#langblr

[german-enthusiast]

Gang vs. Gang

since i just reposted a post about Gang a couple minutes ago:

der Gang (mask) - the aisle, the hall(way)

die Gang (fem) - the gang (as in: the group of criminals)

without article it is ambiguous in writing; spoken it still differs: [gaŋ] (link to dictionary with sound file) vs. [gɛŋ] (pronounced like the english "gang")

The ambiguous examples in the pictures above:

Turnschuhgang -> sneaker hallway vs. sneaker gang

Gedankengang -> train of thought vs. thought gang

Staubsaugerbeutel Gang -> vacuum cleaner bag aisle vs. vacuum cleaner bag gang

Oh, ich bin definitiv zu online/Englisch-brained um das beim ersten Mal richtig zu lesen.

[indigostudies]

my friend and i were going to study a language together and wound up having to cancel our plans due to scheduling pressures, but! through research we came across a really cool resource for reading in a TON of languages: bloom library!

as you can see, it has a lot of books for languages that are usually a bit harder to find materials for—we were going to use it for kyrgyz, for example, which has over 1000 books, which was really hard to find textbook materials for otherwise. as you can see it also has books with audio options, which would be really useful for pronunciation checking. as far as i can tell, everything on the site is free as well.

[tayalla]

there's this word in Serbian 'vukojebina' which literally means 'the place where wolves go to fuck' but they use it to mean 'in the middle of nowhere'. it sure does the job well, but the visual stayed with me longer than I would have liked it to.

[salvadorbonaparte]

I haven't gotten far enough learning German yet 😭😭 What's the "i don't spider" idiom? I must know

In colloquial German the verb "spinnen" means not only to spin (ie yarn) but also to be crazy. You can say things like "ich glaube ich spinne" (I believe I'm crazy= reaction to something crazy, disbelief) or "du spinnst wohl" (you must be crazy = are you nuts?!).

Die Spinne means spider as a noun so "ich glaube ich spinne" sometimes gets incorrectly translated as "I think I spider" as a joke.

Incorrectly translating idioms, proverbs etc for fun is a German pastime (see also Germans humorously describing their English as "not the yellow of the egg" to indicate it's not exactly the "cream of the crop")

[ruhua-langblr]

Duolingo Sucks, Now What?: A Guide

Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:

"I just want an identical experience to DL"

Busuu (Languages: Spanish, Japanese, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Korean)

"I want a good audio-based app"

Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)

"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"

Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)

Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)

*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.

"I have a pretty neat library card"

Mango (Languages: So many and the endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)

Transparent Language: (Languages: THE MOST! Also the one that has the widest variety of African languages! Perhaps the most diverse in ESL and learning a foreign language not in English)

"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"

AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)

"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"

AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone

"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"

lingory

"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"

ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)

"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"

Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)

[cosmogyros]

language-learning advice from a pro

(I started writing this post just now as a message to a friend who asked for language-learning advice. But I’m a GIANT NERD when it comes to language learning, so it got wayyy too long to be a message. So I’m posting it here in the hopes that it might help others as well. I have not edited this or even read through it all yet – it just poured straight out of my fingers – so please let me know if you spot any typos!)

Okay, first of all, there are two parts to language learning: active learning and passive exposure. You can choose to do only one or the other, but you’ll have the most success if you do both.

ACTIVE LEARNING

Active learning is pretty much what it sounds like: actively focusing on the language, learning new words, sounds, phrases, idioms, etc. It’s often centered around a textbook, sometimes with accompanying audio, but you can do active learning in other ways too. For example, you can read a news article online and check a dictionary for every word you don’t know. Or do the same thing with a foreign film – when you hear a word you don’t know (or see it in the subtitles), pause the movie and look it up.

Active learning makes you progress fast, but it also tires out your brain and overwhelms it with new information, making it easier to forget things you’ve already learned. That’s why it’s best to space out your active learning sessions and fill the gaps with passive exposure.

PASSIVE EXPOSURE

The goal of passive exposure is for your brain to randomly encounter words and phrases it learned recently and go “Hey! I recognize that!” This is SO important not only for reviewing and consolidating your memory, but also keeping up your motivation! If the only place you ever encounter your TL (target language) is in your textbook, on some subconscious level your brain will think it’s not that important… because after all, you never encounter it out there in the real world, do you?

Passive exposure can include any of the following and much more: listening to music in your TL; watching a movie in your TL (either with English subs, or with no subs at all and just don’t worry if you don’t understand everything that’s going on); skim-reading a book or a short story or a news article or a blog post in your TL and looking for words you recognize, even if you can’t 100% remember what they mean; finding speakers of your TL in real life and eavesdropping on them; watching instructional YouTube videos or short documentaries in your TL (the visuals ought to help you understand some of what’s going on, even if there are no subtitles); etc.

The idea is to let your TL wash over you without straining your brain at all. Zero effort, just relaxation and fun. You will inevitably notice and understand a few words or phrases, and that percentage will increase as time goes on, but you’re not actively studying when you’re doing passive exposure. Remember the two things you’re trying to achieve with passive exposure: 1) effortless review/practice, by inevitably re-encountering some stuff you’ve already learned; 2) reminding your brain that this language is a real cool thing out there in the world, not just a boring chore located in a textbook.

But there are also two more extremely important benefits to passive exposure that are drastically neglected by most language-learners: 3) picking up the correct pronunciation and accent; 4) gaining an instinct for natural, native-sounding language.

These are two things you will not learn in a language class or from a textbook. You can’t learn them except by doing a LOT of listening and reading in your TL. But the good news is that it doesn’t need to be the “Active Learning” kind of reading and listening; it can absolutely be the “Passive Exposure” kind, and you will still pick this stuff up.

The most important thing, above all else, is to figure out a method of passive exposure that works for YOU personally. This means: do NOT force yourself to repeatedly do something that you don’t enjoy, because you won’t benefit from it. To pick the right method, think of your interests and the things you like to do in your free time: watching movies? reading books? listening to music? writing in your journal? surfing the internet? You can do any of this in your TL, too. Yes, you will encounter a lot of stuff you don’t understand at the beginning. But A) that’s good for you, it helps you learn patience, which every language-learner needs, and B) the internet has free translation tools everywhere you look.

COMBINING BOTH

Personally, I like to pick a well-respected textbook with accompanying audio (Assimil is my favorite; Teach Yourself and Colloquial can also be very good, especially the older editions; Linguaphone used to be fantastic but I’m not sure if it’s still around) and work my way through it, doing one lesson per day if possible. That takes only about 10 to 20 minutes, so that leaves a lot of time for passive exposure. My preferred method is listening to music (I learned a good 50% of my German from just obsessively listening to German pop music in high school), but here are some other things I like to do:

find an internet talk radio station in my TL and put it on in the background

same deal with a podcast

translate a few keywords related to my favorite hobbies/interests into the TL and then paste that text into YouTube and watch random videos in my TL

read a news article in English, and then find a news website in my TL and see if I can find an article about the same topic in that language

watch bad reality TV or soaps in my TL with no subtitles, just trying to guess what’s going on from context

etc.

No Duolingo. No Rosetta Stone. (I’ve written a whole post about the latter here.) You don’t need to spend any money at all, though if you e.g. use a pirated resource to learn and find that it really helps you, I strongly suggest buying it from the original producer after the fact, to say thank you.

MEMORIZATION

This is very much a “YMMV” piece of advice, but: if you’re having trouble memorizing stuff, just don’t. Don’t bother trying to remember anything. Remember that “passive exposure” bit? It does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of memory. If you keep bumping into the same word or phrase over and over again, you will incorporate it into your body of knowledge almost effortlessly. Of course this is easier with more common words that turn up again and again – but you’d be surprised how well you can get by, especially at the lower levels, with only the more common words!

Intentionally memorizing vocabulary can of course be very beneficial, so there’s nothing wrong with it. But I notice that it’s often one of the biggest pain points for language learners, and I believe language learning should be pain-free.

FROM INPUT TO OUTPUT

Once you’ve gotten a good grasp of the basics of the language, a really effective way to consolidate the knowledge you’ve gained is to use it actively and creatively yourself, in speech or writing (or ideally both!). For speaking practice, besides simply making friends who are native speakers of the language, you can search for a physical or virtual tandem. This is when you meet up with someone who’s a native speaker of your TL and is trying to learn your own language. You can meet for, say, an hour, and chat together for half an hour in your native language, and then half an hour in their native language. So both of you benefit!

Don’t underestimate talking to yourself, too. Whether it’s narrating your actions, complaining to your pet (okay, I guess that’s not technically “talking to yourself”), or simply having an imaginary conversation with someone else, it’s actually a good way to practice.

I also really enjoy writing in my journal in my target languages. The act of hand-writing a word does a lot to help me remember it. If you like writing, of course, you could also look up penpals who speak your TL.

And that’s about it. As always, I am more than willing to answer specific questions on language learning, as this is something of a specialty of mine and I absolutely love to help other folks get started on their own language-learning journeys. Please feel free to drop me a line if you need any concrete advice or are struggling with some aspect of your current language-learning efforts!

[logogreffe]

It is with great displeasure that I'll inform you that watching Reality TV in your target language will increase your comprehension abilities by A LOT.

If you can understand a drunk woman with a strong accent, crying because her crush served orange juice to another woman, using every slang word known to mankind, you will understand basic conversations with ease.

If you cannot stomach Reality TV (which is understandable) I'll recommend watching youtubers doing commentary videos on Reality TV shows/episodes. I find this way of consuming Reality TV less brain-frying.

And you could argue that watching movies / TV show is sufficient, but you need to remember that the way actors speak isn't 100% natural : the speed, enunciation, choice of words will not be a proper representation of how people speak in real life, while reality TV on the other hand...(I'm not saying everyone speaks like this). But, especially if your goal is to be able to speak casually with your foreign friends, it will help you a lot ! (I guess if your goal is to read classical literature in your target language, don't bother watching Reality TV)

Good news ! If you're learning Mandarin, there are a looooot of Reality shows that are actually cute and not ...vulgar ? And a lot of them can be found on youtube with English sub ! In German, I watch Mirellativegal on youtube. Anyway, don't ask me for recommendation for French Reality TV, I looked for it to give you some examples and I feel like I've lost brain cells during the few minutes I looked for it. If you guys have recommendations for cool Reality-shows in any languages don't hesitate to share ! I'm currently looking for some Spanish ones (preferably Mexican ones)

[goodplan-ipromise]

[nerdytyrannosaurus]

Studied Japanese this afternoon.

Things I did:

• Revision of all the Hiragana

• Revision of the Katakana I’ve already learned

• Learned two new Katakana

•Started Genki consistently and rewrote the words of the first chapter

[adhd-languages]

i’m obsessed with these…

(From DepthOfWikipedia on Instagram)

[blob-of-darkness]

I'm losing my mind over this game once again, managed to find my old notes and add on to them!! :D

Again, spoilers for the game ahead!

DEVOTEE language my beloved <3 <3 <3

(I have some more thoughts on the DOOR glyph too, but didn't get around to writinf that yet)

Hsgbsjdg gonna come back to this and actually talk about it in words but for now have a picture of what I've written so far, just wanna dump this here for now so I don't forget, this will likely get its own post anyway once I've filled up that page

THERE IS NOT ENOUGH CHANTS OF SENNAAR CONTENT SO TODAY I AM DUMPING SOME OF MY BRAIN INTO A TUMBNLR POST ABOUT IT

Fair warning - This might not be that coherent because I didn't write it as a tumblr post, I just copy pasted the messages I sent a friend about Chants of Sennaar in the middle of the night

SPOILERS AHEAD

Learning the languages in this game is like a really big part of the game, it's even a main focus of the story, but I will be talking a lot about it so if you don't want spoilers you shouldn't tap on the readmore.

YES I CAN SHARE THE BRAINROT

Okay so I've gotta say I love the looks of the languages

They all have their own distinct styles and small deviations in rules that make them unique

In the first level of the tower, you get the Devotees language

They're got a sign for man/human which kinda looks like an L and the signs for specific kinds of people are based off of that L

The sign for devotee is an L with a floating diamond shape - which looks really similar to their sign for god

I think it's interessting to think that the diamond shape represents the word faith, that's why it's so similar for the word god and would technically mean that DEVOTEE is FAITH HUMAN or HUMAN WHO HAS FAITH IN GOD or smth like that

Then there's a word for WARRIOR which also hat the MAN/HUMAN sign but this time instead of a floating diamond shape it has two triangle shapes like >< kind of offset next to it

I think the sharp angles and harsh look of those triangles and the way they're pointed makes it look aggressive and fitting for WARRIOR

later we also find a broken mural which depicts part of a sentence in the DEVOTEES language, a sentence in another language which I think was the BARD language and then a part in the WARRIOR language and basically you learn what that sentence in the BARD language means by cross referencing the parts of the other two languages

Most of the translation comes from the DEVOTEE language but only the word FORTRESS comes from the WARRIOR language

But we actually see part of the word for FORTRESS in the DEVOTEE language, but it is so broken that the game labels it as [INDECIPHERABLE] and doesn't let you mark the word in the notebook that your character uses in game to learn/note/unlock new words/translations

However- the reason I'm mentioning this is because from that broken part of the mural we can guess that the word for FORTRESS would look like the floating triangles from WARRIOR inside of the almost-box that presumably means PLACE

The almost-box shape shows up in other place names too

Notably the word for CEMETERY is the almost-box and the word for DEAD/DEATH inside

The CHURCH is the box with FAITH inside

at least I'm speculating it means faith

So basically CEMETARY is PLACE with DEAD inside and CHURCH is PLACE with FAITH inside

This continues also continues with GARDEN being PLACE with PLANT inside

They also have a specific sign that seems to show that something is a tool of sorts

KEY, DOOR, INSTRUMENT, POTION/FORMULA and POT all have a curved line at the side, which kinda looks like a C

KEY looks like OPEN-TOOL because it's made of OPEN and the TOOL signifier

INSTRUMENT is MUSIC-TOOL

Oh I forgot about LENS which looks like a simple drawing of an eye with the TOOL signifier

So basically Lens is EYE-TOOL

SEARCH/LOOK also has the eye drawing but with a line underneath it

The line seems to be common with verbs I think?

SEEK/WANT CREATE/MAKE LIKE/LOVE all have that line underneath

So basically SEARCH/LOOK is EYE-VERB

And I genuinely think that's neat

Oh the sign for TALK is similar to the sign that is added to MAN/HUMAN in the PREACHER word

So PREACHER is TALKING HUMAN which is funny af

The signs for ME and YOU are also with the MAN/HUMAN shape!

We're all just people :D

OH ABOUT SMILEYS HOW COULD I FORGET

The word for Hello genuinely looks so mu h like a smiley in the DEVOTEE language and it's so adorableeee🥺😭❤️

Oh also the word for GO/PASS looks like a little MAN/HUMAN turned away from a PLACE with a verb-line underneath!!

There also doesn't seem to be a distinction between GO/PASS and COME or LEAVE

So basically GO/PASS is basically MAN/HUMAN COME/GO/LEAVE from/to PLACE

Or MAN/HUMAN doesn't stay in one PLACE

Oh also originally I guessed that the word for POTION/FORMULA meant MEDICINE because it shares a part of its picture with HELP

Actually POTION might just be what they refer to MEDICINE as so not that wrong

They also do not have a distinction between UP/GREAT

So whenever I see one of the DEVOTEES say God is great

Instead of GOD GREAT my brain goes GOD UP

Or it mixes UP and GREAT so I just read GOD GOOD

Lmao get good😎

And that's pretty much most of the DEVOTEE language

Because it's a pretty short game all things considered so we only ever learn small snippets of the language

OH but another thing

The DEVOTEE language is the only one that doesn't have any plural modifier

Like if you want to say PLANTS you just say PLANT PLANT

Or if you want to say WE you say I I

Or you (plural) (uh, y'all?) would be YOU YOU

Or WARRIORS would be WARRIOR WARRIOR

So "The warriors closed the door/gate." would be WARRIOR WARRIOR CLOSE DOOR

There's also no conjugation or past and future tenses or anything but that's with all the languages since it's all simplified for the game

Anyway the DEVOTEE language is very down to earth, they believe in god and they're connected little people that are very down to earth and lead simple lives, so t reflects in their language

The DEVOTEE language also has very organic shapes - there's some sharp corners and some curves and everything has thick lines and looks hand drawn

Now we move on to the WARRIOR language, which in contrast is *all* sharp angles and artificially steady lines, no curves or wobbles or anything at all

Very heavy, they value duty, they don't walk - they march.

It reflects in their language too - they don't have a word for GOD but they have a word for DUTY

Here's a spreadsheet in case you wanna see what the languages look like because I've been talking a lot about them and will continue to do so but it's probably hard to visualize without having seen them

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1IWZOvCUNrsnOZUd9FG79Pfwx_ZpMhiaI1q3EwQkhjb0/htmlview?pli=1#

Oh and I went back to look for the post I got the spreadsheet from - it's from @asp1diske-art

Thank you for this wonderful resource/compilation, it makes it much easier to take another look at the words and their meanings and which of the languages have a translation in another of the languages!

I'm gonna be honest, despite this post being quite long already, this isn't even all my thoughts on the DEVOTEES and the DEVOTEE language and I'm pretty sure there's some stuff I haven't mentioned yet because it was the middle of the night when I wrote those text messages.

I also haven't gone back and reread anything so there's likely some spelling mistakes but whatever-! I don't care. :)

[stepstofluency]

MY FAV FRENCH RESOURCES 🇫🇷💌

this my recent post on my studygram and I wanted to post it on here 🧸

follow my studygram for more: @stepstofluency

[loveinlanguages]

Interesting Cultural, Historical and Linguistic Connections: Loan Words

The use of similar words in countries that share the same state religion but having different meaning is a generally well-known fact.

Some of these words may be seen very commonly in Arabic/Malayic branch of the Austronesian language countries, namely:

Malay (Bahasa Melayu) : mani - sperm, semen

Arabic: مني (mani) - jewel, gem, beads (Also the same in sanskrit)

Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) : batin - inner self

Arabic: مني (baṭn) - stomach

These are some that caught my attention.

The spread of language and culture through trade thought to be due to 1028AD with the help of foreign presence through peaceful trade on coastal trading ports in modern-day Malaysia and Indonesia. Islam and Arabic language was further popularised when the first Sultan of Melaka converted to Islam after marrying into the religion. However, we cannot forget that before the introduction of Islam, a majority of the people in the Malay peninsulas were communicating in Sanskrit and was heavily influenced by India and Cambodia before their maritime golden era. Introduction of foreign culture may disrupt or assimilate with the home culture, and one of the way we can learn a country’s history is to learn the etymology of the language.

And then there’s my home country, Burma. Burmese, a language so weird that the wiki page for loan word is like this:

But don’t be fooled. The history of the Burmese language is a unique one. With a country that traded with many foreign influences from Persians to the French, and then getting colonised by the British in 1989, the Burmese language has many loan words and learned words. For exmaple:

Burmese: တိုဟူး (tuihpu) - Tofu

Hokkien: 豆腐 (tāu-hū) - Tofu

Burmese: အီကြာကွေး (i-kra-kwe:) - You Tiao

Hokkien: 油炸糕 (iû-chiā-kóe)

Burmese: လီတာ (lita) - Litre

French: litre

Burmese: ကတိ (ka.ti.) - promise, agreement

Pali: kathikā - agreement, talk, conversation

The ancient world was way more advanced and liberal, yet backwards and conservative at the same time than we thought. The world in the past was more complicated than the textbooks and the stories that were told to us, and the morals and ethics of time seem to be always changing. Times may move forwared, trends may change, but the impact of trade and society will always leave an imprint behind on the words used and its usage if we studied where the words we use in our day to day life came from. Maybe then, the outcasts and the lower class of the past who did not have a chance to leave their imprint in this world will not be forgotten, as words may have been their only chance to be remembered.

[salvadorbonaparte]

I told my students they're allowed to be creative and don't have to be factual when writing about themselves in German because I keep getting questions like "what if I don't have roommates or what if I don't have hobbies" and I'm like guys just make something up! Have fun! I won't fact check you!

So now I am grading homework where a student is claiming to be from North Korea and his hobby is tax fraud

[studyyblrring]

woooww it’s been over two years since this post and sm has changed :’) (for the better mostly i think)

i’m gonna update my pin and mayhaps rejoin (and actually finish A challenge for once in my tumblr history) the community soon

this will be my nth attempt at returning to study/langblr but i think this time should be successful, mostly bc i finally got my adhd diagnosis AND im on medication that makes my brain function for what feels like the first time in my life

anyways life’s been crazy and busy, but the grind never stops

also if you were following me for (the little) japanese content/resources i posted, this is a psa that im taking a break from japanese and will be focusing on korean for the foreseeable future (ill still post here and there since im still engaging in passive learning but wont be compiling any updated resource masterlists for the time being)

and finally if you’re a person/blog/shapeless blob that is studying korean (be that a study/langblr or not) feel free to follow/interact :’) ill be following everyone back as my current tl is not only rather dead but also very japanese focused

またね〜

Introduction post

Langblr Reactivation Challenge

Week 1 - Day 1 (challenge)

Hi everyone! I'm really hoping to really get back into language learning this year and consequently become more active on here by sharing my progress/resources/just making friends :)

My name is Vanessa and I'm 24.

My TLs this year are: Japanese and Dutch. (in this order)

If things go well, or if I need a break from either, I'll probably either jump back into studying Korean for a bit or properly start with Thai, but I want to focus as much as I can on my TLs.

My mother tongue is Romanian, but I am fluent in English (C1 according to the IELTS test i took almost 4 years ago lmao)

I've dabbled in many languages over the years, but probably the only other one worth mentioning besides the ones I already have is German!

I have a lot of hobbies that i get hyperfixated on alternatively for weeks at a time, including but not limited to: knitting, crocheting, experimenting with digital design (i really wanna learn blender this year), coding, cooking, reading, listening to a lot of music!

I've been a K-pop fan for 8 years :")

Why I'm studying Japanese/Goals:

I've been studying Japanese on/off for 8 (!!!!!) years this April, but I've never been able to get my language level past somewhere in between N5 and N4 on a good day

I'm hoping to reach an intermediate-ish by the of the year, so around N3 (textbook-wise ideally want to be done with the Quartet series and move on to Tobira before 2024, but reaching Quartet II by the end of the year would still be amazing!)

My current goal in terms of JLPT is passing N4 this year! (probably in December, though if things are going well I might try for July as well). maybe even N3 in December but im trying to keep things as realistic and manageable as possible

Now onto why I'm studying, I started learning Japanese when I was in high school because I found out about the MEXT undergraduate scholarships and I was hoping to increase my chances of getting selected, by knowing as much Japanese as possible, but by the time I finished high school I had changed my plans and didn't apply

But through that, I fell in love with both the language and the culture and I got into anime (it was backwards for me lmao), and I kept studying whenever I could and I really miss it, since it's always been a lot of fun for me

I'm also maybe sorta kinda considering applying for the mext graduate scholarship this year or next year but don't hold me to it, I'm not 100% on it yet, but it is another big motivator for me

Why I'm studying Dutch/Goals

this will be a lot shorter as I don't have that many feelings in regard to the dutch language

My reason for studying Dutch is mostly functional, as I'm enrolled in a Dutch university and I live there for most of the year (I'm also starting an internship at a Dutch company this year, and though the staff is international, knowing Dutch would still be helpful) and knowing Dutch at a higher level will simply make my day-to-day life a lot easier and I would have less awkward interactions that start with "Sorry, do you speak English?" 🙃

My goal is to get around B2? maybe B1 would be more realistic? I'm honestly not sure, I haven't decided yet exactly what my textbooks/resources are going to be, as my studying has been kinda sporadic, but I have been keeping a 63-day Duolingo Dutch streak! I also have a Dutch conversation partner with whom I have ~1h Dutch conversation calls twice a month, and those have been quite helpful as well

and i guess my ultimate goal is to simply be able to get around with using mostly (if not only) speaking Dutch when I'm out and about

see you tomorrow :)