WIP: Heaven is four light years away (browse the "hiflya" tag) | fantasy and sci-fi writer | slavic, multingual | engineering student | langblr & writeblr | main: tonyndum-e
Science Association Aranzadi has made a discovery that can be a landmark for the history of Basque language. In an Iron Age Vascon town of Irulegi, in the region of Aranguren (Nafarroa), an inscripted bronze hand from the 1st century BCE has surfaced. It’s the longest and oldest Basque text until now. It’s written in a variation of the Iberian alphabet, adapted by Vascons to our language. According to experts, the hand could have been a lucky charm to bring good luck and shoo bad luck away.
The first word reads sorioneku - please compare to nowadays Basque word zorioneko (for good luck, luckily).
THIS. IS. HUGE.
It’s the first Vasconic text - not single words - that has been found so omg, we’re super excited!!!
To all my Japanese learners- this Netflix show is SO good. One episode had me hooked. I think significantly more effective to watch live action in your target language over watching animated content, because you can see the way people actually talk. So I’m very thankful that I found this show :)
This is so insanely cool, I’ve tried to find this Basque-Japanese dictionary (Euskara-Japoniarra) but unfortunately I’ve had no luck. I don’t even know if it exists in real life, I would get it instantly, I just started learning Japanese and it would be great if I could link it to Basque somehow :))
How, HOW ON EARTH didn't we know this band???? We can't thank @lady-of-winterfell enough for commeting about them!!! They're beautiful and strong and aaaah, we love them already!!!
They're NEOMAK, and their song Ilargi berriak (The new moons).
Gaua eder dago, haizea gogor leihoan
The night's beautiful, there's a strong wind at the window
Izarrak dantzan ta kopla zaharrak alboan
stars are dancing and there are old folk songs by my side.
Chorus:
Bideak, doinuak, daramatzagu kolkoan
Paths, sounds, we carry in our breast
Ilargi berriak lagun zaharren ondoan
new moons beside old friends
Sua maite dugu akelarreen beroan
We love fire in the heat of the coven
Emeki, indartsu ulu zakarren goxoan
gently, strong in a violent howl.
Chorus
Laralala
Sugarra piztu da ahots indartsuen loan
The flame has been light on in the sleep of a strong voice
Aurreko plazandren ahots indartsuen loan
we have in our mouth the folk songs of the women that came before us
Chorus
Laralala
Bideak, doinuak, kopla zahar berriak,
Paths, sounds, new old folk songs,
Sorginen kantuak, haien abestiak,
witches' singings, their songs
Sua, akelarrea, gure irrintziak,
The fire, the coven, our howlings
Aurreko plazandrak, Ilargi berriak
The women that came before us, the new moons.
abestu - to sing
afari - dinner
aingeru - angel
Andra Mari - Virgin Mary
apaindu - to decorate
argiak - lights
asto - donkey
besarkatu - to hug
bolatxoak - baubel
Eguberri - Christmas
Eguberri on! - Merry Christmas!
elur - snow
elurrezko panpina - snowman
erosketak egin - to go shopping
espumiloi - tinsel
Gabon-gau - Christmas Eve
Gabon-kanta - Christmas carol
Gabonetako zuhaitz - Christmas tree
gorosti - holly
hotz - cold
idi - ox
ikatz - coal
intxaursaltsa - walnut soup (Basque traditional dessert for Xmas)
jaiotza - crèche
janaria prestatu - to cook
Jesus - Jesus
mahaia jarri - to lay the table
negu - winter
Olentzero - Basque Santa
opariak - presents
polboroi - polvoron (traditional Christmas sweet)
San Jose - Saint Joseph
sendi - family
topa egin - to toast
turroi - nougat
zintzo izan - to be good, to behave oneself
zurrukutun - traditional soup made with bread, garlic, and cod
Of course we have a Basque version of Jingle Bells!!
Errepika: Chorus:
Din dan don, din dan don! Din dan don, din dan don!
Eguberri on! Merry Christmas!
Zorion, zorion! Happiness, hapiness!
Gabonak, din-dan, don! Christmas, din-dan, don!
Din dan don, din dan don! Din dan don, din dan don!
Eguberri on! Merry Christmas!
Zorion, zorion, Gabonak Gabon! Happiness, happiness, Christmas Eve!
Izar bat hasi da dizdizka zeruan A star has started to shine in the sky
berri onak zabaltzen ari zaigu munduan bringing us good news in the world.
Jaio da, jaio da, Jaunaren semea, He’s born, he’s born, the Lord’s son,
askatxo batean dago, lastoen gainean. he’s in a little manger, on the straw.
Errepika Chorus
Aingeruak kanta, artzain onak dantzan, Angels sing, the good shepherds dance
Jainkoaren jaiotzan Pakea eta Aintza! at God’s birth there’s Peace and Glory!
Astoak, aja-ja! Idiak, muu-mu! The donkey goes hee-haw, the ox, moo!
Estalpe zaharrean kantuan ari zaizkigu. In an old barn they’re singing for us.
Errepika Chorus
Antxon eta Peru, artzain buruzuri, Antxon and Peru, grey-haired shepherds,
izarrari jarraika biak datoz arinka. are coming quickly following the star.
Menditik barrena, haurtxoarengana, From the mountain to where the child is,
artzain bakoitzak darama each one brings a little lamb with him.
arkumetxo bana.
Errepika Chorus
all websites can be used for free and without subscribtion (thats why japanese101 isnt included)
-> apps for japanese learners (soon)
1. JLPT Sensei
study guides (N5-N1)
includes grammar, kanji, vocabular, adjective, verb and other lists for orientation when studying
free JLPT practice tests
2. Japanese Verb Conjugator
automatic verb conjugator
verb database
kanji database & kanji tester
over 180,000 example sentences with sound
3. Tanoshii Japanese
japanese-english dictionary (with stroke order!)
pratice games & interactive lessons (Kanji Mahjong etc.)
learning resources (japanese novel, textbook, magazine, movie recommendations)
4. Jisho
fast and smart japanese-english dictionary
draw and radical function apart from keyboard search
searching by topic and categories by adding #[topic/category]
JLPT levels, sentences, particles, counters, names included
5. Map Quiz
world map quiz in japanese
divided into continents and north, east, south and west
6. Japanesetests4you
free JLPT N5-N1 reading and listening tests
free JLPT N5-N1 vocabulary, kanji and grammar lists + tests
7. Shiritori Online
Shiritori (しりとり) is a popular japanese word game and is ideal to exercise vocabulary for japanese learners. 2 or more players take turns saying a word that starts with the last kana of the previous word. The game ends when someone answers with a word ending with -n (ん) because there are no words starting with ん.
it is up to the players whether all forms of a hiragana (kana and its diacritics; は,ば and ぱ etc.) are allowed or not (e.g やぎ -> きよう).
example: りんご (apple) -> ごりら (ゴリラ) (gorilla) -> らーめん (ラーメン) (ramen). The last person who said ramen loses because the word ends with -n (ん). Instead the person could have saidらま (ラマ) (llama) (e.g).
Day 3: Create a list or a Mindmap of vocabulary topics. Start with a broad topic and narrow down to more specific topics. An example could be bedroom - furniture - closet - clothes or travelling - languages - study words - school supplies. Keep a hold of this because you'll use it later to create vocab to study. Some broad topics to start with: house, school, work, travelling, friends and family, nature, city. Feel free to use these or think of your own. Share your mindmap so others can get some ideas if they need it.
I'll use this map for Basque and Spanish, but for Spanish I'll only make the more advanced vocab lists
Day 2: Write a list of goals you have for your target languages. Make both long term and short term goals. An overall goal could be to have the ability to talk with native speakers with ease and a smaller goal would be to finally learn that difficult grammar point that's been plaguing you for ages. How will you achieve them?
Basque: my main target language
Weekly: I plan on sticking to 1 lesson a week from the book "The Basque language: A practical introduction" by Alan R. King. I'll stick to 1 lesson weekly because I bring my notebook with me to uni and do excercises during boring lectures and breaks I have in between (15-min breaks) and I don't even have to do anything at home. It's easier for me sticking to a habit like this.
Small habit: listen to a podcast 2-3x a week (it doesn't matter if I don't, because I listen to Basque songs a lot and on a daily basis anyway). These podcasts aren't to be listened only once because my level is still too low to understand. At this point I just get to understand more of the context of the podcast every time I listen to the same one.
In the next month (until 2023): I need to review all grammar I learned because I feel like I brushed over some parts a bit. I won't force myself to master that grammar but I need a reminder. Same goes for vocab, especially those fillers, words like "just, anyway" etc.
In 6 months: I want to be comfortable enough to go on Tandem app and talk to euskaldunak there. My goal until May-June is to become conversational, so that would be my test to check if I managed it.
Spanish: daily used language
Short-term goals: I don't have because I don't even sit to study anymore, I just pick up things by using it online all the time.
Small habits: I already do the comprehension excercises by listening to Real Madrid players speak Spanish, but I want to find some fun podcasts to listen to sometimes
1 thing on my wishlist: I want to read a book in Spanish, I have bought a middle grade book which I haven't yet had the courage to start because I had a bad experience at trying to read German books, but I know my Spanish is much better, I just kind of have this fear
Long-term goal: take the DELE C1 exam in autumn 2023/spring 2024 (I'm missing some of the basic vocabulary, even for A1, so I need to work on that)
German: I need to regain the level I had
I'm not excited about this because my German is school-taught and I finished school 2 years ago. Now I have a completely different language learning system and I don't know how to apply it to the language I had a broken system for studying. I want to get back to it, hopefully next year, but I still don't know how
Figure out which language to learn next
I won't force myself for this but Here's the list of languages I think I want to take up (from most excited about to somewhat excited/not sure at all):
Japanese
Arabic
Korean
Portuguese
Polish
Turkish
Russian
Keep in mind this list can change anytime, I'm kind of getting the idea of learning Finnish or Hungarian, so I might just randomly take up one of those. My brain is unpredictable but it's also better to listen to my guts than force myself to decide on a language. This is exactly how I took up Basque 😅
Day 1: Create an introduction post about yourself. What's your name? What languages are you studying? What languages do you hope to study? What do you hope you'll get out of this challenge? Add whatever else you’d like to your introduction post!
Name: Kanita
Nationality: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Native in: Bosnian(+Serbian, Croatian), English
Languages learning:
Spanish (upper intermediate) - I haven't taken any DELE exams, I don't really learn Spanish, I use it on a daily basis and I gotten myself up to a high level like this;
German (B1 from 2 years ago) - I haven't used German in over 2 years (since I started uni I haven't had much use for it) and the German I knew was from school, I plan on getting back my level and exceeding it one day, but for now I'm not in the mood to get back to it, maybe next year;
Basque (beginner) - I'm not a total beginner, I have been learning it since May, I can express some of my thoughts, I've been learning it mostly with the book "The Basque language: A practical introduction" by Alan R. King and I had done a 14-day challenge before that to get myself into the basics. I'm totally in love with this language and I plan on being conversational until May-June 2023, aka in around half a year
Special mentions: Arabic(Syrian), Japanese - I'm really interested in learning these languages but I'm making myself put it on hold before I get a bit more comfortable in my Basque
Main target language: Basque/Euskara + I want to take a DELE Spanish exam next year (C1 hopefully)
I've already explained it here that I'm far away from the Basque Country, and that I don't plan on working there (at least anytime soon, my love for the culture of Euskal Herria is growing every day) but that I still somehow fell in love with this language. I might not need to use it anytime soon, but I feel happy learning it. Plus, I did use it once in real life. Here's a fun short story:
In the same post I've mentioned where I got the idea of studying Basque from. This August I visited Madrid to watch Real Madrid's women's team play in the Champions League. Long story short, I met the player I mentioned in the post (Nahikari) and while most of the conversation we had was in Spanglish, I told her something in Euskera. I totally messed up the word order (also giggled) the first time I said it but she asked me to repeat it and understood me. So, I count it as using the language even though I said one single sentence (it was pretty long though, I had to think about it a lot).
What do I hope to get out of this challenge? Well, hopefully connect with more people that are studying the same languages I mentioned, especially Basque because it's really hard to find another person studying Basque.
How to use Notion for Language Learners - a masterpost
So, I have been learning languages for a while now, and one of the things I have always been struggling with is having a space that could gather all the info I need, the spreads I used to make on my bullet journal, and maybe even something more.
Notion has become my best friend all over the last couple of years, but as I am a pretty sick perfectionist, I am still mastering the art of creating efficient templates, but I am slowly overcoming this problem of mine… In the meantime enjoy my favorite YouTube videos all about Notion x Language Learning:
how to make the best language learning plan | notion templates | AD by Anna Lenks
ULTIMATE LANGUAGE PLANNER IN NOTION FOR POLYGLOTS by me :)
How to make a language learning plan that WORKS ✨ Notion for language learners by Elysse Speaks
How To Make A Sentence Mining Database in Notion | Language Learning | Tutorial + Free Template by Leafling Learns
How I Created a 30-Day Language Study Plan That Works! by Shea Jordan
Create a language learning schedule that works + Notion Template! by Jusuf
updating my language learning notion 🖊 by Jo Renee Languages
Language Learning: Notion, RemNote And Reverso (French) by Red Gregory
How I plan and organize my life and languages | Notion tour 📝 by Lindie Botes
Hope you enjoyed this post, in the meantime I'll go and create the best language-learning hub you will ever see
Hello everyone! As you may know I've created this challenge to help revive the langblr community. It's a three week challenge designed to get you back into learning languages and (hopefully) give you ideas on how to study and share your knowledge of them. It is completely optional to do, but try to reblog other people's posts if you aren't participating.
The challenge is designed to be done daily, however if you miss a day, you can go back and do it later or continue from where you left off. I do encourage you to do your best to keep up with the challenge though. Tag your posts with #langblr reactivation challenge so that others can find your posts.
If you have any questions, please send me an ask or a message and I'll do my best to answer it.
I'll put the prompts under a read more so this post isn't ridiculously long. Good luck to everyone participating! Remember the best way to promote the langblr revival is by reblogging other people's work.
Week 1
Day 1: Create an introduction post about yourself. What's your name? What languages are you studying? What languages do you hope to study? What do you hope you'll get out of this challenge? Add whatever else you’d like to your introduction post!
Day 2: Write a list of goals you have for your target languages. Make both long term and short term goals. An overall goal could be to have the ability to talk with native speakers with ease and a smaller goal would be to finally learn that difficult grammar point that's been plaguing you for ages. How will you achieve them?
Day 3: Create a list or a Mindmap of vocabulary topics. Start with a broad topic and narrow down to more specific topics. An example could be bedroom - furniture - closet - clothes or travelling - languages - study words - school supplies. Keep a hold of this because you'll use it later to create vocab to study. Some broad topics to start with: house, school, work, travelling, friends and family, nature, city. Feel free to use these or think of your own. Share your mindmap so others can get some ideas if they need it. Here are some mind map creation tools (x) (x) (x).
Day 4: Create a vocab list for one of the topics you created yesterday, if you want to make more, feel free to make as many as you like! Share your list and reblog other people's lists. And most importantly, make sure you study these words!
Day 5: Find a video in your target language and watch it as many times as you need to in order to understand it. Make a post about the video. What was it about? Did you like the video? Was it difficult to understand? Make sure you link the video. Try to write your answers in your target language, but if you can’t that’s okay!
Day 6: Look up 3 idioms in your target language and explain what they mean and how you use them in a sentence (with an example!).
Day 7: Send asks to other langblrs (bonus points if it's in a shared target language!) asking them about whatever (for example, ask how their day was, ask questions about their target languages, or share some of your thoughts with them). If you receive one, answer it! You can ask more than one person and it can be on or off anon.
Week 2
Day 1: Over the next week, create a playlist/playlists of songs in your target language(s), they can either have a specific mood or genre or they can be a collection of songs you've discovered. When you feel like you're done with your playlist, share it so others can find some new songs. If you already have a playlist, you can add songs to it and update it.
Day 2: Write an explanation on a grammar rule in your target language (such as verb tenses, exceptions, word order, etc). Include sentences to show how and when it is used.
Day 3: Either make a vocab list or find a vocab list you like and make sentences using those words. You can make them as long or as short as you like. This is a good way to contextualise vocab words and learn them in context. Share your sentences and highlight the vocab word.
Day 4: Record yourself reading an article, short story, or passage (basically anything written in your target language). Listen to it and see if you can point out any areas you can improve with your speaking and any areas that you're doing well. You can post your recording if you wish.
Day 5: Post at least 2 songs that you like in your target language. Make sure you add a link to them so people can go listen to them.
Day 6: Share a study tip you have. This can range from how you organize your notes to playlists that help you study to apps you use to review. Just something that you find makes studying easier (and more fun).
Day 7: Share with everyone some langblrs you enjoy seeing on your dash, try to put at least 5 people (and make sure you @ them!).
Week 3
Day 1: Remember that playlist you made/are making? Take a song you really like and make a vocab list of words you don't understand, learned from the song, or recognize but don't quite remember. Post so others can see and link the song. If you have extra time and/or want a bit more of a challenge, translate the song as well, either into English or another language.
Day 2: Write about a festival or holiday that is celebrated in a country that speaks your target language. This can be either something you’ve celebrated yourself, have wanted to participate in, or have never heard of before. You can write this in any language you’d like.
Day 3: Make another vocab list from the list you made at the beginning of the challenge. If you are learning two or more languages, make the vocab list in 3 languages (meaning for example: French, German, and English or Japanese, Arabic, and Ukrainian).
Day 4: Find a recipe written in your target language and translate it into your native language (or another language of your choice) or find a recipe in your native language and translate it into your target language. Bonus points if you actually make it (share pictures if you do)!
Day 5: Create a collection of resources you use to study/learn your target language. Add links to them if possible so others can also use them.
Day 6: Create a post explaining a grammar rule that you had/are having difficulties learning. If you’re currently having difficulties, do your best to explain and ask others to help you understand it better. Include example sentences in your explanation.
Day 7: How do you feel at the end of this challenge? Did you meet any goals while doing this? Do you feel more confident in your language abilities? Where do you think you'll go from here? Answer these questions either in your native language or your target language.
Hopefully you guys enjoy/enjoyed this challenge. After you've completed the challenge, I encourage you to continue your studies in your target languages and support others in theirs.
I decided to switch it up a bit with my Euskara lessons so I found this beautiful poem by momentuaak on Instagram which was already translated to Spanish in the original caption
Batzuetan ez dakit nora joan.
Batzuetan galduta sentitzen naiz.
Batzuetan errutinak itotzen egiten nau eta ihes egin behar dut.
Batzuetan bakarrik zure begi berdeak berriro ikustea behar dut, bertan bakea sentitzen dudalako.
Nahiz eta batzuetan begi horietatik ihes egin nahi dudan.
I've mastered the cardinals but I haven't yet used ordinals much and fractions at all, but numbers are something we all learn along the way anyway so I'm not stressed about going through ordinals and fractions.
22. video: declinating the numbers
This I haven't used much but it's not complicated.
P.S. there's a small bit of this lesson included in the first picture of the video 23
23. video: demonstratives (this, that, that over there)
Oh yay, I finally have the table of all demonstratives. I had been wondering about this since the vey beginning
In the meantime, there have been 3 more videos published in the playlist and the videos from 24-26 aren't included in this challenge. Later on I'll probably watch them too and when I do I will just make a separate post. But this is it for this challenge.
Thoughts:
For the past 5 months I've been studying from the book called "The Basque language: a practical introduction" by Alan R. King and even though that book is amazingly put together and everything is explained step by step with exercises, going through this playlist helped me massively. I always say that this language is more logical than hard, and by having gone through the playlist, it's much easier to connect things I've learned from there during the course of this book.
If your Spanish level is high enough, you definitely won't regret watching the playlist and using it the way I did. And I definitely recommend this channel "Oromen", as well as "Euskara Satorra" for learning Euskara, but both are with explanations in Spanish (though the creators know fluent English, so you can ask them in the comments)
I hope this benefits someone one day :) I know I had fun, so to all language enthusiasts that are interested in Euskara, I recommend you to do this challenge
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Days 10-14
Day 9 of the immersive Euskara learning challenge (9/14)
Kaixo guztioi!
I was sceptical at first about how would he fit all of the remaining cases in one 12-minute video but it was fine.
20. video: the remaining cases
Funny thing is that even before I started learning cases, I knew of NOREKIN and how to build it and this case came as one of the last ones for me to encounter in this course.
I must say though, the instrumental case is as fun as youd expect instrumental to be. And to be honest, I didn't get it immediately for some of the uses, like the one that depicts mood or situation, but I stumbled upon it quite a few times on Twitter so I'm all good now :)
Yes I most definitely put up a sticky note saying I don't understand NORTZAT and I still don't because I haven't yet used it. One day this sticky note will vanish. One day.
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Days 10-14
