Hungarian language and its two closest relatives: Khanty and Mansi

The whole Finno-Ugric map is pretty great:

Ez tök menő. Kis taktikai érzékkel elfoglalhatnánk Moszkvát

I found this online and I love it.

*gestures vaguely in tired foreign languages student*

(language) moodboard: Russian ~ Russia ~ Россия ♱ ♥ 

Что-то пошло не так [shto-to poshlo n'e tak] - Something went wrong www.ruspeach.com

These guys at ruspeach are funny, creative and really helpful! I highly recommend this resource!

Root Letters In Arabic And Why They Are Coolest Things Ever

This isn’t even grammar, I just think it’s cool as shit

■ The notoriously difficult phonology of the Polish language has always caused much trouble and confusion for neighbouring nations. But what are the absolute hardest words?

■ Germans look at Polish and see incomprehensible series of consonants. While to the east, Polish sounds so strange to Russians that they even have a verb for Poles speaking their language: pshekat. To top it off, Czechs think Poles sound like Czech children with a speech defect.

■ The most troublesome feature of Polish orthography is what linguists call complex consonant clusters ‒  series of consonants without any vowels. They occur in many languages, including English; for example, in the word ‘shrug’ the letters shr form a consonant cluster. But while English usually draws the line at three consonants, Polish sometimes joins as many as five consonants, a phenomenon called the Polish syllable structure, which is allegedly surpassed only by Georgian in terms of complexity.

■ Here are some outstandingly difficult examples of this damning syllable structure for you to have a crack at. Good luck!

1. Żółć

This word is comprised purely of Polish letters ‒ Latin letters that were modified with Polish diacritic signs. In terms of pronunciation, English-speakers still stand a chance, but they would need to know the sound every letter stands for… (Incidentally, this all-Polish word means ‘bile’. Could the choleric Polish temperament result from their impossible language?)

2. Szczęście

If you think happiness is hard to find, try pronouncing it in Polish! The Polish word for ‘happiness’ consists of a sequence of two Polish digraphs (sz, cz), a nasal e sound, the Polish diacritic ś, another digraph (ci), and a final e (which is probably the only sound you’ll be able to pronounce on your first go).

3. Pszczyna

With a name like this, this town in Southern Poland certainly stands out on the map. But despite looking rather daunting, Pszczyna features only three consonants one after the other (the digraphs sz and cz stand for one sound each). But we’re just getting started in terms of difficulty…

4. Następstw

The final letter sequence in the Polish word for ‘consequence’ features a headache-inducing cluster of four consonants, but don’t worry. You’re not likely to encounter ‘następstw’ too often since it is the genitive plural (and thus not infrequently used) form of the word ‘następstwo’. What’s genitive plural, you ask? In Polish, words like adjectives and nouns have six or seven versions depending on their grammatical function in a sentence. But never mind that now.

5. Źdźbło

We’re sorry. We know ‘źdźbło’ looks really awful. But no worries, it’s actually only four sounds, not five: Ź, DŹ, B, Ł. Surely, that’s slightly helpful news? Either way, this terribly difficult word means ‘a tiny leaf of grass’.  

6. Bezwzględny

Here we have five consonants AND five sounds to be pronounced. Fittingly, it means ‘ruthless’.

7. Szymankowszczyzna

Now that you’re an expert, the name of this small village shouldn’t pose too much difficulty (the longest consonant cluster is a mere three consonants long). You will be reassured to learn that it is one the longest place names in Poland and most places you’ll visit are actually easier to pronounce.

8. Szczebrzeszyn

Another town, Szczebrzeszyn is famous for being the beginning of the most famous Polish tongue-twister. Ready?

W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie

It means ‘In Szczebrzeszyn, a beetle buzzes in the reed’. No? Try again!

9. Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz :)

This name appears in the cult Polish movie How I Unleashed World War II when a Polish prisoner pretends to be thus named in order to thwart the Nazi officer who has to keep track of prisoners’ identities. His reaction is probably illustrative of most foreigners’ frustration with the devilish Polish phonology.

BONUS: Try putting them all together! Apologies in advance..

The ruthless Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz went from Szczebrzeszyn to Szymankowszczyzna and then Pszczyna. And though he was sometimes overwhelmed with bile, oblivious of the consequences, he eventually found happiness in a tiny leaf of grass.

Ready?

Bezwzględny Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz wyruszył ze Szczebrzeszyna przez Szymankowszczyznę do Pszczyny. I choć nieraz zalewała go żółć, niepomny następstw znalazł ostatecznie szczęście w źdźble trawy.

Phew!

Langblr penpal exchange?

So.. I thought it would be nice to get to know each other better in the langblr community by sending letters in your target language a (near) native. Who’s up for this? :)

That’s a cool idea!

IM TOTALLY DOWN

WHERE CAN I SIGN UP

Yes please!

Pls

5.1.5 - Case systems

Case marking systems. Case marking is very common throughout Eurasia.

Russian help

Studying the alphabet and I’m already stumped. Anyone have any tips or videos on how to pronounce ш vs щ?

Here are some videos that will hopefully help

Remember: Ш is always hard, whilst Щ is always soft. I tend to place my tongue further back in my mouth for the harder, Ш sound. For Щ, it's much nearer my teeth.

Михаил Юрьевич Лермонтов “Герой нашего времени”. (via irbi-lf)

one of my favourite things about speaking german as mother-tongue is how regularly we have little discussions about the right case, form, gender or parting of words or entire syntax because frankly we have no fucking clue what’s going on in our language either and most of the time just go with the flow

it does make me feel sorry for people learning this as second language though because they probably think it were their fault but actually it’s just nigh impossible to perfect german

Reblog if you function as a language ambassador in your family and whenever they hear someone speaking a foreign language they all look at you.

Groza / Гроза́ (f.) | Thunderstorm  / ɡrɐzˈa /

Prityazheniye / Притяже́ние (n.) | Attraction / prʲɪtʲɪʐˈɛnʲɪjə / 

That German learning moment when ur like “Ok cases used to plague me but now I think they’re a really cool way to express things that I honestly wish we had in english”