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B y e

I’m handing my tumblr password to my sister, and she will only give it back to me once I hand her a completed manuscript. I’ve got lots of stuff queued until then, so you shan’t miss me. Follow your dreams, everyone.

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Learn Holidays Signs | Learn American Sign Language | Nyle DiMarco [x]

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What do french people call a really bad thursday?

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historical youtubers

les revues du monde by charlie danger

nota bene by ben 

c’est une autre histoire by manon bril

axolot by patrick baud

horror humanum est by cédric villain

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For the French learners #2

Hopes it’s useful for somebody ! I use the A1 A2 B1 B2 C1 C2 system sometimes.

Fun/Parody channels

- Lollywood : they do videos of situations or objects (not clear, I know, but they can do videos of meetings just like what’s inside a smartphone’s head). Videos like this are super easy to understand and are slow, so perfect for A2+ french learners. Plus they can be funny.

- McFly & Carlito : channel where a lot of famous french youtubers sometimes gather to have fun. Behold, slang ahead. They also do songs and one of them became famous in high schools : it’s this one, it’s a battle between two “sections” in high school.

- Norman fait des vidéos : another famous youtuber. He does humoristic videos like Squeezie and Cyprien. Good channel for all levels.

- Les Parodie Bros : Spoiler alert, they do parodies and humoristic videos. Easy to understand, you should try it. I personnally don’t watch them but I listened to them and new learners can get how we prononce things and easy vocab.

- La Chaine de Jeremy : he does humoristic videos and is pretty easy to understand, even tho some of his vocab is more advanced learner-worthy. You’ll learn about french culture too ! 

- JIGME : this guy is crazy (good kind), talks fast and has asian origins. He makes videos about humoristic things and asian stereotypes, plus once again, he’s crazy so it’s fun to watch. 

- Pat la réalisation : same as the two above, does humoristic videos plus court-métrages and he really likes KFC. He’s also friend with half of those I presented so far in the fun sections and you can see him with a lot of other youtubers including this video about their group fighting here (not much talking but it’s well done).

KNOWLEDGE CHANNELS

- Arte : This channel is so important for the french knowledge lovers. I mean, really important. To keep it simple: Arte is a public tv channel showing all kinds of documentaries every day. And I mean every day. They put their documentaries on YouTube almost at the same time as on tv, they have a website with every FREE documentary, and have documentaries on every topic. You can have short videos just like hour-long docs, and on YouTube, they put subs in french under them for the deaf french ! Check out those channels that are from Arte as well;  Tu mourras moins bêtes (great for vocab), Arte plus (for tv shows and movies, FREE). You can also see the Arte News about the world and Europe on the website, twice a day. LOOK AT IT. 

- Le Monde : the famous newspaper publishes videos about so many subjects, in french and with subs (I’m not sure).

- Les boloss des belles lettres: this channel is about doing a resume of famous books using slangs, and it’s said by an old guy that France respects a lot, and who’s dead now. Warning ! Only the best B2 and C1 should try it, it’s super complicated to understand what is said if you haven’t read the book and don’t know a lot of french slangs. Seriously. Half of the time, I don’t understand and I’m french. So beware !

- Le Fossoyeur de films : Listening to this guy is so awesome. He does videos about movie reviews and they’re very well-made. Moreover, he analyses cliches, elements and plots used in movies in general like here. He talks clearly, uses vocab you should be able to understand if you’ re A2+. You should give him a shot !

- Axolot : This guy talks about science and weird things and is very interesting. He talks very slowly, so you’ll understand at least a little bit. For the vocab, it’s not super hard, plus the pictures in his videos will help you. 

- E-Penser : For every science nerd out there ! He talks clearly, slowly, and his videos are available with french and English subs (most of them at least). He talks about things like illusions, atoms etc. 

- Pour la Petite Histoire : this channel recalls an event and explains it in circa 5 minutes. It’s easy to understand and you’ll learn a lot !

- Cyrus North : this guy explains a lot of philosphers and their ideas. He uses really good exemples and fun to convey the beliefs he wants us to understand. You should try it ! It’s pretty easy to understand, there are some slangs but he talks clearly.

Now, for those interested in the French school system:

- Les Bons Profs : Every teen knows this channel. They have resume of the lessons you need to learn for our final exam. You’ll have all of the program we follow during high school. 

I’m stopping there, I’ll do another one soon and add movies and websites. Once again, reblog it as much as you want. 

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How to teach yourself linguistics online for free

Wish you were enrolled in an intro linguistics class this semester? Starting a linguistics major and looking for extra help? Trying to figure out whether you should study linguistics and what comes after?  Whether you’re just trying to grasp the basics of linguistics or you’re trying to construct a full online linguistics course, here’s a comprehensive list of free linguistics websites, podcasts, videos, blogs, and other resources from around the internet: 

Linguistics Podcasts

Specific episodes:

The International Phonetic Alphabet and vowels

Constituency

Gricean Maxims and presuppositions

Kids These Days aren’t ruining language

Learning languages linguistically

Phonemes

Prepositions and determiners

Morphemes and the wug test

Podcasts in general:

Lingthusiasm

The History of English Podcast

Talk the Talk

Lexicon Valley

The World in Words

A Way With Words

Linguistics Videos

Modular topics:

NativLang (cartoons)

The Ling Space

Tom Scott’s Language Files

Arika Okrent (whiteboard videos)

Structured video series like an online course:  

Introduction to Linguistics (TrevTutor)

Another intro linguistics series (DS Bigham)

Phonology (TrevTutor)

Mathematical linguistics (TrevTutor)

Syntax (TrevTutor)

Another syntax series following the chapter structure of a free online syntax textbook (Caroline Heycock)

The Virtual Linguistics Campus at Marburg University

“Miracles of Human Language” (on Coursera from Leiden University)

Blog posts

General

How much do I need to know before taking intro linguistics? (Spoiler: not much) 

28 tips for doing better in your intro linguistics course

How to find a topic for your linguistics essay or research paper

For typesetting linguistics symbols: What is LaTeX and why do linguists love it? (with sample LaTeX doc to download and modify).

Further linguistics resources about specific areas, such as sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, language acquisition (first/second), historical linguistics, neurolinguistics, prescriptivism. 

Phonetics & Phonology

How to make your own paper model of the larynx

Teaching phonetics using lollipops

How to remember the IPA vowel chart

How to remember the IPA consonant chart

IPA transcription practice

A detailed explanation of sonorants, obstruents, and sonority

A very elaborate Venn diagram of English phonological features

The basics of how Optimality Theory works, with coffee analogy

Allophones of /t/, explained with internet gifs

Several good visualizations and explanations of the vocal tract

How to type IPA on your phone (Android and iOS) 

Various ways to type IPA on a computer

Morphology & Syntax

Morphological typology cartoons

So you asked the internet how to draw syntax trees. Here’s why you’re confused.

Types of trees: a sentence is an S, a sentence is an IP, a sentence is a TP

A step-by-step guide to drawing a syntax tree, with gifs

Distributed Morphology

Garden path sentences: how they work, some examples

Structural ambiguity and understanding people in Ipswich

How to draw trees on a computer (TreeForm and phpSyntaxTree) 

Pronoun typology and “the gay fanfiction problem”

The solution to violent example sentences: Pokemon

Semantics & Pragmatics

The difference between epistemic and deontic, necessity and possibility (with bonus modals as Hogwarts houses)

Why learn semantics? Comebacks to annoying people.

Presuppositions, implicature and entailment, and more presuppositions in Lizzie Bennet Diaries

Gricean maxims in Welcome to Night Vale

Scalar implicature and a duck gif

Giving a shit about Negative Polarity Items, NPIs explained using Mean Girls references, and a follow-up on Free Choice Items

The lambda calculus for absolute dummies

The Lambda Calculator (software for practising in Heim & Kratzer style)

Teaching & Academic/career advice

Linguistics resources for high school teachers

Teaching linguistics to 9-14 year olds

On writing an IB extended essay in linguistics (& follow-up)

IPA Bingo

IPA Jeopardy and IPA Hangman

Practising syntax trees using cards and string/straws

Find a linguistics olympiad near you!

Editing linguistics Wikipedia articles instead of writing a final paper that no one but the prof will read (see also wikiedu.org)

Should you go to grad school in linguistics? Maybe

Figuring out if you actually want to go to linguistics grad school

How to decide which linguistics grad school to go to

How to look for linguistics undergrad programs

How to interact with someone who’s just given a talk

An extensive list of undergrad and/or student-friendly conferences - apply to one near you!

Advice for linguistics profs on increasing enrollment and supporting non-academic careers

Linguistics jobs - a series about careers outside academia

Languages

Linguistic approaches to language learning resource roundup

Will linguistics help with language learning? / Will learning a second language help with linguistics?

The problem with ��economically useful” as a reason for language learning

Further link roundups

This list not enough? Try these further masterposts: 

A very long list of linguistics movies, documentaries, and TV show episodes

A list of books (fiction and nonfiction) about linguistics

A comprehensive list of language and linguistics podcasts, from Superlinguo 

A very long list of linguistics YouTube channels and other free online videos about linguistics 

20 linguistics blogs I recommend following

How to explain linguistics to your friends and family this holiday season

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Luis Miguel Rojas-Berscia has a command of 22 living languages:

Spanish

Italian

Piedmontese

English

Mandarin

French

Esperanto

Portuguese

Romanian

Quechua

Shawi

Aymara

German

Dutch

Catalan

Russian

Hakka Chinese

Japanese

Korean

Guarani

Farsi

Serbian

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here’s some more information about pronouns in french. i’ve been looking at several parisian lgbt groups and this is an image that helped me to visualize how gender neutral pronouns work in such a gendered language, even if they’re not widely recognized.

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http://www.hanbridgemandarin.com/article/business-chinese-learning-tips/chinese-office-vocabulary/

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Hi! So I speak Russian (not exactly fluently, haven't practiced much recently), and I told this to an internship I'm starting at an archival library. They asked if I could translate Russian records (likely genealogy, possibly other old documents as well). Do you know of any resources for studying vocabulary likely to be found on old documents, for brushing up on reading cursive, etc? Спасибо!

Hi! For that specific vocabulary vocabulary, I can only suggest to read a lot history books, for example, here. If you have an access to archives in Russian, start working with them. Pick the topic and start your own little research - that would add some fun and purpose to your vocabulary building practices.

Russian handwriting is not standardized - every person develops their own handwriting style. Some people are lucky to have very clear and readable handwriting. I am not one of them. I usually struggle with reading my own handwriting. And some people have a talent, they can read handwriting fast and easy - even  the one like mine, when every letter has its own angle :) 

Dear friends, can you help your fellow language lover with the links? Thank you!

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Когда жутко устал 😸 Иллюстратор: Bird Born

Когда жутко устал 😸 Иллюстратор: Bird Born

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😼

😼

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Когда просто хотел потоптаться по тесту и что-нибудь украсть со стола, но дурацкий человек заставил позировать для фото

Когда просто хотел потоптаться по тесту и что-нибудь украсть со стола, но дурацкий человек заставил позировать для фото

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apartment vocab in mandarin

公寓 gong1 yu4 apartment 

栋「棟」dong4 measure word for houses or buildings

层「層」ceng2 measure word for layers, floors of a building

搬家 ban1 jia1 to move

房东「房東」fang2 dong1 landlord

房租 fang2 zu1 rent for a room or a house

出租 chu1 zu1 to rent

合租 he2 zu1 co-renting, to rent together

签合同「簽合同」qian1 he2 tong2 to sign a contract

地板 di4 ban3 floor

墙壁「牆壁」qiang2 bi4 wall

阳台「陽台」yang2 tai2 balcony

电梯「電梯」dian4 ti1 elevator

楼梯「樓梯」lou2 ti1 stairs

窗户「窗戶」chuang1 hu window

家具 jia1 ju4 furniture

家用电器「家用電器」jia1 yong4 dian4 qi4 household electric appliances

家电「家電」jia1 dian4 abbreviation for 家用电器

空调 kong1 tiao2 air conditioning

洗衣机「洗衣機」 xi3 yi1 ji1 washing machine

烘干机「烘乾機」 hong1 gan1 ji1 clothes dryer 

冰箱 bing1 xiang1 refrigerator

桌子zhuo1 zi table

椅子 yi3 zi chair

炉子「爐子」 lu2 zi stove

烤箱 kao3 xiang1 oven

微波炉「微波爐」 wei1 bo1 lu2 microwave

洗碗机「洗碗機」 xi3 wan3 ji1 dishwasher

沙发「沙發」 sha1 fa1 sofa

茶几 cha2 ji1 coffee table

灯「燈」 deng1 light, lamp

书柜「書櫃」shu1 gui4 bookshelf

垃圾桶 la1 ji1 tong3 trashcan 

厨房「廚房」 chu2 fang2 kitchen

卫生间「衛生間」 wei4 sheng1 jian1 bathroom, restroom

厕所「廁所」 ce4 suo3 toilet

客厅「客廳」ke4 ting1 living room

卧房「臥房」wo4 fang2 bedroom

她和其他三个女孩合租一套房子。She rents a house with 3 other girls.

他们与另一家合租一座房子度夏。They teamed up with another family to rent a house for the summer.

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Mandarin Resources

Chinese Boost grammar: This page has a list of different levels of Mandarin grammar for you to explore. What you do is choose your level and then pick a grammar pattern from the articles under that level. Each article is clearly written and gives multiple examples to help you understand what you’re learning.

a folder of many many mandarin resources

Just Learn Chinese: This website has so many things. There’s vocab/idiom explanations, grammar, and best of all stories/novels. The stories are divided into different levels of difficulty and, when reading the actual stories, have a popup dictionary when you hover over a word. The website is run by a native Mandarin speaker.

Carl Gene: Carl Gene is a professional translator and this is his blog. I’d say the stuff he posts is a little more advanced but it’s certainly worth looking around. He posts about Chinese language and history, as well as his experience working as a translator and interpreter. Really interesting stuff.

中外对话 China Dialogue: China Dialogue is a website dedicated to stories about China’s environmental issues and the articles can be read in either Mandarin or English. This is a much more advanced reading source and it is not divided into levels of difficulty. 

The Chairman’s Bao: This is an online newspaper that has stories for each HSK level. When you go to an article, you can highlight words you don’t understand and the definition will appear to the right of the text. There’s a wide range of topics covered in their articles so you’re bound to find something you like.

Read 漫画 Manhua Online: All of the manhua are written by native speakers (at least i think they are) and they’re free to read. The whole website is in Mandarin so it might that a little bit of legwork to figure out how to find what you want. I just leaf through the manhua that are at the top of the page.

Read Chinese: This website offers a huge number of texts for beginner, intermediate, and advanced learners in both traditional and simplified characters. After reading each passage there are a few questions you answer to test your comprehension of what you just read. Each passage also has pinyin, but rather than putting it with the characters it is put underneath the passage so you are forced to focus just on the characters while reading.

Hanzi Grids: Here you can make your own printable grids for practicing hanzi. To get started you just have to quickly make a free account on the website using your email. After doing so you can start working on your grid. There are some features that you have to pay for but you can still make a basic grid without the subscription. 

Easy Mandarin Books to Read: This is just a short list of suggestions for simple books to read in Mandarin. Most of them are children’s books or books of tales.

Mandarin Weekly: Mandarin Weekly is a weekly newsletter that includes loads of resources for Mandarin for all levels. The weekly emails include resources for vocab, grammar, culture, and much more. 10/10 would recommend subscribing especially since it’s free.

Ninchanese: This is a fun little website full of games and an entertaining story to help you learn basic Mandarin. There’s also an app for it so you can play both on your phone and on your computer.

Phonetic Sets of Characters: As the name suggests, this is a list of characters that have similar pronunciations. In this list they cover characters that have the same pronunciation for everything including tones and characters that have the same initials and finals but different tones. There are two other categories of similarity, but this list only covers the two.

BONUS:

The Grass Mud Horse Lexicon: This is a special gift for you all. I suggest you explore it and have fun.

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Do you feel alright?

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Why I love Russian

When Russians get tipsy they say “У меня вертолёты.” Lit. “I have the helicopters.”

There are two kinds of envy in Russian. “белая зависть” or “white envy” which is the good kind, where ultimately you are genuinely happy for the person and their good fortune. I think you can guess the other kind.

Russian’s terms of endearment are the best. “Солнышко” lit. “my small sun” and “Дорогуша” meaning “dearie” are among my favorites

Your first semester as a uni student is called “Боевое крещение” lit. “baptism by fire.” 

 When a Russian person feels like you are pulling their leg, they might say “Не надо мне лапшу на уши вешать” which means “don’t try to play me.” The literal translation? “Don’t hang noodles on my ears”

Russian people like to show their love for something by using diminutives, so phrases like “Буду кусочек этого тортика” lit. “I’ll have a teeny tiny piece of that cakey” and “Мне очень понравился этот супчик” lit. “I really liked that soupy-soup” are a common thing. My favorite diminutive, though? It’s “cпасибочки!” which literally means “Thankie!”