unclepolyglot

[unclepolyglot]

I actually really like the thing when you're starting to get the hang of a new language, enough to understand and say simple sentences but you gotta get creative to get more complex thoughts across, like a puzzle. I remember a time in the restortation school when a classmate who wasn't natively finnish and did her best anyway dropped something and sighed, telling me "every day is monday this week. I have had four mondays this week." And I understood.

I don't think I speak much of spanish anymore, but in the nursing school training period I did there, I did manage to get by with making weird Tarzan sentences. I got a nosebleed at some point and startled another nurse. Not knowing the words "humidity" or "stress", I managed to string together: "This is ok. It is hot, it is cold, I have a bad day, I am sad, I have blood. This is normal for me." And she understood.

And sometimes you just say things weird, but it's better than not saying it. One time, I was stuck in a narrow hallway behind someone walking really slowly with a walker, and he apologised for being in the way. I was not in any hurry, but didn't know the spanish word for "hurry", but I did know enough words to try to circumvent it by borrowing the english "I have all the time in the world."

The man burst into one of those cackling old man laughters that they do when something in this world still manages to surprise them. He had to be somewhere between 70 and a 100 years old, and I guess if there was one thing he wasn't expecting to hear today, it would be a random blond vaguely baltic-looking fuck casually announce that he is the sole owner and keeper of the very concept of time.

[unclepolyglot]

[unclepolyglot]

Bonus 96: What makes for beautiful writing, scientifically speaking

Sometimes, a phrase seems to leap off the page and lodge into your mind, crisp and shining like a precious jewel. Other times, you're reading something and it just won't stick, your eyes wandering away no matter how hard you try.

In this bonus episode, Gretchen gets enthusiastic about what psycholinguistics can tell us about creative writing, with Julie Sedivy, who's a psycholinguist based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and the author of two general-audience linguistics books, Memory Speaks and Linguaphile. We talk about moving from the style of scientific writing to literary writing by writing a lot of unpublished poetry to develop her aesthetic sense, how studying linguistics for a writer is like studying anatomy for a sculptor or colour theory for a painter, and how you could set up an eyetracking study to help writers figure out which sentences make their readers slow down. We also do a small linguistic experiment on air using the following words, which you can play along with: luggage, liminal, withstand, tremulous, pulchritude, zoo.

Listen to this episode about what psycholinguistics can tell us about creative writing, with Julie Sedivy, and get access to many more bonus episodes by supporting Lingthusiasm on Patreon.

[unclepolyglot]

I have a hypothesis about the "burger"-"chicken sandwich" discourse. I want to see something.

[unclepolyglot]

I have become a regular at the local cafe. I sit at the lunch counter with my laptop to write. The workers keep me updated on all the tea.

Barista: Oh god here he comes.

Me: who?

Barista: White Ferrari guy. Hes banned from the other cafe. All he ever does is tell the same stories about the pyramids. Or ghosts. Or his car. Don't make eye contact with him. If he talks to you he won't leave you alone- Hi hello welcome!

[unclepolyglot]

WHOA

[unclepolyglot]

it's time to create a fake distinction between squashed and squished where one of them is along a horizontal plane and one of them is along a vertical one and seeing how far i can take it

[unclepolyglot]

OP parcticing English (Cr 阿琛英文剧场)

[unclepolyglot]

[unclepolyglot]

In today’s new Longreads essay, Montserrat Andrée Carty writes about family and identity, growing up around different languages and cultures, and eventually embracing (and loving) her name over time.

We seek to become the truest version of ourselves, but what if there isn’t one true version, but multiple? Like father, like daughter, there are two versions of me.

At 5, I spoke all these languages fluently. Today, I only speak two of them, but understand all of them in some way, as they still live inside me.

Read her beautiful personal essay on Longreads.

[unclepolyglot]

[unclepolyglot]

is it pronounced [ʕ]if or [ɣ]if

[unclepolyglot]

[unclepolyglot]

et tu, boopte?

[unclepolyglot]

the name "theresa" is so funny like. theres a what

[unclepolyglot]

Originally posted here on reddit.

"Hello everyone, I am a PhD student at the University of Georgia studying sign second language acquisition. I am looking for hearing ASL learners to take part in an exploratory study. If you have the time to help out a poor grad student I would greatly appreciate it!"

I'm not the OP but she gave me permission to signal boost this here. Please participate if you can!

[unclepolyglot]

Originally posted here on reddit.

"Hello everyone, I am a PhD student at the University of Georgia studying sign second language acquisition. I am looking for hearing ASL learners to take part in an exploratory study. If you have the time to help out a poor grad student I would greatly appreciate it!"

I'm not the OP but she gave me permission to signal boost this here. Please participate if you can!