Languages as a lifestyle

I was watching TED talks, as you do, and thought ha I wonder how many languages they have and I stumbled across this language heaven! They have over 100 languages and subtitles are available in various languages which is honestly terrific! I think the scope and depth of topics offered by TED talks could be a great way to broaden your vocabulary in areas which you wouldn’t otherwise be able to particularly for intermediate and advanced learners. Anyway happy watching and learning! (Links down below, click read-more link.)

Me: Well, I guess you could say that.

ns: *says something*

me: …

I love languages. I loved learning them since I was little. Here are some quotes for the people who share the same passion as me. :)  Which one is your favourite?

❝If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.❞ -Nelson Mandela

❝One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.❞-Frank Smith

❝ Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt. ❞ The limits of my language are the limits of my world. -Ludwig Wittgenstein, German

❝Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can; there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.❞ -Sarah Caldwell

❝ Un vocabolario può contenere solo una piccola parte del patrimonio di una lingua.❞ A dictionary can embrace only a small part of the vast tapestry of a language. - Giacomo Leopardi,Italian

❝To have another language is to possess a second soul.❞ -Charlemagne

❝ یک زبان جدید یک زندگی جدید است. ❞ A new language is a new life. -Persian Proverb

❝ Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen. ❞ Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German

❝You can never understand one language until you understand at least two.❞ -Geoffrey Willans

❝   学一门语言，就是多一个观察世界的窗户。❞ To learn a language is to have one more window from which to look at the world.  -Chinese proverb

❝Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.❞ -Rita Mae Brown

❝ Kolik jazyků znáš, tolikrát jsi člověkem.❞ As many languages you know, as many times you are a human being. -Czech proverb

❝ If you want people to understand you, speak their language. ❞ -African Proverb 

❝ Bir dil bir insan, iki dil iki insan. ❞ One who speaks only one language is one person, but one who speaks two languages is two people.  -Turkish Proverb

❝ With languages, you are at home anywhere. ❞ - Edward De Waal

❝ Kolik jazyků znáš, tolikrát jsi člověkem. ❞ As many languages you know, as many times you are a human being  -Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Czech

❝ Learning a language is to understand other;to form connections ❞ -unknown

❝ Notitia linguarum est prima porta sapientiae ❞ Latin. Knowledge of languages is the doorway to wisdom. - Roger Bacon 

❝ Change your language and you change your thoughts. ❞ -Karl Albrecht

❝ Скільки мов ти знаєш, стільки разів ти людина. ❞ How many languages you know, hat many times you are a person. - Pavlo Tychyn, Ukranian

…and don’t forget;

So there’s this thing we say to express the way we act, the way we acted or the way we’re gonna act, and it’s:

EN MODE

Basically, it ressembles the “be like”

Here’s an example of what my best friend just sent me:

To translate:

Okay there’s a possibility I might go talk to him

And be like

Hey I’ve got a crush on you bye

Hahahaha

Here i have an example to illustrate its general use:

When she said so, we were all like “We know you’re lying to us, sweetheart”, but we didn’t say anything.

Cuando lo dijo, estábamos en plan “Sabemos que nos está mintiendo, cariño”, pero no dijimos nada.

We went to the beach in a relaxed mood (?), although when we got there it was crowded.

Fuimos a la playa en plan tranquilos, pero cuando llegamos estaba llena de gente.

He said it to me in a cool way, but he was actually mad.

Me lo dijo en plan de buenas, pero en realidad estaba enfadado.

The term “past participle” in Spanish is a fancy word for the difference between “to write” and “written”.

A past participle is an adjectival form of the verb. It is typically used in three different ways:

Used with haber = haber pintado “to have painted”

Used as a regular adjective = la pared es pintada “the wall is painted” / la ventana está abierta “the window is open”

Used with the passive voice = la pared fue pintada por mí “the wall was painted by me”

The good news is that past participles are very easy in Spanish. Most of the verbs in Spanish have completely regular past participles. In fact, many of the most irregular verbs have completely regular past participles.

This means…

Regular Past Participles

-ar verbs turn to -ado | cantado [cantar “to sing”], hablado [hablar “to speak”], estado [estar “to be”], dado [dar “to give”]

-er verbs turn to -ido | comido [comer “to eat”], aprendido [aprender “to learn”], conocido [conocer “to know/to meet”], sabido [saber “to know”]

-ir verbs turn to -ido | salido [salir “to exit”], ido [ir “to go”], venido [venir “to come”]

The list of totally irregular verbs is much smaller

Irregular Past Participles

ver = to see | visto

romper = to break | roto

hacer = to do/make | hecho

escribir = to write | escrito

abrir = to open | abierto

cubrir = to cover | cubierto

decir = to say | dicho

volver = to turn/return/revolve | vuelto

resolver = to resolve | resuelto

morir = to die | muerto

freír = to fry | frito

poner = to put | puesto

And by extension, these past participles can affect words that use the above words as root words [minus decir and romper]

revolver = to revolve | revuelto

envolver = to involve/to wrap | envuelto

devolver = to return, give back | devuelto

componer = to compose | compuesto

exponer = to expose | expuesto

deshacer = to unmake/to get rid of | deshecho

satisfacer = to satisfy | satisfecho

descubrir = to discover | descubierto

describir = to describe | descrito*

prever = to foresee | previsto

entrever = to glimpse/to suspect | entrevisto

sofreír = to sauté | sofrito*

What’s more likely is that you’ll end up with a past participle with an accent. These are pretty common. The reason they exist is because of words ending in -aer, -eer, and -ír. They don’t exist for -ar verbs.

The reason these stressed past participles exist is to preserve the sound. Because if you have creer “to believe”, you only take off the final -er… which would leave you with “creido”. In Spanish, ei is a diphthong… meaning “creido” would be pronounced like reina “queen”… making it sound like “creydo”. To preserve the cre- sound, an accent is added. Thus making it creído. The same exists with oído from oír “to hear”… because oído would be pronounced like hoy making it sound like “oydo” instead of its proper sound of oído.

The accent is just there to make it easier for people to pronounce it when they see it.

So for example…

Stressed Past Participles

leer = to read | leído

creer = to believe | creído

oír = to hear | oído

caer = to fall | caído

reír = to laugh | reído

sonreír = to smile | sonreído

poseer = to possess | poseído

traer = to bring | traído

In fact, there are actually more verbs with secondary participles than there are totally irregular ones. MOST OF THE TIME, the preferred participle is the one that looks most like a regular verb’s [-ado, -ido, -ido]… even if they come from irregular verb.

But occasionally, they are used in informal conversation.

*Secondary Participles

[verb = definition] | preferred, secondary

describir = to describe | descrito, descripto

prescribir = to prescribe | prescrito, prescripto

inscribir = to inscribe | inscrito, inscripto

sofreír = to sauté | sofrito, sofreído

bendecir = to bless | bendecido, bendito

maldecir = to curse | maldecido, maldito

absorber = to absorb | absorbido, absorto

dividir = to divide | dividido, diviso

convencer = to convince | convencido, convicto

corromper = to corrupt, to eat away | corrompido, corrupto

producir = to produce | producido, producto

conducir = to guide, to conduct, to drive (Spain) | conducido, conducto

confesar = to confess | confesado, confeso

imprimir = to stamp/to print | imprimido, impreso

confundir = to confound, to confuse | confundido, confuso

elegir = to choose, to elect | elegido, electo

prender = to apprehend, to arrest | prendido, preso

presumir = to presume | presumido, presunto

poseer = to possess | poseído, poseso

proveer = to provide, to arrange for | proveído, provisto

despertar = to awaken, (despertarse) to wake up | despertado, despierto

suspender = to suspend, to leave hanging | suspendido, suspenso

soltar = to release, to let loose | soltado, suelto

*An odd thing with imprimir is that while it has the secondary participle impreso it doesn’t exist that way for a word like exprimir “to squeeze”; there’s no “expreso” in Spanish as a past participle. But expreso can refer to “an express train” or for el expresso which is an Italian loanword. 

The thing about secondary participles is that they’re usually very irregular because they come from diverging phonemes [sound particles of a word]. The morphology tends to exist because of how the word is typically used. For instance, conducir is related to “conduct” and “conducive”; producir is related to “product” and “produce”; elegir is related to “election”, and suspender to “suspension”.

Other times, the irregular secondary participle is used as an adjective, or even a noun.

soltado [past participle] = released

suelto/a = loose

proveído [past participle] = provided

provisto/a = supplied, provided for, stocked

confundido [past participle] = confounded, left stumbling

confuso/a = confused, confusing

bendecido [past participle] = blessed, received a blessing

bendito/a = blessed, holy

maldecido [past participle] = cursed

maldito/a = cursed, hexed, damned, doomed

despertado [past participle] = awoken

despierto/a = awake

absorbido [past participle = absorbed

absorto/a = engrossed, captivated, fascinated, lost in thought

poseído [past participle] = possessed

poseso/a = someone under the effects of possession, swept away by one’s own feelings, crazy, amok

conducido [past participle] = conducted, guided, driven (Spain)

el conducto = the conduit

producido [past participle] = produced

el producto = the product

imprimido = stamped, printed

el impreso = leaflet, form, paper with something printed on it, sheet from a printer

prendido [past participle] = arrested, imprisoned

el preso / la presa = prisoner

la presa = reservoir [water being “held”], prey [as in “predator and prey”]

And because a past participle can be used as an adjective (or a noun in some cases), these past participles can help you identify words and improve your vocab, provided you remember that the words become gendered as adjectives.

caído/a = fallen

la caída = the fall

el paracaídas = parachute [lit. “for falls”]

muerto/a = dead

el muerto = dead body

los muertos = the dead

oído/a = heard

el oído = inner ear

dicho/a = said

dicho/a ___ = aforementioned ___

el dicho = a saying, proverb

dado/a = given

los dados = dice [because dar can mean “to toss”]

querido/a = loved

Querido/a ___, = Dear ____, [informal]

Estimado/a ___, = Dear ___, [formal]

ser querido = loved one

protegido/a = protected

el protegido = a protégé

corrompido = corrupted, eaten away

corrupto/a = corrupt

venido/a = come

la venida = coming

bienvenido/a = welcome

inscripto/a = enrolled, enlisted

el inscripto, la inscripta = someone who is enrolled or enlisted

visto/a = seen OR approved

el visto = gleam

la vista = the view OR sight / eyesight

por lo visto = apparently [lit. “from what is seen”]

hecho/a = done

trato hecho = done deal

de hecho = in fact

el hecho = a fact OR incident

En España se utilizan mucho los dichos populares o refranes, en muchas ocasiones formados por rimas. Algunas de las más utilizadas son estas.

—-

Thanks so much for 100 followers! Here’s a list of 100 language facts for each follower ive gained:

There are 2.7k languages with over 7k dialects spoken around the world.

Over 300 languages are spoken in the United States.

Khmer has the longest alphabet in the world. it’s 74 characters long.

The oldest known languages are Sanskrit, Sumerian, Hebrew, & Basque.

Language is thought to have originated in 100,00 BC.

The bible is the most widely translated book available in 2,454 copies.

Learning a second language can make you smarter.

Onomatopoeias are not shared across languages.

There are over 200 artificial languages

Languages are constantly influencing eachother.

There are about 225 indigenous languages in Europe which makes up 3% of the world’s total.

Most of the world’s languages are spoken in Asia & Africa.

At least half of the world’s population speaks two or more languages.

Many languages have 50k words or more

Being bilingual makes learning additional languages easier.

In Germany rice crispies dont go “snap, crackle, pop”. they go “knisper! knasper! knusper!”

There are 108 words for describing sweet potato in Hawaiian.

Danish for jeans is “cowboybukser”.

The dot above “i” & “j” is called a tittle.

The Tashlhiyt dialect of Berber (North Africa) contains vowelless words like tzgr “she crossed” and tftktstt “you sprained it”.

In Malay cats don’t meow, they go “ngiau”.

Nine languages dont have words for colour. they only differentiate between black & white. For example in Dan (New Guinea) things can be “mili” (darkish) or “mola” (lightish).

In Georgian mama means “father”.

In Albanian there are 27 words for mustache.

In Masai the name of a dead child is not spoken again. If their name is a word that’s used every day then it’s no longer used by the bereaved family.

In Japanese four (shi) & nine (ku) are considered unlucky numbers because the words sound the same as “death” and “pain or worry”.

“Achaplinarse” is a Spanish (Central American Spanish) word which means to hesitate & run away in the style of Charlie Chaplin.

“Así te tragues un pavo y todas las plumas se conviertan en cuchillas de afeitar” is a Spanish curse meaning ‘may all your turkey’s feathers turn into razor blades’.

The Romanian proverb “dacă doi îți spun că ești beat, du-te și te culcă” translates to ‘if two people say you’re drunk, go to sleep’.

When a word spelled backward such as 'pots’ it creates another word 'stop’. this is called a semordnilap which is 'palindromes’ backward.

A pangram is a sentence which has every letter of the alphabet once. For example: 'Cwm fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz’ means 'carved symbols in a mountain hollow on the bank of an inlet irritated an eccentric person’.

“Backpfeifengesicht” (German) means a face that cries out for a fist in it.

About 2.4k languages are considered endangered.

Eastern Siberia, Northwest Pacific Plateau of North America, & Northern Australia are hotspots for endangered languages.

231 languages are now completely extinct. these include Alderney French, Soyot, & Togoyo.

 In Mexico the language of Ayapaneco is in danger of dying out because the two remaining speakers refuse to talk to each other.

There are 11 official languages in South Africa: Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa & Zulu.

There are 13 ways to spell the 'o’ sound in French.

There are 850 languages in Papua New Guinea.

Frisian is supposedly the easiest language for English speakers to learn.

Pinocchio is available in the most languages after the Bible.

Esperanto is an artificial language developed in the 19th century. 500,000 - 2,000,000 people speak it.

There are 50,000 characters in the Chinese language, but you need to know at least 2,000 to read a newspaper.

There are about 2,200 languages in Asia.

54% of living languages have a written form.

11:07pm is the time at which writing was developed if all of human existence were condensed into a 24 hour period.

23 languages have more than 50 million native speakers.

95% of the world’s languages are not represented online.

The language of the Native American Zuni tribe has resemblances to Japanese. Subsequent research has confirmed biological similarities between them.

Basque, a language spoken in the mountains of Spain and France, is the only European language not related to any other known language.

South Africa has more official languages than any other country with eleven.

The pope tweets in 9 languages and his Spanish account has the most followers.

In Archi, a language spoken around the Caspian Sea, each verb can have up to 1.5 million different conjugations.

The Silbo language of La Gomera off the coast of Spain consists entirely of whistles.

There is a language in Botswana that consists of 5 primary click sounds.

Marc Okrand, the linguistics professor responsible for coming up with the fictional language of Klingon, spent 3 years teaching is son when he was little. His son went on to forget everything.

A Japanese man recently sued the National Broadcasting Company for the mental distress they caused him by using too many English words in their programs

Besides Wales, Argentina is the only other country where Welsh is spoken by a significant minority thanks to settlers that inhabited Patagonia nearly 200 years ago.

The smallest number of letters in an alphabet is 11, in the Papuan language known as Rotokas.

Cryptophasia is the name given to secret languages spoken by twins.

Just like people acquiring spoken languages have accents, people acquiring sign languages have accents as well.

In the Vatican City you can use an ATM in Latin.

E is the most commonly used letter in English. it’s in about 11% of every word we say or write.

More words in the English language begin with S than any other letter.

The word “orange” didnt exist until about 450 years ago. The fruit was named first. The color is named after the fruit.

“Swims” is the same word if you read it upside down.

The word for alphabet comes from the first 2 letters of the Greek alphabet A (alpha) & B (beta).

You speak about 4.8k words a day.

Every year about 4k words are added to the English dictionary.

Somalia is the only African country in which the entire population speaks the same language, Somali.

The language in which a government conducts business is the official language of that country.

All pilots on international flights identify themselves in English.

Pinocchio is Italian for “pine head.”

There was only one code during World War II that was never broken by the enemy and was used by the US Army. Navajo soldiers, called Codetalkers, developed a radio code based on their native language. It was the only way US soldiers on the battlefield could be sure that messages were from there own side and not from Japanese imitators.

The word “typewriter” is the longest word in the English language that can be spelled with the the top of the keyboard.

The United States does not have an official language.

The United States has more Spanish speakers than Spain.

Multilingualism helps your awareness become more expanded, thus making you more of a sponge in terms of taking in information.

Becoming bilingual improves your understanding of your native language.

Learning a new language gives you better flexibility when it comes to thinking and participating in conversation.

As early as 4 months babies can distinguish between French & English.

Capacity for language extends throughout life. You can learn any language at any age. This is possible because of the brains plasticity. Plasticity is the brain’s ability to make new neural connections.

12.44% of the world’s population speaks Mandarin as a first language.

50% of a Luxembourgish child’s education is devoted to languages.

¼ of the world’s population has some knowledge of English.

12 fictional languages are mentioned in The Lord Of The Rings.

2 feature films have been made entirely in Esperanto in the 1960s.

Furbish is the official language of the 1990s children’s toy Furby.

The European Union has 24 official working languages.

There are 7,231 combinations of book & language that Agatha Christie’s novels are available in.

Earth Passport by Liquid Blue holds the record for the chart song sung in the most languages.

An Indian man recorded a song in 125 languages released as a double CD in 2009.

Songs sung in English have won more Eurovision Song Contest competitions than any other language.

“Dord” a word meaning density was discovered in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary in 1939. It’s not a word, but had been there for 5 years due to an error.

German & French were voted the best for graduates to learn to enhance their prospect of getting a job.

The Voynich Book contains a language from the 1400s that despite numerous attempts has yet to be understood.

German is thought to be the language most similar to English.

If you’re a EU national of voting age, please take a moment out of your day to visit this site and sign this Citizens’ Initiative to protect the linguistic rights of European minorities.

SIGN THE INITIATIVE HERE

The initiative needs one million votes to be submitted to the European Commission and we’re still short of nearly 400,000 votes that need to be collected in the next 43 days or the initiative will fail.

Here’s what the initiative proposes:

drafting a EU Recommendation for the protection and promotion of cultural and linguistic diversity in the Union 

adjusting funding programmes so that they become accessible for small regional and minority language communities

the establishment of a language diversity centre

allocating regional funds in ways that promote pluralism and benefit national minorities

research into the added value of minorities to social and economic development in Europe 

improving minority representation in the elections to the European Parliament

an improved anti-discrimination framework

approximating equality for stateless minorities

creating a single market for copyright (i.e. no more geoblocking)

amending the Audio-visual Media Services Directive to facilitate access to content in minority languages across national borders

regional (state) support for minority communities

A note on any privacy concerns: when signing the initiative, you’ll be ask to provide your full name, date and place of birth, nationality and ID number. This information is encrypted and will never be published, either in part or in full. If the initiative reaches one million signatures, the data will be passed to your national government to verify that you are indeed a citizen.

______________________________

Other citizens’ initiatives you might be interested in:

We are a welcoming Europe, let us help! an initiative to allow EU citizens to sponsor refugees, stop prosecutions of people offering humanitarian help or shelter, and protect victims of labour exploitation, crime and human rights abuses at our borders

Let us reduce the wage and economic differences that tear the EU apart! an initiative for a European wage union that seeks to ameliorate the wage gap between Western and Eastern Europe

Retaining European Citizenship /  EU Citizenship for Europeans: United in Diversity in Spite of jus soli and jus sanguinis two initiatives to allow UK nationals to keep their EU citizenship irrespective of Brexit negotiations

LEARN SPANISH WATCHING TV CHANNELS ONLINE

Hi all! 

As many people here in the langblr community have pointed out, the best way to learn a language is through immersion. And what’s best to do that than watching TV? So I decided to create this masterpost with the online streamings of the most well-known TV channels from Spain. 

All the links are for the official (legal) streamings of the channels, though you may need a VPN / proxy client in order to view them from abroad (I recommend Tunnelbear, it’s very simple to use and it has 500MB of free data every month). Also, bear in mind that some programs may not be shown due to Copyright reasons, and that not all channels broadcast 24/7.

By the way, remember that in Spain all foreign programmes, series & films are dubbed into Spanish (and some into other Iberian languages as well).

RTVE

All their content (on-demand)

La 1 (generalist): live // on-demand

La 2 (mostly cultural programmes): live // on-demand

Teledeporte (sports): live // on-demand

24h (news): live // on-demand

Clan (children): on-demand

ATRESMEDIA

All their content (on-demand)

Antena 3 (generalist): live

La Sexta (generalist): live

Neox (children & teenagers): live

Nova (entertainment): live

Mega (entertainment): live

Atreseries (series mostly): live

MEDIASET

All their content (on-demand)

Telecinco (generalist, with lots of gossipping): live // on-demand

Cuatro (generalist): live // on-demand

Be Mad TV (entertainment): live // on-demand

8TV (generalist): live // on-demand (IN SPANISH & CATALAN)

Fútbol Mitele (football aka soccer): live // on-demand

MotoGP (motorcycle racing): live

Premier Casino (casino playing): live

FDF (entertainment): on-demand

Boing (children): on-demand

Energy (entertainment): on-demand

Divinity (entertainment): on-demand

OTHERS

Disney Channel (children & teenagers): live // on-demand

Paramount Channel (movies and some series): live // on-demand

Discovery MAX (documentaries): on-demand

13TV (generalist, with Catholic values): live // on-demand

Hit TV (music): live

Ten (entertainment): on-demand

Real Madrid TV (everything about Real Madrid): live

Intereconomía TV (generalist, right-wing): live // on-demand

AUTONOMIC CHANNELS

Only broadcast within their respective Autonomous Communities.

Canal Sur (Andalusia): on-demand

Aragón TV (Aragon): live // on-demand

TPA (Asturias): live // on-demand (IN SPANISH & ASTURIAN)

IB3 (Balearic Islands): live // on-demand (IN SPANISH & CATALAN)

TV Canaria (Canary Islands): live // on-demand

El Día TV (Canary Islands): on-demand

Popular TV Cantabria (Cantabria): live // on-demand

CMT (Castile-La Mancha): live // on-demand

CYLTV (Castile & León): live // on-demand

TV3 (Catalonia): live // on-demand (IN CATALAN ONLY)

3/24 (Catalonia, news): live // on-demand (IN CATALAN ONLY)

Super 3 (Catalonia, children): live // on-demand (IN CATALAN ONLY)

Esport 3 (Catalonia, sports): live // on-demand (IN CATALAN ONLY)

Canal 33 (Catalonia, cultural programmes): live // on-demand (IN CATALAN ONLY)

TV3 CAT (Catalonia, international vers.):  live // on-demand (IN CATALAN ONLY)

TV Ceuta (Ceuta):  live // on-demand

Ceuta TV (Ceuta): live // on-demand

Telemadrid (Madrid): live // on-demand

laOtra (Madrid): live // on-demand

TV Mediterráneo (Valencian Community): live // on demand (IN SPANISH & CATALAN)

Las Provincias TV (Valencian Community): on demand

Canal Extremadura (Extremadura): live // on-demand

TVG (Galicia): live // on-demand (IN GALICIAN ONLY)

V Televisión (Galicia): on-demand (IN SPANISH & GALICIAN)

TVR (La Rioja): live // on-demand

TV Melilla (Melilla): live // on-demand

TV Murciana (Murcia): live

7 TV (Murcia): live // on-demand

Navarra Televisión (Navarra): live // on-demand

NTB (Navarra): live // on-demand (IN SPANISH & BASQUE)

EITB (Basque County): live // on-demand (IN SPANISH & BASQUE)

This guide has been updated to include an updated word list and more grammar explanations/example sentences.

This post by Fun with Languages describes a method for quickly learning languages by using around 200 basic words and learning to phrase your ideas using only those. I translated their word list to Esperanto and added some basic grammar notes in case anyone wanted to try this method with Esperanto!

VERBS (English: Esperanto)

Be: esti Can: povi Cause: igi Do: fari Eat: manĝi Feel: senti Get (Obtain): ricevi Give: doni Go: iri Have: havi Know: scii Learn: lerni Like: ŝati Make: fari Need: bezoni Say: diri See: vidi Should: devi Sleep: dormi Speak: paroli Start: komenci (transitive, e.g. I started the movie…), komenciĝi (intransitive, e.g. the movie started…) There is: ekzistas Think: pensi Try: provi Use: uzi Want: voli Work: labori Write: skribi

Conjugation: drop the –i from the infinitive form and add… -as for present tense -is for past tense -os for future tense Two verbs with the above endings must be separated at some point in the sentence by a conjunction (see below). To “link” two verbs (e.g. “I like to eat”), leave the second/object verb in the infinitive form (”Mi ŝatas manĝi”).

Negation: to negate a verb (e.g. “I don’t speak…”) preface it with “ne” (”Mi ne parolas…”).

Direct object: the noun (and any adjectives attached to it) that is the direct object of a verb receives the –n (accusative) ending.

PHRASES

Hello: Saluton Goodbye: Ĝis (temporary), adiaŭ (long time) Nice to meet you: Estas bone ekkoni vin Yes: Jes No: Ne Ok: Bone, ok (“oh-koh”) Please: …mi petas Thank you: Dankon You’re welcome: Ne dankinde Sorry: Mi bedaŭras…, mi petas pardonon, mi pardonpetas Excuse me: Pardonu Well…: Nu…

CONJUNCTIONS

That: ke And: kaj Or: aŭ But: sed Though: kvankam Because: ĉar Therefore: tial…, pro tio…, do… If: se Before: antaŭe, antaŭ ol After: poste, post ol

PREPOSITIONS

In front of: antaŭ Behind: post Of (belonging to): de Of (quantity): da From: de To: al In: en At (place): ĉe At (time): je (specific time, e.g. 9:00), dum (more general, e.g. morning) With (e.g. a person): kun With (i.e. using): per About: pri Like (i.e. similar to): kiel For: por

Movement: Certain prepositions (antaŭ, post, en, ĉe, je, kun) can indicate location relative to the following noun or motion relative to the following noun. To indicate motion, the following noun receives the –n (accusative) ending. For example… Mi iris en la domo. = While inside the house, I went (around). Mi iris en la domon. = I went into the house. The accusative never follows prepositions that always indicate movement (de, al) or describe neither location nor movement (da, dum, per, pri, por).

ADJECTIVES

A lot: multaj A few: malmultaj, kelkaj Good: bona Bad: malbona More: pli More… than…: pli… ol… Better: pli bona Most: plejparto de Enough: sufiĉe da Even: eĉ The: la This: ĉi tiu That: tiu All: ĉiom da, ĉiu Some: iom da, iu No, none: neniom da, neniu Other: alia Any: iom da, iu Easy: facila Hard: malfacila Early: frua Late: malfrua Important: grava Cool (e.g. “that’s cool”): mojosa Different: malsimila, malsama Beautiful: bela

Opposites: You may have noticed that you can create new adjectives with the opposite meaning by adding the prefix mal-. Grava = important Malgrava = unimportant

Plural/Accusative Endings: actual adjectives (single words above that end in –a or –u, not adverbs or correlatives followed by a preposition) take the same plural (-j) and accusative (-n) ending(s) as the noun they modify. Note that “la” is the definite article, and never takes the accusative or plural ending.

ADVERBS

A lot: multe A little: malmulte Well: bone Badly: malbone More: plu Better: pli bone Mostly: plejparte Enough: sufiĉe Even: eĉ Very: tre Too: tro Also: ankaŭ Only: nur Now: nun Here: ĉi tie Maybe: eble Always: ĉiam Sometimes: iam, fojfoje Today: hodiaŭ Yesterday: hieraŭ Tomorrow: morgaŭ Almost: preskaŭ Still: ankoraŭ Quickly: rapide

Opposites: similarly to adjectives, you can create new adverbs with the opposite meaning by adding the prefix mal-.

Word Order: Irregular adverbs (those that do not end in –e), always occur just before the word they modify. Ankaŭ mi manĝis matenmanĝon. = I also ate breakfast (e.g. as well as my friend). Mi ankaŭ manĝis matenmanĝon. = I also ate breakfast (e.g. as well as cooked it). Mi manĝis ankaŭ matenmanĝon. = I also ate breakfast (e.g. as well as lunch).

NOUNS

Thing: afero, aĵo (physical object) Person: homo Place: loko Everything: ĉio Something: io Nothing: nenio Time (period of time): tempo Time (occasion): fojo Friend: amiko Mother: patrino Father: patro Parent: gepatro Daughter: filino Son: filo Child: infano Wife: edzino Husband: edzo Girlfriend: koramikino Boyfriend: koramiko Breakfast: matenmanĝo Lunch: tagmanĝo Dinner: vespermanĝo Money: mono Day: tago Year: jaro Hour: horo Week: semajno House: domo Office: oficejo Language: lingvo Name: nomo Word: vorto Company: firmo Internet: interreto

Plural form: all singular nouns end in –o. To make them plural, add the –j ending (pronounced like “y” in English) to the end. If the noun takes the accusative ending, the –n comes after the –j e.g. “domojn”.

Subwords: To make learning vocabulary easier, many words are made up of subwords. Patrino = patr (father) + in (female) + o (noun) Gepatro = ge (all/any gender) + patr (father) + o (noun) Koramiko = kor (heart) + amik (friend) + o (noun) Matenmanĝo = maten (morning) + manĝ (meal/eat) + o (noun) Oficejo = ofic (job/position) + ej (place) + o (noun)

QUESTION WORDS

Who: Kiu Which: Kiu What: Kio When: Kiam Where: Kie Why: Kial How: Kiel How much: Kiom da Does…?, Is…?: Ĉu…?

Word order: Though in most cases word order doesn’t matter, questions almost always begin with one of these words.

PRONOUNS

I: mi You: vi She: ŝi He: li It: ĝi We: ni They: ili

Reflexive pronoun: When referring to the subject of the sentence a second time, the word “si” is used instead of ŝi/li/ĝi/ili. It is modified in the same way as other pronouns. Bob iris en sian domon. = Bob went into his (own) house. Li iris en lian domon. = He went into his (someone else’s) house.

Direct Object: To make a pronoun the direct object of a verb, add the -n (accusative) ending as with a noun.