Bienvenue

Not everything, but a lot of things

Normally it's nouns or adjectives... usually it's nouns that involve emotions, but again not always

Some common ones:

¡Qué lindo/bonito/precioso! = How cute! / How nice!

¡Qué bien! = How nice!

¡Qué asco! = Disgusting! / Gross!

¡Qué suerte/casualidad! = How lucky! / What luck! [sometimes with casualidad it can come off like "what a coincidence"]

¡Qué barbaridad! = What nonsense!

¡Qué alivio! = What a relief!

¡Qué desgracia! = What a disaster! / What a mess!

¡Qué gran idea! = What a great idea!

¡Qué mal! = That's terrible!

¡Qué frío! = It's so cold!

¡Qué calor! = It's so hot!

¡Qué lástima! = What a shame!

¡Qué pena! = How embarrassing! / What a shame! / So sad! [it can mean a lot]

¡Qué sorpresa! = What a surprise!

¡Qué emoción! = How exciting! / What a thrill!

¡Qué rico! = Delicious!

¡Qué amable! = How nice/kind!

¡Qué generoso! = How generous!

You can also see this used in more complete sentences like ¡qué susto me has dado! which is literally "what a fright you gave me" but kind of like "you gave me heart attack!" or "you scared the daylights out of me!" kind of feel

Or something like ¡qué asco me das! "you're so gross!", or vaya, ¡qué emoción! "wow that's exciting!"

It's also important to know that if you're just saying it it's considered neutral gender... aka it looks masculine like ¡que tonto! "how foolish"... but if you're saying something like ¡qué tonto/a soy! or ¡qué tonto/a eres! for "what a fool I am!" or "you're so stupid!" has to match the gender of the person/thing you're talking about

If you're looking at poetry or lyrics you might see like ¡qué bello ocaso! "what a beautiful sunset!" or ¡qué bella mujer! "what a beautiful woman!"

You'll also find that just like English you can say more or less the same thing just using a noun or its related adjective... like ¡qué generoso! "how generous" and then ¡qué generosidad! "what generosity!"

This masterpost is only for all of the linguistic topics I made posts about (which I now sorted into the respective ‘linguistic branches’). Here’s the link to my general masterpost where you can find ALL of my posts.

(I’ll try to edit & update these masterposts whenever I post something new)

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Phonetics & Phonology 

Linguistic abbreviations, consonants, and vowels

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

Pronunciation of English consonants & vowels

Stress in sentences

Unstressed [i] & [u]

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Morphology 

Morphemes

Allomorphs of {-s} and {-ed}

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Word formation 

Word formation

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Syntax 

Word classes (sentence structure #1)

Phrases (sentence structure #2)

Clause elements & clause types (sentence structure #3)

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Semantics 

Sense relations

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Pragmatics

Speech Acts

Indirect Speech Acts

Deixis & distance

Cooperative Principle & Gricean Maxims

Implicature

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Text Linguistics:

What is a text?

Text types, text forms, and text form variants

Coherence & cohesion

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Sociolinguistics:

Dialects & accents, pidgins & creoles (language varieties #1)

Style and Register (language varieties #2)

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Historical Linguistics:

The periods of the English language (History of English #1)

Diachronic vs. synchronic (History of English #2)

Proto-Languages (History of English #3)

Language Families (History of English #4)

Old English: 450 (700) - 1100

Middle English: 1100 - 1500

Early Modern English: 1500 - 1700

What happened in the year 1066 and why it was so important for the English language

i-mutation

Great Vowel Shift (GVS)

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English Linguistics:

Loan words in the English language

Loan words #2: Doublets

English tenses #1 - present tense

English tenses #2 - past tense

English tenses #3 - some differences between the tenses

English tenses #4 - future tenses & expressions with future meaning

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Other Linguistic Topics:

Analytic vs. Synthetic Language

Translation strategies

Translations: Functional Analysis of the Source Text

William : Guillaume. Lucy : Lucie. Alan : Alain. Matthew : Mathieu. Adrian : Adrien. Sebastian : Sébastien. Sophia : Sophie. Andrew : André. Veronica :  Véronique. Alexander : Alexandre. Peter : Pierre. Juliet : Juliette. Edward : Édouard. Gregory : Grégoire. Margaret : Marguerite. Dennis : Denis. Naomi : Noémie. Julius : Jules. Isabel : Isabelle. Francis : François. John : Jean. Zoe : Zoé. Theobald : Thibaut. Bridget : Brigitte. George : Georges. Lewis : Louis. Frances : Françoise. Jack : Jacques. Luke : Luc. Julian : Julien. Joan : Jeanne. Mark : Marc. Audrey : Aurélie. Oliver : Olivier. Eugene : Eugène. Ann : Anne. Stephen : Stéphane. Dorothy : Dorothée. Michael : Michel. Nicholas : Nicolas. Helen : Hélène. Cecilia : Cécile. Anthony : Antoine. Mary : Marie. Philip : Philippe. Victory : Victoire. Harry : Henri.

more french names (and their origins and meaning) : x

This is one of my favorite tricks, picked up from E.M. Forester and filtered through my own domestic-homebody lens.  Forester says that you should never ever tell us how a character feels; instead, show us what those emotions are doing to a character’s posture and tone and expression.  This makes “I felt sadness” into “my shoulders hunched and I sighed heavily, staring at the ground as my eyes filled with tears.”  Those emotions-as-motions are called objective correlatives.  Honestly, fic writers have gotten the memo on objective correlatives, but sometimes struggle with how to use them.

Objective correlatives can quickly become a) repetitive or b) melodramatic.  On the repetitive end, long scenes of dialogue can quickly turn into “he sighed” and “she nodded” so many times that he starts to feel like a window fan and she like a bobblehead.  On the melodramatic end, a debate about where to eat dinner can start to feel like an episode of Jerry Springer because “he shrieked” while “she clenched her fists” and they both “ground their teeth.”  If you leave the objective correlatives out entirely, then you have what’s known as “floating” dialogue — we get the words themselves but no idea how they’re being said, and feel completely disconnected from the scene.  If you try to get meaning across by telling us the characters’ thoughts instead, this quickly drifts into purple prose.

Instead, have them wash the dishes while they talk.

To be clear: it doesn’t have to be dishes.  They could be folding laundry or sweeping the floor or cooking a meal or making a bed or changing a lightbulb.  The point is to engage your characters in some meaningless, everyday household task that does not directly relate to the subject of the conversation.

This trick gives you a whole wealth of objective correlatives.  If your character is angry, then the way they scrub a bowl will be very different from how they’ll be scrubbing while happy.  If your character is taking a moment to think, then they might splash suds around for a few seconds.  A character who is not that invested in the conversation will be looking at the sink not paying much attention.  A character moderately invested will be looking at the speaker while continuing to scrub a pot.  If the character is suddenly very invested in the conversation, you can convey this by having them set the pot down entirely and give their full attention to the speaker.

A demonstration:

1

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

“What?”  Drizella continued dropping forks into the dishwasher.

2

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

Drizella paused midway through slotting a fork into the dishwasher.  “What?”

3

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

Drizella laughed, not looking up from where she was arranging forks in the dishwasher.  “What?”

4

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

The forks slipped out of Drizella’s hand and clattered onto the floor of the dishwasher.  “What?”

5

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

“What?”  Drizella shoved several forks into the dishwasher with unnecessary force, not seeming to notice when several bounced back out of the silverware rack.

See how cheaply and easily we can get across Drizella’s five different emotions about Anastasia leaving, all by telling the reader how she’s doing the dishes?  And all the while no heads were nodded, no teeth were clenched.

The reason I recommend having it be one of these boring domestic chores instead of, say, scaling a building or picking a lock, is that chores add a sense of realism and are low-stakes enough not to be distracting.  If you add a concurrent task that’s high-stakes, then potentially your readers are going to be so focused on the question of whether your characters will pick the lock in time that they don’t catch the dialogue.  But no one’s going to be on the edge of their seat wondering whether Drizella’s going to have enough clean forks for tomorrow.

And chores are a cheap-n-easy way to add a lot of realism to your story.  So much of the appeal of contemporary superhero stories comes from Spider-Man having to wash his costume in a Queens laundromat or Green Arrow cheating at darts, because those details are fun and interesting and make a story feel “real.”  Actually ask the question of what dishes or clothing or furniture your character owns and how often that stuff gets washed.  That’s how you avoid reality-breaking continuity errors like stating in Chapter 3 that all of your character’s worldly possessions fit in a single backpack and in Chapter 7 having your character find a pair of pants he forgot he owns.  You don’t have to tell the reader what dishes your character owns (please don’t; it’s already bad enough when Tolkien does it) but you should ideally know for yourself.

After getting a number of questions, I created PDF documents that can help with productivity and adulthood. They are mostly written in English, some in French; some are to be filled up, some to be read. Add your requests below! Here's the link.

Love,

Mum

Temps, m:

I haven’t got much time: Je n'ai pas beaucoup de temps

You still have time: Tu as encore du temps

It was done in no time: Ça a été fait en un rien de temps

I’ve been gone for a long time: Je suis partie depuis longtemps

He was ahead of his time: Il était en avance sur son temps  

Moment, m:

Now is not the time: Ce n’est pas le moment

It could happen at any time: Cela pourrait arriver à tout moment

At that point, I said no: À ce moment-là, j’ai dit non

In that case, I’ll leave earlier: À ce moment-là, je partirai plus tôt  

Fois, f:

This time, I will be there: Cette fois, je serai là

Once upon a time: Il était une fois

Three times a day: Trois fois par jour 

Two at a time: Deux à la fois

The last time I saw her: La dernière fois que je l’ai vue

2 times 2 is 4: Deux fois deux égalent quatre

Heure, f:

I need to leave on time: Il faut que je parte à l’heure

It was two o'clock: Il était deux heures

What time do you wake up?: À quelle heure te lèves-tu? 

Mesure, f (music):

To keep time: Battre la mesure

In time: En mesure

Bar line: La barre de mesure

Les voyelles :

[a] : cinéma (cinema, m)

[ɑ] : château (castle, m)

[e] : clé (key, f)

[ɛ] : père (father, m)

[ə] : jeu (game, m)

[i] : souris (mouse, f)

[o] : rose (rose, f)

[ɔ] : océan (ocean, m)

[ø] : jeudi (thursday)

[œ] : peur (fear, f)

[u] : chou (cabbage, m)

[y] : illusion (illusion, f)

Les voyelles nasales :

[ɑ̃] : chanter (sing)

[ɛ̃] : jardin (garden, m)

[ɔ̃] : ronfler (snore)

[œ̃] : un (one, m)

Les semi-voyelles :

[j] : lieu (place, m)

[w] : oui (yes)

[ɥ] : huile (oil, f)

Les consonnes : 

[b] : bête (beast, f)

[d] : déjeuner (lunch, m)

[f] : faim (hunger, f)

[g] : gâteau (cake, m)

[ʒ] : ange (angel, m)

[k] : cadeau (gift, m)

[l] : lait (milk, m)

[p] : pain (bread, m)

[ʁ] : roi (king, m)

[s] : sel (salt, m)

[t] : table (table, f)

[v] : violon (violin, m)

[z] : maison (house, f)

[ʃ] : chocolat (chocolate, m)

Les consonnes nasales : 

[m] : miel (honey, m)

[n] : nez (nose, m)

[ɲ] : agneau (lamb, m)

[ŋ] : parking (parking lot, m)

This post's younger sibling:

Afrique noire, f: Sub-Saharan Africa

Alerte rouge, f: code red

Arme blanche, f: bladed weapon

Argent noir, m: dirty money

Avocat marron: corrupted lawyer

Bête noire, f: pet peeve

Blanc cassé, m: off-white

Blanc de poulet, m: chicken breast

Bleu roi, m: royal blue

Bouton d'or, m: buttercup

Carnet rose!, m: when someone is pregnant (ex: Carnet rose! Pauline et Mathieu attendent un heureux événement!)

Carte blanche, f: free reign

Carte bleue, f: bank card

Carte grise, f: car registration document

Carton jaune, m: yellow card (euro football)

Carton rouge, m: red card (euro football)

Casque bleu, m: United Nations soldier

Chambre noire, f: dark room (photography)

Chèque en blanc, m: blank check (no amount)

Chevalier blanc, m: white knight

Citron vert, m: lime

Cône orange, m: traffic cone (casual)

Cordon bleu, m: great cook

Dérouler le tapis rouge: rolling out the red carpet

Donner le feu vert: giving the green light

Drapeau noir, m: black flag

En voir des vertes et des pas mûres: being in a harsh situation

Énergie verte, f: clean power

Esclave marron-ne: runaway slave

Examen blanc, m: mock exam

Faire chou blanc: coming back empty-handed

Feu vert, orange, rouge, m: traffic lights

Forêt noire, f: Black Forrest cake

Fromage bleu, m: blue cheese

Fruits rouges, m: red berries

(Avoir) grise mine, f: looking sad

Habits rouges, m: British army

Haricot rouge, m: kidney bean

Haricot vert, m: string bean

Humour noir, m: dark humour

Liste noire, f: black list

Livre d'or, m: visitors' book

Lumière noire, f: black light

A Writing Cheat Sheet: for linking actions with emotions. 

but when one of my classmates speaks arabic in public to her family, she gets strange and disgusted looks. no one asks to be taught arabic. no one says its cool that shes bilingual

but arabic though……my friend speaks it a lot. she speaks it with her immediate family. despite her talking in english at school, she knows many out-of-town people who speak arabic. the circle of people she can speak arabic to is huge. its a very useful language, especially considering the refugees coming in. theres not even anything particularly bad sounding about it? 

so its racism. arabic is primarily spoken by middle eastern people. french is primarily spoken by white people. my middle eastern friend gets strange and disgusted looks for speaking her language. my white ass gets praised for speaking mine. its racism 

An article by Kensy Cooperrider in Aeon about gestural theories for the origin of language. Excerpt: 

Proposals about the origins of language abound. And it’s no wonder: language is a marvel, our most distinctive capacity. A few slight movements of tongue, teeth and lips, and I can give you a new idea, whisk you somewhere else or give you goosebumps. Any thought a human can think, it would seem, can be shared on a puff of air. Explaining how this all started has been called the ‘hardest problem in science’ and it’s one that few can resist. Linguists, neuroscientists, philosophers and primatologists – not to mention novelists and historians – have all taken cracks at it.

Over this long and colourful history, one idea has proven particularly resilient: the notion that language began as gesture. What we now do with tongue, teeth and lips, the proposal goes, we originally did with arms, hands and fingers. For hundreds of thousands of years, maybe longer, our prehistoric forebears commanded a gestural ‘protolanguage’. This idea is evident in some of the earliest writings about language evolution, and is now as popular as ever. Yet even as the popularity of the ‘gesture-first’ theory has surged, its major weakness – a flaw some consider fatal – has become all the more glaring.

contains 34 textbooks including etymology, language acquisition, morphology, phonetics/phonology, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, & translation studies

dropbox containing language textbooks

contains 86 language textbooks including ASL, Arabic, (Mandarin) Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hebrew (Modern & Ancient), Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovene, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh

dropbox containing books about language learning

includes fluent forever by gabriel wyner, how to learn any language by barry farber, polyglot by kató lomb

lit. to put one’s hand in the fire

→ to be convinced of something, to swear that you’re saying the truth

Ex: la porte était fermée, j’y mettrais ma main au feu !

It’s also often used in the negative form, to say that we’re not sure about something:

Ex: je crois que je l’ai vu mais j’y mettrais pas ma main au feu. (we tend to say it like this but the correct form would be “je ne mettrais pas”)