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燕池yanchi - 北国

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Bellerby & Co. Globemakers: One of the World’s Only Globe-Making Studios Celebrates the Ancient Art of Handcrafted Globes

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Søren Poulsen, a Danish farmer single-handedly built his own version of the world. Completed in 1969, Verdenskortet is the main tourist draw in Klejtrup, Denmark.

More outdoor maps >>

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The lion king in Zulu is my favorite now, wow.

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 I found this very cool channel on youtube that shows children’s cartoons/stories in Portuguese (or other languages, if you’re learning something else) with subtitles! All of the stories are interesting and if I were you I would check them out! 

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Really, I haven’t seen anyone talk about mondlylanguages at all so far. It’s so helpful imo, and it has a lot of languages available to learn that aren’t on duolingo, such as:

Romanian, Hungarian, Czech, Finnish, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, Greek, Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Afrikaans.

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Que Hiciste- Jennifer Lopez

Que hiciste – Jennifer Lopez

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAfSuuPMrp4

Hi guys!! This weeks Music Monday is for all of my Spanish lovers out there! This song is kinda old but it’s a song that got me interested in learning Spanish! It’s also PERFECT for learning the endings to the preterite in Spanish.  And I mean who doesn’t love to jam to old school J-Lo?

So basically the song is about Jennifer talking about how her man ruined their lives together. So if you’re going through a break up then there’s a lot of useful vocab for you in this song! She’s asking him over and over WHAT DID YOU DO? I suggest listening to the song without looking at the lyrics first because Jennifer’s accent is pretty clear and it’s a good opportunity to train your ears! And you might even pick up on more words than you thought :) 

                                               Key Vocabulary

Sobrar- alright this verb is an interesting one and not commonly taught in Spanish class! In the song the meaning is “to not be needed”

(Ayer a nuestros labios les sobraban las palabras) but it can also mean

to be left over- Si sobra comida después de la fiesta, la vamos a donar. (If there is food left over after the party, we will donate it)

to be too many- Sobran platos en la mesa (There are too many plates on the table)

to be too much- Sobra comida chattara en este carrito (There is too much junk food in this cart)

to be more than enough- Sobra agua en la olla para cocinar el arroz (There is more than enough water in the pot to cook the rice)

Madrugada- in this song it means sunrise but it can also refer to the early morning hours 

Ex:     Estudiamos hasta las cinco de la madrugada

           We were studying until five in the morning

Last but certainly not least, the preterite tense is present alllllll throughout the song. The main verb used is “hiciste” which is useful because it’s irregular! Other examples to keep an open ear out for are:

           Destruiste

           Borraste

           Confundiste

           Obligaste

           *Fui (Ser in the preterite which is also irregular)

           Juraste

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Vocabulário #7 - Happiness

alegre (m&f) /a.’lɛ.gɾi/ - happy, joyful alegria (f) /a.le.’gɾi.ɐ/ - joy amizade (f) /a.mi.’za.dʒi/ - friendship amor (m) /a.’moɹ/ - love conforto (m) /kõ.’foɹ .tu/ - comfort contente (m&f) /kõ(n).’te͂j̃.tʃi/ - content, satisfyed, happy diversão (f) /dʒi.veɹ.’sɐ͂w/ - fun [noun] divertido /dʒi.veɹ.’ti.du/ - fun [adj] divertir-se /dʒi.veɹ.’tiɹ.si/ - to have fun engraçado /e͂j̃(ŋ).gɾa.sa.du/~/ĩ(ŋ).gɾa.sa.du/ - funny família /fa.’mi.ljɐ/~/fa.’mi.ʎɐ/ - family felicidade (f) /fe.li.si.’da.dʒi/ - happiness feliz (m&f) /fe.’lis/ - happy gargalhada /gaɹ.ga.’ʎa.dɐ/ - loud and/or multiple laughter gargalhar /gaɹ.ga.’ʎaɹ/ - to laugh loudly, to burst out laughing não ter graça /nɐ͂w.teɹ.’gɾa.sɐ/ - to not be funny paz e tranqüilidade (f) /’pa(j).zi.tɾɐ͂(ŋ).kwi.li.’da.dʒi/ - peace and quiet prazer (m) /pɾa.’zeɹ/ - pleasure rir /hiɹ/ - to laugh risada (f) /hi.’za.dɐ/ - laughter riso (m) /’hi.zu/ - laughter, smile saúde /sa.’u.dʒi/ - health sorrir /so.’hiɹ/ - to smile sorriso (m) /so.’hi.zu/ - smile sucesso /su.’sɛ.su/ - success

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Some numbers about Duolingo

There are 6,3 times more people learning Irish (882k learners) than there are native speakers of Irish in Ireland (140k speakers);

There are about 16,665,000 people learning German on Duolingo - that is almost the population of Austria and Switzerland combined (16,724,721 people in 2014, according to World Bank)

There are about 39,774,000 people learning Spanish on Duolingo, while the number of native Spanish speakers in Spain is of about 38,352,500 (82% of Spain’s population) according to this report 

There are more people learning English (~99,288,600 learners) than the population of the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand combined (about 97,121,000 people)

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Kermanshah, Iran

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Study tip:

Use 2 notebooks when taking notes: one for in class and one for copying the notes at home. The one in class, make it messy with add-ins, subtext, etc etc! Take down as much info as you can. Then, after class, take those messy, hard-to-read notes and re-copy them into your home notebook. These are the ones you study off of so make them neat and clear to understand!

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The Word for ‘Tea’ in various European languages.

More word maps >>

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French Verlan

Verlan is a play on the French language, somewhat similar to the English Pig Latin. It originated among youths and criminals to communicate without being understood by outsiders. Now it widely known and used in French slang. This is a list of verlan I’ve found. I don’t know how many of these are actually used. Any French people wanna help out?

céfran - français

meuf - femme

relou - lourd (used to describe personality)

laisse béton - laisse tomber (let it go~ let it go~ [sorry I had to])

Keep reading

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How to Study Advanced French

This guide is aimed at non-native French-speakers who have a solid grasp on grammar and can read and understand spoken French with ease. Often, when you get to this point, it’s difficult to know how to keep improving, so I’ve made this guide based on my experience. 

Disclaimer: This guide is based on “Standard” Parisian French. This is the dialect most people learn in school and most resources are based off of. I recognize that all other dialects of French are just as important and will post more on them in the future. 

PRONUNCIATION

1. Once you reach proficiency in French, it’s a good time to practice your accent. You probably already have a decent accent, but wouldn’t it be sweet to sound like a native? To practice I usually watch French youtubers and pause and repeat after them. You can also use Forvo to isolate specific words you want to practice. Also, here’s a good guide on how to pronounce the French r which is difficult for many native speakers of English. 

VOCABULARY

You probably have a pretty good vocabulary. You know the words for most things you come across in everyday life. But what if you are in a situation where you need to know how to say mushy? These kind of words are good to know to increase your fluency.

1. Reading is a good way to find words you don’t know. I usually underline words I don’t know while I read, and look them up later. That way I don’t interrupt my reading. 

2. Think to yourself in French. Make a note when you can’t find a word for something you’re thinking about and look it up later. 

CULTURAL FLUENCY

1. Usage - The rules we learn from textbooks are based on “correct” grammatical French. In reality, the native usage of words differs from what we are taught. For example, the French shorten many words just like we often call a picture a pic in English, or a telephone a phone. Contractions, filler words can also help make you sound more natural. 

2. Proverbs/Sayings - These are also important to know and will help you sound like a native: proverbs, colloquial expressions, quotations from movies, euphemisms, and more colloquial expressions. 

3. Slang - While you may not use all the slang you learn (I’m not sure what might be considered appropriative), it will greatly enhance your comprehension of spoken French: phrases, words derived from Arabic, words for money, verlan, swears, and expressions with foutre. 

Bonus: ways to avoid gendered or binary language.

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spanish and italian: So THESE words are feminine and THESE words are masculine, and you ALWAYS put an adjective AFTER the noun.

french: haha i dont fuckin know man just do whatever

gaelic: the pronounciation changes depending on the gender and what letter the word starts and ends with and hahah i dont even know good fucking luck

polish: here have all of these consonants have fun

japanese: subject article noun article verb. too bad there's three fucking alphabets lmao hope your first language isn't western

welsh: sneeze, and chances are you've got it right. idfk

chinese: here's a picture. draw it. it means something. it can be pronounced four different ways. these twenty other pictures are pronounced the same but have very different meanings. godspeed.

latin: here memorize 500 charts and then you still dont know what the fuck is happening

sign language: If you move this sign by a tenth of an inch, you'll be signing "penis"

turkish: my sweet child, your sufferings will end here because i have no irregular verbs, no genders, no weird spelling or pronunciation rules, no different alphabets to learn. come my child

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Can the linguistic history side of tumblr tell me why the contraction for “will not” is “won’t” and not “willn’t”?