the Intermediate Plateau
I tackled the Intermediate Plateau twice: with spoken Japanese and written Japanese.
I’ve been lucky to have very good listening comprehension and an ability to “fill in the gaps.” After finishing Genki I, II, and An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese, I could basically follow most spoken conversations. There were words I didn’t know, but through context I was able to make educated guesses at what they meant. However, I was stuck using simpler words when I spoke, and it was so frustrating to be able to understand the words, yet be unable to recall them and use them when I wanted to.
Then I graduated and moved to Japan. Oh man, I thought I was such hot stuff. “I studied Japanese for 5 years, and I even studied Classical Japanese. I’m gonna have such an easy time of it here.”
…It took me about three days of living in Japan to realize that I was absolutely illiterate. I couldn’t understand any of the visa application forms or what they were telling me I needed to provide. Misunderstood the times I had to have the garbage put outside because I had never seen the kanji 迄（まで, “until, by”) before. Couldn’t read most billboards.
Especially with that kanji for “made” 迄. That was what really made me realize that I was at the plateau kanji-wise. You learn the particle まで in your first year. It was something I could use perfectly. But I hadn’t even known that there was a kanji for it until I tried to take out my trash out and found out that I was supposed to have it in the bin BY 9:30, not AFTER 9:30, like I had guessed it meant. :(
To pour salt into the wound, I have been able to read in English since I was 3 years old. I literally cannot remember a time I could not read. It is one of my favorite pastimes and I also do creative writing. This made the fact that I couldn’t read all-the-more frustrating.
How I Overcame the Plateau
I took that frustration and I turned it into fuel. I vowed to learn ALL THE KANJI. I started using the website and app WaniKani obsessively. I’m here to tell you, that app is what made me literate. It is worth every single penny if you already have a good grasp on the language but your kanji is weak, like me.
Basically, it teaches you 2,000 kanji and 6,000 reinforcing vocabulary across 60 levels. It doesn’t group the kanji necessarily by JLPT level. Rather, it groups them by radicals and frequency more or less. Each level will introduce 3-4 radicals, and then 10-15 kanji that use those radicals. It quizzes you on their on-yomi and kun-yomi, gives you mnemonics to remember them, and then once you’ve answered them all correctly enough times, it introduces vocabulary that uses those kanji, further reinforcing the readings and increasing your vocabulary. As a former language teacher and studier of second language acquisition, I am here to tell you that this method works. And it’s fun. It doesn’t feel like studying.
I also started reading Rurouni Kenshin. Even today, it is a challenging read for me. Back then, it would take me days to read just one chapter. But I wrote down every new word in a notebook, and also saved them to my dictionary app, Akebi.
To this day, this dictionary is my lifeline. You can make vocabulary lists in there, so I have a list for each book or series I’m reading, along with a list of words I find just everyday in conversation or news or something. It’s got a simple flashcard quiz feature for each list too! Seriously, if you’re an Android user, I highly recommend this app. It’s free!
Those were my two main study methods. The more kanji I learned how to read, obviously I was able to read better.
The really fascinating thing about kanji is that they’re like Legos. You can stick them together to make any word you want, really. So if you understand each kanji and remember its pronunciation, even if you see/hear a word for the first time, you can put together the meaning piece by piece.
Because I understood more kanji and could recall their readings, I could hear a new word in a conversation and think to myself, “Okay, we’re talking about how Hokkaido doesn’t get as much snow as it used to. This word ‘ondanka’ must be…温 (おん, heat) 暖 (だん, heat) 化 (か, change). Oh! ‘global warming!’”
So when I overcame the kanji plateau, I simultaneously overcame the spoken plateau. Knowing the kanji gave me the power to hear a new word in a certain context and infer what kanji must be used for that word, and therefore what that word meant.
My Advice to You
For me, the key to overcoming the plateau in Japanese was studying more kanji. So I recommend that you keep studying kanji and keep reading. But make sure that they are reading materials that you love!! If you’re not interested in what you’re reading, you’ll run out of steam.
Another really important thing is to be cognizant of the progress you’ve made. For example, maybe you have a Japanese song you’ve been listening to for years, and for the first time today you picked out a new word–one that you just studied the other day. Pat yourself on the back at every victory, no matter how small it may seem! There’s proof of your progress.
Best of luck to you in your studies!
I’m not at the intermediate level yet, but this is excellent advice to keep in mind! I’ll keep going with WaniKani. I can’t wait to see what my comprehension level will be once I reach level 60!
yo there’s NO langblrs on my dash
pls interact if ur a langblr thank u
realistic language goal:
pronunciation so perfect that you pass as a native speaker polished enough to confuse natives because they just. can’t. tell. where you’re from
I just want to add: it’s amazing if anyone passes as a native! But I specifically made this post because we need this positivity. Striving for perfection often leads to an unhealthy mindset (and can actually be counterproductive!), especially if you want reach fluency in many languages in your lifetime. Passing as a native is not a necessity and sometimes it’s more useful to let that go.
I absolutely love bewildering people when I speak in english. "Oh, are you perhaps from western Europe?" "I think you sound arabic" SIKE! I'm from latin america
Why I Don’t Want to Become a Polyglot
…and Why I Only Learn One Language at a Time
Disclaimer: These are my personal thoughts. If learning multiple languages at once makes you happy, go for it. Everyone has a right to spend their free time how they like.
Disclaimer #2: I do intend to learn multiple languages throughout my lifetime, not just one. What I mean by “not wanting to become a polyglot” is that I don’t want to just learn languages for the sake of learning a language; for the sake of being able to say I can speak 5 languages or something. I only want to learn a language if I truly adore it, not just so that it can be a number.
1. I spent an entire year preparing round-the-clock for my C1 German exam. It made me realise just how dedicated you have to be to a language in order to learn it to C1 level. I wanted to start learning Serbian at the time, but I physically couldn’t.
2. You can’t just abandon a language once you reach your goal. In order to maintain that level, you still need to be dedicating regular time to it. This means with each new language I pick up, it will become harder to maintain those I’ve already mastered, and I will have less time to put towards the new language. This also means I can’t just force myself to work extremely hard on a language I’m only semi-passionate about until I reach C1 level, and then abandon it. It doesn’t work like that. In my experience, you need to be extremely passionate about this language, all the time, for the rest of your life.
3. To reiterate points one and two: To reach and maintain an advanced level, it is not enough to simply like a language. You need to love it with all your heart and soul. German was the language of my ancestors. Some died shortly before I was born, some when I was very young. Learning their language made me feel so close to them; it helped me remember them. German is also a widely spoken language, with many great TV shows to watch, many movies, a lot of music and YouTubers. I have always been incredibly interested in modern German history. Despite having so many reasons to love and use German, I still often found it hard to stay motivated in German and have the dedication required to pass and maintain C1.
4. If you learn multiple languages at once, you will not just progress slower in both, but the total amount of time it takes you to master both languages will be lengthened greatly. Here is the video from Matt vs Japan I was talking about on another post. In it, he gives the example that if French takes 2 years to learn, and German takes 2 years to learn, learning them both simultaneously won’t take 4 years, it might take 5-7 years. This, to me, is extremely demotivating. I see a lot of langblrs setting yearly goals of going up one or two CEFR levels in a year. This is generally pretty achievable, depending on the language and your schedule. But then they apply this to three or four languages! I always see them disappointed at the end of the year, because of course this never happens. They rarely even go up one CEFR level in each of the languages they’re learning, because they’re spreading themselves so thin.
5. There’s nothing boring about learning one language at a time - actually, it’s a beautiful and admirable thing! Watching Matt vs Japan in various interviews on Youtube made me remember how passionate I was about German when I first started learning it, and I want to go back to that. I want German to be a part of me! Not just some random thing I do now and then. It’s fun to dedicate yourself to something, and in my opinion, it shows a deep amount of respect to native speakers of that language, their culture, their history.
6. If I can’t tolerate, or find it too boring, to only focus on one TL for several years, that to me is a sign that I probably don’t love it enough (see points 1-3).
7. My values are different than those presented often in langblr/polyglot culture. It’s tempting to see someone who is learning 7 languages at once, and think they are impressive, but after realising this person is A0-A2 in most of those languages, and maybe B1 in two more languages, I’m no longer impressed nor jealous. I would rather truly experience the German language and culture in a deeply meaningful way, than just be able to order food and buy souvenirs in 10 different languages/countries.
8. I have multiple decades ahead of me to learn languages. Let’s be honest, most of us reading this post will be in our teens, 20s, or maybe 30s. There’s no rush. I’m so excited to keep maintaining my German, spend the next two or three years completely immersed in Serbian and having that language become a part of me, and after that, spend another 5+ years dedicated to Japanese. When I look back on my German, it will remind me most of the time transitioning from my teens to my early 20s, when I discovered who I was! When I look back on my Serbian, it will remind me of settling into my young adulthood. I’ll probably be having babies around the time I learn Japanese, so it will probably remind me of that beautiful time in my life, when I look back on it.
Here are some YouTubers who are extremely dedicated to their TLs who inspire me to take on the same mindset. I’ll try to link a video where they specifically showcase why it’s great to learn one language at a time:
Matt vs Japan
Oriental Pearl
Days of French ‘n’ Swedish
Blondie in China
JJsays
I am also dedicated essentially to one language, so a lot of this resonates with me.
I think it’s especially important to note that seeing other people studying (and being good at) multiple languages can make you feel jealous or even like you are not putting in enough effort. But when you stop comparing yourself to other people and look at your own progress, you will realize that you are good at your single language too. And you should be proud of your accomplishments.
The most important thing is to do what makes you happy when you study languages, and if you aren’t enjoying it, you might want to reevaluate the reasons you are really studying the language.
I'm currently trying to learn two languages at once, and it hasn't been easy. But I've already started and it's better to maintain both of them based on the time I already spent on them, but learn only one at a time if you haven't started doing this, I'm already screwed.
Both of these languages make me happy, and I'm thrilled to learn, I love their culture. But it's going to take me two other years being really dedicated to go anywhere near fluent, and I already have three years behind me.
Another thing: English is my second language, I'm not so passionate about it, but I was so eager to have access to twice the content. Books, movies, series, social media, even fanfiction. It has become part of my life, and my job has to do with it. That's why I'm consistent in maintaining it.
Hello everyone!
I decided to my my own langblr and wanted to introduce myself.
My name is V, I'm 22 years old and I'm a book- and media management apprentice. My mother tongue is German, but I think I'm nearly as fluent in English.
The first language I started learning before English was actually French, I studied it for a total of 6 years at school, but then ignored it for years, so I'm incredibly rusty now and have to get back on track.
I also had Italian at school for 3 years, but I will pick it up again later on when my French is fluent enough. I don't want too many language projects at the same time, because I'm learning two languages completely from scratch:
Korean and Spanish
My target languages for the future are: Latin, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Swedish and Arabic
So if you have a langblr for either of those languages (French, Korean, Spanish), I would love to follow you.
I will also post original content, mostly for German probably, so if there's any grammar or vocab topic you're interested in, please let me know and I'm happy to help. I'll also post about my language learning journey in general.
Welcome!
I am a native Spanish speaker, so feel free to ask me any questions you might have about the language or hit me up to practice conversation. I am making a list on Spanish resources and my target language is French too. People are friendly, so I hope you have a good experience here.
Music in Spanish- Recs list part 1
Okay, I grew up in Mexico (a lot of these are going to be from there, if you want more variety feel free to add artists from other nationalities in the notes), so I'm going to put in my best effort to recommend stuff that isn't too common or that you haven’t heard about yet.
Buckle up, I'm about to divide the recs in at least 3 posts. The artist comes first, I mention their accent, and then a song by the artist previously mentioned (the link will be to the version of the song with lyrics, so you can better understand it).
Searching for ballads?
La oreja de Van Gogh
Their lyrics are kind of cheesy sometimes but also kind of catchy. This a group from Spain.
Link to Playa.
Mon Laferte
Anyone else see those massive compilations of target language vocabulary and just think thanks a bunch but this is useless?
To be honest, I do feel frustrated and want to bang my head against a wall whenever I don't recall a word that I supposedly memorized last week.
Repetition is key, but sometimes I feel like just the sheer amount of words make me feel overwhelmed, and hey, that's just me, you (the great person making vocabulary lists for free, thanks for making them) shouldn't feel obligated to suit my needs.
I like to learn languages through exposition (with the proper grammar knowledge behind it) so I get what the point is, it just doesn't work too much for me, maybe it works better for other people?
Since our lectures are going to be 99.9% online this year, she's the only study buddy I have left for now 🥰
(Featuring Phisiology which is crazy hard to understand. Helpppp)
MASSIVE list of book recs
plays
death of a salesman, arthur miller
macbeth, shakespeare
a streetcar named desire, tennessee williams
hamlet, shakespeare
a raisin in the sun, lorraine hansberry
a midsummer night’s dream, shakespeare
antigone, sophocles
king lear, shakespeare
the glass menagerie, tennessee williams
othello, shakespeare
pygmalion, george bernard shaw
the tempest, shakespeare,
much ado about nothing, shakespeare
as you like it, shakespeare
the taming of the shrew, shakespeare
the merry wives of windsor, shakespeare
the merchant of venice, shakespeare
oedipus rex, sophocles
an ideal husband, oscar wilde
who’s afraid of virginia wolf, edward albee
our town, thornton wilder
waiting for godot, samuel beckett
fantasy/fairy tales
the ranger’s apprentice, john flanagan
harry potter series, j.k. rowling
inkheart by cornelia funke
throne of glass, sarah j. maas
the chronicles of narnia, c.s. louis
the lord of the rings, j.r.r. tolkien
the hobbit, j.r.r. tolkien
percy jackson and the olympions, rick riordan
eragon by christopher paolini
the bartimaeus trilogy, jonathan stroud
howl’s moving castle, dianna wynne jones
the wonderful wizard of oz, lyman frank baum
the books of bayern, shannon hale
ella enchanted, gail carson levine
the princess bride, william goldman
the raven cycle, maggie stiefvater
the sisters grimm, michael buckley
the spiderwick chronicles, tony diterlizzi and holly black
the alchemist, paulo coelho
forgive my fins, tera lynn childs
alice in wonderland, lewis carroll
the faerie path, allan jones frewin
the school for good and evil, soman chainani
the grimm legacy, polly shulman
the sweetest spell, suzanne selfors
the tales of the frog princess, e.d. baker
the wide-awake princess, e.d. baker
once a witch, carolyn maccullough
the silver bowl series, diane stanley
the emily windsnap series, liz kessler
fairest, gail carson levine
the fairy realm series, emily rodda
the water mirror, kai meyer
the two princesses of bamarre, gail carson levine
non-fiction
the seven habits of highly effective people, stephen covey
the seven habits of highly effective teens, sean covey
mencken’s chrestomathy, h.l. mencken
yes please, amy poehler
is everyone hanging out without me? (and other concerns), mindy kaling
audrey hepburn: an elegant spirit, sean hepburn ferrer
how to be lovely: the audrey hepburn way of life, melissa hellstern
how to win friends and influence people, dale carnegie
how to win friends and influence people for teen girls, donna dale carnegie
#girlboss by sophia amuroso
14,000 things to be happy about, barbara ann kipfer
choose to matter, julie foudy
the little book of skin care: korean beauty secrets for healthy, glowing skin, charlotte cho
where stylists shop: the fashion insider’s ultimate guide, booth moore
the girls’ book of glamour: a guide to being a goddess, jeffrie sally
the girls’ book: how to be the best at everything, juliana foster
the girls’ book of excellence: even more ways to be the best at everything, sally norton
the life-changing magic of not giving a f*ck: how to stop spending time you don’t have with people you don’t like doing things you don’t want to do (a no f*cks given guide), sarah knight
bossypants, tina fey
we should all be feminists by chimamanda ngozi adichie
behind the scenes: or, thirty years a slave, and four years in the white house, elizabeth keckley
the pillow book, sei shōnagon
eat pretty: nutrition for beauty, inside and out, jolene hart
eat pretty every day: 365 daily inspirations for nourishing beauty, inside and out, jolene hart
narrative of the life of frederick douglass, frederick douglass
narrative of sojourner truth, sojourner truth
12 years a slave, solomon northup
night, elie wiesel
poetry
the flowers of evil, charles baudelaire
a season in hell, arthur rimbaud
she walks in beauty, lord byron
shakespeare’s sonnets, shakespeare
we real cool, gwendolyn brooks
poems of emily dickinson
poems of robert frost
leaves of grass, walt whitman
the raven, edgar allen poe
poems of edgar allen poe
milk and honey by rupi kaur
the sun and her flowers, rupi kaur
the princess saves herself in this one, amanda lovelace
romance
romeo and juliet, shakespeare
emma, jane austen
ever, gail carson levine
pride and prejudice, jane austen
eleanor and park, rainbow rowell
sense and sensibility, jane austen
jane eyre, charlotte brontë
landline, rainbow rowell
madame bovary, gustave flaubert
to all the boys i’ve loved before, jenny han
love in the time of cholera, gabriel garcía márquez
the sun is also a star, nicola yoon
young adult
fangirl, rainbow rowell
great expectations, charles dickens
aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe, benjamin alire sáenz
when the moon was ours, anna-marie mclemore
the goldfinch, donna tartt
looking for alaska, john green
we were liars, e. lockhart
the wrath and the dawn, renée ahdieh
little women, louisa may alcott
palace of spies, sarah zettel
the clique series, lisi harrison
the finishing school series, gail carriger
eyes like stars, lisa mantchev
the ever after high series, shannon hale
along for the ride, sarah dessen
girl online, zoe sugg
keeping the castle, patrice kindl
stargirl, jerry spinelli
stir it up, ramin ganeshram
prom and prejudice, elizabeth eulberg
the summer i saved the world…in 65 days, michele weber hurwitz
pink and green series by lisa greenwald
six of crows, leigh bardugo
the catcher in the rye, j.d. salinger
the house on mango street, sandra cisneros
turtles all the way down, john green
under the lights, dahlia adler
geekerella, ashley poston
simon vs. the homo sapiens agenda, becky albertalli
it’s not like it’s a secret, misa sugiura
the idiot, elif batuman
the outsiders, s.e. hinton
everything leads to you, nina lacour
a wrinkle in time, madeleine l’engle
dumplin’, julie murphy
historical fiction
the great gatsby, f. scott fitzgerald
the scarlet letter, nathaniel hawthorne
a tale of two cities, charles dickens
the song of achilles, madeline miller
the last of the mohicans, james fenimore cooper
the constant princess, philippa gregory
the count of monte cristo, alexandre dumas
les misérables, victor hugo
war and peace, leo tolstoy
a mad, wicked folly, sharon biggs waller
manor of secrets, katherine longshore
to kill a mockingbird, harper lee
uncle tom’s cabin, harriet beecher stowe
atonement ian mcewan
the unbearable lightness of being, milan kundera
things fall apart, chinua achebe
ophelia, lisa m. klein
the god of small things, arundhati roy
gothic fiction
frankenstein, mary shelley
dracula, bram stoker
the picture of dorian gray, oscar wilde
wuthering heights, emily brontë
parody/satire
catch-22, joseph heller
candide, voltaire
don quixote, miguel de cervantes
animal farm, george orwell
the importance of being earnest, oscar wilde
science fiction
the city of ember, jeanne duprau
1984, george orwell
the handmaid’s tale, margaret atwood
brave new world, aldous huxley
the lunar chronicles, marissa meyer
the time machine, h.g. wells
the fourteenth goldfish, jennifer l. holm
fahrenheit 451, ray bradbury
twenty thousand leagues under the sea, jules verne
the extraordinary voyages series, jules verne
epics
beowulf, author unknow
the odyssey, homer
the iliad, homer
the bhagavad gita, vyasa
the mahabharata, vyasa
inferno, dante alighieri
miscellaneous
the bell jar, sylvia plath
the secret history, donna tartt
swann’s way, marcel proust
the art of war, sun tzu
the awakening, kate chopin
moby dick, herman melville
anna karenina, leo tolstoy
the canterbury tales, geoffrey chaucer
the crucible, arthur miller
one flew over the cuckoo’s nest, ken kesey
the antichrist, friedrich nietzsche
sew zoey, nancy taylor and chloe zhang
the candymakers, wendy mass
my sister the vampire series, sienna mercer
eight hundred grapes, laura dave
their eyes were watching god, zora neale hurston
the adventures of huckleberry finn, mark twain
the adventures of tom sawyer, mark twain
a christmas carol, charles dickens
the old man and the sea, ernest hemingway
to the lighthouse, virginia woolf
utopia, thomas more
a spy in the house of love, anaïs nin
crime and punishment, fyodor dostoyevsky
the assistants, camille perri
a room of one’s own, virginia woolf
the joy luck club, amy tan
sputnik sweetheart, haruki murakami
the namesake, jhumpa lahiri
a thousand splendid suns, khaled hosseini
crazy rich asians, kevin kwan
save the date, morgan matson
neuromancer, william gibson
thanks for reading! i hope this helped some of you out. hugs, mel ✨✨✨
To everyone learning a language, who is getting frustrated and impatient and maybe even thinking of quitting: remember how far you have come (not how far you have to go), remember why you started and remember how fantastic the end product will be. Learning a language is difficult and the journey can be long but it is rewarding and it opens so many doors. You are capable of doing this, you can do this… don’t quit now
Bilingual Manga
I only recently discovered Bilingual Manga, a website where you can read Japanese manga for free. The text is all selectable, which means you can use it with addons like Rikaikun, or just copy/paste words or kanji into a dictionary. If you press the blue “Language Switcher” button, the text switches into English! It’s a really useful and fun tool to get used to reading in Japanese. Obviously, those learners who are more of an intermediate level, I’d recommend using this feature very sparingly, since you get more out of it if you use it as an “extra”, after trying to figure it out by yourself.
So far the website’s selection is really small and they’ve got only couple of chapters per manga, but I’d really recommend reading Yotsuba. So fat they have 14 chapters. It’s a really funny slice of life comic with useful vocabulary and variety of characters (and thus speech styles).
