The sea hath its pearls, the heaven hath its stars

The British newspaper The Guardian has included When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà as one of the best books of 2022. (The book was originally published in the Catalan language in 2019, but the English translation was published now in 2022.)

The book was also selected as one of the best fiction new books for adults by the New York Public Library.

[You can read the full article by The Guardian here and download all 3 pages of recommendations by the NY library here.]

This is a great achievement, even more so taking into account that the English-language publishing industry is very closed in itself and books from other languages have a hard time getting attention in English-speaking countries.

The book (originally titled Canto jo i la muntanya balla) has also been translated to other languages including Spanish, Italian, French, Galician, Basque, Hungarian, Croatian, Macedonian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Lithuanian, Danish, Portuguese, Dutch, Arabic, German, Greek, Korean, Polish, Romanian.

26.07.2022 || slice of life

i'm a Barca fan – of both the First Team and FCB Femeni and i have gotten to know about Catalunya and Barcelona and i have read about Catalunya's history (1714 and Franco and everything and more) and Catalan culture

i really want to learn Catalan, i live in Asia and it's almost not possible for me to learn Catalan in actual classes

can you please tell how may i learn Catalan??? and if possible, please cite some online resources, because that's all that i have access to

thank you so much

Hi! Thank you so much for your interest 😊

I will link you to some posts with resources that might be useful.

Before getting into the online resources, I wanted to add a link to Institut Ramon Llull website, where you can see a map of all the universities around the world where this institution teaches Catalan. There's very few in Asia, but in case you're from Japan there are 4 unis there.

Now, to online resources.

Books: "learn Catalan from..."

This is a series of little books that you can download online for free.

I will link them here (I'll link them all in case it can help someone else too). Just scroll down and download the PDFs.

Learn Catalan from English: here.

from Amazigh: here.

from Arabic: here.

from Spanish: here.

from French: here.

from Punjabi: here.

from Romanian: here.

from Russian: here.

from Urdu: here.

from Chinese: here.

Website courses

1. Parla.cat (for all levels)

The government of Catalonia made an online course on the website Parla.cat. You have to create an account and it will give you access all the material for free. If you want, you can also choose a paying version which will assign you a Catalan language teacher from Catalonia.

(Note: you'll have to download a browser to use Parla.cat because it was made years ago and the Flash system doesn't work with all browsers anymore. The website will tell you about this.)

2. SpeakCat (beginner, exercises)

SpeakCat is an online course that was made for university students who come to Catalonia without any knowledge of Catalan. The website is in English and Catalan.

It includes easy explanations and self-correcting exercises for each topic. The explanations are in Catalan, but the exercises will give you corrections and explanations in English.

3. Ep! Escolta i parla (beginner, oral)

This is the material that is used in face-to-face classes for recently arrived immigrants who can't read and write well. It's a series of videos that doesn't rely on written words, showing everyday conversations.

Here are the short videos.

Here are the interactive activities. (The website gives you the correction)

Maybe after learning a topic, you could watch a video to see if you understand what they say.

4. Català bàsic I and II (beginners)

Class exercises for reading and listening. You can download the PDF for the visual part (in the "contingut" section) and the audio recording (in the "activitats orals" section).

The PDF is like your activity book, and the audio part is what you have to listen to so you can complete the activity.

Here is the 1st course: Català bàsic I.

And the 2nd: Català bàsic II.

5. Guia de conversa universitària (beginner)

Choose the language you know and it will give you a list of beginner words and sentences in Catalan and translated to that language. Both written down and you can click 🔊 to hear the pronunciation. Here.

6. Fils de conversa (intermediate and intermediate-advanced)

The Fils de conversa page includes conversation topics, readings, discussions and information, both written down and in audio format.

This was made for a volunteering programme in Catalonia that pairs a learner with a native speaker, so it's thought for two people who can have conversations about it. But it will also be useful for one person alone when you can read and speak some.

7. Others

In this post you can find links to grammar books. They're immersion books, meaning that they teach Catalan but they're written in Catalan. At the beginning, it will be difficult if you don't speak another Latin language, but maybe with translator they can be helpful. But maybe in the future they will be helpful.

Dictionaries

Diccionaris.cat is a dictionary where you can select to translate a word to/from English, Spanish and French, to find the description in Catalan, or synonyms in Catalan.

Didac.cat is a monolingual dictionary for schools. Type a word in Catalan to find the definition in Catalan using more simple vocabulary.

Verbs.cat is a website where you type a verb in infinitive and it gives you all the conjugations.

Enciclopèdia.cat is the encyclopedia.

I hope this helps and best wishes with your learning!

hi :) i like to make a big list of things i want to do each summer, and i thought i’d share all the resources i collected this year with y'all in case you want to do any of these things too <3

learn a new language. 🦜

i’ve collected a bunch of resources for french, korean, and mandarin so i’ll be making separate posts for those languages. but here’s some of my favourite resources - most of them are based off of krashen’s comprehensible input theory which is why they are fun resources:

french: free grammar lessons and quizzes for all levels, watch french tv, read manga in french, a drive full of french books, a bunch of french culture podcasts, a list of french youtubers

korean: anki grammar decks for all levels, super in depth grammar explanations up to advanced level, a bunch of resources, reddit’s ultimate beginner’s thread, read korean webtoon, talk to me in korean

mandarin: a bunch of anki decks, grammar gamified, reading practice, chinese reading world, mandarin bean grammar points

japanese: core 2000 words anki deck, grammar gamified on renshuu

spanish: language transfer for spanish!

learn to draw. 🎨

this is more just a collection of art related resources. hope they help!

proko’s art library, a bunch of sketching and fundamental tutorials

the complete famous artists course

collection of art books and resources

alphonso dunn’s youtube channel

learn guitar. 🎸

i got a guitar last summer on a whim and have been having a really fun time learning it! here’s the main resource i’ve been using.

learn jazz piano. 🎹

similarly jazz piano is something i’ve wanted to get into for a while + improv. this person’s youtube channel is very cool!

write something and put it out into the world! ✍

i love to write and it took me a while to learn how to submit stuff to journals. hope these help you!

a bunch of resources on how to submit to journals

how to submit to literary magazines by doretta lau

publishing 101

chillsubs, an easy way to find journals to submit to

make your own video games. 🎮

by now if you follow me you know i love to make twine games. here are a couple of cool engines you can use for free!

twine, a text based engine

love

renpy or visual novel resources

bitsy

take a free online course. 🧠

coursera has a lot of options, which i really like. i took Yale’s the science of well being a few years ago and it was great!

make your own music or learn how audio software works. 🎵

audionodes is a cool free browser software that lets you do this without downloading anything!

learn about personal finance. 💵

i feel like it’s hard to devote proper time to learning about personal finance so a lot of us rely on learning as we go, but there are some good resources and tools online that are quick and easy when you have 5-30 min to spare!

PBS Two Cents youtube short vids about personal finance

wealthsimple personal finance 101 (short videos. nicholas braun is in them for some reason)

mint - free budgeting and goals software

How to get around internet censorship and maintain internet privacy

This will be an extremely long post 😅

Priorities

Download the Tor Browser

This will hopefully help you access the internet regardless of Russian government bans. It’s a little slow, but better than nothing. It hides your IP address from the internet, so it’s kind of like using a VPN. A very basic summary of how Tor works: your internet traffic is routed through several “nodes”. The Entry Node, can see your IP address but has no idea what data you’re sending, and this goes through several middle nodes, until it reaches the Exit Node. The Exit Node can see what data you’re sending, but it can’t see your IP address so it doesn’t know WHO sent it. That’s why it’s a good idea to do nothing identifying when using the Tor Browser, like writing personal information. Here’s a blog post with more detailed information about the Tor Browser.

Get a VPN

VPNs are often used to get around government internet restrictions. Russia will probably not be able to do much about it. However, not all VPNs are created equal. Nearly all of the free VPNs are a scam that turn around and sell your data, so free VPNs are not secure. The only exception to this is ProtonVPN which has a free tier, but it’s very slow. Basically the only good VPN is one you pay for. When choosing a VPN, be aware of where the company is based, because if a VPN company is based in the USA, it will have to comply USA privacy laws. So choose a VPN based in a country that has good privacy laws. A great one is Mullvad VPN, which is based in Sweden. But for the purposes of Russia, just making sure your VPN is not Russian or in a country sympathetic to Russia is probably good enough.

Alternative Front-Ends A frontend is the the part of a website which the user interacts with directly. To browse the contents of websites, you usually have to visit them. However, many people have made alternative privacy-respecting frontends to popular websites that allow you to see the site’s content without actually visiting the website. This helps avoid tracking, data-collection, and even countries’ attempts to ban websites. Twitter is banned in Russia right now, but using all an alternative frontend to Twitter works (according to my Russian friend).

Google Translate

Lingva Translate / Instances

SimplyTranslate / Instances

some instances allow you to choose to translate with several other services (such as DeepL)

Imgur

Rimgo / Instances

Instagram

Bibliogram / Instances

Medium

Scribe / Instance

Reddit

Libreddit / Instances

Teddit / Instances

TikTok

ProxiTok / Instance

Twitter

Nitter / Instances

Wikipedia

Wikiless / Instances

YouTube

Invidious / Instances

Piped / Instances

YouTube Music

Beatbump / Instance

If anyone knows of one of these for Tumblr please let me know. I found this site called Tumgir but it looks sketchy and unlike the rest of the ones I listed, it’s not open-source. So visit with caution, but I’m mentioning it because it might be better than nothing.

There are also these browser extensions that automatically redirect site links to the available alternatives:

Mozilla Firefox

LibRedirect - Redirects YouTube, YT Music, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Imgur, Reddit, Wikipedia, Medium, etc.

Google Chrome

Privacy Redirect - Redirects Google Maps, Google Search, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, Youtube.

iPhone (iOS 15+) Safari

Privacy Redirect - Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, Google Translate, Google maps, Google Search, Medium

Android

UntrackMe - Google Maps, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube

Messaging / Communication

Matrix is a federated and decentralized End-to-End Encrypted (E2EE) messaging with many platforms, the most popular of which is Element. It’s like Discord, but worse. It’s getting better over time though! You can even use a a throwaway email to sign-up.

If you’re Russian you likely already know about Telegram, but MAKE SURE you’re aware that only Secret Chats are End-to-End Encrypted. So don’t say anything that would get you in trouble outside of a Secret Chat.

End Notes

Help needed to make a phrasebook for Ukrainian refugees! If you speak • Polish (Польска) 🇵🇱 • Romanian (Румунська) 🇲🇩🇷🇴 • Hungarian (Угорська) 🇭🇺 • Slovak (Словацька) 🇸🇰 Please consider participating and adding the phrases in your language! 

🇺🇦 The link to the phrasebook 🇺🇦

—Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

“Who hasn’t ever wondered: am I monster or is this what it means to be a person?”

—Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star

—Catherynne M. Valente, The Orphan’s Tales: In the Night Garden

“They say I’m a beast. And feast on it. When all along I thought that’s what a woman was.”

—Sandra Cisneros, Loose Woman

“The she-monster is hardly a new phenomenon. The idea of a female untamed nature which must be leashed or else will wreak havoc closely reflects mythological heroes’ struggles against monsters. Greek myth alone offers a host - of Ceres, Harpies, Sirens, Moirae. Associated with fate and death in various ways, they move swiftly, sometimes on wings; birds of prey are their closest kin - the Greeks didn’t know about dinosaurs - and they seize as in the word raptor. But seizure also describes the effect of the passions on the body; inner forces, looser, madness, arte, folly, personified in Homer and the tragedies as feminine, snatch and grab the interior of the human creature and take possession.”

—Marina Warner, Managing Monsters: Six Myths of Our Time; “Monstrous Mothers”

“I don’t want to be a person. I want to be unbearable.”

—Anne Carson, Decreation

—Louise Glück, “Blue Rotunda”

“How can I teach her / some way of being human / that won’t destroy her?”

—Margaret Atwood, Two-Headed Poems

“…and what I want to say / is that I am not what I was, I am / a changeling, half-creaturely,”

—Camille Norton, Corruption: Poems; “Wild Animals I Have Known”

“People feel that in her, the nonhuman. People are afraid of her. Something in her inspires a nonhuman attachment. Sur elle, the human feelings seem to slip, they glisser—”

—Anaïs Nin, Nearer the Moon

—Camille Norton, Corruption: Poems; “Index of Prohibited Images”

“She had a feral gaze like that of an untamed animal,”

—Margaret Atwood, Murder in the Dark: Stories; “Women’s Novels”

“…does she wander still, searching human faces / For one who might speak of her / In her own language, look into her eyes / And gentle the wildness once and for all?”

—May Sarton, Letters from Maine: New Poems

“How can she bear the pain of becoming human? The end of exile is the end of being.”

—Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories; “The Lady of the House of Love”

—Hélène Cixous, The Laugh of the Medusa

“A woman in the shape of a monster / a monster in the shape of a woman / the skies are full of them”

—Adrienne Rich, “Planetarium”

“A monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr. To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once.”

—Ocean Vuong, “A Letter To My Mother That She Will Never Read”

“Personally, I’m a mess of conflicting impulses—I’m independent and greedy and I also want to belong and share and be a part of the whole. I doubt that I’m the only one who feels this way. It’s the core of monster making, actually. Wanna make a monster? Take the parts of yourself that make you uncomfortable—your weaknesses, bad thoughts, vanities, and hungers—and pretend they’re across the room. It’s too ugly to be human. It’s too ugly to be you. Children are afraid of the dark because they have nothing real to work with. Adults are afraid of themselves. Oh we’re a mess, poor humans, poor flesh—hybrids of angels and animals, dolls with diamonds stuffed inside them. We’ve been to the moon and we’re still fighting over Jerusalem. Let me tell you what I do know: I am more than one thing and not all of those things are good. The truth is complicated. It’s two-toned, multi-vocal, bittersweet. I used to think that if I dug deep enough to discover something sad and ugly, I’d know it was something true. Now I’m trying to dig deeper.”

—Richard Siken, Spork’s Editor’s Pages: Black Telephone

“Is it better to out-monster the monster or to be quietly devoured?”

—Friedrich Nietzsche, Good and Evil

“I was driven because I wanted to be like others. / I was afraid of what was wild and indecent in me.”

—Czeslaw Miłosz, “Account”

“When I looked around, I saw and heard of none like me. Was I then a monster?”

—Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“Draw a monster. Why is it a monster?”

1.15.22 The theme of my January has been studying growth- through personal reflection, through the Medicinal Botany winter course that I’m taking, and through reading The Psychology Of Money. But it’s also nice to take comfort in the things that don’t change, like my favorite museum. Oh, and thank you for 1k!