[study-to-rule-the-world]

Welcome.

This is my langblr. I'll post in English, German, Italian and Mandarin Chinese.

Contents with their respective tags:

Language grammar/vocabulary: #name of the language (#english, #german, #italian, #chinese, #japanese, etc)

My diary in different languages: #langblrdiarychallenge (feel free to comment my posts! I appreciate your opinions on what's going on in my life, and also your corrections of my grammar mistakes!)

Interesting/funny facts related to languages: #funny

Interesting facts not related to languages: #interesting facts (usually about medicine, mental health and psychology)

Posts about personal things: #personal stuff (usually more specific things are posted on the #langblrdiarychallenge)

[study-to-rule-the-world]

Help with a translation

I have a papyrus my mum bought in Egypt years ago (it's clearly a replica). I'd really love to know what's written on it, can anyone help me?

[wonwoodrivethru]

i really dislike how the linguistic/polyglot community on the internet has kinda just devolved into "look at me and how many languages I can speak. applaud me." it just feels like we're trying to one up one another and like... it should not be like that 😭 shout out to all my cringefail polyglots who suck at all their languages i love you

[soullesz13]

help

[study-to-rule-the-world]

Could you help my friend?

She is a teacher and she is planning a lesson on calculators. If you have a physical calculator, could you try entering 6÷2(2+2) on your calculator? She is looking for as many calculators as possible that give the result 12. If your calculator gives the result 12, could you please send me a picture (or post a picture here) showing the calculator’s name, the calculation, and the result? Thank you!

[study-to-rule-the-world]

Why my brain makes lyrics up? How did it happen that I always sang "now I'm screaming, shouting, fighting in the rain and it's two a.m. and it's f****ing too late!", and the actual lyrics were: "But I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain. And it's 2AM and I'm cursing your name".

I wonder what the young me thought the song was about...

[study-to-rule-the-world]

Autism in Chinese

[study-to-rule-the-world]

Which Is Bouba And Which Is Kiki?

Look at the picture. Which is bouba and which is kiki?

The bouba-kiki effect

The bouba/kiki effect was first observed by German-American psychologist Wolfgang Köhler in 1929. In psychological experiments first conducted on the island of Tenerife (where the primary language is Spanish), Köhler showed forms similar to those shown in the picture and asked participants which shape was called "takete" and which was called "baluba" ("maluma" in the 1947 version). Although not explicitly stated, Köhler implies that there was a strong preference to pair the jagged shape with "takete" and the rounded shape with "baluba".

In 2001, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Edward Hubbard repeated Köhler's experiment using the words "kiki" and "bouba" and asked American college undergraduates and Tamil speakers in India "Which of these shapes is bouba and which is kiki?" In both groups, 95% to 98% selected the curvy shape as "bouba" and the jagged one as "kiki", suggesting that the human brain somehow attaches abstract meanings to the shapes and sounds in a consistent way.

The effect has also been shown to emerge when the words to be paired are existing first names, suggesting that some familiarity with the linguistic stimuli does not eliminate the effect. A study showed that individuals will pair names such as "Molly" with round silhouettes, and names such as "Kate" with sharp silhouettes. Moreover, individuals will associate different personality traits with either group of names (e.g., easygoingness with "round names"; determination with "sharp names"). This may hint at a role of abstract concepts in the effect.

Contexts where the effect is smaller or absent

In contrast to typically sighted individuals, congenitally blind individuals have been reported not to show a systematic bouba/kiki effect for touched shapes. Autistic individuals do not show as strong a preference. Individuals without autism agree with the standard result 88% of the time, while individuals with autism agree only 56% of the time.

Implications for understanding languages

Ramachandran and Hubbard suggest that the kiki/bouba effect has implications for the evolution of language, because it suggests that the naming of objects is not completely arbitrary:17 The rounded shape may most commonly be named "bouba" because the mouth makes a more rounded shape to produce that sound while a more taut, angular mouth shape is needed to make the sounds in "kiki". Alternatively, the distinction may be between coronal or dorsal consonants like /k/ and labial consonants like /b/.Additionally, it was shown that it is not only different consonants (e.g., voiceless versus voiced) and different vowel qualities (e.g., /a/ versus /i/) that play a role in the effect, but also vowel quantity (long versus short vowels). In one study, participants rated words containing long vowels to refer to longer objects and short vowels to short objects. The presence of these "synesthesia-like mappings" suggest that this effect might be the neurological basis for sound symbolism, in which sounds are non-arbitrarily mapped to objects and events in the world.

[potatodesignblr]

Mandarin resources (free) Beginner.

Index for the post:

- HSK word list - 

Apps

Book recs

Dictionaries

Extensions (Chrome-Firefox)

Flashcards

Grammar

Input (Reading/Videos/TV shows and Films)

Phonetics

Pinyin

Sentences

Tones

Web courses

Youtube channels (Teaching / other)

- Other -

Last edited / updated:    12 / Feb / 2025 = (edit 19)

* is for fav resources

- HSK word list - 

HSK 1 list in Hsk.Academy: Simplified and traditional + pinyin + exercises + sentences examples. (in spanish)

HSK 2-6 list

1500 Most Common Chinese Characters (edit 17): pinyin + audio + definition + direct link to search in a dictionary.

* Dong-chinese (edit 19) HSK 1-9 + HSK 7-9: word list + dictionary + sentence examples  + media examples

Keep reading

[ununotter]

this may be "two beers deep and crying over Эпидемия music videos" me speaking but

you should absolutely fully commit to whatever language-learning goals you have as much as you can because i was [badly] translating Japanese earlier and look

no matter how much Japanese I learn, I don't truly believe I will ever be able to communicate the nuances of even one single sentence in English as well as it was communicated in the original Japanese

for anyone who doesn't know, last year I was lucky enough to have the resources to spend three terms at a Japanese language school in Tokyo and our teachers were always trying to communicate to us the emotion or nuance in the way a particular piece of grammar was used, or what the connotations of a certain word are

and yeah the more AI and machine translation and whatever advances the more media from other countries you can enjoy to some degree but everytime I encounter one of those pieces that I remember a teacher saying "this grammar comes with emotions attached" (この文法は気持ちが入ってますよ) I think "wow, how can I possibly convey this in a translation?" and it fills me with a desire to learn as much more as I possibly can

honestly I regret not committing to Finnish or Russian at this level when I had the chance

[uovoc]

English has different words for mouse and rat but in Chinese they're both the same creature (laoshu) so I asked my mom well how do you differentiate between mice and rats. She, clearly having never felt the need to do so, was like uhh big laoshu and little laoshu I guess. Then I went online to see how the difference between (the English words) "mouse" and "rat" was being explained to CN->EN learners and there are numerous articles delving deep into the analysis. Bigger vs smaller, indoors vs outdoors, cute and favorable connotations vs evil and ugly, tail length, fear factor, emphasis on the fact that you cannot call it a "computer rat." Much thought is being expended on this little mystery of the English language

[xiangqiankua]

Last time I was looking for an apartment, the guy showing me a room that opened directly to the alley was like 你怕老鼠嗎？and I, hoping to distinguish mouse vs rat, asked 大的還是小的? To which he replied, with great satisfaction: 都有!😃

[study-to-rule-the-world]

Help with a translation from Chinese?

Can someone help me? I can't translate this exercises from Chinese (and obviously I can't solve them if I can't understand what they are asking)

[what-even-is-thiss]

What they don’t tell you about speaking multiple languages is that your brain does not in fact have a box labeled Spanish and another one labeled German. Instead it has a box labeled “Not English” and sometimes when you’re talking or writing in one of the languages you speak it will just start pulling random words from that box.

[squidwardsseventhtentacle]

I speak a fair amount of Spanish and I'm currently learning Japanese while living in Japan. Once, when I first got to Japan, I was trying to order wine at a restaurant. I kept trying to remember the Japanese word, but only vino (wine in Spanish) was coming to mind. I turned to my Japanese friend and said, "sorry, I want to order a glass of wine, but I can't remember the word. Can you order for me?"

She looked at me confused.

The Japanese word for wine is ワイン. Wa-i-n. Wine.

Sometimes you even forget words that are already in your Native Language box.

[linguistness]

Hey guys!

I’m so excited to share this language learning challenge that I created with you!

It’s called Brick-By-Brick Language Learning Challenge and it’s made for anyone who already knows the basics of their target language and wants to improve their knowledge :)

If you participate in this challenge, make sure to use the hashtag #brickbybricklearning and to tag me here on tumblr (@mylinguisticadventure) and on instagram (@mylinguisticadventure). 

That’s it for now. Happy language learning!

[rigelmejo]

Linguaflow Chinese is a new channel making lessons in Chinese with lets plays!

They're small, so if you comment they'll see your words and appreciate it. If you know any learners, maybe share thejr channel.

It's just a lovely little channel, and I hope it grows.

[otakuhotboy]

japanese textbooks are like 'here's some romaji for my little uwu softbean' while korean textbooks are like 'it's hangeul from the start git gud scrub'

[chineselujourney]