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recomendaciones de libros

El beso de la mujer araña por Manuel Puig

"una elegante y fascinante novela sobre el amor y la victimización. En una cárcel argentina, dos hombres comparten una celda: Molina, un diseador de escaparates homosexual que es egoísta, auto-denigrante y al mismo tiempo encantador; y Valentín, un revolucionario articulado y ferozmente dogmático obsesionado con la memoria de la mujer que abandon por la causa. Ambos son gradualmente transformados por su cautelosa pero creciente obsesión de Molina con la fantasía y el romance del cine."

Tengo miedo torero por Pedro Lemebel

"se cuenta una historia de amor en el Santiago del 86, el año del atentado a Pinochet. Un muchacho del Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez, que va a participar en la acción, vive una relación sentimental con un gay que lo apoya, sin saberlo, en sus planes políticos. Pero éstos fracasan y acaba también su relación. El escenario es exactamente el del año que pudo ser decisivo pero no lo fue: las protestas, los neumáticos humeando en las calles de la capital, los apagones; el repiqueteo a menudo tan angustioso del «Diario de Cooperativa»; los boleros, rancheras y baladas de la época; Pinochet lidiando en la intimidad con sus fantasmas y sus pesadillas, y con una Lucía, su mujer, encaprichada con los últimos modelos de Nina Ricci; y la Loca del Frente, protagonista y testigo, personaje carnavalesco entrañable, puente entre los sueños y la desdicha."

Kalpa Imperial por Angélica Gorodischer

"reúne once relatos, once fragmentos de la historia del Imperio Más Vasto que Nunca Existió. Por el narrador sabemos que el Imperio fue destruido y reconstruido infinidad de veces y que su historia vuelve a empezar con cada nueva dinastía de emperadores y emperatrices. El escenario es siempre el mismo: el montañoso norte, el sur selvático y las ciudades capitales. Las historias son múltiples y diversas… Crea un universo ficcional portentoso, absolutamente propio, donde la distopía se cruza con el realismo, la novela con el cuento, la metáfora sobre el poder con el pequeño drama humano… marcó un hito en la obra de esta gran autora argentina y la convirtió en una referente ineludible de la ciencia ficción universal."

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any reason you're french today

la malédiction

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THE DAY OF LANGUAGES!!!

This 7th of May, 2025, we use our own language again!

If your language, native or not, is something other than English, on May 7th you can speak that language all day!

You’ll blog in your chosen language(s) all day: text posts, replies, tags (except triggers and organisational tags).

Regardless of what language people choose to speak to you, you can answer in your own.

Non-verbal, non-written languages (like sign language and dialects) are more than welcome! See my FAQ for tips

English native speakers can participate in any other language they're studying/have studied/know.

The tag is gonna be #Speak Your Language Day or #spyld for short.

Please submit me some language facts for me to share on this day <3

Pinned post and FAQ

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Danke!

Ich werde den Film schauen, wenn ich mit das Buch fertig bin :] Normalweiser lese ich nur ein Buch pro Autor weil ich immer neugierig bin, neue Autoren zu entdecken, aber vielleicht werde ich mehr von ihm lesen :] Hörbücher sind immer noch zu schwierig aber ich freue mich, dass es so viele davon auf Spotify gibt!

Danke! Das stimmt :] trotzdem genieße ich es!

was sind Ihre Lieblingsbücher :]?

hallo hallo!

es gibt keinen Grund mich zu siezen! sagt bitte "du" :>

Ich habe gerade Educated von Tara Westover zum zweiten Mal gelesen; ein Memoir, das erzählt, wie sie ihn einer anti-everything survivalist Familie in Idaho aufgewachsen ist.

Letztes Jahr habe ich Sprache und Sein von Kübra Gümüsay gelesen und sehr gemocht; darin spricht sie über den Effekt, den Sprache auf soziale und innere Prozesse hat, vor allem mit Blick auf Zweitsprachigkeit und Fremdheit.

Honorable mentions: Challenger Deep (Neal Shusterman), On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Ocean Vuong), Smoke gets in your eyes and other stories from the crematory (Caitlin Doughty), Zwilling der Unendlichkeit - Eine Biographie der Zahl Null (Charles Seife)

Im Moment lese ich Papyrus von Irene Vallejo, aber bin noch nicht sehr weit...

Buchvorschläge sind immer willkommen!! :)

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Entschuldige, Deutsch ist nicht meine Muttersprache und ich bin mir immer unsicher, ob ich siezen oder duzen soll :]

Ich habe keines dieser Bücher gelesen, aber sie scheinen interessant! Ich wollte On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous schon immer lesen, und Sprache und Sein interessiert mich besonders.

Mein Lieblingsbuch über Sprache ist This Little Art von Kate Briggs

was sind Ihre Lieblingsbücher :]?

hallo hallo!

es gibt keinen Grund mich zu siezen! sagt bitte "du" :>

Ich habe gerade Educated von Tara Westover zum zweiten Mal gelesen; ein Memoir, das erzählt, wie sie ihn einer anti-everything survivalist Familie in Idaho aufgewachsen ist.

Letztes Jahr habe ich Sprache und Sein von Kübra Gümüsay gelesen und sehr gemocht; darin spricht sie über den Effekt, den Sprache auf soziale und innere Prozesse hat, vor allem mit Blick auf Zweitsprachigkeit und Fremdheit.

Honorable mentions: Challenger Deep (Neal Shusterman), On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Ocean Vuong), Smoke gets in your eyes and other stories from the crematory (Caitlin Doughty), Zwilling der Unendlichkeit - Eine Biographie der Zahl Null (Charles Seife)

Im Moment lese ich Papyrus von Irene Vallejo, aber bin noch nicht sehr weit...

Buchvorschläge sind immer willkommen!! :)

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German Hörspiele are on another level.

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Source

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Polish & German do this too !

Saber = wiedzieć & wissen

Conocer = znać & kennen

Something interesting is how these might slightly differ across languages. E.g "I know Spanish" is "sé español" but "znam hiszpański" :]

If you are curious we used to have this distinction in English with the word "witen" which stopped being used by the 1500s !

Ok, so I'm learning French and Spanish.

And as one does when learning two languages, you notice things.

In particular, I've noticed that both languages have two words for 'to know'.

French has connaitre and savoir.

Spanish has conocer and saber.

Saber and savoir are used for more factual things, expressing you know knowledge on a topic

English: I know 2 + 2 = 4

French: Je sais deux plus deux font quatre.

Spanish: (Yo) Sé dos y dos hagan quatro.

The reason I put yo in parenthesis is I believe with spoken Spanish, you tend to omit the pronoun as you can guess the subject of the verb based off context.

Conocer and connaitre are used to express familiarity with someone, something, or somewhere. But both can also be used to say you're meeting someone for the first time.

English: I know him.

French: Je connais lui.

Spanish: Lo conozco.

So for anyone reading this knowing a language other than these, does your language do this too? What language and what are the words?

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ich mag den begriff "wortschatz". das ist mein berg an wörtern und ich sitz da drauf wie so ein drache

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Why does like every language do things with their R sounds that nobody else understands

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Here’s a list of some false anglicisms!

A false anglicism, or pseudo-anglicism is a word in a language that sounds English but doesn’t actually carry the same meaning in English.

Wikipedia has a very very good list of examples; pretty much all of these come from there

In multiple languages:

autostop: hitchhiking (French, Italian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Russian, Spanish, Bulgarian, Hungarian)

basket: basketball (Danish, French, Indonesian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Greek)

camping: campsite or campground (French, Dutch, Greek, Bulgarian, Russian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish)

smoking: dinner jacket, tuxedo, or smoking jacket (Danish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian, Dutch, Greek, Russian)

Korean

one shot: bottoms up (원샷)

hand phone: cellphone (핸드폰)

skinship: platonic hand-holding, hugging, etc. (스킨십)

French

baby-foot: table football

baby-parc: playpen

before: drinks before a party/"pregame" (opposite of after)

blind test: music quiz / 'name that tune'

brushing: blow-dry and styling

box: wifi router or parking space

dancing: dance hall

footing: jogging (though the real English word is also used in French with the same meaning)

pressing: dry cleaning shop

recordman/recordmans/recordwoman: record holder, especially in sports (also in Russian)

relooker/relooking: to makeover/a makeover

speaker/speakerine: rradio or television announcer

Italian

autogrill: rest area

beauty farm: spa

jolly: the joker in a pack of cards

pullman: a bus

smart working: remote work

water: toilet

Portuguese

outdoor: billboard

home office: work from home

Danish

butterfly: bow tie

cottoncoat: trench coat

doorstep: a short and informal press conference

monkeyclass: economy class

speedmarker: a felt-tip pen

timemanager – a calendar or notebook in which one writes down appointments

Dutch:

beamer: a video projector (also in German)

box: a playpen or a music speaker

videoclip: a music video

German

Bodybag: a messenger bag

Dressman: a male model

Flipper: a pinball machine

Funsport: a sport played for amusement, such as skateboarding or frisbee

Handy: a mobile phone

Jobticket: a free pass for public transport provided by an employer for employees

mobbing: bullying

Swedish:

after work: a meeting for drinks after the workday is finished

pocket: A paper-back book

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is there an order to describing words? feels weird to say "blue big" instead of "big blue" house

hello may i introduce you to adjective order

bonus: open access article on cross-linguistic trends in ordering

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Linguistics and Language Podcasts

Looking for podcasts about language and linguistics? Here’s a comprehensive list with descriptions! I’ve also mentioned if shows have transcripts. If there are any I missed, let me know!

Linguistics

Lingthusiasm A podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne (that’s me!). Main episodes every third Thursday of every month, with a second bonus episode on Patreon. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Because Language Every week Daniel, Ben, and Hedvig cover the news in linguistics and tackle a particular topic. (previously Talk the Talk) (Transcripts for all episodes after release)

The Vocal Fries Every episode Carrie Gillon & Megan Figueroa tackle linguistic discrimination in relation to a particular group. (Transcripts for some episodes)

En Clair A podcast about forensic linguistics from Dr Claire Hardaker at Lancaster University. Episodes released monthly, with a range of topics from criminal cases to literary fraud. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Language on the Move Conversations about linguistic diversity in social life. (Transcripts for some episodes)

Said & Done A podcast about languages and the people who speak them, from the Columbia LRC

Accentricity From Sadie Durkacz Ryan, a lecturer in sociolinguistics at Glasgow University. Season one has six episodes.

All About Accents A podcast all about accents with linguist and accent coach Dani Morse-Kopp in conversation with her partner Lucas Morse. 

Tomayto Tomahto Led by Talia Sherman, a Brown University undergrad, this interview-based podcast explores language.

Field Notes Martha Tsutsui Billins interviews linguists about their linguistic fieldwork. (Transcripts for all episodes)

History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences sub-30 minute episodes about the history of linguistics from James McElvenny, with the occasional interviews.

Lingua Brutalica Jess Kruk and Wes Robertson take on the world of extreme metal.

Say It Like You Play It A podcast about games, language and culture.

The Language Revolution Changing UK attitudes to languages.

The Secret Life of Language An interview podcast from the University of Melbourne’s School of Languages and Linguistics.

JSLX Conversations Podcast A podcast produced by the Journal of Sociolinguistics. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Lexis A conversation about linguistics with a topical UK focus, from Matthew Butler, Lisa Casey, Dan Clayton and Jacky Glancey.

Kletshead A podcast about bilingual children for parents, teachers and speech language therapists from Dr. Sharon Unsworth. Also in Dutch.

Linguistics Lounge A podcast about language and discourse with Tony Fisher and Julia de Bres. Transcripts for all episodes.

CorpusCast from Dr Robbie Love, available alongside other shows in the Aston University podcast feed or in video format.

Life and Language Michaela Mahlberg chats with her guests about life and why language matters.

Toksave – Culture Talks A podcast from the PARADISEC Archive, where the archived records of the past have life breathed back into them once again.

Theory Neutral Covering typology and descriptive grammars with Logan R Kearsley.

PhonPod Podcast Interview-based podcast about phonetics and phonology.

Linguistics Careercast A podcast devoted to exploring careers for linguists outside academia.

Language

The Allusionist Stories about language and the people who use it, from Helen Zaltzman (Transcripts for all episodes) (my review).

Grammar Girl Episodes are rarely longer than 15 minutes, but they’re full of tips about English grammar and style for professional writing, and more! (Transcripts for all episodes).

A Language I Love Is… A show about language, linguistics and people who love both. An interview-based podcast hosted by Danny Bate.

Word of Mouth BBC Radio 4 show exploring the world of words with Michael Rosen.

America the Bilingual Dedicated to the pursuit of bilingualism in the USA.

Words & Actions A podcast about how language matters in business, politics and beyond.

Subtitle A podcast about languages and the people who speak them, from Patrick Cox and Kavita Pillay. For those who miss Patrick’s old podcast, The World in Words.

The Parlé Podcast from Canadian Speech-Language Pathologist Chantal Mayer-Crittenden.

Slavstvuyte! A podcast for everyone who is fascinated by Slavic languages from Dina Stankovic.

Subtext A podcast about the linguistics of online dating.

Conlangs

Conlangery Particularly for those with an interest in constructed  languages, they also have episodes that focus on specific natural  languages, or linguistic phenomena. Newer episodes have transcripts.

Linguitect Matt, Rowan and Liam explain linguistic topics and talk about how to build them into your conlang.

Dictionaries

Word For Word From Macquarie dictionary, with a focus on Australian English.

Fiat Lex A podcast about making dictionaries from Kory Stamper & Steve Kleinedler. One season.

Word Matters From the editors at Merriam-Webster, hosted by Emily Brewster, Neil Serven, Ammon Shea, and Peter Sokolowski. 

English

Unstandardized English Interview-based podcast. Disrupting the language of racism and white supremacy in English Language Teaching.

History of English Meticulously researched, professionally produced and engaging content on the history of English. (My reviews: episodes 1-4, episodes 5-79, bonus episodes).

Lexicon Valley Hosted by John McWhorter.

That’s What They Say Every week linguist Anne Curzan joins Rebecca Kruth on Michigan public radio for a five minute piece on a quirk of English language.

A Way With Words A talk-back format show on the history of English words, cryptic crosswords and slang.

Words/etymology

Something Rhymes With Purple Susie Dent and Gyles Brandreth uncover the hidden origins of language and share their love of words.

Telling our Twisted Histories Kaniehti:io Horn brings us together to decolonize our minds– one word, one concept, one story at a time.

Word Bomb Hosts Pippa Johnstone and Karina Palmitesta explore one word per week, using particular words for a deep dive into linguistic and social issues. (Transcripts for all episodes)

Words for Granted In each episode Ray Belli explores the history of a common English word in around fifteen minutes.

Lexitecture Ryan, a Canadian, and Amy, a Scot share their chosen word each episode.

Bunny Trails Shauna and Dan discuss idioms and other turns of phrase.

Translation & Interpreting

Brand the Interpreter Interviews about the profession, from Mireya Pérez.

The Translation Chat Podcast a podcast on Japanese to English media with Jennifer O’Donnell, and translators and editors in the Japanese to English localization.

In Languages other than English

Parler Comme Jamais A French language podcast from Binge Audio.Monthly episodes from Laélia Véron.

Sozusagen A German language podcast of weekly 10 minute episodes.

Talking Bodies A German language podcast about speech, gesture and communication.

Registergeknister A German language linguistics podcast of the Collaborative Research Center 1412 at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Språket A Swedish language podcast from Sveriges Radio about language use and change.

Språktalk A Norwegian language podcast with Helene Uri and Kristin Storrusten from Aftenposten.

Klog på sprog A Danish language podcast that playfully explores the Danish language.

Kletshead A Dutch language podcast about bilingual children for parents, teachers and speech language therapists from Dr. Sharon Unsworth. Also in English.

Over taal gesproken A Dutch language podcast from the Institute for the Dutch language and the Dutch Language Society.

BabelPodcast A Portuguese language podcast from Brazil, hosted by Cecilia Farias and Gruno.

El Racionalista Omnívoro a Portuguese language podcast about linguistics, history, cinema, literature and more, hosted by Antonio Fábregas.

War of Words A Spanish language podcast about linguistics from Juana de los Santos, Ángela Rodríguez, Néstor Bermúdez and Antonella Moschetti.

Con la lengua fuera A Spanish language podcast from Macarena Gil y Nerea Fernández de Gobeo.

Hablando mal y pronto A Spanish language conversational podcast from Santiago, Juan and Magui.

Rhapsody in Lingo Cantonese podcast on language and linguistics.

Back Catalogue

These are podcasts that had a good run of episodes and are no longer being produced.

Spectacular Vernacular A podcast that explores language … and plays with it Hosted by Nicole Holliday and Ben Zimmer for Slate. Transcripts available. 19 episodes from 2021 and 2022.

Science Diction a podcast about words—and the science stories behind them. Hosted by Johanna Mayer, this is a production from WNYC Science Friday. 42 episodes from 2020-2022.

Troublesome Terps The podcast about the things that keep interpreters up at night. 70 episodes from 2016-2022.

The World in Words From PRI, episodes from 2008-2019.

How Brands are Build (season 1 of this show focuses on brand naming)

Very Bad Words A  podcast about swearing and our cultural relationship to it. 42 episodes from 2017 and 2018.

The Endless Knot is not strictly a language podcast, but they often include word histories, linguistics podcast fans episode may find their colour series particularly interesting.

Given Names (four part radio series from 2015, all about names. My review)

Odds & Ends

There are also a number of podcasts that have only a few episodes, are no longer being made, or are very academic in their focus:

The Black Language Podcast Anansa Benbow brings you a podcast dedicated to talking about Black people and their languages. Five episodes from 2020.

Speculative Grammarian Podcast (from the magazine of the same name, about 50 episodes from Dec 2009-Jan 2017)

Linguistics Podcast (on YouTube, around 20 episodes in 2013 introducing basic linguistic concepts)

Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library (8 episodes 2018), from the British Library.

Language Creation Society Podcast (8 episodes, 2009-2011)

LingLab (very occasionally updated podcast from graduate students in the Sociolinguistics program at NC State University)

Hooked on Phonetics five episodes from Maxwell Hope from 2019 and 2020.

Glossonomia Each episode is about a different vowel or consonant sound in English. 44 episodes from 2010-2014.

Distributed Morphs An interview-based podcast about morphology, from Jeffrey Punske. Eight episodes in 2020.

Word to the Whys a podcast where linguists talk about why they do linguistics. Created by TILCoP Canada (Teaching Intro Linguistics Community of Practice). 10 episodes in 2020 and 2021.

The Weekly Linguist An  interview podcast about the languages of the world and the linguists who study them from Jarrette Allen and Lisa Sprowls. 21 episodes in 2021.

Silly Linguistics (ad hoc episode posting, but episode 7 is an interview with Kevin Stroud for History of English fans)

Linguistics After Dark Eli, Sarah and Jenny answer your linguistics questions in hour-ish long episodes.

WACC Podcast (guest lectures at Warwick Applied Linguistics)

Sage Language and Linguistics

Let’s Talk Talk

Queer Linguistics has a couple of episodes, with a bit of classroom vibe

GradLings An occasionally-updated podcast for linguistics students at any stage of study, to share their stories and experiences.

Canguro English A podcast about language for people learning languages. 103 episodes from 2018-2021.

Why is English? A podcast about how the English language got to be the way it is, from Laura Brandt. Seven episodes from 2020 and 2021. 

Animology Vegan blogger Colleen Patrick Goudreau uses her love of animals as a starting point for exploring animal-related etymologies. 27 episodes from 2017-2020.

Wordy Wordpecker Short weekly episodes from Rachel Lopez, charting the stories of English words. 14 episodes from 2018.

Speaking of Translation A monthly podcast from Eve Bodeux & Corinne McKay. 10 episodes from 2020-2021.

Se Ve Se Escucha (Seen and Heard) Language justice and what it means to be an interpreter, an organizer and bilingual in the US South, from the Center for Participatory Change. Episodes from 2020.

This is an updated listing from December 2024. I’m always excited to be able to add more podcasts to the list, so if you know of any linguistics/language podcasts not here, please let me know! I wait until a show has at least 5 episodes before I add it to the list, and I like to let people know when transcripts are available.

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was asked this recently and thought itd be fun to see the demographic::p

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Hello! I was wondering if you could please tell me what gender fountain pen brands e.g Lamy would be? And how do you know the gender of brand names in general? I know car brands are masculine and motorbike brands are usually feminine, but I'm not sure of any rules beyond that.

Hello!

Good questions and difficult questions!

As for fountain pens, the German word is der Füller. When speaking about a Lamy fountain pen, it's kinda like you're saying "Füller" without saying it:

der Lamy (der Lamy-Füller)

(since in all german composite words the last word decides the gender of the whole, it turns out masculine just like Füller)

Another example would be the brand Stabilo, especially known for their colorful pens (ger: der Fineliner, der Stift, der Textmarker) - thus you'll probably only hear "Kannst du mir den Stabilo geben?" and not die Stabilo/das Stabilo

As for brands otherwise: meh, that's really hard

You're right about the (IMO quite quirky) distinction of cars by a brand vs motorbikes by the same brand ("Ich fahre einen BMW" -> I drive a car by BMW; "Ich fahre eine BMW" -> I drive a BMW motorbike; "Ich fahre eine Harley" and never "einen Harley")

Other ways of gender assignment that i can think of:

- if the brand name is a (composite) word, the gender of course follows the gender of the word itself (e.g.: das Bauhaus, der Hornbach (both hardware stores); das Kaufland, der Penny (both supermarkets)) this of course also applies to acronyms (die AOK - die allgemeine Ortskrankenkasse (die Kasse))

- you might see Germans assign gender to neologisms based on the (more or less loose) gender assignment rules

Often when a brand name is used, it's either by itself and then without an article ("Bauhaus hat heute geschlossen") or with a preamble of what kind of brand/company it is ("Der Telekommunikationsabieter Telekom hat...", "Bei der Firma Großkotz wurde gestern eingebrochen", "Der Spielwarenhersteller Baufix erklärt, ...").

There's also multiple examples of Germans arguing about the gender of sth (most famous example: Nutella) and I'll have to admit that i personally gender Kaufland incorrectly because I've got it saved as der Supermarkt Kaufland in my brain and thus usually say "ich gehe noch zum Kaufland (m)" or "Der Kaufland hat noch bis 22:00 offen"

Sorry that my answer is so... unfulfilling (for me personally at least)

hope it still helps a little :)

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poll idea that's too big for tumblr. what are your favorite letters?