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airlinepolyglot-blog · 8 years ago

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Routledge Masterpost

Here are all of the Routledge Grammar PDFs that I currently have. I’ll be updating whenever I find more. Let me know if there’s one in particular you want me to look for^^

Last Update: 2017/04/24

Fixed Intermediate Japanese: A Grammar and Workbook link

Added books for Czech, English, French, French Creoles, Persian, Ukranian

Added more books in Cantonese, Danish, Greek, Polish, Spanish, Swedish

Arabic

Arabic: An Essential Grammar Basic Arabic: A Grammar and Workbook Modern Written Arabic: A Comprehensive Grammar

Cantonese

Basic Cantonese: A Grammar and Workbook Cantonese: A Comprehensive Grammar Intermediate Cantonese: A Grammar and Workbook

Czech

Czech: An Essential Grammar

Danish

Danish: A Comprehensive Grammar Danish: An Essential Grammar

Dutch

Basic Dutch: A Grammar and Workbook Dutch: A Comprehensive Grammar Dutch: An Essential Grammar Intermediate Dutch: A Grammar and Workbook

English

English: An Essential Grammar

Finnish

Finnish: An Essential Grammar

French

Modern French Grammar Workbook

French Creoles

French Creoles: A Comprehensive and Comparative Grammar

German

Basic German: A Grammar and Workbook German: An Essential Grammar Intermediate German: A Grammar and Workbook

Greek

Greek: A Comprehensive Grammar Greek: An Essential Grammar of the Modern Language

Hindi

Hindi: An Essential Grammar

Hebrew

Modern Hebrew: An Essential Grammar

Hungarian

Hungarian: An Essential Grammar

Indonesian

Indonesian: A Comprehensive Grammar

Irish

Basic Irish: A Grammar and Workbook Intermediate Irish: A Grammar and Workbook

Italian

Basic Italian: A Grammar and Workbook

Japanese

Basic Japanese: A Grammar and Workbook Intermediate Japanese: A Grammar and Workbook Japanese: A Comprehensive Grammar

Korean

Basic Korean: A Grammar and Workbook Intermediate Korean: A Grammar and Workbook Korean: A Comprehensive Grammar

Latin

Intensive Basic Latin: A Grammar and Workbook Intensive Intermediate Latin: A Grammar and Workbook

Latvian

Latvian: An Essential Grammar

Mandarin Chinese

Basic Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook Intermediate Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar Chinese: An Essential Grammar

Norwegian

Norwegian: An Essential Grammar

Persian

Basic Persian: A Grammar and Workbook Intermediate Persian: A Grammar and Workbook

Polish

Basic Polish: A Grammar and Workbook Intermediate Polish: A Grammar and Workbook Polish: A Comprehensive Grammar Polish: An Essential Grammar

Portuguese

Portuguese: An Essential Grammar

Romanian

Romanian: An Essential Grammar

Russian

Basic Russian: A Grammar and Workbook Intermediate Russian: A Grammar and Workbook

Serbian

Serbian: An Essential Grammar

Spanish

Basic Spanish: A Grammar and Workbook Intermediate Spanish: A Grammar and Workbook Spanish: An Essential Grammar

Swahili

Swahili Grammar and Workbook

Swedish

Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar Swedish: An Essential Grammar

Thai

Thai: An Essential Grammar

Turkish

Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar

Ukrainian

Ukrainian: A Comprehensive Grammar

Urdu

Urdu: An Essential Grammar

Welsh

Modern Welsh: A Comprehensive Grammar

Yiddish

Basic Yiddish: A Grammar and Textbook

Hope this helps everyone out a bit! Happy studying^^

-koreanbreeze

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airlinepolyglot-blog · 8 years ago

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Spring in Paris. Place d’Italie by Linda Bergvall.

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airlinepolyglot-blog · 8 years ago

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Emerald waters of Ha Long Bay, photographed by Rice Ink

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airlinepolyglot-blog · 8 years ago

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Yakov Chernikhov. Amazing soviet Architect produced more then 17,000 sketches and drawings.

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airlinepolyglot-blog · 8 years ago

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GERMANS I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD

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airlinepolyglot-blog · 8 years ago

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Breakfast in Russian

Молоко [ma-la-KO] milk

Йогурт [YO-goort] yogurt

Фрукт [FROOKT] fruit

Ягода [YA-ga-da] berry

Изюм [ee-ZYOOM] raisin

Орех [a-RYEH] nut

Хлеб [HLYEP] bread

Тост [TOST] toast

Блины [blee-NI] thick pancakes

Масло [MAS-la] butter

Сметана [smee-TA-na] sour cream

Мёд [MYOT] honey

Варенье [va-RYEN’-ye] jam

Сок [SOK] juice

Фруктовый сок [frook-TO-viy SOK] fruit juice

Апельсиновый сок [a-pyel’-SEE-na-viy SOK] orange juice

Вода [va-DA] water

Чай [CHAI] tea

Чёрный чай [CHOR-niy CHAI] black tea

Зелёный чай [zee-LYO-niy CHAI] green tea

Кофе [KO-fye] coffee

Сливки [SLEEF-kee] cream

#Russian

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airlinepolyglot-blog · 8 years ago

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Garden Vocabulary

General

Garden 庭園　「ていえん」

Gardener 庭師　「にわし」

Lawn　芝生　「しばふ」

Growing field　畑　「はたけ」

Vegetable garden 菜園　「さいえん」

Plant　植物　「しょくぶつ」

Flower　花　「はな」

Flower bud つぼみ　

Seed　種　「たね」

Tree　木　「き」

Tree (specifically in a garden) 庭木　「にわき」

Fruit　果物　「くだもの」

Vegetable　野菜　「やさい」

Pond　池　「いけ」

Mulching マルチング

Soil　土　「ど」

Fertilizer 肥料　「ひりょう」

Tools

Rake　熊手　「くまで」

Shovel (pointed tip) シャベル

Spade (flat tip) 鋤　「すき」

Hoe　鍬　「くわ」

Pruning Shears　剪定鋏　「せんていばさみ」

Pitchfork　ピッチフォーク

Trowel 金ごて　「かなごて」

Wheelbarrow　手押し車　「ておしぐるま」

Lawnmower 芝刈り機　「しばかりき」

Watering-can　じょうろ

Hose ホース

Tiller ティラー

Vegetation

Tomato　トマト

Cucumber　キュウリ　「胡瓜」

Watermelon　スイカ　「西瓜」

Bell Peppers/Capsicum　ピーマン

Eggplant/Aubergine　ナス　「茄子」

Corn　トウモロコシ

Carrots　人参　「にんじん」

Lettuce　レタス

Broccoli ブロコリ

Cabbage　キャベツ

Napa Cabbage　白菜　「はくさい」

Strawberry イチゴ

Apple リンゴ

Peach　桃　「もも」

Pear　梨　「なし」

Trees/Plants

Hollyhock 葵　「あおい」

Oak オーク

Oak 楢　「なら」

Kurogane Holly クロガネモチ

Camellia ツバキ

Black Pine 黒松　「くろまつ」

Cryptomeria　杉　「すぎ」

Japanese Maple イロハモミジ also 紅葉　「もみじ」

Maple カエデ

Cherry 桜　「さくら」

Japanese Plum/Apricot 梅「ウメ」

Magnolia コブシ

Flowers

Chrysanthemum　菊　「きく」

Cherry Blossom 桜　「さくら」

Camellia ツバキ

Rose バラ

Lily ユリ

Forget-me-not 忘れな草　or 勿忘草「わすれなぐさ」

Magnolia コブシ

Orchid 蘭　「らん」

Tulip チューリップ

Carnation カーネーション

Hydrangea アジサイ

Iris　アイリス

Morning Glory　朝顔　「あさがお」

Violet　スミレ

Plum　梅「うめ」

Verbs

To plant/grow　植える　「うえる」

To sow 蒔く　「まく」

To grow/sprout 生える　「はえる」

To maintain soil 土作りをする　「どつくりをする」

To water a plant 水をやる　「みずをやる」

To harvest 収穫する「しゅうかくする」

To pick a fruit/vegetable 採る　「とる」

To pick a flower 摘む　「つむ」

To fertilize 肥やす　「こやす」

#Japanese

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airlinepolyglot-blog · 8 years ago

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that life

but hey, it's best to always have a basis I guess

i should really stop falling in love with a different language every week

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airlinepolyglot-blog · 8 years ago

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another infrequent update

NOTE: a few links and whatnot are missing from this post, several YouTubes, etc. I will add them very shortly, and if I do not, then please remind me!

Hello everyone, I know it’s been awhile once again. It’s not that I haven’t been doing language things (quite the contrary), but rather that I don’t have time to tell you about them. A quick rundown of what I’ll be talking about here:

Travels and how language related:

-my trip to Toronto

-my trip to Hong Kong

-a brief mention of my trip to Cancun

What I have learned, language wise, since my last update:

-Norwegian

-German

-Welsh

-Hungarian

-Russian

-Turkish

I went to Toronto with my girlfriend Marisa since my last update. Toronto is of course an English majority city so there isn’t a ton to write about that, but it’s worth noting just how bilingual Canada is in many ways. Most people in Toronto can’t speak French, or rarely speak it, but it’s as prevalent as Spanish is in the US. Everything is cosigned in both languages, and of course the government enforces Canada’s bilingualism, which was extremely interesting. I’ll be interested to visit a really bilingual city in Canada, like Ottawa or Montreal, where everyone can speak both languages.

Hong Kong had been one of my top cities to visit after I got the airline job (and before that, too). There was obviously absolutely no way it was going to disappoint, and luckily it didn’t in the slightest. Definitely the best place I have been to to date (lovely English right there!), on so many levels. It’s extremely welcoming and inviting to an outsider, insanely easy to get around, very safe, etc. But to the world tourist, the level of English spoken in Hong Kong is extremely impressive. Literally everyone in Hong Kong spoke English that I spoke with, to a very good degree. Curiously, the Filipino domestic helpers spoke some of the poorest english (they stuck to Tagalog), and more obviously, the mainland tourists spoke very little (if any) English. I used Mandarin a few times, but interestingly I used German quite a bit (there’s apparently quite a bit of German expatriation in Hong Kong). I was caught off guard with the German, considering I was fairly out of practice (but usually made out just fine!), but I came armed with the Mandarin. Using HelloChinese and a few audio resources (Living Language) I had a conversational amount down, though I never used it to that degree (it would just be pointing someone in the right direction or making small talk), after really seeing Mainland Chinese in action in Hong Kong, I felt very motivated to really work on my Mandarin. Sadly, I haven’t much since my trip ended, but I’m sure I’ll pick it back up at some point - I love Mandarin and always preach how simple it is to everyone and tell people it’s far easier than people think. Because it is...once you accept that the characters are an “over time” thing. And as expected, the little Cantonese I spoke (“ni ho”, “mh’goi”, “ching”, etc) was received very well, but considering how widely English was spoken, it was just my sign of gratitude to the natives.

I did visit Cancun, Mexico with Marisa as well, because it was affordable, accessible, and warm. While it wasn’t great (we had a good time together though), I’ll of course cover the language situation there. Largely of course English to cater to tourists, a few people did indeed lead with Spanish, which was surprising. I had an Uber driver who only spoke Spanish and so he and I pieced through a conversation together, and he was helping me learn. But still, the Spanish language and I don’t really click sadly. A shame, as I want to visit Madrid, Colombia (any city), Santiago de Chile, and of course return to Buenos Aires. But luckily Marisa knows and likes Spanish, so she can come with me and help out with that until I’m back on track.

Okay, now an update on my language study stuff. I could post Duolingo stats but eh I don’t think those give as accurate an estimation as me describing my progress. So, I’ve been focusing on Norwegian a lot recently, which is without question my favorite language. I’ve been really focused on finishing the tree, and am at Level 17 on Duolingo. Admittedly, Duolingo is the only resource I’m using for Norwegian right now. No books, no YouTube, no audio, just Duolingo. So the terrible robot voice that Duo uses is my only way of hearing the language at the moment, but I’m doing that on purpose. Going to finish the tree and really have this language down, and then see how quickly I really pick up on it when I hear it spoken by actual people. It’s such a simple and logical language on almost every level that it’s amazing. The grammar is just so much more simple than any other language. The verb conjugations (or relative lack thereof), definite articles (which are suffixes), word order, negation (just “ikke”) just all make so much sense. The amazing Paul (Langfocus) did an awesome video about Norwegian and its relation to Swedish and Danish, with a lesser extent Faroese and Icelandic (both of which are far more complicated grammatically than the other three). In an ideal world, the Vikings and their successors would’ve pushed for Norwegian (or Swedish, but I like Norwegian and the culture of Norway just a bit more) to be the universal language of the world instead of English. Norwegian is an easier and better language than English, and it’s far more logical in ways (grammatically and pronounced) than English ever could be. It (as well as Swedish and Danish) also lacks the case system that comes along with German, which makes it much easier to learn than the main language of its family. Through Norwegian, you can almost fully understand Swedish. I haven’t done Swedish on Duolingo at all, but I can read Swedish text incredibly well, point out and translate words in IKEA, and breeze through Memrise and Tinycards decks, thanks to my understanding of Norwegian. I can understand written Danish to the same degree, but it’s a wildly different language when spoken. I haven’t studied Danish much, but I’m sure once you’re used to how they pronounce things (like Spanish/Portuguese differences), you’ll be in great shape. I can’t wait to hopefully visit Oslo this summer, as I still have not gotten to speak Norwegian in real life at all yet, but am confident I can do so….well, confidently. We will find out soon.

I am returning to Germany in a few weeks, and in preparation I’m of course going through my German resources again. Reguilding Duolingo, going through some advanced levels on Memrise, playing around on Babadum, and things like that. German is annoyingly difficult/tricky in so many ways (and after learning one of the North Germanic languages, it will frustrate you more once you’ve learned just how simple it all can be!!!), but I’m convinced the language runs through my blood and is almost second nature to me at this point, which I’m extremely grateful for. I can jump into conversations often, understand it when I hear it (even Swiss German!), and generally carry myself along. I just wish it wasn’t so difficult for new learners who aren’t picking it up in a classroom setting - it really is a difficult language to teach yourself, especially if you’ve never dealt with a three gender language AND one that has a case system, no less. Plus, “sie” can mean she/formal you/they, which I’m sure can certainly trip anyone up. That’s just a bit impractical, but luckily I have that advantage I guess.

I dabbled briefly in Welsh on Duolingo. A very fun and surprisingly simple language, I put it on hold temporarily due to my desire to focus on other languages. Nonetheless, I found it super interesting, though of course often difficult to pronounce. The “dd” sound in Welsh is maybe the most difficult thing I’ve ever attempted to pronounce, and I’m convinced only natives will ever master it. I want to see this language kept alive, so certainly give it a shot - the Duolingo course is wonderful and very well designed, and this YouTube video (linked within the course) will teach you how to pronounce the language very well.

My last three languages I’ll sort of talk about together. They are Russian, Hungarian, and Turkish. Three languages from different families (but I guess a similar part of the world), but damn are they a lot of fun to me. I’m actually glad I waited a week to write this post, as I attempted to look at Turkish again last night for the first time in ages and it suddenly made tons of sense to me - being an agglutinative language and all, just like Hungarian and to a lesser extent Russian. All three of these languages are pretty “out there�� for an English speaker, and I’ll agree, some of the trickiest for an English speaker to learn, as they have a lot of rules. But honestly that’s a lot of the fun, once you get the rules down and can form sentences and work with the case system (all three languages feature a case system), you feel really accomplished speaking these beautiful languages. Russian always tends to amaze me, the amount of loanwords and similar vocabulary in Russian will really surprise you. Once you master the Cyrillic alphabet, I bet you could look at a Russian text and point out so many words that are similar to the Romance or Germanic languages. This makes for fun learning once you figure out the Slavic twist to put on each word. The lack of articles in Russian and verb “to be” is of course a massive advantage - once you dig into the language you realize just how much of a blessing this is. I’m really enjoying Russian, and while I still make plenty of grammar mistakes and still struggle to pronounce some things, I can’t wait to really get this language down and be able to speak it with confidence. While I won’t be able to speak Hungarian with sure confidence probably for a long time, it’s an extremely fun language to me. It has something like 15 cases - definitely an extreme amount, and not a language for the faint of heart, but if you’re really into this kind of thing you may want to look into it. The alphabet and pronunciation are quite simple once you get them down, and word order is very free thanks to the case system (similar to Russian!). Plus, the Hungarian people are great and amazed anyone attempts to learn their very hard language. I’m going to see for myself when I go to Budapest next month and attempt to drag some Hungarian out (they’re also attempting to learn English widespread, as tourism in Hungary amongst Europeans is climbing), and we’ll see if the rumors are true about how happy Hungarians are that we even let out a “szia” (hello/goodbye) or a “köszönöm” (thank you) in conversation. If you’re scared off by Russian’s foreign alphabet and Hungarian’s crazy amount of cases, then maybe Turkish is a good place to start if you’re interested in an agglutinative language that differs wildly from English and the languages similar (romance/germanic). Turkish follows a Subject+Object+Verb order which is kind of fun because you know the action is always at the end, and the vocabulary is very cool (and apparently features tons of Persian and Arabic loanwords). While I haven’t dove too deep into Turkish, by the time my next update rolls around, I believe I will have more to tell you, as I plan to get right back to Turkish on Duolingo once I’ve posted this. While neither Turkey (political situation) nor Russia (complicated visa issues) would be suitable to visit now, Azerbaijan would be a good place I think, as a large part of the population still speaks Russian, a lot speak English (thanks to all the expats), and their native language, Azerbaijani (or Azeri Turkish) is apparently very close to Turkish, so someone who knows Turkish well can quickly pick up on Azerbaijani. I wonder if the differences are as close as Norwegian to Swedish or more like Spanish to Italian. Maybe I’ll know by the time I write here next.

I also am attempting to learn the Greek alphabet because why not (the lowercase letters are throwing me off big time - why must they be different from the uppercase?!) and of course still looking at Italian, French, etc from time to time. I don’t have any decent observations on these developments.

Hopefully I’ll write to you all again soon. Follow me on Instagram or something if you’d like more frequent updates about my life.

#langblr #langblog #norwegian #russian #german #hungarian #magyar

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airlinepolyglot-blog · 8 years ago

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Inspired by aspoonfuloflanguage’s Chinese post. Please check it out, her design skills are way more impressive than mine. ORL Also, take a look at livingwithlanguages‘s Polish post of the same nature, it’s also very pretty!

My first contribution to the langblr community! I’ve noticed that there are not very many Persian langblr posts out there, so I decided to start off with something basic–colours. Colour is also fundamental to Iranian/Persian space as a whole, so perhaps it is a fitting beginning in that respect as well. For each colour, I decided to use an image that is somehow symbolic or special to Persian/Iranian culture. The title banner, for example, is an image from the Shahnameh, the Book of Kings, often treasured as the source of the modern Persian language.

Below, I have included a brief explanation of the symbols. All of the pictures were taken from Google Images, so if something belongs to you, please contact me and I will remove it ASAP.

Colours (Rang ha) رنگ ها

قرمز/سرخ (Quermez/sorkh): Red, the colour of pomegranates, one of the main symbols of Shab-e Yalda, the Iranian Winter Solstice holiday.

نارنجی (Narenji): Orange, the colour of goldfish, an important symbol of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, celebrated on the spring equinox.

زرد (Zard): Yellow, the colour of many Persian sweets (shirini), including this one, nokhodchi, traditional roasted chickpea cookies.

سبز (Sabz): Green, the colour of the sabzeh, an important symbol of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, celebrated on the spring equinox. Symbolizes rebirth.

آبی (Ahbi): Blue, the colour of the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, a Safavid architectural and mathematical masterpiece, considered one of the most beautiful constructions in the world to date.

بنفش (Benefsh): Purple, the colour of the hyacinth flower, an important symbol of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, celebrated on the spring equinox.

سیاه (Siyah): Black, often the colour of the chador, an outer garment specific to the Iranian region. An important feminist symbol during the Islamic Revolution, the chador was donned by many women in protest against the Shah’s oppressive policies. This image is a screencap of Maryam Mohamadamini in Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s iconic film, A Moment of Innocence (Farsi title: نون و گلدون‎‎).

سفید (Sefid): White, the colour of Azadi Square, the site of many popular uprisings including the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and the 2009 Green Movement.

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