#like english and spanish or japanese or hindi or mandarin or cantonese or greek or arabic or korean

[telomeke]

An excerpt:

Afrikaans → blaf-blaf; woef-woef; keff-keff (small dogs) Albanian → ham-ham Arabic → hau-hau; how-how Armenian → haf-haf Balinese → kong-kong Basque → au-au (any dog); txau-txau (small dogs); zaunk-zaunk (large dogs); jau-jau (old dogs) Belgian → wooah-wooah (if you believe Tintin’s dog Snowy is typical)Bengali → gheu-gheu; bhao-bhao Bengali → gheu-gheu; bhao-bhao Bulgarian → bau-bau; jaff-jaff Burmese → woke-woke Catalan → bau-bau; bub-bub Chinese-Cantonese → wo-wo; wow-wow; wong-wong Chinese-Mandarin → wang-wang Croatian → vau-vau Czech → haff-haff Danish → vov-vov; vuf-vuf Dutch → blaf-blaf; woef-woef; waf-waf (small dogs); kef-kef (very small dogs) English → woof-woof; ruff-ruff; arf-arf; bow-wow; yap-yap (small dogs); yip-yip (very small dogs) Esperanto → boj-boj Estonian → auh-auh; auch-auch Finnish →hau-hau; vuh-vuh; rauf-rauf French →wouaff-wouaff; ouah-ouah; whou-whou; vaf-vaf; jappe-jappe (small dog) German → wuff-wuff; vow-vow Greek → ghav-ghav Hebrew → hav-hav; haw-haw-how-how Hindi → bow-bow Hungarian → vow-vow, vau-vau Icelandic → voff-voff Indonesian → guk-guk; gong-gong Irish → amh-amh Italian → bau-bau; arf-arf Japanese → wan-wan; kian-kian Korean → mung-mung; wang-wang Kurdish → hau-hau Latvian → vau-vau Lebanese → haw-haw Lithuanian → au-au Μacedonian → av-av Malay → gong-gong Marathi → bhu-bhu; bho-bho Nigerian (Calabar area) → wai-wai Norwegian → voff-voff; boff-boff; vov-vov Persian → vogh-vogh; cut-cut; bad-bad Polish → hau-hau Portuguese → au-au Romanian → ham-ham; hau-hau Russian → gav-gav; guf-guf; hav-hav; tyav-tyav (small dogs) Serbian → av-av Sinhala → buh-buh Slovak → haf-haf; hau-hau Slovene → hov-hov Spanish → guau-guau; gua-gua; jau-jau Swedish → voff-voff; vov-vov Tagalog → ow-ow; baw-baw Tamil →wal-wal, bow-bow, lol-lol Thai → hong-hong Turkish → hev-hev; hav-hav Ukrainian → hau-hau; haf-haf; dzyau-dzyau Urdu → bow bow Vietnamese → gau-gau; wau-wau; ang-ang Welsh → wff-wff

What does a barking dog sound like in your language?

‌

[g5mlp]

by any chance, would you be able to link me the different versions of tell your tale that got their voice actors replaced/are suspected could be using AI? i tried searching myself but for some reason wasnt very successful. it feels very likely to me that it could be AI considering how often hasbro/wotc has been in the news for such a thing lately.. thank you!!

At time of writing, "Icy Prints" has only been released in English, Arabic, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Malay, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (Latin America), Swedish, Thai and Turkish, and today's episode "Heavy is the Mane that Wears the Fruit Crown" has only been released in English.

For the record, I'm not aware of any actual attempts to prove that the new voices are AI, and some dubs such as Thai already have some actual people confirmed to be working on them due to the staff members' social media posts, so I think it's more likely that all of the voice actors are still real people.

Also, here are the links to all of the official My Little Pony YouTube channels I'm aware of.

My Little Pony Official: English, Arabic, Cantonese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Latvian, Malay, Mandarin (Taiwan), Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish (Latin America), Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese

Tell Your Tale: English, French, German, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (Latin America), Spanish (Spain)

Friendship Is Magic: English, French, German, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish (Latin America)

Equestria Girls: English, German, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (Latin America)

Suspected to be run by Hasbro (English only): Flutter525, Izzy Moonbow🌙🦄, Letupita

Other (English only): Official Music Channel

Notes

Tell Your Tale episodes have never been released in Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian or Russian. The Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian channels have only uploaded short clips related to My Little Pony: A New Generation. The channels in Russian have been inactive since April 2022.

My Little Pony: Tell Your Tale Season 1 episodes 1–40 in Mandarin (China) and Portuguese (Portugal) are on Netflix only.

Some episodes of My Little Pony: Tell Your Tale Season 1 still haven't been released in some languages. In particular, several of them don't have episodes 57–70.

The Mandarin (Taiwan) channel uploaded "Icy Prints" with Simplified Chinese hardcoded subtitles, so the Mandarin dub of Season 2 was probably produced for a generic Chinese-speaking audience and not Taiwan specifically.

[oumaheroes]

How many languages does England know?

Far too many to define, many of them being that blurred area of dialect, pidgin, or creole between languages

He speaks an old form of Brythonic as his first language, then whichever particular ones the Celtic tribes of his land spoke. These languages and dialects are mostly forgotten or all mixed together- a word from one, a phrase from another, an expression from a third- but the earlier Brythonic language still comes to him in dreams sometimes, and the others as dreams of memories related to a particular region or person. The languages and dialects he shared with his brothers are clearer as he would have had practise after the languages themselves died out, but the ones he alone held all those years ago are almost long gone

Aside from these he knows Latin and Ancient Greek, which both once would have been essential. Norman French, obviously, and Norse too- all languages which have melded into English and left their mark. The same can be said for the old Celtic- Latin creole, and the old Anglo-French: remains of his people merging and taking in new waves of immigration.

Old English itself he would still be considered fluent in, if rusty, although some dialects are weaker and the Wessex dialect is strongest (more written text from this one survives compared to the others). This is the same for Middle English, and obviously Early Modern and Modern English he's an old hat

These older languages are becoming weaker the more time goes by and the less he uses them. He can't use or remember perfectly all of his languages, it's impossible to. And although I think nation memories are better than mortals, and overall they are FAR better at learning and remembering language in order to communicate with whoever they claim as their own, there is still only so much time he can dedicate to maintaining a language that no one else ever uses, or remembers. He does not need to keep these linguistic nuances, they are not essential to understand his people, and so they exist either for him and his memories alone, or a few other people. He and Francis are the last speakers of Norman French and Anglo-French. He and his brothers the last Brythonic speakers. He alone remembers the forgotten Cumbric language, or the spoken words of Boudica, and with no one but himself to talk to the language shrinks and grows stale. Still there, but barely. Coming in bursts, or leaving him lost for words

For modern languages, he knows his brothers' languages, athough not all of their branches and forms and he likely has a few centuries of knowledge missing from several of them. He knows modern Welsh, Cornish, Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic, and understands Francis when he speaks Breton.

He's fluent in French, German, Hindi, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and Arabic and, as these are used the most in his life outside of English, he's probably now more comfortable in these than Latin or Ancient Greek which once would have held the same role for international communication.

He's also let many languages slide. He would have once been fluent in modern Greek, and Cantonese, although now he's not. Urdu would have once been great, and although he's good at Portuguese and understands it perfectly, he trips over himself sometimes and might mix it up more with Spanish than he used to. There are many many more too that i'm missing from this section- the man has travelled about and he'll have picked up a good many on his travels to use when he needs to and then forget when he doesn't

[spidertalia]

Hello hello!! I saw your states post and was wondering if you can share with us your headcanons for New York or Texas, whichever one you feel more inclined to !! Thank you so much in advance! 😺💖💖

i'll post both since i have quite a bit on each ! so beware, this is gonna be a long post lmao

i'll go on about new york first because i have a lot on him dfghj. firstly, his human name is theodore douglass (he was given his first name by england, but chose his surname); he sometimes goes by theo, but only ever lets close friends call him teddy.

when he was a kid, theo was surprisingly shy, but very nerdy. he was a somewhat quiet child who loved to spend every waking moment reading and/or learning. england was actually kinda proud because of this, since new york could speak five languages by the time he was physically seven. he didn't really much else to do as a child, and was often left alone, so he would read and read and read.

nowadays, he's much prouder and loud, but still very, very nerdy. he can speak 31 languages fluently (outside of his indigenous languages), and is learning a further nine languages currently. he's fluent in english, spanish, cantonese, mandarin, russian, yiddish, haitian, italian, hawaiian, bengali, french, arabic, korean, hebrew, japanese, tagalog, hindi, polish, germany, greek, lithuanian, french creole, portuguese, urdu, ukrainian, swedish, norwegian, czech, finnish, danish and dutch fluently. he's reaching full fluency in afrikaans, and is currently learning slovenian, indonesian, samoan, romanian, swahili, yoruba, igbo and somali. he prides himself highly on his vast language fluency (nyc is actually one of, if not the most linguistically diverse city in the world !) and likes surprising the nations with their native language whenever he meets them. he knows more nations than any of the other states- he's actually friends with romano and lithuania ! he and romano have a mutual respect for each other, especially since new york was so eager to learn everything he could about italian culture while romano was living there, which romano appreciated.

he's also well educated outside of languages. he has a vast knowledge of art- from paintings and sculpture to dance, film, music and theater. he has a near encyclopedic knowledge on theater and plays. he has an extensive film collection of at least 25,000 films, and have an even bigger music collection- most of which he stores in his houses in nyc and manlius. he genuinely adores every field of art, and spends the majority of his time in nyc going to galleries, plays or art museums. his favorite areas of art are paintings, music and film. his favorite music genres would probably be classical, rap, r&b, hip hop and rock. he has a deep love for the rap and hip hop scene that was born out of nyc, and many of the artists that became major during the time are still his favorites.

he's also a very, very efficient worker; which is ironic, as he hates work. he's very fast and thorough in his work- if you want something done right, you go to him. not only is he good at paperwork and such, he's actually surprisingly good with his hands. he can repair cars, do home renovations, fix wiring, build furniture, make and mend clothing, hunt, fix machinery, knit, crochet and even farm. he's developed a vast number of skills over the years, and he loves learning more and more skills. he often busies himself with learning whatever new skills he can. he also often spends his time just tinkering with things for fun.

he also has a vast knowledge on fashion, and prides himself on his fashion sense. he's the most fashionable state out of all of them. he does usually dress very stylish and such, but he enjoys dressing in several different types of clothing, including punk, grunge and boho. he has quite a few walk-in closets, i'm sure, and has even made several of his outfits by hand.

he does have a bit of a superiority complex and is quite proud. he's generally pretty unphased and hard to surprise, as many nyc residents are. he's good friends with pennsylvania- they both have a love of machinery, tinkering and reading. they have occasional movie nights. he constantly argues with new jersey and massachusetts.

i also see him as being jewish, as new york state has the highest jewish population of any state.

now as for texas !

texas is very much a second alfred, minus the hero personality and plus a deep love of meat and meat-based dishes. he has a strong accent, one that he's very proud of. he's a very good cook, especially with meat-based dishes; he likes experimenting with meat and dishes in general. he's the older triplet to arizona and california, but ironically spends a lot of time fighting with california. he is, interestingly enough, quite good friends with florida- they both have loud, boisterous personalities and bond over being the 'weird' states. he's also, thanks to this, friends with ohio; the three have formed their own little club. he does typically get along well with his other state siblings (arizona, new mexico, nevada and utah). he's quite close to utah, as that's his only brother and he spent quite a bit of time with him when utah was young.

texas, in terms of personality, can absolutely be insufferable, obnoxious and loud at times; however, when he's hosting people he becomes a completely different person. he's a truly impeccable host; he'll cook several of his best dishes, extensively plan out activities and check in very regularly with his guests to ensure they're doing well and having a good time. he's insanely welcoming and hospitable, and is one of the best hosts of all the states.

he's also very similar to alfred in appearance- both in facial structure and hairstyle !! many have even remarked texas is basically a darker haired, dark skinned version of alfred.

[chopper-witch]

Tbf fakest part of Ms. Marvel was the perfect translation from Urdu to English. Nothing is ever that smooth. That’s fake as fuck.

[sandersstudies]

Language Learning Reference

I have a few favorite resources for beginning language learning online, and since I got a lot of asks about where to learn ____, I thought I’d organize languages to show where they are offered! This is not a comprehensive list by any means, but just what I consider a few of the great places to start. (These are all marked for learners who speak and will learn from English.) 

Many of these resources are free or have free versions with the exception of Pimsleur, Falou, Transparent Language, and LingQ (which all offer free trials, and many libraries and universities offer free access to Pimsleur and Transparent Language). 

Most of these resources have both mobile and desktop versions. 

I’ve only included resources that are high quality, offer 10+ languages, and which I have enough experience with to be confident in recommending.

No resources that serve only as dictionaries or phrasebooks - only resources that have lesson-like learning structures.

There are 80+ languages on the list! :D Lots of variety for those who might feel like Spanish and French are their only options. Edit: 6/9 There are now well over 100 languages :) 

(For Memrise, only official lessons are listed - unofficial lessons vary in quality and accuracy.)

Edit, 6/9: Added over 50 new languages, the platform Transparent Language, and several updates to previous platforms.

Afrikaans - Clozemaster, LingoHut, Transparent Language 

Ainu - Drops

Albanian - Clozemaster, LingoHut, Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Altai - Transparent Language

Amharic - Clozemaster, Transparent Language

Arabic - Busuu, Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, LingoHut, LingQ, Memrise (official), Pimsleur (Eastern, Egyptian, Modern Standard), Transparent Language (Modern Standard, Egyptian, Iraqi, Levantine)

Armenian - Clozemaster, LingoHut, Pimsleur (Eastern, Western), Transparent Laguage

Azerbaijani - Clozemaster, Transparent Language

Balinese - Transparent Language

Baluchi - Transparent Language

Bambara - Transparent Language

Bashkir - Transparent Language

Basque - Clozemaster

Belarusian - Clozemaster, LingoHut, LingQ, Transparent Language

Bengali - Clozemaster, Transparent Language 

Bosnian - Drops, Transparent Language

Breton - Clozemaster, Transparent Language

Bulgarian - Clozemaster, LingoHut, LingQ (beta), Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Buriat - Transparent Language

Cambodian (Khmer) - Transparent Language

Cantonese - Clozemaster, Drops, LingQ (beta), Transparent Language

Catalan - Clozemaster, LingoHut, LingQ (beta)

Chechen - Transparent Language

Cornish - Clozemaster

Cree - Transparent Language

Croatian - Clozemaster, Drops, Falou, LingoHut, LingQ (beta), Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Czech - Clozemaster, Duolingo, LingoHut, LingQ (beta), Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Dakota - Transparent Language (Dakota, Sisseton Dakota)

Danish - Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, Falou, LingoHut, LingQ (beta), Memrise (official), Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Dari - Transparent Language

Denaakk’e (Koyukon) - Transparent Language

Denesuline - Transparent Language

Dutch - Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, Falou, LingoHut, LingQ, Memrise (official), Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Esperanto - Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, LingQ, Transparent Language

Estonian - Clozemaster, Drops, LingoHut, Transparent Language

Farsi - Transpaent Language

Finnish - Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo (beta), LingoHut, LingQ (beta) Pimsleur, Transparent Language

French - Busuu, Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, Falou, LingoHut, LingQ, Memrise (official), Pimsleur, Transparent Language (French, Canadian, Moroccan) 

Galician - Clozemaster, LingoHut

Georgian - Clozemaster, LingoHut, Transparent Language

German - Busuu, Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, Falou, LingoHut, LingQ, Memrise (official), Pimsleur (Standard, Swiss), Transparent Language

Greek - Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, LingoHut, LingQ, Pimsleur, Transparent Language 

Guarani - Clozemaster

Gujarati - LingQ (beta)

Gwich'in (Dinjii Zhuh K'yaa) - Transparent Language

Haitian Creole - Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Hän - Transparent Language

Housa - Transparent Language

Hawaiian - Drops, Duolingo, Transparent Language

Hebrew - Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, LingoHut, LingQ (beta), Pimsleur, Transparent Language

High Valyrian - Duolingo

Hindi - Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, LingoHut, Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Hmong - Transparent Language

Holikachuk - Transparent Language 

Hungarian - Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo (beta), LingoHut, LingQ (beta), Pimsleur, Transparent Language 

Icelandic - Clozemaster, Drops, LingoHut, Memrise, Pimsleur, Transparent Language 

Igbo - Drops

Indonesian - Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, LingoHut, LingQ (beta), Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Interlingue - Clozemaster

Irish - Clozemaster, Duolingo, Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Italian - Busuu, Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, Falou, LingoHut, LingQ, Memrise (official), Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Japanese - Busuu, Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, Falou, LingoHut, LingQ, Memrise (official), Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Kalmyk - Transparent Language

Kaqchikel - Transparent Language

Kazakh - Clozemaster, Transparent Language

Kituba - Transparent Language

Klingon - Duolingo

Koasati - Transparent Language

Korean - Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, Falou, LingoHut, LingQ, Memrise (official), Pimsleur

Kurdish - Transparent Language

Kwak̓wala - Transparent Language

Latin - Clozemaster, Duolingo, LingQ, Transparent Language

Latvian - Clozemaster, LingoHut, Transparent Language

Lithuanian - Clozemaster, LingoHut, Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Luxembourgish - Transparent Language

Lojban - Clozemaster

Macedonian - Clozemaster, LingoHut, Transparent Language

Malagasy - Transparent Language

Malay - LingoHut, LingQ (beta), Transparent Language

Mandarin - Busuu, Clozemaster (Modern, Traditional), Duolingo, Drops, Falou, LingoHut, LingQ (Modern, Traditional [beta]), Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Maori - Clozemaster, Drops, Transparent Language

Michif - Transparent Language

Mirandese - Transparent Language

Mongolian - Memrise (official), Transparent Language

Nahuatl - Transparent Language

Naskapi - Transparent Language

Navajo - Duolingo

Nepali - Transparent Language

Nogai - Transparent Language

Norwegian - Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, Falou, LingoHut, LingQ (beta), Memrise (official), Pimsleur

Occitan - Clozemaster

Oji-Cree - Transparent Language 

Ojibwe - Pimsleur, Transparent Language (Ojibwe, Central, Northwestern)

Pashto - Pumsleur, Transparent Language

Persian - Clozemaster, Drops, LingoHut, LingQ (beta), Pimsleur (Dari, Farsi), Transparent Languages (see Farsi)

Piedmontese - Clozemaster

Polish - Busuu, Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, Falou, LingoHut, LingQ, Memrise (official), Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Portuguese - Busuu, Clozemaster, Drops (Brazilian, European), Duolingo, Falou, LingoHut, LingQ, Memrise (official) (Brazilian, Portugal), Pimsleur (Brazilian, European), Transparent Language

Punjabi - Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Quechua - Transparent Language 

Romanian - Clozemaster, Duolingo, LingoHut, LingQ (beta), Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Russian - Busuu, Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, Falou, LingoHut, LingQ, Memrise (official), Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Samoan - Drops

Scottish Gaelic - Clozemaster, Duolingo, Transparent Language

Serbian - Clozemaster, Drops, LingoHut, LingQ (beta), Transparent Language

Slovak - Clozemaster, LingoHut, LingQ (beta), Transparent Language

Slovenian - Clozemaster, Memrise, LingoHut

Somali - Transparent Language

Spanish - Busuu, Clozemaster, Drops (Castilian, Mexican), Duolingo, Falou, LingoHut, LingQ, Memrise (official) (Spain, Mexico), Pimsleur (Castilian, Latin American), Transparent Language (Latin American, Castilian)

Swahili - Drops, Duolingo, LingoHut, Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Swedish - Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, Falou, LingoHut, LingQ, Memrise (official), Pimsleur, Transparent Language 

Tagalog - Clozemaster, Drops, LingoHut, Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Tajiki - Transparent Language

Tamil - Transparent Language

Tanana, Lower - Transparent Language

Thai - Clozemaster, Drops, LingoHut, Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Toki Pona - Clozemaster

Turkish - Busuu, Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, Falou, LingoHut, LingQ (beta), Memrise (official), Pimsleur

Turkmen - Transparent Language 

Tuvan - Transparent Language

Twi - Pimsleur

Ukrainian - Clozemaster, Duolingo, LingoHut, LingQ, Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Urdu - LingoHut, Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Uzbek - Transparent Language (Cyrillic, Latin)

Vietnamese - Clozemaster, Drops, Duolingo, Falou, LingoHut, Pimsleur, Transparent Language

Welsh - Clozemaster, Duolingo, Transparent Language 

Wolof - Transparent Language 

Yiddish - Duolingo, Clozemaster

Yoruba - Drops, Memrise (official), Transparent Language

Zulu - Transparent Language

[meichenxi]

Searching for langblrs + lingblrs

Hello everyone!! I feel like my dash is completely empty of LANGUAGE, so if you’re a langblr for any of the following languages please like or preferably reblog (to reach more people) and I’ll follow you. I mainly post Mandarin (intermediate) and some German (advanced). 

- lingblr (linguistics). PLEASE OH GOD MY DASH HAS NO LINGUISTICS CONTENT AT ALL. Especially sociolinguistics, indigenous and minority languages, morphology, typology, historical linguistics. PARADIGMS.

- Mandarin (+ Literary Chinese, + other Chinese languages like Cantonese, Taiwanese etc). Please help me not learn alone lmao.

- Japanese

- German

- French

- Spanish (+ potentially Italian and Catalan)

- Dutch

- Norwegian

- Icelandic

- Hindi

- Tibetan 

- Latin / Greek (both modern and ancient)

- Old Norse / Old English. PLEASE WHERE ARE YOU.

- Thai 

- Korean

- Basque

- also blogs that post primarily in German, Chinese, French, Spanish, Norwegian or Dutch. 

I’m not learning all of these languages, but either a) have learnt some in the past from A-level to ‘good morning’, or b) want to learn them in the future. Basically, if you are any kind of langblr vaguely related to any of those languages (I’m so desperate lmao, literally ‘language’ is fine, if you make posts about Turkish or Swahili or Arabic or any language I’m not learning I'm going to lap them up), PLEASE LIKE OR REBLOG. I’m loooooonely. 

[starlightervarda]

What languages do each member of the TOG cast speak ? Who speaks the most languages ? Who is the best at languages ?

Hi nonny!


1. Who speaks the most languages? 


In short, Andy. 


But they get jumbled in her long, long memory. She mixes up tenses, languages that descend from the same source or changed alphabets, and will use outdated or discarded terminology or conjugation from time to time. 


And she’ll go entire weeks forgetting how to speak one language, then when she actually sees that language she’ll remember it. Her grammar is probably awful, she can’t be bothered with formal speech, you will understand her whether you like it or not, formalities be damned.


2. Who is the best at languages? 


Joe, hands down. 


As a poet, merchant and scholar, he is very particular about language, phrasing, appropriate use of terms and tone, and gets super in-depth when he learns a new tongue. He tries writing poetry in each new language in a pretty leather-bound book Nicky got him. May have made some crucial translations himself in the past that helped facilitate the exchange of knowledge and ideas across the Old World.


He’ll collect literature in that language, read translations of stories he knows by heart, owns copies of his favourite novels in at least seven languages, and set aside hours each day to speak exclusively in that language. In their off time, he and Nicky settle in countries and get part-time jobs just to practice speaking to natives.

(He may have learned Sanskrit just to read classic Indian literature)


Nicky picks up a lot alongside him, but not with that dedication. He keeps his knowledge conversational and his accents are never precise, but he can handle himself pretty well if they get separated. Just don’t ask him to translate anything more difficult than a map, a letter, or a cookbook.

Nicky may or may not understand Romanian better than Andy does.


3. What languages do the Old Guard speak?

As in, what they have in common? Or collectively?

Common tongues include: Latin (Ancient and Medieval), Greek (Modern, Byzantine and Ancient), Arabic (Classical and colloquial varieties), French, English, Spanish, Russian, Persian, Italian and some Portuguese and German.


Collectively they might also have: Hindi, Japanese, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Amharic, Hebrew, Aramaic, some Maltese, some Amazigh, Occitain and Catalan, some Swahili & Hausa, possibly some Mongolian, and at least one of them (Joe) learned Esperanto for some strange reason.

They’d all have a good grasp of Cantonese and Mandarin but Booker and Nicky never learned the writing system (Andy may have forgotten) and the fact that it’s tonal nearly got them in trouble a few times. Also, Booker’s Persian is somehow better than his Arabic? Joe is deeply confused. Andy argues that it’s just easier.

Nicky dares him to learn Finnish.


That’s excluding Nile. Nile had a few years of Spanish at school and a passing familiarity with French and Dari, and is put on a crash-course of necessary languages by Joe when she joins. He aims to have her speaking Spanish and French like a native, learn Italian at a slower pace by speaking with him and Nicky, and the Russian, Greek and Arabic lessons start slow with their alphabets. It will take maybe a few decades before she has the breath left in her to learn more alphabets and tonal languages.

Nicky will speak to her in Italian and she’ll answer in French sometimes. Booker finds this hilarious.


Poor thing, Joe has her reading Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Homer’s Odyssey, Dante’s Divine Comedy and the works of Tolstoy and Naguib Mahfouz, in their original languages. He’s quizzing her on which vocab words are outdated and which are modern! She just wants to know what the targets they’re spying on are saying and how to order food, not how to write a dissertation!


Andy teaches her all the filthiest insults and swear words and breaks them down, making her laugh herself to tears. Nicky gets annoyed and makes them chop onions for dinner. Andy then starts telling her stories about where these phrases and insults originated and Nicky kicks them out of his kitchen.

[language-myths]

Language Difficulty Ranking

Languages… there are many. There are TONS of languages in the world.

Natural languages alone add up to thousands (around 6 thousand). Conlangs (constructed languages) are everywhere too. Any alphabet, sign system and secret language, they are out there being used by people that might want you to learn them or not. We will focus on natural languages and see what makes them easier or harder to learn as a second language. 

The Foreign Service Institute —the U.S. government’s main provider of foreign affairs training —, made a chart with five categories to determine how fast one could become fluent in said language.

Category I:  23-24 weeks (575-600 hours). Languages closely related to EnglishAfrikaans, Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish

Category II: 30 weeks (750 hours) Languages similar to English German

Category III: 36 weeks (900 hours) Languages with linguistic and/or cultural differences from English Indonesian, Malaysian, Swahili

Category IV: 44 weeks (1100 hours) Languages with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Finnish, Georgian, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Khmer, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Monglian, Nepali, Pashto, Persian (Dari, Farsi, Tajik), Polish, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Xhosa, Zulu

Category V: 88 weeks (2200 hours) Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers Arabic, Cantonese (Chinese), Mandarin (Chinese), Japanese, Korean

What are the takeaways?

First and foremost, languages take time and dedication to learn. A diplomat stationed in a foreign country will have many resources planned just for them to learn the language, including personalized classes, exclusive time, money, cultural immersion…  A regular person might find it is taking them longer than the time listed here to learn a language and that’s because the circumstances are different.

Second, culture is a very important part when learning a language, and it is often dismissed in favor of more technical aspects such as correct grammar and spelling. But proficiency means one can use the language just like a native would, and that includes knowing if offering something comes off as rude or too forward.

Third, languages have families, meaning they share some aspects, like similar phonetics, grammar, and words that are very similar if not the same. Knowing this, one can decide to learn a language that’s similar to our first language, or one we already have some experience with.

Fourth, some languages will be easier or harder to learn depending on other factors like how easy it is to access it. This list only compiles 62 languages from the thousands we mentioned previously. Languages that are specific to a small place or with fewer speakers will be more difficult to learn because they are not as available as any of the ones in this list, but that doesn’t mean those languages are impossible to learn.

Of course, this is just an estimation. A category 4 language might come off easier to you specifically, or a category 1 language might take you far more time than expected. And of course, this is based, again, for a person who speaks English, so if your native language is Korean it might seem weird to see it as harder than others.

Is this list accurate to your own experience?

 Your bilin-gal Regina.

https://effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty/

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/language-difficulty-map/

https://www.atlasandboots.com/foreign-service-institute-language-difficulty/

[ukiyoeunoia]

information and statistics for julian austere

including an in-depth personality analysis

BASIC INFORMATION

Full name: Julian Austere Nicknames: Julian, Julius Age: 7,017 years old  Date of Birth: Unknown Hometown: Unknown Current location: Salem, MA  Ethnicity: Caucasian  Nationality: None  Gender: cisgender male (he/him)  Sexuality: Bisexual, Biromantic  Religion: Buddhist  Political Affiliation: Leftist progressive Occupation: Mayor Languages spoken: English, Spanish, French, Italian, Greek, Romani, Farsi, Latin, German, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Mandarin, Hindi, Swahili, Yoruba, Ancient Egyptian, hieroglyphics Accent: British

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Face Claim: Tom Ellis Hair Colour: Black  Eye Colour: Varying shades of red, usually so dark it looks like mahogany Weight: 187lbs  Height: 6′3  Build: Athletic /Lean Tattoos: TBD  Piercings: TBD

PERSONALITY

Label: The Godly  Positive Traits: + intelligent, determined, charismatic, supportive, loyal, passionate  Negative Traits: - overworked, possessive, vengeful, stoic, quick-witted, abrasive  Goals/Desires: to protect those who need protecting, to help supernaturals rise from the bottom  Fears: losing his humanity (again), failing those he loves Hobbies: cinema, theater, classical music, literature, varying martial arts

FAMILY

Father: unknown  Mother: none  Sibling(s): none Children: macaria austere (4). marcella austere-hall, simon austere, rihannon austere. 2 open slots (20s-30s).  Pet(s): 8 doberman dogs. agatha, berenice, mayve, titan, kinsley, otto, aro, delilah

EXTRA

Zodiac Sign: Scorpio - “Scorpios are strong, enigmatic, independent characters who crackle with an intensity and charisma that makes them un-ignorable. For all of that power though, they often remain un-knowable to others, because they guard themselves and their private lives fiercely.You can bet there’s something juicy going on, under the wraps, though, because Scorpios like extremes, challenges, danger and darkness. They are, because of their planetary ruler Pluto, drawn to the outliers of human experience.”  MBTI: ENFJ-A - The Protagonist. “Protagonists are natural-born leaders, full of passion and charisma. Forming around two percent of the population, they are oftentimes our politicians, our coaches and our teachers, reaching out and inspiring others to achieve and to do good in the world. With a natural confidence that begets influence, Protagonists take a great deal of pride and joy in guiding others to work together to improve themselves and their community.”  Alignment: Lawful Good - “A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. He combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. He tells the truth, keeps his word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion. However, lawful good can be a dangerous alignment when it restricts freedom and criminalizes self-interest.” Enneagram: Type 1 - The Reformer. “We have named personality type One The Reformer because Ones have a “sense of mission” that leads them to want to improve the world in various ways, using whatever degree of influence they have. They strive to overcome adversity—particularly moral adversity—so that the human spirit can shine through and make a difference. They strive after “higher values,” even at the cost of great personal sacrifice.” Celtic Tree: Reed - “Reed people easily grasp the complex. They're great friends and leaders, but need to curb their jealous streak. They tend to be quite proud and do well when faced with challenges. Their inner strength is so great that at times they need to remember to do the right thing.” Temperament: Melancholic - “The melancholy temperament is a rule follower. They can be cautious and tentative in unfamiliar environments, but they can also become aggressive when faced with an unfavorable situation. They are private and introverted.This temperament is factual, logical, and analytical. To function without anxiety, these people need to have a solid plan for action and follow it to the letter.”  Hogwarts House: Ravenclaws - “Ravenclaw House prizes learning, wisdom, wit, and intellect in its members.Thus, many Ravenclaws tend to be academically motivated and talented students. They also pride themselves on being original in their ideas, and methods.” Primary Vice: Wrath - “According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the neutral act of anger becomes the sin of wrath when it is directed against an innocent person, when it is unduly strong or long-lasting, or when it desires excessive punishment. "If anger reaches the point of a deliberate desire to kill or seriously wound a neighbor, it is gravely against charity; it is a mortal sin.” Primary Virtue: Hope - “Hope being a combination of the desire for something and expectation of receiving it, the virtue is hoping for Divine union and so eternal happiness. While faith is a function of the intellect, hope is an act of the will.” Element: Wood - “You’re a lifelong student, always challenging yourself to learn and grow. Wood people are action-oriented, and do best if they feel in charge of their own destiny and have a sense of forward momentum in life.”

[ubuiltatimemachineoutofadelorean]

Zavvi Exclusive

Back To The Future The Ultimate Trilogy

4K Ultra HD Plutonium Case Collector’s Edition Box Set

Limited edition box set for the 4K Ultra HD Back To The Future Trilogy. Featuring exclusive limited edition printed pieces from each film: Flux Capacitor Schematic Diagram, 'Blast from the Past' plastic receipt, Time Machine location map. Each piece is housed in clear 'fuel cell' tubes inside the imitation plutonium cardboard packaging box.

23cm (length) x 15cm (depth) x 16cm (height).

Internal foam insert housing the Back To The Future: The Ultimate Trilogy - 4K Ultra HD

Limited to only 1000 worldwide.

Experience one of the most popular movie series of all time like never before with Back to the Future: The Ultimate Trilogy ! Join Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) and a time traveling DeLorean for the adventure of a lifetime as they travel to the past, present and future, setting off a time-shattering chain reaction that disrupts the space-time continuum! From filmmakers Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, this unforgettable collection features hours of bonus features and is an unrivalled trilogy that stands the test of time.

BONUS FEATURES

OVER ONE HOUR OF ALL-NEW BONUS

The Hollywood Museum Goes Back To The Future

Back To The Future: The Musical – Behind The Scenes

An Alternate Future: Lost Audition Tapes

Could You Survive The Movies? Back To The Future

PLUS

Tales From The Future: 6-Part Documentary

The Physics of Back To The Future

Deleted Scenes

Michael J. Fox Q&A

8 Archival Featurettes

Behind The Scenes Footage

Music Videos

Audio Commentaries

Back To The Future: The Ride

Doc Brown Saves The World! (Short Film)

OUTATIME: Restoring the DeLorean

And Much More!

Subtitle Languages:

BACK TO THE FUTURE

4K UHD: English SDH, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Swedish

BLU-RAY: English SDH, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Swedish

BACK TO THE FUTURE II

4K UHD: English SDH, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Swedish

BLU-RAY: English SDH, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Swedish

BACK TO THE FUTURE III

4K UHD: English SDH, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Swedish

BLU-RAY: English SDH, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Swedish

BONUS: English SDH, Brazilian Portuguese, Cantonese, Spanish, Complex Mandarin, Czech, Dutch, French Canadian, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin American Spanish, Polish,

Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Simplified Mandarin, Thai, Turkish

Main Language:

English

Number of Discs: 7 340 mins approx

[misstealady]

Why the World Only Has Two Words for Tea

How to Say Tea in Different Languages

Afrikaans: tee Albanian: caj (pronounced chai) Arabic: chai or shai Armenian: te Azerbaijani: caj (pronounced chai) Basque: tea Belarusian: harbatu Bengali/Bangla: cha Bulgarian: chai Catalan: té Chinese (Cantonese): cha Chinese (Mandarin): cha (second tone / pronounced with the "a" in a rising tone) Croatian: caj (pronounced chai) Czech: caj (pronounced cha-i) Danish: te Dutch: thee English: tea Esperanto: teo Filipino/Tagalog: tsaa Finnish: tee French: le thé (masculine) Galician: té Georgian: chai German: der Tee (masculine; the "T" is capitalized because all German nouns are capitalized) Greek: tsai Haitian Creole: té Hebrew: teh Hindi: chai Hungarian: tea (plural: teak) Irish: tae Italian: te (pronounced teh) Icelandic: te Indonesian: teh Japanese: o-cha (o- is used as a prefix meaning "honorable" and -cha is used to mean "tea" in various tea names, such as matcha, sencha and hojicha) Korean: cha Latvian: teja (pronounced tay-ya) Lithuanian: arbata Luxembourgish: Téi (like in German, all nouns are capitalized in Luxembourish) Macedonian: chaj (pronounced chai) Malay: teh Maltese: te Norwegian: te Persian: chay (pronounced chai in most areas) Polish: herbata Portuguese: cha (pronounced shah with a Brazilian accent) Romanian: ceai Russian: chai Serbian: caj (pronounced chai) Sinhalese (Sri Lanka): thé (The word for teapot is actually a Dutch loanword. It is theepot.) Slovakian: caj (pronounced chai) Slovenian: caj (pronounced chai) Somali: shaah Spanish: el té (masculine; pronounced tay) Swahili: chai (pronounced cha-i) Swedish: te Taiwanese: de (boba naicha refers to Taiwan; popular "tapioca pearl tea") Tamil (Sri Lanka): tea Thai: chah (chah yen refers to Thai iced tea) Tibetan: cha or ja Turkish: cay (pronounced chai) Ukrainian: chaj (pronounced chay) Urdu: chai (North) Vietnamese: che (South) Vietnamese: tra (sometimes pronounced cha or ja) Wolof: achai (pronounced uh-chuy) Welsh: te Yiddish: tey Zulu: itiye

[fuckyeahjeanyvesmoreau]

tips for learning a language all by yourself

I am assuming you want to learn a new language by yourself and you want some tips? Well, read on then!

Hi! If you’ve read my previous post (check it here; it’s about my Italian resources) you’ll probably know that I started learning Italian by myself and it’s going great! So, I am writing this article to let you know why exactly it’s going great.

A.k.a, what do I do and how in order to learn successfully the language I want.

//

Step one; Choosing a Language

First of all, like this article says, there’s a list, created by the Foreign Service Institute (F.S.I) in which they have sorted out languages into five categories; from the easiest to the most difficult to learn.

And here’s the list, in case you are interested;

First Category (23-24 weeks or 575-600 hours to learn); Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish

Second Category (30 weeks or 750 hours to learn); German

Third Category (36 weeks or 900 hours to learn); Indonesian, Malaysian, Swahili

Fourth Category (44 weeks or 1100 hours to learn); Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Finnish, Georgian, Greek (that’s me!), Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Khmer, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Mongolian, Nepali, Pashto, Persian (Dari, Farsi, Tajik), Polish, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Xhosa, Zulu

Fifth Category (88 weeks or 2200 hours to learn); Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean

Note; keep in mind that this list sorts out the language difficulty for a native English speaker!

Fortunately for me, Italian is in the first category:)

Anyhow, let’s move on.

Have you decided on a language you want to learn? If so, think to yourself, why? Why did you choose this particular language? Your goal must be strong enough to encourage you to learn and to stop procrastination. If you haven’t choose a language yet, now’s the right time! Please consider, not only the “why” question above, but also the difficulty of the languages! Again, I recommend Italian. It’s such a beautiful language with an amazing pronunciation and it’s super easy.

//

Step two; Finding Resources

Resources are so very important. But, be careful. It’s the quality that matters; not the quantity. In other words, it doesn’t matter how many books you bought or how many videos you’ve seen; if they are not helpful enough then you won’t be able to learn the language.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I rely a lot on textbooks. They are pretty useful and also have exercises and quizzes that help me a lot. I download them from a site called pdfdrive. Just type “the language you want + for beginners “ in the search engine (feel free to erase the “for beginners” part for more results) and find the textbook that suits you! Keep in mind that this site has also textbooks for school subjects and other cool books that I haven’t check out yet.

Important; don’t download only one textbook! You might face a problem or have a question while reading it! I have downloaded around five textbooks for Italian and, even though I am learning the language from only on of them, I usually read the other ones too, in case they have more information on something.

Next, Quizlet. If you learn better through flashcards make Quizlet your best friend. It’s a site (and app!) where you can make your own flashcards for free (it also has a premium offer but I use the free version and it’s epic).

However, don’t use it if you are not a-flashcard-learner. Here’s a test I have found where you can find with only 20 questions your learning style AND things to do to learn better.

So yeah, find some textbooks and your learning type and you are done, right?

Nope.

I mentioned above that you need to make Quizlet your best friend. Well, I am correcting this.

Make Google Translate your soulmate.

Seriously.

And I don’t mean using it to translate articles e.t.c, we all know that it low-key sucks when it comes to translating long texts. You can use it, however, for hearing the pronunciation for words that may confuse you; after all the textbooks are books, they don’t have audios.

Also, you can use Youtube. Even though I don’t use it (I prefer the other resources I’ve mentioned), there are many playlists and channels with tips for the language you want.

Now, go and buy a notebook, or find an empty one from the school.

//

Step 3; Begin

Now you are ready.

Open your textbook in a new tab, Google Translate in another and Quizlet (or whatever site you use) in another. Also, open your notebook.

However, you should be careful! Time management is very, very, very important.

Here’s my schedule when it comes to learning Italian;

The textbook I use has 20 chapter; each chapter has around 5-7 sections. Thus, my goal is to finish one chapter week which means one section per day. That’s super easy for me; I have the free time to do that. Also, each chapter has a quiz at the end, which I usually take on Sundays. I also repeatedly take these quizzes every time I finish a new chapter. For example, when I finished chapter 2, I made sure to not only take the quiz of that chapter but also the chapter 1 quiz to review what I’ve learnt.

And that’s it. I take notes, review them after I finish a section and the morning before I start a new section. In general, I try to review a lot my past notes and flashcards; it helps me a lot and makes me more confident and proud for my achievements.

Also, try not to take too many breaks! I personally don’t take any breaks because I don’t really need them; it takes me around 15 to 25 minutes to finish a section. But, if you want to finish more than a section per day, make sure to take small but often breaks. And, remember; don’t use your break on the internet! That will distract you and from 5 minutes the break will expand to hours and hours!

//

Anyhow, I really hope I helped you! I tried to be as specific as possible but if you have any questions, my dm’s are always open! Also, feel free to reblog this post with your tips on how you learn a language!

Ciao, Marina♥

[spidertalia]

Meet my boy New Jersey !!

His human name is Daniel Burr, but he exclusively goes by Danny and will knock your lights out if you call him Daniel. He's physically 23 and is the 14th oldest state.

Danny has quite the personality. He's proud, hot tempered, confrontational, dramatic, sarcastic, loud, lively, sassy, blunt, good-humored, passionate, impatient, a jokester, hardworking, diligent, sociable, intelligent, quick-witted, sharp, snarky, fiercely loyal, honest, slightly cynical, pragmatic, analytical, industrious, outspoken and opinionated. He actually makes friends surprisingly easily and loves chatting up strangers, but he also loves starting fights and arguments with some of the other states. He lives for drama. He's very proud and has a very short temper as well. He will not hesitate to speak his mind on anything or call people out when they're being idiotic or irresponsible without regard for their feelings.

Some fun facts about him:

He's 5'5 or 165 cm in height. He's the third shortest male state, being taller than Rhode Island and Delaware.

He has roughly 3A hair

He speaks 18 languages fluently outside of his Indigenous languages, and is learning a further ten languages.

He can fluently speak English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi, Tagalog, Gujarati, Korean, Arabic, Polish, Greek, Haitian, Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian and French. He is currently learning and speaks some Yoruba, Ukrainian, Japanese, German, Lithuanian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Turkish, Tamil and Telugu.

He's Hispanic. Specifically, mixed white and Indigenous.

He is pretty much constantly fighting with New York, Delaware and Pennsylvania. He also on occasion fights with Massachusetts and Connecticut.

He starts drama and fights on purpose, for the sheer fun of it.

He's surprisingly very competitive and loves to prove himself by being good at things. However, his confidence isn't unfounded; he's a genuinely hard worker who throws himself wholeheartedly into learning new skills and things. He may like to brag, but he absolutely earns the right to.

He is the second best cook of all the states, behind Louisiana. He knows 2-8 recipes from over 80 countries, and he has well over 500 recipes under his belt. Similar to how New York loves learning languages, New Jersey loves learning recipes.

He's actually an insanely skilled driver with impeccably fast reflexes, and is quite possibly one of the very best drivers. He just has a personal vendetta against every single traffic law and driver out there. He can make death-defying turns in the blink of an eye, and will absolutely cut people off on the road for simply looking at him wrong. He has negative patience on the road and gets road rage very easily.

He's a very skilled and very hard worker. He's great at getting things done and getting them done on time.

Despite his argumentative and hot tempered nature, he actually makes friends very easily. He genuinely enjoys chatting up random strangers on the street and having hour long conversations over any topic they can think of. He's a great listener and an engaging conversationalist.

He likes spending time outdoors and in nature.

He jaywalks on occasion for fun.

He cares more about his appearance than he lets on

He's naturally very stylish. He especially loves jean jackets and jackets with pins on them.

He will complain if he has to drive more than half an hour to get anywhere.

He's very skilled at machinery, engineering and mechanics. He can fix up cars, repair wiring, repair machinery and make home improvements.

He talks fast and works faster

Despite his pride in his appearance, he's generally unafraid to get his hands dirty or jump headfirst into nature.

He's actually good friends with Romano, despite what one might think. The two bond over hating people and loving pasta and pizza.

He has a New Jersey accent

He's also, strangely enough, friends with Florida. Any of his insults just roll off of Florida's shoulders, and the two eventually became friends thanks to their shared loud, lively personalities. Danny still likes to play bicker with him, though.

His hobbies are cooking, listening to music, tinkering and complaining

He will complain about pretty much anything and everything.

He played a big part in the Industrial Revolution, like Pennsylvania, and remains his skill with machinery and mechanics to this day. He's not nearly as into it anymore as Pennsylvania is, but he does find joy in fixing up old cars.

He collects old cars.

He is very sarcastic, snarky and quick-witted. He has a nickname for pretty much everyone.

He converted to Judaism sometime during-after the Revolution and has stuck to it since. He's very proud of it.

He's the 11th oldest of the 13 colonies, and was physically 14 during the American Revolution.

He stole one house from England during the Revolution.

He will fight England nearly on sight. It's best to not have the two in the same room.

His likes include: Music, bagels, pizza, Italian food, pasta, diners, Dunkin, hoagies, subs, pork rolls, dancing, drive-in theater, tomatoes, saltwater taffy, Wawa, wine, blueberries, cranberries, corn, cooking, latino food, latino music, Springsteen, Bon Jovi, machinery, engineering, Whitney Houston, Frank Sinatra, 70's music, partying, complaining, classic movies and old cars.

His dislikes include: New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, England, slow people, slow drivers and traffic laws.

I will be including more/posting more about him later on !! This is just what I have so far :))

I lowkey took loose inspo for him from one of my favorite fictional characters (who's from New Jersey), Danny Williams from 2010's Hawaii Five 0. If you want some idea of NJ's energy, watch clips of Danny Williams sdfghj. (Them sharing a first name is a total coincidence)

[wardisahi]

Since none of y'all was going to send me language asks from the reblog I pinned, I decided I'll answer those questions myself. Questions from @wrathofabooklover-blog.

1: What is your native language?

English.

2: Have you learnt any other languages? If yes, what are they?

I know much of Spanish, some Arabic and Urdu, and learning Dutch, Japanese, Swedish, and Turkish on Duolingo.

3: Have you ever read a book in a foreign language?

I tried to read some manga pages in Japanese to see if I could understand them.

4: Did you learn any languages at school? If yes, what were they?

I took ASL for three years in high school, but I don't remember much after. Just some words. Then in university, I took Arabic.

5: What is the prettiest language?

The Nordic (sans Icelandic) and Romance languages (sans Romanian). I also think Cantonese, Finnish, and Polish are pretty.

6: What is the ugliest language?

Czech, Hungarian, Latvian, and Lithuanian. Sorry.

7: Have you ever made up your own language?

When I transferred to another university, changed my major, and took an intro to Linguistics course, our final project was to make up our own language. Mine was called Sudaarish.

8: What languages do your parents speak?

My dad: Urdu, English, some Spanish, wants to learn Turkish

My mom: Arabic, Urdu, English, learning Turkish

9: If you were granted a wish that allowed you to instantly be able to speak any language, which would it be?

Maybe the Asian languages. I can't choose which one.

10: Have you ever tried to learn sign language?

Look at question 4.

11: Have you ever watched a movie with subtitles in a different language, or vice versa?

Yes. Indian (mostly Hindi), Korean, and Spanish movies.

12: Choose a Scandinavian language you’d like to learn.

Well, I'm learning Swedish.

13. Choose a Slavic (eastern European) language you’d like to learn.

Bulgarian, Croatian, or Polish.

14. Choose an Asian language you’d like to learn.

Ooh, that's hard. I guess Cantonese, Kazakh, Japanese, Mandarin, Telugu, or Thai.

15. French, Spanish, Greek - which is the best?

Spanish all the way. I have a love-hate relationship with French and Greek is interesting, but those accent markers make it hard for me to read.

16. German, Dutch, Italian - which is the best?

Dutch. It almost sounds like English. German is interesting too, but those definite articles are too much for me and I too have a love-hate relationship with Italian.

17. Have you ever been embarrassed by a native speaker of the language you are trying to learn?

No, I don't think so, but in Urdu, the language my parents speak, I once mixed up the word "leave" with "fuck".

18. Name a dead language that you wish to make a come back.

Ancient Egyptian.

19. What is your native language / homeland famous for?

Colonialism. There I said it.

20. What language is overrated?

French, Icelandic, Italian. Also I'm tired of seeing people talking about Japanese and Korean as the greatest languages they've ever heard of.

21. What language do you think is too intimidating to learn?

Albanian, the Chinese languages, Indian languages, Icelandic, Korean, and the Southeast Asian languages. Also Xhosa and Zulu because of those clicks.

22. What language should more people speak?

Arabic and Mandarin (I'm tired of people making fun of those languages. It's almost 2021, so quit being racist.)

23. What language uses the prettiest alphabet?

Finnish (I love the ä letter) and Greek.

24. What language uses the weirdest alphabet?

Armenian, Georgian, and Hungarian.

25. Try to find some foreign currency in your house. Where is it from?

I found Canadian coins in my bathroom. I went to Canada four years ago.

[thelanguagecommunity]

“what language should I learn?”

“is it better to learn [x] or [x]?”

“is it worth learning [x]?”

I get this type of question a lot and I see questions like these a lot on language learning forums, but it’s very difficult to answer because ultimately language learning is a highly personal decision. Passion is required to motivate your studies, and if you aren’t in love with your language it will be very hard to put in the time you need. Thus, no language is objectively better or worse, it all comes down to factors in your life. So, I’ve put together a guide to assist your with the kind of factors you can consider when choosing a language for study.

First, address you language-learning priorities.

Think of the reasons why are you interested in learning a new language. Try to really articulate what draws you to languages. Keeping these reasons in mind as you begin study will help keep you focused and motivated. Here are some suggestions to help you get started, complete with wikipedia links so you can learn more:

Linguistic curiosity?

For this, I recommend looking into dead, literary or constructed languages. There are lots of cool linguistic experiments and reconstructions going on and active communities that work on them! Here’s a brief list:

Dead languages:

Akkadian

Egyptian (Ancient Egyptian)

Gaulish

Gothic

Hittite

Old Prussian

Sumerian

Older iterations of modern day languages:

Classical Armenian

Classical Nahuatl (language of the Aztec Empire)

Early Modern English (Shakespearean English)

Galician-Portuguese

Middle English (Chaucer English)

Middle Persian/Pahlavi

Old English

Old French

Old Spanish

Old Tagalog (+ Baybayin)

Ottoman Turkish

Constructed:

Anglish (experiment to create a purely Anglo-Saxon English)

Esperanto

Interlingua

Láadan (a “feminist language”)

Lingua Franca Nova

Lingwa de Planeta

Lobjan

Toki Pona (a minimalist language)

Wenedyk (what if the Romans had occupied Poland?)

Cultural interests?

Maybe you just want to connect to another culture. A language is often the portal to a culture and are great for broadening your horizons! The world is full of rich cultures; learning the language helps you navigate a culture and appreciate it more fully.

Here are some popular languages and what they are “famous for”:

Cantonese: film

French: culinary arts, film, literature, music, philosophy, tv programs, a prestige language for a long time so lots of historical media, spoken in many countries (especially in Africa)

German: film, literature, philosophy, tv programs, spoken in several Central European countries

Italian: architecture, art history, catholicism (Vatican city!), culinary arts, design, fashion, film, music, opera

Mandarin: culinary arts, literature, music, poetry, tv programs

Japanese: anime, culinary arts, film, manga, music, video games, the longtime isolation of the country has developed a culture that many find interesting, a comparatively large internet presence

Korean: tv dramas, music, film

Portuguese: film, internet culture, music, poetry

Russian: literature, philosophy, spoken in the Eastern Bloc or former-Soviet countries, internet culture

Spanish: film, literature, music, spoken in many countries in the Americas

Swedish: music, tv, film, sometimes thought of as a “buy one, get two free” deal along with Norwegian & Danish

Religious & liturgical languages:

Avestan (Zoroastrianism)

Biblical Hebrew (language of the Tanakh, Old Testament)

Church Slavonic (Eastern Orthodox churches)

Classical Arabic (Islam)

Coptic (Coptic Orthodox Church)

Ecclesiastical Latin (Catholic Church)

Ge’ez (Ethiopian Orthodox Church)

Iyaric (Rastafari movement)

Koine Greek (language of the New Testament)

Mishnaic Hebrew (language of the Talmud)

Pali (language of some Hindu texts and Theravada Buddhism)

Sanskrit (Hinduism)

Syriac (Syriac Orthodox Church, Maronite Church, Church of the East)

Reconnecting with family?

If your immediate family speaks a language that you don’t or if you are a heritage speaker that has been disconnected, then the choice is obvious! If not, you might have to do some family tree digging, and maybe you might find something that makes you feel more connected to your family. Maybe you come from an immigrant community that has an associated immigration or contact language! Or maybe there is a branch of the family that speaks/spoke another language entirely.

Immigrant & Diaspora languages:

Arbëresh (Albanians in Italy)

Arvanitika (Albanians in Greece)

Brazilian German

Canadian Gaelic (Scottish Gaelic in Canada)

Canadian Ukrainian (Ukrainians in Canada)

Caribbean Hindustani (Indian communities in the Caribbean)

Chipilo Venetian (Venetians in Mexico)

Griko (Greeks in Italy)

Hutterite German (German spoken by Hutterite settlers of Canada/US)

Fiji Hindi (Indians in Fiji)

Louisiana French (Cajuns) 

Patagonian Welsh (Welsh in Argentina)

Pennsylvania Dutch (High German spoken by early settlers of Canada/ the US)

Plaudietsch (German spoken by Mennonites)

Talian (Venetian in Brazilian)

Texas Silesian (Poles in the US)

Click here for a list of languages of the African diaspora (there are too many for this post!). 

If you are Jewish, maybe look into the language of your particular diaspora community ( * indicates the language is extinct or moribund - no native speakers or only elderly speakers):

Bukhori (Bukharan Jews)

Hebrew

Italkian (Italian Jews) *

Judeo-Arabic (MENA Jews)

Judeo-Aramaic

Judeo-Malayalam *

Judeo-Marathi

Judeo-Persian

Juhuri (Jews of the Caucasus)

Karaim (Crimean Karaites) *

Kivruli (Georgian Jews)

Krymchak (Krymchaks) *

Ladino (Sephardi)

Lusitanic (Portuguese Jews) *

Shuadit (French Jewish Occitan) *

Yevanic (Romaniotes)*

Yiddish (Ashkenazi)

Finding a job?

Try looking around for what languages are in demand in your field. Most often, competency in a relevant makes you very competitive for positions. English is in demand pretty much anywhere. Here are some other suggestions based on industry (from what I know!):

Business (General): Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Korean, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish

Design: Italian (especially furniture)

Economics: Arabic, German

Education: French, Spanish

Energy: Arabic, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish

Engineering: German, Russian

Finance & Investment: French, Cantonese, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish

International Orgs. & Diplomacy (NATO, UN, etc.): Arabic, French, Mandarin, Persian, Russian, Spanish

Medicine: German, Latin, Sign Languages, Spanish

Military: Arabic, Dari, French, Indonesian, Korean, Kurdish, Mandarin, Pashto, Persian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu

Programming: German, Japanese

Sales & Marketing: French, German, Japanese, Portuguese

Service (General): French, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Sign Languages, Spanish

Scientific Research (General): German, Japanese, Russian

Tourism: French, Japanese, Mandarin, Sign Languages, Spanish

Translation: Arabic, Russian, Sign Languages

Other special interests?

Learning a language just because is a perfectly valid reason as well! Maybe you are really into a piece of media that has it’s own conlang! 

Fictional:

Atlantean (Atlantis: The Lost Empire)

Dothraki (Game of Thrones)

Elvish (Lord of the Rings)

Gallifreyan (Doctor Who)

High Valyrian (Game of Thrones)

Klingon (Star Trek)

Nadsat (A Clockwork Orange)

Na’vi (Avatar)

Newspeak (1984)

Trigedasleng (The 100)

Vulcan (Star Trek)

Or if you just like to learn languages, take a look maybe at languages that have lots of speakers but not usually popular among the language-learning community:

Arabic

Bengali

Cantonese

Hindi

Javanese

Hausa

Indonesian

Malay

Pashto

Persian

Polish

Punjabi

Swahili

Tamil

Telugu

Thai

Turkish

Urdu

Vietnamese

Yoruba

If you have still are having trouble, consider the following:

What languages do you already speak?

How many and which languages you already speak will have a huge impact on the ease of learning. 

If you are shy about speaking with natives, you might want to look at languages with similar consonant/vowel sounds. Similarity between languages’ grammars and vocabularies can also help speed up the process. Several families are famous for this such as the Romance languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, Romanian), North Germanic languages (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish) or East Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian). If you are a native English speaker, check out the FSI’s ranking of language difficulty for the approximate amount of hours you’ll need to put into different languages.

You could also take a look at languages’ writing systems to make things easier or for an added challenge.

Another thing to remember is that the languages you already speak will have a huge impact on what resources are available to you. This is especially true with minority languages, as resources are more frequently published in the dominant language of that area. For example, most Ainu resources are in Japanese, most Nheengatu resources are in Portuguese, and most Nahuatl resources are in Spanish.

What are your life circumstances?

Where you live with influence you language studies too! Local universities will often offer resources (or you could even enroll in classes) for specific languages, usually the “big” ones and a few region-specific languages.

Also consider if what communities area near you. Is there a vibrant Deaf community near you that offers classes? Is there a Vietnamese neighborhood you regularly interact with? Sometimes all it takes is someone to understand you in your own language to make your day! Consider what languages you could realistically use in your own day-to-day. If you don’t know where to start, try checking to see if there are any language/cultural meetups in your town!

How much time can you realistically put into your studies? Do you have a fluency goal you want to meet? If you are pressed for time, consider picking up a language similar to ones you already know or maintaining your other languages rather than taking on a new one.

Please remember when choosing a language for study to always respect the feelings and opinions of native speakers/communities, particularly with endangered or minoritized languages. Language is often closely tied to identity, and some communities are “closed” to outsiders. A notable examples are Hopi, several Romani languages, many Aboriginal Australian languages and some Jewish languages. If you are considering a minoritized language, please closely examine your motivations for doing so, as well as do a little research into what is the community consensus on outsiders learning the language.