All the Languages

Frankfurt am Main and Frankfurt an der Oder are two cities in Germany (both situated along rivers (Main / Oder) but in different Bundesländern)

(it also immediately made me think of that eBay conversation of "in which Frankfurt are YOU?", could not find a screenshot unfortunately, only a tiktok)

There are a few options.

First there's saying ánimo - now to be clear el ánimo as a basic noun is generally like "spirit" or "cheer" in the sense of like a mood or "in good cheer" if that makes sense? It can also refer to just your own spirit or mood

But, you can say ¡Ánimo! as a way to encourage someone kind of like "keep your chin up!" or sometimes it gets translated as "Good luck!", so you can say that or mucho ánimo and encourage someone

...

The other three options are technically verbs, so you phrase them as commands:

aguantar = to put up with, to bear, "to hold on"

resistir = to resist

rendir(se) = to give up

You're more likely to see people say ¡Aguanta! or ¡Resiste! as "Hang in there!" or "Hold on!" or even "Tough it out!"

aguantar is extremely common especially in South America as "to put up with something"

There's even an idiomatic expression that's ajo y agua which you'd see it and think "garlic and water?" but it's a bit of a vulgar expression - ajoderse y aguantar which gets shortened to ajo y agua. It literally means "(get) all fucked up and bear it", so it's a vulgar form of "grin and bear it"...

But ajo y agua is like "put up with it because there's no choice" and it's really awful

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resistir is very basic, but just know that la resistencia can be "resistance" but it's also "resilience" so it carries that particular last meaning of "hold on"

There is also the option of mantener(se) firme which is "to hold firm/fast" or "to stay strong", so as a tú command in particular someone might say mantente firme as in "keep holding on"

...

The last option is with rendirse which is "to give up/surrender", so you're going to see this as a negative command

Primarily it'll be no te rindas "don't give up" as a tú command - but otherwise no se rinda for usted, and no se rindan for plural

rendir can be a really useful verb to know - it can mean "to yield" as in another word for dar; as a reflexive, rendirse is "to give up"

It's like "render" to "surrender", literally "give" vs "give up"... just different kind of "yield" I guess

look! a fun book cover and a beautiful illustration on its own merits, by Paul Kidby who did most of the novels and official art in later years.

now. same thing in Germany:

Traffic police in Shenzhen

these all have the same standard tōkyō pitch accent, and conjugate in exactly the same way. the only way to distinguish between them in speech is... context.

i'll be posting a series of these over the next few weeks. stay tuned!

話す　to talk, converse, explain, speak a language, etc.

漢字　tale/story, talk (2nd grade, JLPT N4)

話してくださってありがとうございます。 thank you for talking with me. そんなことを話していると、チャイムが鳴った。 as we were talking, the doorbell rang.

離す　to separate, keep apart, divide

漢字　detach, separation (JLPT N1)

肌身離さず持っていてください。 please keep it close to you at all times. 「震えないで 生き足りないね　この夜だけ離れないでいて」 don't tremble; our lives aren't over yet. just for tonight, don't leave me (a lyric from this song, timestamped)

放す　to release, let go, set free, to drop into (cooking liquid)

漢字　set free, banish, liberate, release (3rd grade, JLPT N2)

言いたいことだけ言って、手を放す。 just say what you want to say and let me go (lit. 'release [my] hand'). ちょっと目を離した隙に消えていた。 as soon as i took my eyes off it, it had vanished.

additional vocabulary

チャイム　bell, chime, doorbell.

鳴く（なく）to make a sound, esp. an animal noise.

肌身離さず（はだみはなさず）lit. without separation from body or skin. close to the body. 肌身 == body, skin.

震える（ふるえる）tremble, shiver, shake.

〜隙に（すきに）while 〜 is occurring, to take advantage of the opportunity and do something else.

"Pharmacy" in Turkish is eczane /e(d͡ʒ).zɑːˈne/. Literally, the word means "drug house" but neither components are originally from Turkish:

=> ecza comes from Arabic أجزاء /ʔad͡ʒ.zaːʔ/ (plural of جزء /d͡ʒuzʔ/). It means "drugs, chemicals".

Do you know the Russian expression "Два сапога — пара"?

Literally "two boots make a pair," this common saying describes two people who share similar traits, usually negative ones. It's like finding two perfectly matched boots, except instead of celebrating the match, we're rolling our eyes at it!

Here's how it works in context: "Что ты, что твой брат — ничего не умеете делать! Два сапога — пара!" (Neither you nor your brother can do anything right! Two of a kind!)

homophones abound.....short vocab list on trading merch

谷子 [gǔzi] - millet = homophone for "goods"

吃谷 [chī gǔ] - eat millet = buying goods

谷圈 [gǔ quān] - millet circle = merch trading community

米 [mǐ] - rice = short for 人民幣 (RMB)

同人谷 [tóngrén gǔ] = doujin goods (fanmade merch)

6 - homophone for 留 (leave) = 遛一遛ID (can I have your WX ID)

初伤 [chū shāng] - initial injury = factory defects

薯条 [shǔ tiáo] - french fries = homophone for 数(量)调(查) = quantity survey, i.e. interest check for merchandise

切了 [qièle] - cut it = you/someone else bought the item

拼齐切 [pīn qí qiè] - evenly split - if you only want part of the set and want to split it with someone else after placing the order

不包不刀 [bù bāo bù dāo] - postage not included, no bargaining

对走 [duì zǒu] - 对 is homophone for 隊 (team) = selling in pairs

ddl - deadline (for payment)

云xx [yún] - cloud xx = unreleased items or items that are still being produced, or currently only exist online (in the cloud)

So for example. I speak Spanish, and i was taught to address everyone formally unless specifically invited otherwise. People explained to me that "usted" was formal, for use with strangers, bosses, and other people you respect or are distant from, while "tú" is used most often between family and good friends.

That's pretty straightforward, but it gets interesting when you see people using "tú" as a form of address for flirting with strangers, or for picking a fight or intimidating someone. In other languages I've sometimes heard people switch to formal address with partners, friends or family to show when they are upset. That's just so interesting! You're indicating social and emotional space and hierarchy just in the words you choose to address the other person as "you"!!

Not to mention the "what form of address should I use for you...?" conversation which, idk how other people feel about it, but to me it always felt awkward as heck, like a DTR but with someone you're only just becoming comfortable with. "You can use tú with me" always felt... Weirdly intimate? Like, i am comfortable around you, i consider you a friend. Like what a vulnerable thing to say to a person. (That's probably also just a function of how i was strictly told to use formal address when i was learning. Maybe others don't feel so weird about it?)

And if you aren't going to have a conversation about it and you're just going to switch, how do you know when? If you switch too soon it might feel overly familiar and pushy but if you don't switch soon enough you might seem cold??? It's so interesting.

I speak Icelandic. Icelandic doesn't have titles or last names or everyday use of a formal plural or any other obvious markers of formality and intimacy. Formality is still marked, just in non-grammatical lexical terms...but because it's not marked in ways I as a L1 English speaker recognize, it's harder for me to reproduce.

1. For folks who don't know, Japanese words/grammar change depending on formality, the genders of the speaker and listener, the age of the speaker and listener, etc.

2. But English words/grammar ALSO change depending on the above contexts described. It's just not formalized in grammar books. Consider the differences:

A. "The honor of your presence is requested for dinner this evening."

B. "I would like to invite you to dinner."

C. "Do you want to get dinner together?"

D. "Wanna grab a bite to eat?"

E. "Yo, bro, you want a burger?"

Etc. People will be like "it's wild that Japanese has different words for 'meal' depending on formality!! Gohan? Omeshi? Crazy!!!" But ENGLISH IS THE SAME WAY.

And this actually makes it harder for speakers of languages like Japanese to learn natural English, because they've been taught that there's no difference in tone between telling a waiter "I'd like a coffee" and "I want coffee." Since one of those feels easier to learn, they'll choose the option that makes them sound weirdly dickish to the waitstaff.

Faire partie de quelque chose = to be a part of something, être inclus. ex: il fait partie de l’équipe.

Percent of Workers Working From Home in the US

Part one: Sindarin words

More in the linguistic resources tag!

Quácë is the Quenya word for frog, based on an old onomatopoetic word for croak

Lopoldë means rabbit though it comes from an archaic word for the movement of horses

Leuca means snake 🐍, one of the few elven words for reptiles without a negative connotations, as most in elven languages are related to the words for evil dragons. Of course snakes are not always evil in their mentions in Tolkien’s writings, the ring of Barahir given to him by Finrod had serpent imagery 

Rusco meaning fox; this is a cognate of the Sindarin word russo

Rauro meaning lion; most mentions of lions in the legendarium are metaphorical or abstract. This is an onomatopoetic word.

Lómelindë means nightingale. It translates to dusk singer. Lirulin, the word for lark, is also related to song

Alqua means swan 🦢 and Maiwë means gull

Soron, sometimes written as thoron, means eagle

Peccuvo means squirrel, translating literally to nut hider

Mundo means bull or ox and máma means sheep

Hó or hú are the words for hound. Notably, both are also used to mean heart. Röa is also an acceptable Quenya word for dog

Rocco means horse

Things this article has taught me:

This same order of adjectives more or less applies to languages around the world.  “It’s possible that these elements of universal grammar clarify our thought in some way,” says Barbara Partee, a professor emeritus of linguistics and philosophy at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Yet when the human race tacitly decided that shape words go before color words go before origin words, it left no record of its rationale.

One theory is that the more specific term always falls closer to the noun. But that doesn’t explain everything in adjective order.

Another theory is that as you get closer to the noun, you encounter adjectives that denote more innate properties. In general, nouns pick out the type of thing we’re talking about, and adjectives describe it,” Partee told me. She observes that the modifiers most likely to sit right next to nouns are the ones most inclined to serve as nouns in different contexts: Rubber duck. Stone wall.

Rules are made to be broken. Switching up the order of adjectives allows you to redistribute emphasis. (If you wish to buy the black small purse, not the gray one, for instance, you can communicate your priorities by placing color before size).  Scrambling the order of adjectives also helps authors achieve a sense of spontaneity, of improvising as they go. Wolfe discovers such a rhythm, a feeling-his-way quality, when he discusses his childhood recollection of “brown tired autumn earth” and a “flat moist plug of apple tobacco.”

Brain scans have discovered that your brain has to work harder to read adjectives in the “wrong” order.