#and all of the helpful grammar charts and vocab lists are hidden or only found on the pc format which is super inconvenient

[casismybestfriend]

i did it… i finally finished the english->arabic course

only took me three years give or take 😅

[saiph0]

hi hi! what first inspired you to start conlaning? what are some tips you would give to beginners? this is not a call for help what LOL wdym /j/j/j

LOL hi!! thanks for the ask :)

oh boy this'll be a long one, sorry in advance,,,

If anyone has any other tips please feel free to add on!

So I think what inspired me to start conlanging was the dream I had several years ago that started the world of Amatɔqa. In the dream the citizens of the hidden city spoke their own language, though I couldn't recall what was a part of it, so at first I only made up a few words and phrases that are now obsolete.

Another thing that really inspired me to actually get serious about conlanging was the sounds of different natural languages that I found super fun to hear/say.

For example: the "x" sound in the Mandarin word "xièxie"; The sound of Russian; the throaty "kh" or "ch" sound (equivalent of [x] in ipa) of Arabic and Scottish Gaelic; and the list goes on!

As for tips for beginners, man that's a bit of a tough one! It'll depend on what the best-feeling approach would be for you! I'll give some ideas I have though:

The international phonetic alphabet has been my best friend!

If your first language is English, especially American English, you can start out small with this wikipedia article on the ipa sounds we have in English. It was really helpful for me because of how overwhelming the full ipa chart looked to me in the beginning

There's this youtube channel: Glossika Phonics that has a lot of videos on examples of the different sounds in the ipa. It's not always perfect but very helpful for tongue and mouth positioning!

There are some sites that have ipa readers in which you can test out different sounds.

There are also sites with interactive ipa charts that have sound clips of each

Other Tips!

If you like having book resources, I definitely recommend "The Art of Language Invention" by the one and only David J. Peterson. It has so much info on breaking down languages; sounds; grammar; writing systems; and all of that good stuff!

If you really wanna jump into using that conlang and constructing sentences, focus on grammar! I tend to focus on tenses and word order in the beginning because that's the hardest part. Once I figure out grammar, I can make more vocab and just jump into creating sentences!

Experiment experiment experiment! Mess around with putting different sounds you like together and try to figure out which combinations you want to exclude from the language; make random symbols, look at r/neography on reddit for really cool stuff; you can always change stuff later

Definitely look at other natural languages for inspo! What sounds good? What similarities/differences do they have with your first language?

---

Oh god I think i could ramble on forever but I hope this was at least a somewhat helpful start! I'm super open to chatting further if you have anymore questions or just want to share what you've made so far :)