@nordic-language-love / nordic-language-love.tumblr.com
Think I probably am gonna make a new blog for the new year
I have indeed made a new blog! Go follow @corvid-language-library if you want to keep up with the next phase of my life (also I have a Norwegian beginners crash course and a bunch of Word of the Day posts queued already!)
I truly have an INSANE amount of notebooks
Think I probably am gonna make a new blog for the new year
I have indeed made a new blog! Go follow @corvid-language-library if you want to keep up with the next phase of my life (also I have a Norwegian beginners crash course and a bunch of Word of the Day posts queued already!)
*BONUS*
I only have 3 stories left from my book of Japanese short stories, so I do expect to finish that pretty quickly. Especially because my Japanese is now at a level where I understand quite a bit even without looking at the English translation :)
Finished The Kingdoms on my journey to the UK. I enjoyed it more than The Half Life of Valery K and The Bedlam Stacks, although I still think Watchmaker is my favourite Natasha Pulley novel. I really liked the characters and the concept of this one, although it was a bit predictable where I think she was trying to go for a bit more mystery.
I definitely won't have time to read The Alloy of Law, but I'm okay with that! I'll need something to keep me occupied on the train/planes/shinkansen on Tuesday. Besides, it's kinda nice that I started and finished 2023 with a Natasha Pulley novel!
In no particular order because how could I choose a top moment!
Hey folks! As I'm pretty sure some of you know, I'm briefly back in the UK to officially move out and clear out a load of my stuff. I have a couple of books I'd like to give away if anyone wants to pay P&P!
We have:
Please shoot me a DM if you're interested in any of them! I'm here until Jan 2nd, so the sooner you let me know the better. I can ship internationally as long as you pay p&p. If you're not interested but have followers who might be, please reblog or tag them so they can see!
Also, some books in Norwegian:
And a French translation of one of my fave books when I was a teenager that I never got round to reading because I quit French: TAKEN
Slide into my DMs if you want anything, otherwise I'll have to send them to book heaven as I don't have space and charity shops won't take them 😭
UPDATE: Norwegian Verbs & Essentials of Grammar + Tante Ulrikkes vei are now taken! Everything else is still looking for a new home.
UPDATE: All books claimed or have an interested party that I'm confirming details with. I'll post another update if anyone changes their mind.
Thank you so much for helping me out everyone!
Hey folks! As I'm pretty sure some of you know, I'm briefly back in the UK to officially move out and clear out a load of my stuff. I have a couple of books I'd like to give away if anyone wants to pay P&P!
We have:
Please shoot me a DM if you're interested in any of them! I'm here until Jan 2nd, so the sooner you let me know the better. I can ship internationally as long as you pay p&p. If you're not interested but have followers who might be, please reblog or tag them so they can see!
Also, some books in Norwegian:
And a French translation of one of my fave books when I was a teenager that I never got round to reading because I quit French: TAKEN
Slide into my DMs if you want anything, otherwise I'll have to send them to book heaven as I don't have space and charity shops won't take them 😭
UPDATE: Norwegian Verbs & Essentials of Grammar + Tante Ulrikkes vei are now taken! Everything else is still looking for a new home.
UPDATE: All books claimed or have an interested party that I'm confirming details with. I'll post another update if anyone changes their mind.
Thank you so much for helping me out everyone!
Hey folks! As I'm pretty sure some of you know, I'm briefly back in the UK to officially move out and clear out a load of my stuff. I have a couple of books I'd like to give away if anyone wants to pay P&P!
We have:
Please shoot me a DM if you're interested in any of them! I'm here until Jan 2nd, so the sooner you let me know the better. I can ship internationally as long as you pay p&p. If you're not interested but have followers who might be, please reblog or tag them so they can see!
Also, some books in Norwegian:
And a French translation of one of my fave books when I was a teenager that I never got round to reading because I quit French: TAKEN
Slide into my DMs if you want anything, otherwise I'll have to send them to book heaven as I don't have space and charity shops won't take them 😭
UPDATE: Norwegian Verbs & Essentials of Grammar + Tante Ulrikkes vei are now taken! Everything else is still looking for a new home.
so what are some books you wanna read next year? :)
I have such a long tbr 😅
Hey folks! As I'm pretty sure some of you know, I'm briefly back in the UK to officially move out and clear out a load of my stuff. I have a couple of books I'd like to give away if anyone wants to pay P&P!
We have:
Please shoot me a DM if you're interested in any of them! I'm here until Jan 2nd, so the sooner you let me know the better. I can ship internationally as long as you pay p&p. If you're not interested but have followers who might be, please reblog or tag them so they can see!
Also, some books in Norwegian:
And a French translation of one of my fave books when I was a teenager that I never got round to reading because I quit French: TAKEN
Slide into my DMs if you want anything, otherwise I'll have to send them to book heaven as I don't have space and charity shops won't take them 😭
Hey folks! As I'm pretty sure some of you know, I'm briefly back in the UK to officially move out and clear out a load of my stuff. I have a couple of books I'd like to give away if anyone wants to pay P&P!
We have:
Please shoot me a DM if you're interested in any of them! I'm here until Jan 2nd, so the sooner you let me know the better. I can ship internationally as long as you pay p&p. If you're not interested but have followers who might be, please reblog or tag them so they can see!
for chinese new year they get all these famous actors and comedians together and they do a lil show and one of the comedians was like “i was in a hotel in america once and there was a mouse in my room so i called reception except i forgot the english word for mouse so instead i said ‘you know tom and jerry? jerry is here’
jerry is here
my chinese teacher once shared this story in class about someone who went to the grocery to buy chicken, but they forgot the english word for it, so they grabbed an egg, went to the nearest sales lady and said “where’s the mother”
When I was a teenager, we went to Italy for the summer holidays. We are German, neither of us speaks more than a few words of Italian. That didn’t keep my family from always referring to me when they wanted something translated because “You’re so good with languages and you took Latin”. (I told them a hundred times I couldn’t order ice cream in Latin, they ignored that.) Anyway, my dad really loved a certain cheese there, made from sheep’s milk. He knew the Italian word for ‘cheese’ – formaggio – and he knew how to say ‘please’. And he had already spotted a little shop that sold the cheese. He asked me what ‘sheep’ was in Italian, and of course, I had no idea. So he just shrugged and said “I’ll manage” and went into the shop. 5 mins later, he comes out with a little bag, obviously very pleased with himself. How did he manage it? He had gone in and said “'Baaaah’ formaggio, prego.”
I was done for the day.
This makes me feel better about every conversation I had in both Rome and Ghent.
I once lost my husband in the ruins of a French castle on a mountain, and trotted around looking for him in increasing desperation. “Have you seen my husband?” I asked some French people, having forgotten all descriptive words. “He is small, and English. His hair is the color of bread.”
I did not find my husband in this way.
In rural France it is apparently Known that one brings one’s own shopping bags to the grocery store. I was a visitor and had not been briefed and had no shopping bag. I saw that other people were able to conduct negotiations to purchase shopping bags, but I could not remember the word for “bag.”
“Can I have a box that is not a box,” I said.
The checkout lady looked extremely tired and said, “Un sac?” (A sack?)
Of course. A fucking sack. And so I did get a sack.
I once was at a German-American Church youth camp for two weeks and predictably, we spoke a whole lot of English.
When I phoned my mom during week two I tried to tell her that it was a bit cold in the sleeping bag at night. I stumbled around the word in German because for the love of god, I could remember the Germwn word for sleeping bag.
“Yeah so, it’s like a bag you sleep in at night?”
“And my mother must probably have thought I lost my mind. She just sighed and was like ‘So, a Schlafsack, yes?”
Which is LITERALLY Sleeping sac … The German word is a basically a one on one translation of the English word and I just… I failed it. At my mother tongue. BIG
My former boss is Italian and she ended up working in a lab where the common language was English. She once saw an insect running through the lab and she went to tell her colleagues. She remembered it was the name of a famous English band so she barged in the office yelling there was a rolling stone in the lab…
I’m Spanish and have been living in the UK for a while now. I recently changed jobs and moved to a new office which is lost somewhere in the Midlands’ countryside. It’s a pretty quaint location, surrounded by forest on pretty much all sides, and with nice grounds… full of pheasants. I was pretty shocked when I drove in and saw a fucking pheasant strolling across the road. Calm as you please.
That afternoon I met up with some friends and was talking about the new job, and the new office, and for the life of me I couldn’t remember the English word for pheasants. So I basically ended up bragging to my friends about “the very fancy chickens” we had outside the office.
Best thing is, everyone understood what I meant.
I love those stories so much…
Picture a Jewish American girl whose grasp of the Hebrew language comes from 10+ years of immersion in Biblical and liturgical Hebrew, not the modern language. Some words are identical, while others have significantly evolved.
She gets to Israel and is riding a bus for the very first time.
American: כמה ממון זה? (”How much money?” but in rather archaic language)
Bus Driver: שתי זוזים. (”Two zuzim” – a currency that’s been out of circulation for millenia)
that’s hilarious
I am officially screamlaughing at my desk from that last one OH MY
Does everyone know the prime minister who promised to fuck the country?
So in Biblical Hebrew the word for penis and weapon are the same. There is a verb meaning to arm, which modern Hebrew semanticly drifted into “fuck”: i.e. give someone your dick.
The minister was making a speech while a candidate, bemoning the state of the world. “The Soviet Union is fucking Egypt. Germany is fucking Syria. The Americans are fucking everyone. But who is fucking us? When I am prime minister, I will ensure we are fucked!”
What the hell Biblical Hebrew.
Just guessing: The path from something like “give someone a blade” to “give someone a blade, if you know what I mean ;)” is probably not that difficult or unlikely.
^Given that the Latin word for sheath (like, for a sword) is literally “vagina”, I can verify that this metaphor is a time-honored one.
Oh yeah and one time my Latin professor was at this conference in Greece and his flight was canceled, so he needed to extend his hotel stay by one more night.
Except he doesn’t speak a lick of modern Greek, and the receptionist couldn’t speak English. Or French. Or German. Or Italian. (He tried all of them.)
Finally, in a fit of inspiration, he went upstairs and got his copy of Medea in the original Greek (you know, the stuff separated from modern Greek by two and a half thousand years). He found the passage where Medea begs Jason to let her stay for one more day, went downstairs, and read it to the receptionist.
She laughed her head off, but she gave him the extra night.
Reblogged just for Medea
The way I have to find anything on this website. Hair the color of bread, me, 2016.
@ocs-and-chapters is this for the holidays?
Me returning to the UK? Yeah, I'm heading back to Japan after the new year
conjunctions - words that are used to link phrases together
情報を加える // Adding information：
しかも besides そのうえ moreover, on top of that さらに moreover, on top of that そればかりか not only that, but also... そればかりでなく not only that, but also...
情報を対比する // Putting into contrast：
それに対して in contrast 一方 whereas
他の可能性・選択肢を言う // Giving alternatives：
あるいは or perhaps (presenting another possibility) それとも or (presenting another option within a question)
結論を出す// Drawing a conclusion：
そのため for that reason したがって therefore そこで for that reason (I went ahead and did...) すると thereupon (having done that triggered sth. to happen) このように with this (adjusting a conclusion to the arguments given beforehand) こうして in this way
理由を言う // Giving a reason：
なぜなら...からだ the reason is というのは...からだ the reason is
逆説を表現する // Expressing a contradiction：
だが however, yet, nevertheless (contradicting what one would have expected) ところが even so (spilling a surprising truth) それなのに despite this, still それでも but still (despite a certain fact, nothing changes)
説明を補う // Amending one's explanation：
つまり that is, in other words (saying the same thing using different words) いわば so to speak (making a comparison) 要するに to sum up, in short
説明を修正する // Revising one's explanation：
ただし however (adding an exception to the information stated beforehand) ただ only, however もっとも however (obviating any expectations that might arise through the previous statement) なお in addition, note that (adding supplementary information)
話題を変える // Changing the subject：
さて well, now, then (common in business letters after the introductory sentence; is often ignored in tranlations) ところで by the way
Actually had a full conversation in Japanese on the plane from Tokyo to Shanghai! The man sat next to me was Chinese and spoke no English, and of course I don't speak a word of Chinese, so we did our best to have a short conversation in shit Japanese. He'd been at a language school learning for 6 months and was on his way back to China for his winter break. Pretty cool to think that even though we didn't speak each other's native language, and even though we were both beginners, we could still communicate and find commom ground. Learning a language is super cool.
