lingocurio

[lingocurio]

I haven't been here in forever.

My current Langue du Jour is Mandarin. No reason. I'm doing the lessons on Duolingo.

Here's what I know so far.

Water - Shũi (I know that's the wrong tone mark, I don't know how to bring the correct one up at the moment).

Coffee - Kāfēi

And - Hè

Tea - Chá (is that the right tone 🤔)

Soup - Tāng

Rice - Mífàn

I also know what "she", "shima", "bisha" and "meiyo" mean but I don't know how to write them correctly in pinyin (yes, what, Your Majesty, and no, respectively). I know these words because I'm watching a Chinese historical drama and they say these words A LOT, especially "Your Majesty" 😂

And I can remember how to write, by heart, the hanzi for water, coffee and tea so far. Water and tea are the same as the Japanese kanji equivalent (I'm pretty sure they're the same).

😁✌️Baby steps, man, baby steps.

[lingocurio]

It's my 1 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

[lingocurio]

And yet people constantly bitch about having to pay for premium membership or having to sit through ads. Gripe gripe gripe. Which do want?? A free app or a premium service?? Hopefully those sacked translators have moved on to jobs that the user actually has to pay for.

Duolingo recently sacked most of their translators to replace them with AI, and kept on a few who now just check the AI content for errors.

I knew Duolingo was aiming to be the poster child of good apps turned to shit by greedy soulless stockholders but this takes the cake.

[lingocurio]

Gimme my 10 gems. 💎

[lingocurio]

Daily Etymology #160

Wedding

Wedding originated from the Middle English weddyng, from the Old English weddung, meaning betrothal. The stem, wed, came from wedian, meaning to marry or pledge, which itself was ultimately derived from the Proto-Germanic *wadją, meaning pledge, from the PIE root *wedʰ-, which meant to pledge.

*Indicates a reconstructed word

[lingocurio]

Collection

[lingocurio]

Interesting look at Newfoundland English and its similarities to other dialects.

[lingocurio]

‘Ukuhumusha’—A New Way to Hack OpenAI's ChatGPT - Decrypt

[lingocurio]

AI translates 5,000-year-old cuneiform tablets into English

[lingocurio]

I've never been to Portugal. I think I would love it there.

[lingocurio]

Is it "le" or "la"? Trying to learn which one sounds right.

https://clips.twitch.tv/ZanyResourcefulWrenchSMOrc-pL_14DV7hsVw06ii

[lingocurio]

Testing the French courses by Lingoda

I'm still on the lookout for good French online courses that fit into my schedule, so this week i'm gonna be testing the French courses by Lingoda and will let you guys know what i think about them and whether i'd recommend them

So far i'm really impressed by everything i've been reading:

it's an online language school with only native teachers

you get one test week where you can take part in 3 group courses for free (each group course has 2-4 students from around the world in it)

they emphasize that they also want to teach students different accents and 'everyday language', and they want students to take lessons with lots of different teachers in order to experience different manners of speaking

you can subscribe to pay for 5, 12, 20, or 40 lessons at a time and you can cancel your subscription at any time

it's super flexible and you can 100% match it to your schedule -> you can choose how many lessons you want to do per week and at what time cause you have to book every single lesson individually; so you're able to e.g. take 5 lessons at varying times this week and then just one lesson in the middle of the night next week

you can move forward as quickly or slowly as you'd like

you work your way through all lessons of one chapter to conclude it and once you finished all chapters of one level, you can move up to the next level

you get all of the materials for the lessons beforehand and you can access the grammar, vocab lists, and a short quiz about the lesson afterwards

you can retake lessons as often as you'd like if you need to repeat a topic

I'm gonna be testing 3 lessons of the level A2.2 this week (which has 13 chapters with 50 lessons)

[lingocurio]

My answer was wrong, but not for the reasons I thought.

https://clips.twitch.tv/CreativeStrongEelLitFam-HVQUHgngNVPNFEXe

[lingocurio]

Hungarian: intonation for a question vs a statement.

https://clips.twitch.tv/BoredPoorBobaTooSpicy-NZCggkiC-INcJoCQ

[lingocurio]

Just 10 minutes a day! Just do it!

https://clips.twitch.tv/CuriousDaintyJamCharlieBitMe-PmtefjGMrGFJCUJv

[lingocurio]

This was far more adrenaline-boosting than I thought it would be... Trying to beat the clock on Match Madness.

https://clips.twitch.tv/BusyLightSowWoofer-TslHZFBI65OY_9ql

[lingocurio]

Still trying to figure out Twitch.

Check out this video "How Does This Work?" https://www.twitch.tv/lingocurio/v/1933228351?sr=a