#linking verbs for beginners

[what-even-is-thiss]

Free or Cheap Spanish Learning Resources So You Can Run at Windmills in Fluent Spanish

I will update this list as I learn of any more useful ones. If you want general language learning resources check out this other post. This list is Spanish specific. Find lists for other specific languages here.

For the purposes of this list "free" means something that is either totally free or has a useful free tier. "Cheap" is a subscription under $10USD a month, a software license or lifetime membership purchase under $100USD, or a book under $30USD. If you want to suggest a resource for this list please suggest ones in that price range that are of decent quality and not AI generated.

WEBSITES

Dreaming Spanish - A website that is also a YouTube Channel. This is a comprehensible input site with videos about a variety of subjects with multiple hosts from multiple countries. It has content for learners from absolute beginner to lower advanced. It lets you sort videos by dialect, subject, length, etc. The free version has a lot of content. The paid version is $9 a month and has many more videos and allows you to track your listening hours. The website is in English but all videos are entirely in Spanish.

Lawless Spanish - A free website with resources to learn Spanish relating to grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary. The website also has worksheets, charts, an AI chatbot, and reviews of different learning resources. The website is in English.

Spanish Boom - A free website with beginner lessons and free readings with audio and visual aids. They're also associated with a service called Esidioma that provides paid courses with tutor help for around $23 and also sells books. Prices are in Euros but they also sell to people outside of Europe. The website is available in multiple languages.

studyspanish.com - A website with free verb drills and grammar lessons. It's commonly used by high school Spanish students. They also have a blog that hasn't updated in a while but there is an archive to read through. They have a paid tier with access to their podcasts, vocab lessons, and their Spanish learning app which is $10 a month or $120 for a lifetime membership. The website is in English.

Speaking Latino - A website marketed at Spanish teachers but it's in English and has guides to colloquial Spanish and slang in a lot of different countries and a free blog with tips on sounding like a local in different countries. It has a paid tier but that's mostly useful for Spanish teachers. They also sell slang dictionaries for various countries that are usually less than $10.

UT Austin Spanish Proficiency Exercises - A bunch of free grammar, vocab, and pronunciation guides for various tasks you should be able to do in Spanish at various levels from one of my alma maters, the University of Texas at Austin. It's got videos of people from different countries pronouncing things. The podcast links often don't work for some reason but the grammar, vocab, and video links should work fine. The website is in English.

SpanishDict - A free dictionary website and app with a search feature that also has curated vocabulary lists on various topics and articles. They have a paid tier at $13 a month with a writing coach and subscriber only curated lists and articles. Personally I don't think their paid tier is all that special but it's up to you. The website is in English.

BBC Bitesize Spanish - Bitesize is a free study resource for kids and is sorted by level. It has articles aimed at little kids as well as secondary school aged teens studying for their exams or planning to study abroad. The website is in English and available worldwide, not just in the UK.

YOUTUBE CHANNELS

Hola Spanish - A channel by a woman named Brenda from Argentina who makes videos about grammar, pronunciation, culture, media, and general Spanish tips for upper beginner to advanced learners. The channel is almost entirely in Spanish with occasional vocabulary words translated into English onscreen. There are subtitles in Spanish onscreen but sometimes they randomly disappear.

Butterfly Spanish - A channel with free lessons from beginner to lower intermediate. The host also makes videos about useful phrases and listening practice videos. The channel is mostly in English.

Spanish After Hours - A comprehensible input channel for beginner to intermediate learners with vlogs, history, Spanish tips, and news. The descriptions and video titles are in English but the videos are all in Spanish. The channel host is from Spain.

Easy Spanish - A channel part of the easy languages network that makes a combination of videos with useful phrases and terms for beginners and interviews on the street with locals. They have teams in both Barcelona and Mexico City and there are dual language subtitles in Spanish and English onscreen. The hosts also have a podcast for intermediate to advanced learners.

My Daily Spanish - A catchall channel that has lessons, discussions of grammar, culture topics, vlogs, vocabulary, and other various things. The host is from Spain and also makes a lot of YouTube shorts. She mostly speaks in Spanish but occasionally uses English or has English translations onscreen.

Spansh Boost with Martin and Spanish Boost with Mila - These channels are run by a couple from Argentina who also work as tutors on italki. They often appear on each other's channels and both have their own podcasts and vlogs and general content videos that they make discussing their lives, giving tips, and discussing culture. Mila also makes a lot of videos playing the sims.

Spanish Boost Gaming - Run by Martin from Spanish Boost, this is a lets play channel in clear and easy to understand Spanish. Subtitles are available in English and Spanish and a few other languages as well and it's an actual let's play channel. He plays a variety of video games, makes jokes, and says cuss words and everything.

Mextalki - A channel run by a couple of guys from Mexico city that has listening practice, podcasts, street interviews, and Mexican Spanish specific lessons. Some videos have dual language subtitles onscreen while others do not. The channel is majority in Spanish but in a few lesson videos or portions of videos they will speak in English a bit.

Espanol Con Juan - A channel that teaches Spanish in Spanish from upper beginner to upper intermediate. Juan has grammar lessons, vocabulary lessons, and videos about culture. He is from Spain and the channel is entirely in Spanish. He also has a podcast for more advanced learners.

READING PRACTICE

Vikidia - A wikipedia type website specifically made for kids. The articles are short and written in more simple easy to understand Spanish. The website is in Spanish and made for native speaker kids.

Spanish graded readers by Olly Richards - Spanish has short stories and dialogues for beginner and intermediate, books in easy Spanish on world war 1, world war 2, western philosophy, and climate change. There's also dialogue books specific to Mexican Spanish and Spanish used on social media. The books usually go from $5-$20 new depending on how old they are and whether or not you bought a digital copy. These are really easy to find at used bookstores for cheap though, especially in the US.

Conatilteg Digital - This is a mobile app that provides digital versions of the free textbooks for children provided by the Mexican Ministry of Education both historic and current. The link I provided is for iOS but the app is also available on android and the app is available in multiple countries and not just Mexico. The app is entirely in Spanish and categorized by grade from preschool to secondary school so it's a resource appropriate for all levels and may be enjoyable for any kids you know that are learning Spanish. You can also view their browser website here. (also entirely in Spanish)

Hola Que Pasa - A free website with news articles for learners from beginner to intermediate difficulty. They also provide audio and have the news articles available in podcast form. Every article has certain phrases highlighted that you can hover over and get and English translation of. The website is in a mix of English and Spanish.

Spanish in Levels - A world news website in Spanish for learners. The articles are separated into three different levels and the website is in a mix of English and Spanish. Each article also has audio.

PODCASTS

Spanish for False Beginners - An unscripted podcast about various topics hosted by a guy from the UK and a guy from Spain. The podcast is aimed at people who find beginner content to be boring but still find intermediate content to be too difficult. English is very rarely used.

Uforia/Univision - Uforia is a free app aimed at native speakers in the US and has Spanish language radio, music, and podcasts. Univision in general is also useful if you like American and international news and programming in Spanish.

Radio National de Espana - Another site for native speakers, this is Spanish National Radio. They have a variety of free podcasts and radio programs.

Spanish Obsessed - This is a series of lessons in podcast form for learners from absolute beginner to advanced.

Storylearning Spanish Podcast - This podcast tells different short stories in Spanish and is aimed at upper beginner to lower intermediate learners.

Radio Ambulante - A Spanish language podcast from NPR that's similar to something like This American Life that tells stories from around Latin America. Although it's aimed at native speakers, the language used is clear and understandable and transcripts are available. They're also aware that a lot of intermediate and advanced learners use them for listening practice and they have developed a free app that helps with comprehension and vocabulary when listening to their podcast.

SELF STUDY TEXTBOOKS

Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish - A self study textbook written in the late 80s that still mostly holds up for beginner to upper beginner Spanish. A paperback edition of the textbook is about $25 and used copies and ebooks are also usually available wherever you like to buy books. It's also half off on Amazon pretty often.

Complete Spanish step-by-step by Mcgraw Hill - This is a complete version of the McGraw Hill budget option, the spanish step by step series that focuses on the most frequently used words and grammar. It's $25 new but the individual books in the series usually cost less than $10 and used versions and ebooks are available.

Complete Spanish Grammar from Mcgraw Hill - This is a workbook as well as a textbook that usually costs around $20. The complete Spanish all in one version of the book costs about $40. Used versions of these books can be difficult to find because people tend to write all over them but ebook versions are available. You can also find their beginner workbook for around $18.

Practical Spanish Grammar - This book is usually around $25 but because it's not a workbook it's fairly easy to find used copies. An advanced grammar textbook is also available.

SERIES FOR LEARNERS AND KIDS SHOWS

Destinos - This is a series of over 50 episodes of a telenovela made for Spanish learners. The plot revolves around a group of siblings searching around the world for their long lost half sibling they just learned that they had so the series includes a lot of different Spanish dialects.

Extra Spanish - A 13 episode sitcom made to show in Spanish classrooms that revolves around a group of friends in Spain and a student that just moved there.

Dora la Expladora - Yeah if you remember Dora the Explorer from your preschool days it also unsurprisingly exists in Spanish. You can watch clips and some full episodes on YouTube and buy full seasons for around $8 each on Amazon.

PBS Kids in Spanish - A few PBS Kids shows like Cyberchase and Daniel Tiger have been dubbed into Spanish. The link I've given goes to a place to buy them on Amazon Prime but if you go digging on their YouTube channel or the PBS Kids website you also might be able to find them for free. They don't always make it easy to find though.

Plaza Sésamo - The Spanish language localization of Sesame Street for Mexican audiences with its own unique characters. The YouTube channel has a huge amount of content on it and often has episodes streaming live.

[gendercensus]

New zine for sale!

"What are your pronouns?"

A very specific guide to talking about trans people with confidence and respect

It's aiming to be a beginner-to-advanced guide for allies, with an informative and nerdy tone. It explains:

Third-person, personal, singular pronouns (with established examples)

Why learning new pronouns is harder than learning new names

Why singular they always has plural verbs (always "you are" and not "you is", even when talking about one person)

How to use they/them for nonbinary people (including themselves vs. themself)

How to mess up gracefully (with a focus on making it more comfortable for the trans person)

What neopronouns are

This zine is 36 sides of A5, with 120 gsm 100% recycled paper pages and 100% recycled card cover, handstitch-bound.

It's informed by my 12 years or so of running the Gender Census and gathering data from tens of thousands of nonbinary and gender-divergent people, so this might be the closest I've gotten to official Gender Census merch!

How to buy

Here are some purchase links for one copy:

UK 1st class, £6.35 - £4 for one copy, plus UK first class postage £2.35 (1-2 days)

UK 2nd class, £5.85 - £4 for one copy, plus UK first class postage £1.85 (2-4 days)

Outside UK, £7.20 - £4 for one copy, plus postage to anywhere outside of the UK £3.20 (5-7 working days)

Update 2024-06-20: They’re now available through our new online shop!

If you'd like to buy more than one copy then please do email me for a quote. It's £4 GBP per copy, plus P&P from the UK to wherever you are. I can take payment by bank transfer or PayPal. You can message me here on Tumblr or, more reliably, email me: hello@gendercensus.com (And if you are curious to see what else I've got in stock crafts-wise, you can check out my "things for sale" page here.)

And a quick reminder that the annual survey is currently open until 13th June 2024 - 38,000 participants and counting!

Thank you for your attention, folks. Now back to the usual statistical enthusiasm. ✨📊

[crk-kr-to-en]

hello! i hope you're well!

do you have any tips/strategies/advice on learning korean? things that worked for you, things that didn't, etc.? specifically for listening and reading!

i just started learning it yesterday because i came across your blog and it motivated me to do so, i've been interested in the language for a few years but never got around to it, i figured now would be good since i'm into CRK and i'd like to be able to understand the original version of the game better!! (also i love shadow milk and i want to understand him better LOL)

Oh yes, I do have a couple of resources when it comes to writing and verb/grammar lists under the cut in my pinned post. I learned to read and write the Korean alphabet in the span of 9 hours. It's that easy.

For me, I've been learning Korean since February, but I'm still in the beginner stage. With CRK being my special interest, it gives me a lot of motivation, but I'm missing in consistency. I'm not exactly in a rush though, I like for it to be fun.

Now, here are some How To Learn Korean videos I've watched. First 2 is the things to do to learn Korean, and the 3rd video is about more apps and websites (some that can be found in my pinned.)

(Immediately clocked the this person is Filipino LOL.) (Also, learning Korean in Filipino?! Waow... <- I'm learning from this now)

2 more links talking about how to start thinking in Korean.

And more yapping! Lol.

The thing that motivates me are listening to Shamil and Pyuba lines over and over, which is significantly faster for me than listening to common phrases lmao. (The former being my special interest, but the latter is still important.) I'm also doing a reread on Homestuck translated in Korean. Familiarizing myself with words that relate to my special interest and so on.

(This is for intermediate level) And I'm not exactly a K drama watcher kind of person- (Fuuuck I just remembered about Hotel Del Luna I loved the first 2 eps so much.) but Koreans post the shit postiest animations in Youtube and how the characters speak so fast is what I consider a decent intermediate listening practice if you ever want to familiarize with really fast speaking to make the slow speaking pace easier.

[bloomzone]

how did you get into studying chinese?? also any tips for beginners?

How I Got Into Studying Chinese + A Beginner's Guide!

So, a lot of you have asked me about how I started studying Chinese and tips for beginners. I thought I’d share my story and a little guide for anyone wanting to dive into this (Piàoliang ! 漂亮 - beautiful ) language! +++ I will put a link of a PDF document and free webs that will help uuu at the end !

First things first, why Chinese? For me, it’s because I’ve always been drawn to the culture—everything from the festivals, history, and even Chinese dramas. But most importantly, my dream is to get into a good college in China! 🏫Just thinking about living there, speaking the language fluently, and experiencing everything firsthand keeps me motivated.

Starting Out:

When I first started, I was overwhelmed (it’s Chinese, after all!). But once I broke it into smaller steps, things became manageable and even fun! Here’s what helped me:

Step 1: Master the Basics

Learn Pinyin: Pinyin is the Romanized system for pronouncing Chinese words. It’s like the training wheels for speaking Chinese. Apps like HelloChinese, or Duolingo (for pinyin .. it HELP TRUST ME) !

Practice Tones Daily: Chinese is a tonal language, meaning the tone you use changes the meaning of the word. Start with the four basic tones and practice them with simple words like 妈 (mā - mom), 马 (mǎ - horse), or 吗 (ma - question particle). Don’t stress if it feels awkward at first—it gets easier!

Step 2: Build Vocabulary Slowly

Focus on high-frequency words like numbers, greetings, or common verbs. Think of words you’d use every day.

Try flashcards! Apps like Anki or Quizlet are amazing for memorizing characters and words.

Step 3: Start Learning Characters

Characters might seem scary at first, but they’re not impossible! I recommend starting with basic ones like 人 (rén, person) or 好 (hǎo, good).

Practice writing them—it helps you remember better. Plus, it’s oddly relaxing!

Step 4: Immerse Yourself

Watch Chinese shows or movies (C-dramas are SO good). Even if you don’t understand, you’ll start picking up tones and common phrases.

Listen to Chinese music or podcasts. [My playlist here!] while reading lyrics to learn new words.

Step 5: Practice Speaking

Speak out loud as much as possible, even if you’re just talking to yourself.

My Top Tips for Beginners:

1. Set small goals. Start with something achievable, like learning 5 words a day.

2. Be consistent. Even just 15 minutes a day is better than cramming once a week.

3. Get a notebook. Writing down characters and vocab feels more fun

4. Celebrate your wins. Did you recognize a word while watching a show? Did you finally pronounce something right? That’s progress!

5. Don’t compare yourself to others. Everyone learns at their own pace.

PDF DOCUMENTS + SITE WEB (FOR MANDARIN LEARNING)

document n¹ if the link didn't work write down on Google ( nihao textbook 1 pdf)

document n² if the link didn't work write down on Google ( Chinese text a pdf )

site num ¹

site num²

Why You Should Keep Going:

I know learning Chinese can feel overwhelming, but trust me, every step you take gets you closer to your goal. For me, imagining myself walking around a college campus in China, speaking fluently, and making friends there keeps me inspired. If you have a big dream like mine, hold onto it—it’ll carry you through the tough days!

Remember: 加油 (jiā yóu - "keep going"). You've got this!

@bloomzone ✒️

[errorca-learns-norsk]

Free Norwegian Language Resources

I see many learners looking for Duolingo alternatives and realized I haven’t shared any new resources in a bit! So here are my personal favorite Norwegian learning resources that are completely free!

NTNU’s NoW (Norwegian on the Web) — Online independent learning course developed by a Norwegian university that progresses from beginner to intermediate level. Includes reading, audio, practice exercises, and grammar! [A1-B1 level]

Norskappen (App store link) — Fantastic vocab practice with real human spoken audio! There is also preposition practice, article gender practice, and verb practice. The app’s creator actively listens to and incorporates user feedback (link to Reddit post by creator asking for feedback). [A1-B1 level]

Norsklærer Karense on Youtube — Grammar and vocabulary videos produced by a Norwegian language teacher. Lots of in-depth explanations of grammar with examples, differences between similar words, and advice and information about taking the Norskprøven (Norway’s official language test). [A1-B2+ level]

If you are aiming to take the Norskprøven at B2 level, your best resources are often going to be the ones not designated as a “course” — reading articles on NRK or Store norske leksikon, watching Norwegian news/debate shows and podcasts (since B2 level involves being able to reason and defend an opinion) like Debatten or Dagsnytt 18, and lastly, producing your own language in written or spoken format. For that last one it helps to find a tutor who can practice with you and correct your writing, but besides that you can really come a long way for free!

Lykke til! 💫

[kiragecko]

@lordlyhour asked me for suggestions about how to get into linguistics. I'm too wordy to stuff all my thoughts into a reply, so here's a post!

Figure out what you're curious about and look into it casually. Don't take it too seriously. Linguistics is a huge field, and it can take a while to figure out which parts really resonate, so explore!

-

You want to understand more about how language changes and develops? I suggest looking up various words on Wiktionary, and clicking on various links in the "Etymology" section. Stop in the middle of thoughts to see if random words could be connected. Read through a page of words on Old-Engli . sh and see which ones you recognize. Look up a list of English prefixes and learn about where they come from and their subtleties of meaning.

Or look up Creoles and Pidgins! They are really cool, and also, because of the way they develop to bridge communication gaps, can work is interesting primers to a lot of concepts.

If you're interested in sounds, I suggest going to a site that shows an interactable IPA alphabet, and just listening to the various sounds and trying to interpret all the gobbledy-gook describing them. I mostly just use Wikipedia these days, but IPAChart is also pretty good, and there are a lot of other sites online with similar things.

Try to transcribe your own words in IPA. (You WILL be wrong, especially if you don't speak General American or a prestige British English dialect. Accept that and have fun doing it anyways!)

Watch some videos by Dr. Geoff Lindsey or Tom Scott's Language Files.

Find a bunch of pictures of your mouth and throat when forming various vowels. Read up on all the structures in your mouth/throat and how they affect sounds.

If you have fun getting thrown in the deep end, Index Diachronica has a lot of good info about historic sound changes, and PHOIBLE has a LOT of info about what sounds languages are actually likely to use, and how complex they can get. Neither is even slightly designed for newcomers, but it can be fun to play with stuff that only sort-of makes sense!

Conlangers (people who design artificial languages) also have a lot of good beginner resources! The Language Construction Kit covers all the basics in an interesting and accessible way.

Getting a book about historical linguistics from the public library can also be a great start. It will go over all the various things about language that can change, and give you a pretty good primer to the broader field while doing it. Also, you get to read about sound changes, and how sounds diverge as languages split from each other, and I LOVE that sort of thing! It's really really neat!

Also, look up the inflection systems of at least one language, because English's case system for nouns is pathetic, and our conjugation of verbs still leaves a lot to be desired. This leaves English speakers at a disadvantage when learning linguistics, because that stuff is kinda fundamental and instead we're heavily relying on word order.

I'm not nearly as interested in syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, but look into them enough to see if anything catches your eye.

-

If there's something that seems cool, look into it more. Read up on Latin, or Proto-Indo-European, or explore the Austronesian Comparative Dictionary. Look up the Indigenous languages in your area and try to learn how to actually pronounce the street names and other locations that everyone butchers. Listen to the people around you and notice the variations in dialect. Look at ALL the various meanings of 'for' or some other tiny particle, and try to understand the nuances. Whatever it is, dig in. If something is confusing, look into that. If something is distracting, note it for later, or let yourself get sidetracked.

There are fundamentals in linguistics. It helps to learn them at some point. But please have fun first! Then you'll get a better idea of which type of fundamentals you want to invest in. Because if you're interested in word change, you want to focus on very different things then if sounds systems intrigue you, or you want to understand what's happening in your brain.

[virromanus]

Where Can I Learn Latin Online?

Here are the various avenues you can go to learn Latin online.

Latin Derivatives. Find over 1750 Latin derivatives, along with definitions and usage in sentences.

Conjuguemos. Teachers and students can use this site to learn Latin (among other languages) through games and activities, which are automatically graded. They request a small payment, but will waive the fee if you cannot afford it.

Linney's Latin Class.com. William E. Linney literally wrote the book on teaching Latin and shares lessons for self-learners and homeschoolers here that include pages from his text, lectures, and homework.

Latin Language Builds Powerful English Vocabulary. Get an overview of Latin and tips for learning it easily along with links to helpful resources.

Latin: The Language of Rome Fun Worksheet #1. For $1 you can download this Latin worksheet to use personally or in the classroom. This teacher also has other versions of Latin worksheets available for the same price.

Learn Latin Quickly. This website is run by an individual as a hobby, but provides tons of information on Latin and learning Latin.

KET Distance Learning – Latin 1. Go through the lessons here in your own time, then move up to Latin 2 and Latin 3 after completing this class.

Beginners' Latin. This online tutorial doesn't require you know any Latin and steps you through the basics with twelve lessons, reference material, activities, and more.

Latin Grammar. A great resource for learning Latin, this site provides information on the five noun declensions and the four verb conjugations as well as several irregularities.

Latinitium. An online website to start learning Latin with a free e‑mail course from Latin teacher and speaker Daniel Pettersson, M.A.

Polymathy/ScorpioMartianus. A Youtube channel by Latin speaker Luke Ranieri, who teaches Latin for beginners hosted live on his YouTube Channel.

[d1ssolv3dt0by]

Hitogawari UTAU cover :D

Trigger warning: mentions of abuse, blood, and suicide (but in japanese)

This is actually my first finished UTAU cover! I'm really proud of it, feel free to give some constructive criticism in the comments tho, I'm still a beginner.

UST by taremano https://youtu.be/VTjdDA81sqw?si=TD6MDIG48Mwc0zvg

Tuning by me

Resamplers: Worldline (for the beginning og the aa's at the beginning because macres renders - は for the whisper bank weird) and macres (I'm on Chromebook which uses Linux, and those two are the only compatible ones for Linux OpenUtau😭 I wish I could use moresampler)

Software: OpenUtau and Bandlab

Voicebanks used: Kasane Teto normal, whisper, and shout

Bandlab effects used: My basic reverb (just vocal verb), REST IN BASS by juneofive, Cloud wrap, and my extra reverb (studio reverb with adjustments for more echo)

Bandlab link: https://www.bandlab.com/post/54c5833f-1544-f011-a5f1-6045bd2f3017

Youtube link: https://youtu.be/D2MxDgGaKF8?si=h_nW5YL-s4X-YpoF

[desceros]

I gotta know, gotta ask- HOW do you write the way that you do?? How does one get to that point? I've been wanting to write fanfics for awhile now, but I don't know where to start, and just... do you have any advice at all for beginners? Because you're like... really good at what you do!!

thank you so much!! that's really kind of you to say :') as for beginner tips hmmmm let's see... i'll give some specific fandom tips, then some general writing tips to kind of mix it up for you!

read/watch/etc the media carefully: specifically i mean to watch it not as a viewer, but as someone with an eye on character. pay attention to the way characters talk. what words do they use? what do they say when they're surprised? angry? sad? tired? do they change their words based on who they're talking to or where they are?

read fanworks that exist already: whenever i plan on writing for a new fandom, i'll go over to ao3 and read a few fan works. then, i take note. what are some common tropes i see? what did this author do that i liked? what did this author do that made their version of this character feel off to me? is this a fandom that likes one-shots or chaptered fics? (though you certainly don't have to see these as a rule; for example, i write long one-shots regardless of what everyone else does, just bc that's what i enjoy writing the most!) this'll help you get your writing voice in your head.

write!!!!: don't worry about writing something you're going to publish just yet. in fact, explicitly tell yourself that you're Not going to publish anything yet. but start writing. to get a prompt, you can 1) go to random word generator, get a verb, and write your character doing that verb; 2) go to one of the myriad of prompt tumblrs, a few of my favorites i have linked here; 3) pick a line of dialogue from the show that sticks out in your mind and have it be the first line of dialogue for something completely different; 4) go over to tvtropes and hit random trope until you find something that inspires a fic. then, write it! focus on getting it finished. remember, you're not publishing it, so it doesn't matter how "good" it is. just that it's finished. then, once you feel confident that you have their voice down in your head, you can start writing stuff to be published. that takes ALL the pressure off your first few attempts!

study up on basic grammar: so the thing that's really going to set you apart from other authors at first glance is your grammar. do you know to vs too vs two? their vs they're vs there? effect vs affect? breath vs breathe? lose vs loose? do you put your punctuation in the correct place? do you have proper spacing for your paragraphs? do you change paragraphs for each speaker, or do you have multiple people speaking in the same paragraph? these are things that will grind at a reader's opinion of your skill, such that even if you have an amazing story, they will hit their tolerated limit and back out. the grammarly blog is a really good resource, and if you have a specific question (e.g. "how do i punctuate dialogue?" "what is the correct spacing for an em-dash?" "), you can just google it and get the answer. this will increase your skills—and thus your confidence—immensely.

learn some cool words: so, disclaimer, i used to read the dictionary when i was a kid. i don't recommend that. but what you should do is get dictionary.com word of the day in your email, and also just. go to a thesaurus and look up words. see what other words orbit the ones you know. the more words you know, the greater your toolbox in painting a picture for your readers. you can also achieve this by reading a lot, both inside and outside of the genre that you're looking to write, which i also recommend.

***give it time!***: i just turned 33, and i started writing when i was in kindergarten when i finished everything on the bookshelf and wanted something new to read. so it's been almost exactly thirty years that i've been writing. i have an english minor with an emphasis in creative writing. with a few exceptions when my wrist is unhappy with me, i write at least 500-ish words every day. i've participated in national novel writing month almost every year since 2008. i write a lot, and i've been writing for a very long time. everything that you see me post is the culmination of all of that. being creative is like a muscle; the more you do it, the more consistently you do it, the easier it gets and the more cool shit you can do. but it's really hard in the beginning. you don't start deadlifting 400 lbs, and you don't look at someone who is deadlifting 400 lbs and think wow why can't i do that?! i must just not be very good i should give up because i'm never going to be able to do that :( no!!! that person has spent years getting to that point. and, if you start now and work consistently, little by little, someday you'll deadlift 400 lbs and you'll be like. wow!! look at me!! i did that!! writing is the same thing. start now, allow yourself to be a beginner, enjoy being a beginner (because wow, how fun is it learning something new?!), and just work a little bit every day until you look up and see what you're capable of!!

[rigelmejo]

Some notes on practicing listening skills:

Doing this chinese listening experiment (at 445 hours listened now in this year 2025), all the prior listening from the past 4 years I did really DID help as well.

It's why I debated if those prior estimated ~547 hours made a difference, then decided they definitely did. So that's 547 hours over the past 4 years 2020-2024, of extensively watching dramas, extensively listening to audiobooks, and extensively listening to audiobooks or TTS while reading along. I did not count time spent listening to cdramas with English subtitles on, though that's surely a few hundred hours on its own and may have also helped.

My listening has improved a TON this year since starting the chinese listening experiment. I can hear all words slower and clearer, it's very easy now to hear audio and know what pinyin to type to look something up.

But the prior 547 hours though caused a lot of foundational improvements that I am now relying upon. All the work I did going through dong-chinese.com's Pinyin Pronunciation Guide in year 1, year 2, and then refreshing every 6 months or so, helped me SO much in parsing shi/si zhi/zi chi/ci and zi/si/ci and all the other initials and finals. I still struggle to parse between xun and shun, but I can only imagine it'd be much more difficult if I never had the initial practice listening to the difference between xun and shun. I got practice hearing accents from Beijing, Dongbei, Shanghai, Taiwan, Guangdong, and so when I started listening to podcasts this year it felt like adjusting to listening to a British person as an American, but not an insurmountable hurdle. I already knew certain sounds could sound X different in certain accents, and could notice and hear it and make an adjustment that "oh in this accent those are X words." And I had SO MUCH practice parsing syllables, word units of 1-hanzi, 2-hanzi, 3-hanzi, 4-hanzi chengyu/sentence chunks. A lot of the word parsing skills probably came from reading as I listened. And from grammar knowledge. Its easier to tell if a word ends, if I hear an adjective marker like *de or if I hear a verb ending like zhe, guo, dao. It's easier to tell when something is Chengyu or a weird phrase if you've gotten used to running into them. Its easier to guess if a word/phrase chunk is meaningfully connected or separate concepts if you're very used to hearing them (thanks dramas) and reading them (thanks webnovels). There's some Chinese accents that read word/phrase chunks in different lengths and emphazise them, other accents where each syllable is around the same length. All of these parsing sound and phrase boundary skills I developed over the past 4 years.

You know how languages liaison the words in phrases, and being able to link sound chunks into one meaningful chunk 对不起 不明白 知道了 哪怕是 皱了皱眉 helps so much with understanding.

A total beginner would need to not just get used to tones and tone sandhi (which I still am doing), they'd need to practice parsing hearing zhoulezhoumei and recognize 1. Its all one connected action, 2. The actual initials and finals so they could type it (to look it up or use it in future), to have a chance of linking it to its hanzi (if they link with sound components which I mentally tend to) 3. It's not a chengyu, its an action. Or 哪怕是 hearing napashi and realizing the shi is 是 and not a word ending in shi. Noticing 就是 is not 九十 because even if you struggle to discriminate tones, you know the position of the word is normal for 就是 and would be an unlikely place for numbers in that sentence. Parsing names from other objects has been one of the improvements I made since starting the chinese listening experiment, which means it took over 547+ hours to even develop lmao! Listening skills are tough!

All I'm trying to say is there is a LOT of ground work in parsing sounds of another language, in listening skills development.

I do think all the listening activities that get often recommended are all helpful:

1. Going through a pronunciation guide with audio. Even if the alphabet is "similar." Doing this with French earlier could have helped me so much ;-; Doing this with Chinese saved me so many years of struggle I could've had with shi/si/zi etc.

2. Intensive listening - listening and looking words up, trains you to recognize word/phrase boundaries and chunks, and correct spelling. This could be looking up every single word as you lsiten to something, following along with a transcript, or a more chill activity like watching a drama with English subtitles and pausing to look up a word/phrase every once in a while (which is what I did in year 1 of study, and I really recommend beginners and people considering learning to do this low effort quick activity if they're interested in learning a language - you can pick up many basic phrases this way).

2. Listening while reading along - again helps match spelling to the sounds. In hanzi's case, helps match hanzi sound radicals and components to the word, and visual word to the sound. Very helpful for recognizing grammar patterns and word/phrase chunking of meaning. Doing this, along with relistening to the same audio while not reading, reinforce each other.

3. Relistening - invaluable. Either relistening to 1 small sentence or phrase several times, or longer audio several times. There's never too many times to relisten, the more the better. Absolutely one of the best pieces of advice I found on how to improve listening skills.

4. Extensive Listening - more listening always helps. Just like relistening, you can always do more and it will always help.

5. Shadowing - speaking after audio you hear, for improving listening you do not need to record your speaking and compare to the original audio (although that will also help listening). Forcing yourself to speak, with the goal of sounding as similar to the original, really makes you consider WHAT you heard. And if you say it wrong, can help you notice what element you are struggling to hear or simply can't differentiate yet.

6. Practicing minimal pairs - this is finding 2 syllables/words/phrases that sound very similar, and listening to both back to back, trying to differentiate them.

7. Listening to words with the same pronunciation in example sentences. When you find words with the Same Pronunciation (like English "No I don't want to" and "I know that!") And listening to those same-pronunciation words in Example Sentences - so you can start noticing which context each word appears more often in, what kind of position it has in the sentence, and hopefully mix up the words less when listening.

8. Listening to new words (or confusing words) and phrases in sentence examples. I do this with most new words I look up, I just find an example sentence in Pleco and read/listen to it. It helps clarify the kind of context and position it's more likely to be in. Like the 就是 versus 九十 example, those phrases just are not likely to be used the same in a sentence. Or 目前 (usually in a time-word position) versus 木钱 (i would guess this were a name if i ran into it since these aren't 1 word combined and wooden-money is an odd thing to exist in a sentence). Even if you never look up if a word is an adjective, noun, verb, subject, object, or any other grammar info, reading/hearing a word in an example sentence can help give you an intuitive idea of that kind of stuff regarding a word/phrase.

[sentryofwords]

Look below the cut

I came up with a syntax to follow for Old Ponish. I wasn’t sure what latin used, so I just used the same syntax as the guy I was watching on youtube (Biblaridion) so I could follow his course easier. If you want to start making your own language, you should check him out. He puts additional resources in the descriptions of his videos to make learning easier for beginners. The basic rules are that you always put your subject first, then your object, and your verb will always be last. Adjectives will, for the most part, be noun based, so I’m going to put them in front of the word they modify. Possessive phrases like to take after adjectives, so the possesor will come in front of the possesee, and to wrap it all up my adpositions (linking words that describe an object's temporal or spatial relationship) will become post-positions for an clean Head-Final syntax.

I also came up with a few new words, some essentials, like postpositions and adjectives to help fill out your basic sentence. The process for making words was a bit quicker this time, I just came up with a prefix or a suffix, came up with a meaning for it, then glued it to the root word. Though, doing that did change the definitions from some of the words I was originally shooting for. For example, mannuin was supposed to be personable, and I suppose it still can be, but the suffix ‘in’ means someone who embodies the concept of something or brings it to life, so suppose it could also probably be someone who speaks for the people? Like, maybe a leader of sorts would be ‘mannuin’? I think it would definitely be fun to come up with some new definitions.

[dedalvs]

Hello, I have a grammar question

Why do linguistics books say things like "the object receives the action of the verb"? I get what it means, but I also want to punch enthusiastically anyone who writes that sentence. Also are there any resources that help explain typology for a beginner?

They say that because it's a convenient metaphor—and effective, evidently, since you get what it means. I can't help with the latter. That sounds like a personal issue.

For typology, not to be all Nando's about it, but have you tried Wikipedia? There's a lot there, and all the key terms have links that explain what they mean. Seems like a good place to start.

[explainlearning]

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Know more https://explainlearning.com/blog/why-language-study-impact/

[if-confessions]

my confession is that I don't even know what a parser IF is </3

A Parser is a text-based game with text-inputs as commands (instead of clicking on a link). It usually will have puzzles to solve, in some sort of adventure form, which you can go through by inputing a verb or a verb+noun combo to create actions. It was the most prominent form of IF until about two decades ago, when hypertext started to flourish (Inkle, ChoiceofGames, Twine, Visual Novels...).

It is a very interesting way of doing Interactive Fiction, especially in terms of gameplay or creating puzzles. Many out there, especially the older ones, can be quite hard, but quite a few have walkthroughs or a hint system now. If you are starting out, I recommend playing games from the Text Adventure Literacy Project (a.k.a. games meant for beginners) or this list of Easy to Solve games. Aisle is one of my favs short IF parser game!!

Wikipedia - IFDB

[ambientaster]

Hello! I am back after a long, long hiatus haha. I am back with a masterlist for learning Albanian!!! I will update this with more later, I have like 592949294 other links to add, but this is a good start! Also I will be updating more, hopefully with my Spanish, German, and Arabic practice too! Here we go!

Albanian Language Resources

Free—————————————————————

BEST OF THE BEST: https://m.youtube.com/@LearnAlbanianOnline

This youtube channel!! <3 This channel has videos of actual Albanian classes being taught to English speakers. The teacher is a native Albanian speaker. He had slides of information and goes through many of the syntax rules of the language! It also helps to hear the English speaking students learning since you can compare how they sound with how the teacher sounds, and learn how to correct your own mistakes! 100% my most recommended first resource for beginners.

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https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol_toc/albol (https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol_toc/albol)

A wonderful resource by a university that provides many of the grammar rules for Albanian, for verbs, nouns, tenses, cases, etc.! I suggest looking at this along with a book for more context and so it is less daunting.

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https://archive.org/details/ERIC_ED195133 (https://archive.org/details/ERIC_ED195133)

The Internet Archive has a TON of free pdfs, and I found one of a book called Readings In Albanian. It has Albanian stories with an English translation side by side, and the stories start out at beginner level and increase in difficulty! A great supplemental resource.

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https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/DLI/Albanian/Volume%2001.pdf (https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/languages/DLI/Albanian/Volume%2001.pdf)

This is a 282 page PDF about Albanian for beginners, and I’m pretty sure I found it on a site that mentioned it was for the Peace Corps or something haha. Regardless, my favorite part about this resource is that about 20 pages in, it has a sketch diagram showing the human mouth/throat regions, and a chart showing how each sound is made in Albanian with its corresponding IPA letter! (IPA: international phonetic alphabet).

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Albanian (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Albanian)

The Albanian alphabet with its corresponding IPA letters. You can find interactive charts IPA letters all over the internet as well as people who read them out loud on youtube. You can use the interactive chart along with the listed letters in the wiki to learn how to say each letter properly! :)

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https://www.youtube.com/@AlbanianFairyTales (https://www.youtube.com/@AlbanianFairyTales) a great beginners resource! It has animated fairytales that are read in Albanian, with English subtitles! The reader speaks clearly and slowly, and it’s super easy to understand! Also pretty entertaining too! :)

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Studying Apps (free and paid options):

Memrise: look up Albanian on desktop, add any Albanian courses that you like, and they will show up on your mobile app (you can only add official courses on mobile). They have a set of cards for one of the books I listed as well! Some of the Albanian courses on Memrise also have audio for the words!!

Anki App for flashcards

Clozemaster for audio and reading practice

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Books:

Colloquial Albanian: The Complete Course for Beginners by Hector Campos and Linda Mëniku

Discovering Albanian by by Hector Campos and Linda Mëniku

541 Albanian Verbs by Rozeta Stefanllari and Bruce Hintz

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Courses (not free):

Udemy- Learn Albanian: Beginner to Advanced by Toby Soenen and Muhamed Retkoceri

https://www.udemy.com/share/107Vpc3@bbYWSZOx0APye82YKpfkqJr5NDWMyVoVUaanoNCaHtp-jFQGWXuy7mLCnpyS6SIlpw==/ (https://www.udemy.com/share/107Vpc3@bbYWSZOx0APye82YKpfkqJr5NDWMyVoVUaanoNCaHtp-jFQGWXuy7mLCnpyS6SIlpw==/)

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If anyone has other recommendations, please let me know! :)

[golmac]

Inform Basics (#17: your project)

I've said it before: we've covered enough material for you to start your own Inform 7 project, even if you are a beginner like me. Let's take a break from coding to talk a bit about development environments.

Have you downloaded an Inform 7 Integrated Developemnt Environment (IDE for short) yet? If you've been clicking on my code snippets, you've already encountered Borogove, an online IDE for not only Inform 7 but several other IF development platforms. Its ability to share live snippets of code that are fully functional in many forum softwares is rather amazing and makes it easer to assist other developers in need.

Nevertheless, I don't recommend it for creating a full-fledged game. Why is that?

No external file support for features like images, sound, and other shared documents.

The Index is not fully functional, as it does not contain links to either default or custom actions.

Borogove does not support Inform 7's table of contents feature (more on this in a minute).

My understanding is that it does support external files for Inkle and others, but not Inform 7. While I encourage using the snippets as a great way to share and demonstrate code, Borogove falls short of the standard Inform 7 IDEs. Windows, MacOS, and Linux are supported. You can find and download the latest versions here:

Note that Windows Defender and other antivirus softwares tend to mistakenly flag the interpreter executables--git, frotz, and glulxe--as malicious. This has been reported to Microsoft repeatedly, but the files have yet to be whitelisted. If you get an error about these files, you can consider it a false positive.

After installing the IDE, you'll find a two-panel layout. By default, the left pane is for entering and reading source code, while the right pane contains a playable instance of your compiled code. You can compile and recompile by clicking "go" at the top-left of the application window.

My practice is to create a backup of a project every couple of days, while compiling frequently as I work. In informal polling, Inform 7 authors of varying levels of skill tend to do the same.

On to the main purpose of this post: using Inform 7's built-in features to organize your program. Let's look at an automatically generated table of contents for Repeat the Ending, which is among the larger (code-wise) Inform 7 games. The left-hand pane of the IDE shows tabs at the right and top edges. The top tabs are "source" and "contents." This is a screenshot of the contents tab.

See the slider at the bottom? Inform 7's automatically generated TOC features five tiers by default, and the slider can be used to dictate the level of detail displayed. Those tiers are as follows:

Volume (top level)

Book

Part

Chapter

Section (bottom level)

We can use these tiers in our code, and the IDE will detect them automatically. The practice looks like this:

Volume 1 - Global

It's as simple as that. We have a lot of freedom in what we say there. That isn't to say there aren't restrictions:

The heading must have a blank line above and below it.

The heading cannot contain characters that have specific functions in Inform 7 code. No periods, colons, semicolons, and the like.

The heading must begin with one of the five designations (volume, book, part, chapter, and section)

You have a lot of freedom in terms of how to order your code. I've gotten the impression that I do things differently, but I like the way my approach works.

For top-level headings, I used the following:

global: used to define verbs, data, kinds, variables, the player characters, and so forth. All things that apply to the game and its world generally.

the game: the actual geography, things, and specific action responses.

the companion text: the entirety of the Reader's Guide to Repeat the Ending.

the artwork: I chose to maintain the rules governing the display of artwork and alt descriptions separately.

mix and match: a true mixture of various late stage requirements.

Regarding mix and match: some rules in Inform 7 must follow related rules. For instance, a region (a group of individual rooms that can be dealt with as a collective) must follow the room definitions. For this reason I decided to define certain rules related to regions at the end, even if they seem to be global rules. This is the way that those late definitions were used:

The game world is a region. The eighties and the 90s are in the game world. Energy is a backdrop. Energy is in the game world. Instead of doing anything to the energy: say "It doesn't work that way. Entropic magic requires specificity.".

Sometimes, things just make sense at the end. I also kept all of my test scripts there.

How should you build your TOC? While you can see my example above, give equal or greater consideration to what will be easiest for you to read and update. The TOC is a tool to for you to manage your project. If it doesn't make intuitive sense to you, it's worthless. Think about the way you process information and build from there.

I hope this is helpful! Consider maintaining a test/scratch project where you can keep copies of useful code and test the cases we discuss here. Feel free to AMA!

Next: scenery and backdrops.