#language learning hack

[dangmelearner]

Language learning tip for languages with few or no resources: take any illustrated dictionary and fill in words of your target language. In this case I used Finnish-English Dictionary and wrote down words in Dangme using a dictionary and resource persons.

Suomi Englanti kuvasanakirja, Satukustannus Oy, 2010

[vempress]

weird language study tip; look up qna questions and answer them in your target language. extra points for pretending to be a youtuber.

[abirddogmoment]

Rory pointed a grouse so good this morning, it was so awesome to see the conviction in her point and her steadiness until I moved closer to her and sent her to flush it !!!!!!!

[intothestacks]

4 Tips on presenting to an ESL audience (from an ESL librarian)

1. Speak slowly, in short sentences, and pronounce each word carefully.

Speaking louder isn’t nearly as helpful as speaking slowly unless you know the ESL person is also hard of hearing.

2. Whenever possible, use written words on a whiteboard or PowerPoint presentation

Written words are often the strongest reference for learners of a new language.

3. Avoid using idioms, as they rarely translate with the same meaning into other languages.

An ESL person will also be less likely to know the meaning of English-specific idioms.

4. Avoid phrasal verbs.

E.g. “look up” or “look out” in which the meaning is idiomatic and has little or no resemblance with that of the principal verb; instead, use one-word equivalents such as “search,” “careful,” etc.

[bookstribepost]

Study tips & tricks from my pinterest boards🌷

[slavic-roots-western-mind]

The V for Ü trick

I only recently discovered that you can type in v to get the letter ü when typing in the pinyin for chinese characters.

[astrophiliaxx]

Not me watching edits of Ava and Deborah after seeing clips of them being in comparison to Miranda and Andrea.

( I don't have HBO nor do I have the money to pay for it.)

Can someone please tell me like what it the plot of the show or like just tell me if the ship is actually canon in the show.

[rosechan01]

Apparently the way to get my bf to watch anime that I like is to frame it as japanese listening practice, I can't do this with shows I haven't finished though because they talk to fast and I don't know enough words yet

[hebrewbyinbal]

Watch my new lesson on YouTube: Most Essential Hebrew Phrases When Traveling To Israel

Click link to this new video lesson 🧳🇮🇱 OR search “Hebrew by Inbal” on YouTube to find my channel.

https://youtu.be/wOMEoQ0DR84?si=n76sTxPl-zVqjnpT

[havingfunlearninggearman]

Kind of crazy how, personally, my motivation lasts longer when it's rooted in pettiness than when it's rooted in love.

Oh, I should learn that language because my crush speaks it? I'll reach Advanced Beginner and then drop it.

Learning that language would be giving the middle finger to that person I personally hate? Three month of daily consistency, Intermediate level reached and still going strong.

[1o1percentmilk]

i actually think hatori is more of an electrical/hardware engineer than an informatics/information technology/software engineering person

[veesidesandrarities]

Being creative and even silly in a new language really does help it stick, too!

My now-spouse and I took Japanese together, and he used to come up with bizarre, often nonsensical phrases as soon as we were introduced to new vocabulary words or grammar, and listen, I'm woefully out of practice, but the parts I'm least rusty in recalling?

are almost all inevitably stuff from those silly phrases.

I can't forget that you turn a noun into a verb with adding "wo shimasu", because the goofball started saying "haambaagaa o shimasu", which roughly translates to "hamburgering" and it's just. so stupid! so silly!! what does that even mean?? Lol

I only recall the word for "window" is mado, or how to say "that thing over there", because he used to proudly (and deliberately nonsensicallly) declare "ano mado wa boku no desu", which literally means: "that window over there is mine" (with, if you are curious, a youthful masculine pronoun vibe, because Japanese is way more interesting and nuanced with first person pronouns than English; boku is used by young boys and men, and sometimes by tomboys and butch lesbians, apparently, as it's got a kinda butch energy to it that the gender neutral polite watashi doesn't)

part of the reason i recall the verb hanashimasu so well and the only reason I recall the words for "hospital" (byouin) and "corpse/dead people" (shinin), or that the grammatical particle equivalent to the English preposition "at" is de.... is because he came up with the absurd question:

"what language do dead people speak at the hospital?"

(Which, iirc, is something like: "shinin wa byouin de nani go wo hanashimasu ka?", or, most literally: "dead people [subject marker] hospital at, what language [direct object marker] speak [optional question marker at end of sentence]?", because Japanese as an agglutinating language has VERY different grammar from English lol)

(btw we jokingly decided the only "correct" answer to that would be: "ratingo", aka... Latin. Because, you know, it's a dead language? Har! Yeah, we're dorks lol)

(but also that's the only reason I recall how to say the word for "Latin language " in Japanese either, which also helps me recall the pattern to referring to languages in that language, soooo...)

Anyway, POINT IS

Both he and I remember way more random bits of vocabulary and even crucial bits of grammar, because of those "silly, nonsense" phrases!

So, tldr:

Go ham!! Make up silly stuff in the languages you're studying!!! It's fun AND shockingly helpful!! And to language teachers out there, keep in mind that not only does this practice encourage deeper and more permanent understanding of the language, it ALSO means they have enthusiasm for it... and a good reason to add more and more of the language to their repertoire. Like??

I don't know the German for "my hobby is tax evasion" (because I never studied German) but

boy, that is absolutely a construction of the kind my spouse would have come up with

and if he had, I would definitely remember the Japanese terms for "hobby" and "tax evasion"...🤣

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

[c0llege-the-r0se]

I think I’m a genius

Hear me out okay

I have a French exam tomorrow and I can’t focus to study

So I looked up French vines and it’s so entertaining

Even if you don’t speak French it’s funny

[praecurokat]

you know you've watched too much french luxury real estate reality tv when you start dreaming partially in french

[tarotmantic]

sometimes i consider trying to blog in russian to practice but then i consider the optics of randomly posting in russian and think maybe not