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La La Linguistics

@lalalinguistics / lalalinguistics.tumblr.com

"Linguistics" /lɪŋ'gwɪstɪks/ -- the scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of morphology, syntax, phonetics, and semantics // Leah, USA, she/her, native: English; learning: Japanese, Korean, German; past: ASL, Italian, French, Spanish, Chinese...
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marinaintherosettastone

Children Speaking Your Target Language

We all know that children speaking your target language is The Greatest Thing On This Earth so I decided to link some videos of children speaking different languages. Feel free to add, even if it’s another video in a language I’ve already linked!

Arabic

Chinese

Dutch

French

German

Icelandic

Italian

Japanese

Korean

Norwegian

Persian

Polish

Portuguese

Russian

Spanish

Swahili

Swedish

Xhosa

Yoruba

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spanishskulduggery

What would a language without a past tense look like do those even exist

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spanishskulduggery

People keep saying Mandarin, but I took Mandarin and there are also certain particles you use that can indicate past tense (right? I mean I have a cursory knowledge of Mandarin but nowhere near fluent)

And is it wrong that someone said, Finnish doesn’t have past tenses and my immediate reaction was, “They never finnish what they start.”

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lalalinguistics

There are languages (such as Chinese, yes) that do not have /inflections/ on verbs that indicate the past tense (such as how in English you add -ed), but with the help of adverbs and particles, the past tense can be conveyed in the same way.

It’s similar to English not having a future tense conjugation whereas Italic languages do. English requires the auxiliary verb “will” or the phrase “be going to”; we don’t change the verb itself. French, for instance, is: je mangerai (I will eat). 

Hell, sometimes in English you can say “I start tomorrow” and that is an example of a purely syntactically present tense sentence with future tense semantics. When we tell stories, sometimes we use the present tense when referring to past actions. Think like this:

“He looks at me and is like ‘you really should study more’” 

So yeah! Tense is wonky!

#linguistics#languages
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leahrning
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languageoclock

colours in Chinese

[traditional characters in brackets] 黄色 [黃色] huángsè - yellow 橙色 [橙色] chéngsè - orange 红色 [紅色] hóngsè - red 紫色 [紫色] zǐsè - purple 蓝色 [藍色] lánsè - blue 绿色 [綠色] lǜsè - green 棕色 [棕色] zōngsè - brown 黑色 [黑色] hēisè - black 灰色 [灰色] huīsè - grey 白色 [白色] báisè - white

#chinese
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thelanguagesnerd-deactivated201
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asianhistory

General:

Reddit Threads:

SRS  (Spaced Repetition flashcards): 

Arabic:

Bengali:

Burmese/Myanmar:

Chinese (Mostly/All Mandarin):

Gujarati:

Hindi:

Indonesian - Bhasa Indonesian:

Korean:

Japanese:

Malay:

Tamil

Thai:

So You Want to Learn… List:

Other:

  • Tumblr tags: #learning _________ 
  • Can I become Fluent in ______ in ______ months/weeks/days?  No. You can’t. 
  • Can I learn Japanese from just watching Anime/Korean from Kpop/Chinese from Wuxia films? Not on your life. Do you only speak the english you know from Spongebob? N’SYNC? The 300? Didn’t think so.
  • What about Rosetta Stone? For $180-$399 dollars? Are you insane? The program is built to teach you the Romantic languages.  If you buy Rosetta stone for $400, and pass up every free resource on this list, I doubt your desire to actually learn anything. Don’t do it to yourself. That is a lot of money you probably won’t get back.
  • But I heard that Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Arabic/etc is really difficult: Well if over a billion Chinese people can speak Chinese, why can’t you? No really, don’t let something like this bother you. No, this is not the ease of moving from a English to a Romance language or German, but hey, if you wanted to learn German (and all those ridiculous cases) you’d be doing that. 
  • But what about ______? I have knowledge on resources mostly limited to JPN/CHI/KOR classes. This is a participatory list, which I am more than grateful to take submissions for.

I repost this every two weeks whether I need to or not. It too good not to and the original compiler deserves that much respect.

#language#masterpost
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rewordfully
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yeli-renrong

Four linguistics facts you probably didn’t know

  1. The word “trump” actually comes from the family name “Trump”: one of The Donald’s ancestors was so successful in real estate that his name became a verb.
  2. The click languages of Africa were recently proven not to exist, when several of their alleged speakers admitted that their grandfathers made them up as pranks in the 1930s and said that they were tired of keeping up the joke. However, click languages do exist: Chinese actually has several dozen clicks. Its speakers just don’t use them where foreigners might hear, because they’re worried about sounding uncivilized.
  3. It’s a common misconception that English is descended from Latin. It’s actually Uralic! Compare ‘water’ to Finnish vete- ‘water’, ‘hack’ to hakea ‘retrieve’, ‘boy’ to poika ‘boy’, the archaic second-person singular verb ending -(e)th to the Finnish second-person singular verb ending -t, etc.
  4. It’s not a coincidence that “theology” starts with “the”. Before the Christianization of Europe, the English were pantheists, so naturally they called everything a god. The Christian missionaries didn’t stop them because they actually only spoke Old Gutnish, a closely related Germanic dialect that got its name from having ‘Gut’ (cf. German ‘Gott’) rather than ‘The’ as its word for ‘god’, and thought ‘the’ was just the definite article. This is also where the English word ‘god’ comes from.

wow, i didn’t know these!

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lalalinguistics

delete this

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languageoclock
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germanlanguagerocks

German food list

Frühstück/Breakfast:

  • Brot/Toast mit Butter, Marmelade, Honig, Wurst oder Käse (Bred/toast with butter, jam, honey, sausage or cheese)
  • Müsli/Müesli (cereals) mit Obst (fruits), Joghurt (yoghurt) oder Milch (milk)
  • Frühstücksei (breakfast egg)
  • Kaffee, Tee, Saft, Kakao oder Milch (coffee, tea, juice, cocoa or milk)

Gerichte/Dishes:

  • Blutwurst (blood sausage)
  • Brathering (fried herring)
  • Bratkartoffeln (fried potatoes)
  • Bratwurst (bratwurst, sausage)
  • Brezel (pretzel)
  • Currywurst 
  • Dampfnudeln (yeast dumplings)
  • Eierkuchen (pancake)
  • Eintopf
  • Frikadellen (meatballs)
  • Kartoffelpuffer (potato “pancakes”)
  • Kartoffelpüree (mashed potatoes)
  • Kartoffelsalat (potato salad)
  • Knödel (dumplings)
  • Leipziger Allerlei
  • Maultaschen (German ravioli)
  • Königsberger Klopse (meatballs in caper sauce)
  • Salzkartoffeln (boiled potatoes)
  • Sauerbraten (marinated pot roast)
  • Sauerkraut (pickled cabbage)
  • Schnitzel
  • Spätzle 
  • Weißwürste (Bavarian veal sausage)

Desserts:

  • Apfelmus (apple sauce)
  • Apfelstrudel
  • Baumkuchen
  • Bienenstich (bee sting cake)
  • Berliner (jelly donut)
  • Donauwelle (chocolate-covered cake with vanilla pudding & sour cherries)
  • Franzbrötchen (cinnamon-flavoured pastry)
  • Krapfen (Bavarian donut)
  • Lebkuchen (gingerbread)
  • Marzipan 
  • Pfeffernüsse (gingerbread biscuits)
  • Pudding (pudding)
  • Rote Grütze (red berry compote)
  • Schokoküsse (chocolate marshmallows)
  • Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (Black Forest cake)
  • Spaghettieis
  • Speiseeis (ice cream)

Getränke/Beverage

  • Altbier (top-fermented dark beer)
  • Fanta
  • Helles (lager)
  • Kölsch 
  • Märzenbier 
  • Pilsner Bier (Pilsner)
  • Radler (beer with lemonade)
  • Schorle
  • Schwarzbier
  • Spezi (coke & lemonade)
  • Sprudelwasser
  • Weizenbier (wheat beer)

This list is not complete! If you want to, you can add your favorite German dishes when you reblog it :)

#german
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librelivrevivre

German Verb List

(I randomly had this typed up in my google docs and vaguely remember typing this out??? Eh okay)

sein - to be

haben - to have

werden - to become

können - can, to be able to

müssen - must, to have to

sagen - to say

machen - to do, make

geben - to give

kommen - to come

sollen - should, ought to

wollen - to want

gehen - to go

wissen - to know

sehen - to see

lassen - to let, allow, have done

stehen - to stand

finden - to find

bleiben - to stay, remain

liegen - to lie, be lying

heißen - to be called

denken - to think

nehmen - to take

tun - to do

dürfen - may, to be allowed

glauben - to believe

halten - to stop, hold

nennen - to name, to call (a name)

mögen - to like

zeigen - to show

führen - to lead

sprechen - to speak

bringen - to bring, take

leben - to live

fahren - to drive, ride, go

meinen - to think, have an opinion

fragen - to ask

kennen - to know

gelten - to be valid

stellen - to place, set

spielen - to play

arbeiten - to work

brauchen - to need

folgen - to follow

lernen - to learn

bestehen - to exist, insist, pass (an exam)

verstehen - to understand

setzen - to set, put, place

bekommen - to get, receive

beginnen - to begin

erzählen - to narrate, tell

#german
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thepolyglotgirl
other language learners: set fluency goals, have a rigid study schedule that they stick to, make notes on every new grammar point they learn, memorise 10 new words a day, regularly polish duolingo skills, skype twice a week with native speakers, planning a trip overseas
me: has no idea what the fuck they are doing, watches a lot of youtube, cries
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Arabic study challenge day 3-5

Some personal drama happened so I didn’t get time to study Arabic the last two days. Today though I made a point to memorize vocabulary. Making some flash cards in sticky study :)

#asc#arabic
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polyglotintraining-deactivated2
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rahaf-learns

how do you say “I’m sleepy” in your native language or the language you are learning?

Welsh: Dwi'n gysglyd.

Maltese: Għandi n-ngħas or Jien bi ngħas

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linguistisch

German: Ich bin müde. Spanish: Tengo sueño.

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you-know-you-are-norwegian-when

Norwegian: jeg er trøtt

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useless--croatiafacts

Croatian: GDJE JE KAVA

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useless-nigeriafacts

Urhobo: Erhẹ su mẹ

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langsandlit

Italian: ho sonno Neapolitan: tengo suonno Swedish: (correct me if this isn’t proper) jag är trött / jag är sömnig

irish:Táim tuirseach

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lalalinguistics

Japanese has two ways:

眠い (nemui) - sleepy, or

眠りたい (nemuritai) - I want to sleep

#japanese
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