Flewent – translates a certain % of your article in your target language ReadLang – translates the words you click on and adds them to a flashcards deck Linguarana – same as ReadLang but it also translates expressions
Read as much as possible daily. Try to set a certain amount of pages daily/weekly.
When you listen to music, find the lyrics and follow the singers while they’re singing.
Use wattpad if you like fanfiction. The site/app allows you to receive stories in a certain language if you look at the settings. Bonus: if you add the story to the library, you can read offline on your phone.
When you watch movies, find subs in your target language; regardless the language of the movie.
Find an app/site with manga. Many apps/sites have a pretty large selection when it comes to languages and if you are a fast reader, you can read quite a lot in 10-15 minutes. Bonus: many apps allow you to read offline.
Beelinguapp is an app with fairytales in different languages. It’s pretty useful for beginners or for people who don’t feel confident enough to try something else.
Use audiobooks. If you want and have time, try reading the book at the same time. If you listen and read at the same time, you have more chances to remember the words and their spelling, pronunciation.
Choose a song in your target language. Read the lyrics and their translation once or twice. Then sing the song trying to remember the lyrics. Optional: listen to the song with the lyrics. I wouldn’t really recommend this because you might focus too much on the spelling and less on the pronunciation at some point.
Many movies and videos. It will be frustrating at first but after a while, you will get used to it and focus on what you know so you can guess what’s the meaning of what you don’t know.
Try using audiocourse or courses that focus a lot on interaction and listening like Pimsleur.
Use apps like HelloTalk, Tandem, Skype, the audio messages on Facebook etc. if you want to practice with natives.
When you learn vocabulary, try to find the pronunciation on Forvo or just choose resources with audio.
Apps/Sites like 50languages, awabe, duolingo, memrise, busuu, babbel, lingodeer etc. have audio for most of their languages so they are worth your time.
Change the speed of the videos you are watching. Youtube has such a setting.
Writing
Read a lot. When you read you pay attention to what kind of structures are used in a text and the more you read, the more you get a “feeling” if the spelling of a word is right or if the strutcure makes any sense. If i ask an advanced learner why they write “i think of” they won’t be able to explain why “of” is there and not something else but they will know at any time that it’s a construction that need to be like that.
ata: it’s like “oh okay” but it evolved to SOMETHING ELSE and you can use anytime you dont know what to say. “you need a 12/10 to finish this subject” “ata” / “My mom died and my cat is sick and my hair is falling off!!” “…ata”
treta: drama, or a clusterfuck. Like I’m so tired of drama = Cansei de tanta treta. (but we love drama)
arrombado: someone annoying or really lucky. “He won the best prize. Arrombado”
tua cara: reminds you of someone, translates to your face. “I just saw a band shirt so cool. Tua cara”
teu cu: your asshole. You know that thing you said about me? Now its about your asshole. “Dude you are so ugly I want to scream and die” “teu cu”
caguei: it translates to basically “I shitted”. Like bullshit, you don’t care. “so then Privilege McWhite kissed Banana CreamCracker” “caguei”
corno: men whose wife cheated on him, insult. “A corno like him can’t talk shit about anyone”
porre: LOTS of alcohol. “Tomei um porre” = “I drank WAY too much”
safado: someone without morals. “he just go around saying he loves them and then leaves out of nowhere” “Safado!”
nego: it would translate to n*gger, but here it lost basically all the meaning, I dont even know if it had a racist conotation to start. sometimes, you mean “sweatheart” like: “your baby is so cute” “meu nego <3″
cabueta: a tattletale. “he just told the teacher I cheated!” “Cabueta morre cedo” (tattletales die young)
oião: big eyes, someone who envy others often. “I want your dress” “saí daí (get out), oião”
ai dentu: its basically some kind of annoyed “fuck”, like when someone says something stupid, annoying or obviously a lie “I wish Brazil had a president like Trump” “aí dentu”
quenga: bitch
tribufu: ugly bitch
rapariga: bitch, and a rebelious act against portugal (where rapariga just means girl)
boçal: thinks very highly of themselves, are annoying for that. “She said she doesnt want to ride the bus” “ Ela é muito boçal”
Everyone’s like “those Germans have a word for everything” but English has a word for tricking someone into watching the music video for Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up.
I JUST LEARNED ABOUT DANISH NUMBERS ALL OTHER LANGUAGE CRIMES ARE FORGIVEN WE MUST UNITE TO DEFEAT THE TRUE EVIL
WE’VE BEEN TRYING
sincerely, the swedes
please explain
The Swedes and the Danes are like the French and the English – been at war for hundreds of years, but are now enjoying a peace built on a solid foundation of mutual shade. After becoming acquainted with the Danish numerical system I find myself sympathising with the Swedes.
@imoldbutimstillintothat tells me “they call 90 “halvfems” aka half fives and by that they mean 4*20 + 0.5*20. And same goes for 70 which they call halvfjerds. (3*20+0.5*20)”
I’ve read that sentence 3 times and I still don’t understand it
Haha sorry. They, like the French count by scores (quatre-vingt being 80) I think. So halvfems (half fives) (aka 90) are four score plus one half score of the fifth one or so I have been told. But 100 is hundrede in Danish so they’re not even making consistently no sense.
and this is all without getting into how utterly ridiculous their language is. this is just basic numbers.
Yep! This is called rebracketing. Another famous example would be “-burger”: the original food item is named after the German city, [Hamburg]+[er], but got semantically reinterpreted as [ham]+[burger]. Now it’s used as a suffix indicating a type of sandwich.
i cant believe americans on tv really say rock paper scissors like???? its paper scissors rock omg do u irl americans actually say rock paper scissors????
rb this with whether u say paper scissors rock or rock paper scissors
me normally: linguistic differences are so interesting and cool! I love hearing different dialectal variations.
me, reading “paper, scissors, rock” with my own two eyeballs: the lord is testing me
This post was inspired by years and years of watching movies, series, and fanfics royally and hilariously fuck up the use of names in the Russian language, coming to the point where, if I see another pair of best buddies call each other by full name, I will shoot something, I swear to God.
There are 3 ways people in Russia address each other, and they denote different levels of formality, and the relationship between the speakers. You should know this stuff if you wanna write anything that includes Russian people talking to each other, because if you get it wrong, it will be, alternatively, hilarious or cringe-worthy. I have seen soo much of this in fanfic it’s not funny anymore. So read up y’all!
1. Name + Patronymic.
A patronym, or patronymic, is a component of a surname based on the given name of one’s father, grandfather or an even earlier male ancestor. (thank you, Wikipedia!) A patronymic is not a middle name. Russian people don’t have middle names, period. But we all have patronymics!
Use: formal
Used towards: your teacher, your big boss, a senior citizen with whom you don’t have a close relationship (say, your classmate’s grandma), your doctor, any kind of professor or scholar when you address them formally, a client when you’re in the service industry/work with people (not always, but very often).
Example: Ivan Petrovich, Sergey Vladimirovich, Anna Anatolyevna, Maria Sergeevna, etc
Plume de Lynx 