In light of Duolingo laying off its translators, here are my favourite language apps (primarily for Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and te reo Māori).

Multiple Language

Anki is a flashcard programme and app that's not exclusively for languages. While making your own decks is ideal, you can also download shared decks for most languages.

If you're learning Japanese, specifically, Seth Clydesdale has websites for practicing alongside Genki's 2nd or 3rd editions, and he also provides his own shared Anki decks for Genki.

And if you're learning te reo Māori, specifically, here's a guide on how to make your own deck.

TOFU Learn is an app for learning vocabulary that's very similar to Anki. However, it has particularly excellent shared decks for East Asian languages. I've used it extensively for practicing 汉字. Additionally, if you're learning te reo Māori, there's a shared deck of vocabulary from Māori Made Easy!

Mandarin Chinese

Hello Chinese is a fantastic app for people at the HSK 1-4 levels. While there's a paid version, the only thing paying unlocks is access to podcast lessons, which imo are not really necessary. Without paying you still have access to all the gamified lessons which are laid out much like Duolingo's lessons. However, unlike Duolingo, Hello Chinese actually teaches grammar directly, properly teaches 汉字, and includes native audio practice.

Japanese

Renshuu is a website and app for learning and practicing Japanese. The vast majority of its content is available for free. There's also a Discord community where you can practice alongside others.

Kanji Dojo is a free and open source for learning and practicing the stroke order of kanji. You can learn progressively by JLPT level or by Japanese grades. There's also the option to learn and practice kana stroke order as well.

NO ONE knows how to use thou/thee/thy/thine and i need to see that change if ur going to keep making “talking like a medieval peasant” jokes. /lh

They play the same roles as I/me/my/mine. In modern english, we use “you” for both the subject and the direct object/object of preposition/etc, so it’s difficult to compare “thou” to “you”.

So the trick is this: if you are trying to turn something Olde, first turn every “you” into first-person and then replace it like so:

“I” →  “thou”

“Me” →  “thee”

“My” →  “thy”

“Mine” →  “thine”

Let’s suppose we had the sentences “You have a cow. He gave it to you. It is your cow. The cow is yours”.

We could first imagine it in the first person-

“I have a cow. He gave it to me. It is my cow. The cow is mine”.

And then replace it-

“Thou hast a cow. He gave it to thee. It is thy cow. The cow is thine.”

This is perfect and the only thing missing is that when “thy” comes before a vowel it’s replaced by “thine”, i.e. “thy nose” but “thine eyes.” English used to do this with my and mine too (and still does with a and an).

The second person singular verb ending is -(e)st. In the present tense, it works more or less like the third person singular ending, -s: 

The -(e)st ending is only added to one word in a compound verb. This is where a lot of people make mistakes:

NOT

If you’re not sure, try saying it in the third person and replacing the -(e)st with -s:

In general, if there’s one auxiliary, it takes the -(e)st ending) and the main verb does not. If there are multiple auxiliaries, only one of them takes -(e)st:

You can reduce the full -est ending to -st in poetry, if you need to drop a syllable:

In some common words–mostly auxiliary verbs, or what you might have learned as “helping verbs”–the ending is always reduced:

Sometimes this reduction takes the last consonant of the stem with it:

Or reduces the -st down to -t:

However! UNLIKE the third-person singular -s, the second person -(e)st is ALSO added to PAST TENSE words, either to the past stem in strong (irregular) verbs or AFTER THE -ed in weak (regular) verbs: 

This is different from the third person!

It’s not wrong to add -(e)st to a long Latinate verb in the past tense, but it’s unusual; it’s much more common to use a helping verb instead:

And a couple last things:

1.) Third-person -(e)th is mostly equivalent to and interchangeable with third-person -s:

HOWEVER! Third-person -(e)th, unlike -s but like -(e)st, can, sometimes, go on STRONG past-tense verbs:

This never happens with weak verbs:

And even with strong verbs, from Early Modern (e.g., Shakespearean) English onward, it’s quite rare. But you will see it from time to time.

2.) In contemporary Modern English, we invert the order of subjects and auxiliary verbs in questions:

If there’s no auxiliary, we add one–do–and invert that:

In Early Modern English, this process was optional, and mostly used for emphasis; all verbs could be and were moved to the front of the sentence in questions:

Do-support was also optional for negatives:

3.) Imperative verbs never take endings:

4.) Singular ‘you’–that is, calling a singular person by a plural pronoun–arose as a politeness marker; and ‘thou’ fell out of use because it eventually came to be seen as impolite in almost all contexts. In general, once singular ‘you’ comes into use, it is used for addressing

‘Thou’ is used for

It is safer to ‘you’ someone who doesn’t necessarily warrant ‘you’ than to ‘thou’ someone who does.

5.) And finally, that ‘ye’? That’s the nominative form of you–the one that’s equivalent to ‘I’ or ‘we.’ 

Any time you’re using ‘thou’ for the singular, the second person plural– ‘y’all’– declines like this:

I've known that ‘Christopher’ means Christ-bearer since childhood (I seem to have some vague memory of it being on a t.v. program?), but I just saw a Chris whose Twitter username is christrobbins, and was thinking about the name again. And I realised that the -fer part that means 'bearer' would be -phoros. Khristophoros. Just like in Phôsphoros (a Greek epithet meaning ‘light bearer’ which gave its name to the element), Nikephoros (an epithet of Athena that became a personal name and surname – such as Nikiforov), and Lucifer (light bearer – which TIL is a translation of Phôsphoros).

It's not important at all, it's just one of those things where you learn one piece of information (Christopher means ‘Christ bearer’) and then years later you learn other things (while doing a deep dive into Greek mythology you learn this suffix -phoros and what it means), and then you don't put the two things together for well over a decade. And when you do, you feel a right fool.

this post about confidence vs. entitlement (in which the point was kinda "confidence is bullshit, just do [description of confident action]" – it was a useful rephrasing! but still a description of what confidence is ? to me at least, anyway) made me think about how confidence is conceived of in language, specifically because at some point i thought "well, it helps not being self-conscious ...wait, self-conscious? that's the literal translation of slovene samozavest (samo- 'self-', zavest 'consciousness, awareness'), which means 'confidence'

and like that's actually kinda hilarious, the adjective nesamozavesten/-na/-no 'self-conscious' is literally composed of ne- 'non-', samo- 'self-', zavesten/-na/-no 'conscious' = non-self-conscious

I can't explain why precisely, but there's something deeply satisfying and comforting about the IPA transcriptions found accompanying Persian words on Wiktionary

Farsi has some of the best entries on Wiktionary when it comes to the IPA; it's up there with the usual French, English, Spanish or Portuguese versions. It's much better furnished than Swedish or Russian for instance

I think the feeling of satisfaction comes from the fact that you can see the different standard pronunciations of Farsi neatly presented, with variations between [ɣ~q~ʁ~ɢ], [e~i~ɪ], [o~u~ʊ] or [ɑː~ɔ́ː~ɒ́ː]

This list is featured on غلغلستان ğolğolestân: "(poetic) place where everybody is crying or shouting"

I like the translations provided with the examples. From 2 11th-century occurrences and 1 from the 18th century غلغلستان is translated as:

The first one throws shades, the second one is clever and adapts the morphology of the original word and the third one is indeed the most poetic of the list

Duolingo is NOT what it used to be.

“Duolingo is ‘sunsetting the development of the Welsh course’ (and many others)”.

I’ve used Duolingo since 2013. It used to be about genuinely learning languages and preserving endangered ones. It used to have a vibrant community and forum where users were listened to. It used to have volunteers that dedicated countless hours and even years to making the best courses they could while also trying to explain extremely nuanced and complex grammar in simple terms.

In the past two years it feels like Von Ahn let the money talk instead of focusing on the original goal.

No one truly had a humongous problem with the subscription tier for SuperDuolingo. We understood it: if you can afford to pay, help keep Duolingo free for those who couldn’t.

It started when the company went public. Volunteers were leaving courses they created because they warned of differing longterm goals compared to Duolingo’s as a company; not long after it was announced that the incubator (how volunteers were able to make courses in the first place) would be shut down. A year goes by and the forums—the voice of the users and the way people were able to share tips and explanations—is discontinued. A year or two later, Duolingo gets a completely new makeover—the Tree is gone and you don’t control what lesson you start with. With the disappearance of the Tree, all grammar notes and explanations for courses not in the Big 8 (consisting of the courses made before the incubator like Spanish/French/German/etc. and of the most popular courses like Japanese/Korean/Chinese/etc.) are removed with it. Were you learning Vietnamese and have no idea how honorifics work without the grammar notes? Shit outta luck bud. Were you learning Polish and have absolutely no clue how one of the declensions newly thrown at you functions? Suck it up. In a Reddit AMA, Von Ahn claims that the new design resulted in more users utilizing the app/site. How he claims that statistic? By counting how many people log into their Duolingo account, as if an entire app renovation wouldn’t cause an uptick in numbers to even see what the fuck just happened to the courses.

Von Ahn announces next in a Reddit AMA that no more language courses will be added from what there already is available. His reasoning? No one uses the unpopular language courses — along with how Duolingo will now be doing upkeep with the courses already in place. And here I am, currently looking on the Duolingo website how there are 1.8 million active learners for Irish, 284 thousand active learners for Navajo, and even 934 thousand active learners for fucking High Valyrian. But yea, no one uses them. Not like the entire Navajo Nation population is 399k members or anything, or like 1.8 million people isn’t 36% of the entire population of Ireland or anything.

And now this. What happened to the upkeep of current courses? Oh, Von Ahn only meant the popular ones that already have infinite resources. Got it. Duolingo used to be a serious foundational resource for languages with little resources while also adding the relief of gamification.

It pisses me off. It really does. This was not what Duolingo started out as. And yea, maybe I shouldn’t get invested in a dingy little app. But as someone who spent most of her adolescence immersed in language learning to the point where it was literally keeping me alive at one point, to the point where languages felt like my only friend as a tween, and to the point where friendships on the Duolingo forums with likeminded individuals my age and other enthusiasts who even sent me books in other languages for free because they wanted people to learn it, the evolution of Duolingo hits a bitter nerve within me.

~End rant.

From the US but i spell grey with an e because e just feels like a much greyer letter than a

grey with an E is dusty neutral but gray with an A is bluish and darker

it really is, huh

Omg I’ve found my people

It's because GRAY is a West Saxon word for the quality of light, while GREY is an Anglian word for everyday objects. And everyday objects are typically earthy, warmer, or more neutral.

To explain: West Saxon and Anglian are both dialects of Old English. West Saxon was the politically dominant dialect, but Anglian was the more popular spoken dialect. So a lot of Old English texts are written in West Saxon, but what we know as Middle English and Modern English descended more from Anglian because it was spoken by more people.

So grey (the Anglian word) shows up when authors are describing everyday stuff. Like in this sentence describing a grey beard from Holy Boke Gratia Dei: "The hed of Petir is a brood face with mech her on his berd and that is of grey colour be twix whit and blak."

Any Middle English text you read, you'll find Anglian grey is the word the author prefers to describe everyday things. Grey wool, grey feathers, grey stones, grey horses.

By contrast, gray (the West Saxon word) shows up when authors are describing the qualities of light.

A gleaming gray sword, a deep gray lake, a misty gray morning, cold gray marble, sad gray eyes. Like in this sentence from The Siege of Jerusalem: "They glowes of graie steel that were with gold hemmyd." More often than not, gray describes an impermanent or glimmering quality of light.

There's even an instance where a Middle English author uses both, and you can see how one spelling is more about the quality of light while the other is more about the color of the animal: "The cerkyl or the roundel off the eye ys sumtyme graye lyke the ey off a catte, sumtyme blak grey lyke the eyn off doggys."

("The circle or round of the eye is sometimes gray like the eye of a cat, sometimes black-grey like the eyes of dogs.")

The reason Americans use gray and not grey is because Noah Webster hated the English. :)

so freakin cool

Very interesting to learn the origins of these two spellings!

(kelly link, "the specialist's hat")

I do love when I get a whaler’s journal that has a lot of misspellings. It makes it slower to get through, but in my forever-fascination with New England accents prior to the latter half of the 19th century…when he spells things phonetically you get a better sense of his voice. I always try to preserve them.

In all the things I’ve cobbled together regarding early 19th c New England accents, ranging from the Biglow Papers to children’s speller books (targeting ‘mispronunciations in rural accents’), and whaler journals I can only describe it as like…

A Twangy Brogue. I love it. I’m so fond.

Examples off the top of my head to get a sense.

Catch - Kitch Certain - Sarten Oil and boil - Ile, bile Such - Setch Lantern - Lant-horn Coin - Quine Chair - Cheer After - Arter Birthday - bethday Water - Warter Exhausted - Exorsted Get - Git Sit - Set Girl - Gal, gel Chimney - Chimbly Dirt - Dut Learn - Larn Cards - Cairds Solider - Soger Nervous - Narvous Afraid - Afeared Turns of phrase like asking ‘be you happy’ instead of ‘are you happy’, swapping ‘on’ and ‘of’ such as ‘she died of a summer day, and fever was what she died on’ instead of ‘she died on a summer day and fever is what she died of’. ‘Wake snakes’ meaning stirring up trouble. etc. etc. etc. Love all of it.

Autumn Vocabulary

शरद ऋतु, पतझड़ - autumn (feminine) also ऑटम जलवायु, आबोहवा - climate (feminine) * depending on the climate, autumn can be either a शुष्क ऋतु (dry season) or आर्द्र ऋतु (wet season). चार शीतोष्ण ऋतु - four temperate seasons (feminine) वर्षाकाल - rainy season (masculine), also वर्षा ऋतु (feminine) सावन - monsoon (masculine) ऋतु - season (feminine) कालखंड - period (masculine)

Autumn Weather

मौसम - weather (masculine) * weather can be for example आर्द्र (wet), साफ़ (clear) or सुहावना (pleasant). मौसम पूर्वानुमान - weather forecast (masculine) शीत लहर - cold wave (feminine) शीत वाताग्र - cold front (masculine) गंदला आसमान - cloudy sky (masculine) बादल, मेघ - cloud (masculine) कपासी बादल - cumulus cloud (masculine) वर्षी बादल - rain cloud (masculine) बूंदा बांदी - drizzle (feminine) हलकी बारिश - light rain (feminine) बरसात, बारिश, वर्षा - rain (feminine) * the verbs often used with it rains are पड़ना or होना, and थमना once it stops. पोखर - puddle (masculine) कीचड़ - mud (masculine) ओस - dew (feminine) कोहरा, कुहरा - fog, mist (masculine) तूफ़ान - storm (masculine), also आँधी (feminine) ओला - hail (masculine) हवा - air, wind (feminine) * wind can be हल्की (light) or तेज़ (heavy). ठंडक - coolness (feminine) ठंड - cold, coldness (feminine)

Autumn Season

पर्णपाती पेड़ - deciduous tree (masculine) (a tree that loses its leaves in the autumn) * पत्ते विभिन्न रंग ग्रहण करते हैं - leaves change to various colours * गिरे हुए पत्ते - fallen leaves (masculine) * पत्तियों को रेक करना - to rake leaves (transitive) छतरी - umbrella (feminine), also छाता (masculine) वर्षा कोट - rain coat (masculine) बारिश के जूते - rain boots (masculine) गर्म कोको - hot cocoa (masculine) दस्ताने - mittens, gloves (masculine) ऊनी स्कार्फ - wool scarf (masculine) अंधेरा, अंधकार - darkness (masculine) मोमबत्ती, शमा, बत्ती - candle (feminine)

what the fuck

saxo cere comminuit brum

what the actual fuck

@nekrotikon

the word for brain here is cerebrum, and it's been literally split in two

I've seen wordplay like this before in Latin, but with compound words that are clearly made up of separate parts

but "cere" is not a word and neither is "brum"

you could translate it something like

"he split his br apart ain with a rock"

and it's only slightly less unreadable than that due to freer word order

needless to say something I'd expect more from a modern experimental poem than an ancient epic

okay not a Latinist but a Latinist's wife as well as Egyptologist-writer with an undying love for wordplay, but can I suggest the following translation:

"he split his br in two ain with a rock"

this for the additional vocalised puns where when you say it out loud, 'br in' sounds like "brain" and 'two ain' sounds like "twain".

English vocab for level B2 and higher #2

-> definitions from Cambridge dictionary & Collins dictionary

Hey did you know I keep a google drive folder with linguistics and language books  that I try to update regularly 

**UPDATE**

I have restructured the folders to make them easier to use and managed to add almost all languages requested and then some

Please let me know any further suggestions

….holy shit. You found the holy grail.

….. is this a DIFFERENT person keeping gigabytes worth of language books on google drive? Holy crap.

This. This here. Is why I love Tumblr.❤️❤️❤️

Update from OP:

UPDATE because apparently not everyone has seen this yet the new and improved version of this is a MEGA folder: https://mega.nz/folder/kQBXHKwA#-osWRLNCXAsd62ln8wKa8w

Read this article on Scroll last night, and it really put a smile to my face on how so many of us are promoting our native languages with social media.

Particularly fascinated by the guy who wrote two novels in Kashmiri. That's a lot of commitment.

Are there any Kashmiri langblrs? I'd love to follow any!

language is literally so beautiful like in english "i miss you" comes from being unable to locate someone in the field after battle, it's "i look for you but i can't find you" but the french "tu me manques" is also about absence but it's not something i do, it's something that happens to me, as in "you are something essential lacking inside me", in portuguese it's either "sinto a tua falta" as in "i feel your absence" or, from solitude you get "saudade de você" as in "i am lonely [of] you", and in spanish the word comes from stranger and it's something one does, "te extraño" as in "i am making a stranger out of you", and, and, and

lydia davis