lost linguist.

GOFUNDME: SAVE OUR NAVAJO LANGUAGE

“I never learned my Navajo language and I was never inspired to learn it.  As I got older, I realized how valuable our language is to the livelihood of our Navajo Nation. ” -Dr. Shawna L. Begay

Our Navajo or Diné language is in danger of becoming extinct.  Help us create and develop the first Navajo-English educational media TV puppet show, “Diné Bí Ná’álkid Time” which means ‘The Navajo Movie Time.’  It will inspire and teach our youth basic language skills using media as a technology tool. Parents, grandparents, children and grandkids can learn to speak Navajo  fluently together within their own homes. Long-time friends and educators, Dr. Shawna L. Begay and Charmaine Jackson have teamed up to create this new TV pilot for an all-ages audience or for anyone who wants to learn the Navajo language.   With your support, it’ll be the first educational Navajo and English puppet show that will teach and preserve the Navajo language and culture through digital media.

After several years of extensive research on the Navajo Nation, Dr. Begay recently completed her PhD from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas with her doctorate thesis, ‘Developing A Navajo Media Guide: A Community Perspective.’ As project director, she quickly realized she was a pioneer on the topic.

~Constellation - 星座 - [ Xīngzuò ] // literally: position of star (stars’ seat) 

Aries - 牡羊座 - [ Mǔyángzuò ] // literally: male sheep 

Taurus - 金牛座 - [ Jīnniúzuò ] // literally: golden cattle 

Gemini - 双子座 - [ Shuāngzǐzuò ] // literally: two kids 

Cancer -  巨蟹座  - [ Jùxièzuò ] // literally: huge crab 

Leo -   狮子座 - [ Shīzizuò ] // literally: lion (lion, kid)

Virgo -  处女座 - [ Chǔnǚzuò ] // literally: virgin (department, woman)

Libra - 天秤座 - [ Tiānchèngzuò ] // literally: heaven’s scales 

Scorpio - 天蝎座 - [ Tiānxiēzuò ] // literally: heaven’s scorpion 

Saggitarius - 射手座 - [ Shèshǒu ] // literally: shooter 

Capricorn - 摩羯座 - [ Mójiézuò ] // literally: mountain wether 

Aquarius - 水瓶座 [ Shuǐpíng zuò ] // literally: water bottle 

The first immigrants to Europe arrived thousands of years ago from central Asia. Most pre-contact Europeans lived together in small villages. Because the continent was very crowded, their lives were ruled by strict hierarchies within the family and outside it to control resources. Europe was highly multi-ethnic, and most tribes were ruled by hereditary leaders who commanded the majority “commoners.” These groups were engaged in near constant warfare.

Pre-contact Europeans wore clothing made of natural materials such as animal skin and plant and animal-based textiles. Women wore long dresses and covered their hair, and men wore tunics and leggings. Both men and women liked to wear jewelry made from precious stones and metals as a sign of status. Before contact, Europeans had very poor diets. Most people were farmers and grew wheat and vegetables and raised cows and sheep to eat. They rarely washed themselves, and had many diseases because they often let their animals live with them. Religion infused every part of Europeans’ lives.

Europeans believed in one supreme deity, a father figure, who they believed was made of three parts, and they particularly worshiped the deity’s son. They claimed that their god had given humans domination over the earth. They built elaborate temples to him and performed ceremonies in which they ate crackers and drank wine and believed it was the body and blood of their god, who would provide them with entrance into a wondrous afterlife called heaven when they died. Many wars were fought over disagreements about the details of this religion, each group believing their interpretation was the right one that should be spread across the land.

Now imagine that is part of a textbook that has entire chapters on the Mississippian polities of the 1200s and a detailed account of the diplomatic situation of the southeastern provinces in the 1400s and 1500s, an enormous section that goes through the history of the rise of the Triple Alliance in Mexico and goes through the rule of each tlatoani and their policies, the heritage of Teotihuacan and its legacy in later Mesoamerican politics, elaborate descriptions of the trade routes that connected and drove various nations in North America. Long explanations of the rise of various religious movements such as the calumet ceremony and Midewiwin, and how they affected political agendas and artistic trends. Pages and pages and pages going through the past thousand years of American history century by century.

Hi guys!

I’ve gotten some asks about learning languages and any tips I might have, so here’s a post with some advice that I hope will be useful to some of you. All of this is based on my own journey in language learning and I don’t claim that this is universally applicable, but maybe it gives you some inspiration for your own techniques? :)

A small introduction: I’m a German native speaker and I speak fluent English (also majoring in it at uni). I know Spanish and Latin very well, and I have basic knowledge of French and Italian.  

1. Exposure

I would never have reached level C2 in English without the permanent exposure I gained once I started reading English books and spending time on Twitter and Youtube. A couple hours of lessons a week are far too little to achieve a high level of skill in your target language - and even if you do homework and study every day, your practice will be heavily focused on purely artificial language use. Try to consume as much authentic material in your target language as you can - it doesn’t matter a lot if you watch movies or vloggers, or if you read the news or fanfiction (extensive reading is amazing!). All of that will make you see your target language in actual usage and will help you develop a certain gut feeling about your language and its properties (and irregularities!). (It will also teach you slang and stuff, which is always useful.) 

2. Scaffolding

Suggested by psychologist Lev Vygotsky, the concept of Scaffolding describes a technique in which students are faced with tasks slightly above their skill level (=in the Zone of Proximal Development) that they master with only some “guidance and encouragement” by their instructor. If you don’t have an instructor, you can still tweak this and do it! If you’re sick of filling out the same verb tables and reading your textbook, challenge yourself. Pick a slightly harder text, try not to use a dictionary, make up an improvised monologue, read a text or watch a show of a different genre that uses different vocabulary… Do something that would not normally be in your curriculum, or something that is a little ahead of your curriculum. Not only will it give your learning a little boost and more variety, it can also be really motivating because it breaks your routine.

3. Motivation

My advice would be to always learn a language that you really want to learn (for which you are intrinsically motivated). All reasons are valid - you heard a song that you liked, you’re interested in the culture, you just think it sounds cool… As long as your reason persists, you won’t lose interest and you’ll be willing to invest time and effort. Tweak your language learning so it caters to your reason - if you like the food, try out recipes in your target language, if you like the history, read books about it or watch documentaries etc etc.

Of course, some of you reading this might be forced to learn a specific language in school without having any choice. In that case, forget about how boring your classes and your teachers are, and go and find a reason! Find out more about the countries where it’s spoken, befriend someone from there (you’ll probably find native speakers on tumblr), try out some recipes or listen to songs, watch tv shows and google actors or scientists from those countries. As soon as you have a personal link to your target language instead of just going from test grade to test grade, things get a lot easier. This also works for ancient languages - I’d recommend reading up on cool mythology for Latin and Ancient Greek, or giving translations of Virgil and Homer a try. If that’s too dry in the original, Rick Riordan probably wrote something fun about it - and Harry Potter has been translated into both Latin and Ancient Greek. 

“Ha… right.”

Like, she had actual goddamn tears in her eyes, and that was what she considered an appropriate reply to the joke.I just marvelled for a minute like ‘what the actual hell?’ and eventually asked my mom a few questions. I didn’t want to make her feel defensive or self-conscious or anything, it just kind of blew my mind, and I wanted to know what she was thinking.

Turns out that she’s using the ellipsis the same way I would use a dash, and also to create ‘more space between words’ because it ‘just looks better to her’. Also, that I tend to perceive an ellipsis as an innate ‘downswing’, sort of like the opposite of the upswing you get when you ask a question, but she doesn’t. And that she never uses exclamation marks, because all her teachers basically drilled it into her that exclamation marks were horrible things that made you sound stupid and/or aggressive.

So whereas I might sent a response that looked something like:

“Yay! That sounds great - where are we meeting?”

My mother, whilst meaning the exact same thing, would go:

‘Yay. That sounds great… where are we meeting?”

And when I look at both of those texts, mine reads like ‘happy/approval’ to my eye, whereas my mother’s looks flat. Positive phrasing delivered in a completely flat tone of voice is almost always sarcastic when spoken aloud, so written down, it looks sarcastic or passive-aggressive.

On the reverse, my mother thinks my texts look, in her words, ‘ditzy’ and ‘loud’. She actually expressed confusion, because she knows I write and she thinks that I write well when I’m constructing prose, and she, apparently, could never understand why I ‘wrote like an airhead who never learned proper English’ in all my texts. It led to an interesting discussion on conversational text. Texting and text-based chatting are, relatively, still pretty new, and my mother’s generation by and large didn’t grow up writing things down in real-time conversations. The closest equivalent would be passing notes in class, and that almost never went on for as long as a text conversation might. But letters had been largely supplanted by telephones at that point, so ‘conversational writing’ was not a thing she had to master. 

some scholars may think…but this line of thought is misguided “some scholars don’t know what they’re talking about, and i sure am glad i’m not one of them”

it is worthwhile to note why this topic is important “i don’t know why this is important but i hope you’ll publish it anyway”

in a well-known article by renowned scholar x… “i can’t remember the article this is from so i will pretend like everyone knows what it is”

it is tempting to believe that… “you’re an idiot if you believe that…”

this is a difficult question to answer “i don’t know the answer”

to sum up the evidence which i have just posited to my readers… “my paper is not yet long enough”

the evidence is unclear “fuck if i know mate lmao”

GoFundMe for the 1st Navajo-English Children’s Educational Show!

My local news covered this and I have yet to see it get any sort of larger attention, but this exactly what the media landscape for kids needs. A show for children that features Navajo characters and teaches the language at the same time, it was developed by two Navajo women, Dr. Shawna Begay and Charmaine Jackson, and was originated “by a team of Navajo filmmakers, writers, producers and artists”. They’re seeking funding to make more episodes and develop new characters, and we can help them out!

Having a language partner is a great way to meet new friends and develop a new skill. Keep in mind, however, that a language partner should not be a replacement for a real life teacher. Your language partner most likely won’t be an expert in the language you’re learning, so you’ll find that they can’t answer some of your questions. Ever tried to explain a point of English grammar to someone? Not easy. Language partners also come and go, usually sooner than we like. A teacher is forever (if you want).

Thanks to the web, there are plenty of online communities out there to sharpen your skills in Chinese and other languages. And if you want to learn Chinese, you’re in luck. There are many, many Chinese looking to do a language exchange. Anyway, here are my recommendations:

My Language Exchange: This site is great if you’re looking for a pen pal. Remember those? They offer a way for people of all ages to find a language partner that you can talk to via email, text chat, or video chat. They can set you up with someone who wants to learn Chinese, Korean, Japanese, English, French, Spanish, or Deutsch.

iTalki: This website has a clean interface and very active and diverse community. You can see where every available language buddy is from.

WeSpeake: Like iTalki, this site has a very modern and welcoming interface. They boast a community of users representing 170 countries speaking 130 languages. They also have companion apps for chatting on the go.

Speaky: Speaky uses a matchmaking system similar to dating sites to pair you with a language partner who shares your interests. It’s a good way to start out with someone you know you can talk to. Like WeSpeake, they also have an app.

Stack Exchange: Stack Exchange is similar to Quora in that users ask questions and other users answer. The site is based on a popular site where computer programmers can work out coding problems together. It’s organized into a variety of different sub-forums, several of which are designed for language learners. It’s not quite a place where you’ll find conversation, but it’s a good resource nonetheless.

inspired by @malteseboy and this post

亲吻 - qīnwěn - kiss

电影 - diànyǐng - movie

偎抱 - wēibào - cuddles

毛衣 - máoyī -sweater

枕头 - zhěntou - pillow

咖啡 - kāfēi - coffee

袜子 - wàzi - socks

书 - shū - book

安慰 - ānwèi -  comfort

毯子 - tǎnzi - blanket

小睡 - xiǎoshuì - nap

壁炉 - bìlú - fireplace

猫（咪） - māo(mī) -cat

暖意 - nuǎnyì - warmth

明星 - míngxīng - stars

查 - chá - tea

拥抱 - yǒngbào - hug

蜡烛 - làzhú - candle

柔软（的）- róuruǎn (de) - soft

娇嫩 （的）- jiāonèn (de) - delicate

甜蜜 （的）- tiánmì (de) - sweet

舒服 （的）- shūfú (de) - comfortable

暖和 （的）- nuǎnhuo (de) - warm

亲嘴 - qīnzuǐ - to kiss

抱抱 - bàobào -to hug

照料 - zhàoliào -to take care (of smb.)

躺下 - tǎngxià - to lie down

搂抱 - lǒubào - to cuddle / （依）偎 -  (yī) wēi is also commonly used

读书 - dúshū - to read (a book)

睡觉 - shuìjiào  - to sleep

休息 - xiūxí - to rest

I am volunteering with a refugee organization here in my city and one of the problems we are facing is communicating with refugees who speak little to no English while we are doing our volunteer projects. I am going to be creating a video series where native speakers will teach very basic words and phrases to non-native speakers of the previously listed languages. In these videos, native speakers will be saying these phrases at native speed and then slowed down so that non-native speakers can repeat and learn. We will be teaching phrases such as “nice to meet you”, “how are you”, “my name is ___”, etc. This will not be a full teaching course.

I wanted to do this because I feel like the refugees will feel more welcome here if everyone can communicate with each other, even if it’s just saying hello and goodbye to each other in their language every time we work together. :D Plus, it’s always fun to learn a little bit of another language!

If you speak any of these languages, please translate the following phrases and write the phrases with the latin alphabet as well (if you are able to!) as these mini-courses will be geared toward native English speaking volunteers. In addition, if there are any other phrases that you think are fun or culturally relevant or what have you, feel free to add those in as well. :)

Welcome

Hello

Nice to meet you

How are you?

I am fine

What is your name?

My name is ___

Yes

No

Let’s go

Are you okay?

See you later

Goodbye

Okay

Botanical Infographics by Biqi Zhang

These three information charts describe the morphological characteristics, growth and development of fern, gymnosperms and angiosperms, and their respective information.

The plants in the chart show in the form of illustrations and add some texture to the original basic graphics to enrich the visual image of the plants.

The morphological features of plants are mainly centered on the main diagram, and the process of growth and development is indicated by arrows and linked to the main diagram.    

Listen up, folks!

I recently found a website called FutureLearn that has a lot of free courses from universities all over the world.

Some of them are on languages!

I just finished taking Introduction to Norwegian (via the University of Oslo) and it was very complimentary to my Duolingo and other self-studying! I think that there is an Intro to Italian and an Intro to Frisian class on there right now for those interested!

I highly recommend you check this out, whether or not it’s for language.

Sharing this so more people can know about it! I haven’t watched dramas in a while, but I will definitely try to use this once I get back to watching them.

from the article:

Besides dual subtitles, Learn Mode also provides the following language learning features as you watch videos:

You can retrieve word definitions for Korean/Chinese words in your preferred language

You can hear the pronunciation of Korean/Chinese words

You can easily navigate through the video segment by segment

I’m really excited to bring you guys another app review today!

Lingodeer is a brand new app that is designed by actual language teachers/native speakers for specifically learning the three main East Asian languages: Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. And it’s totally free! If you haven’t heard of them before, you can check them out here: https://www.lingodeer.com/

I’ve actually been wanting to review this app for a while, but the iOS version wasn’t available until just the other day (and I only own Apple devices!).

Disclaimer: At the time of writing this review, the (iOS version) app is currently build 1.0, so any of the following may or may not change going forward as updates are applied.

Unlike for my review of the Duolingo Korean course, I did not complete the entire available skill tree that Lingodeer’s app offers. I found going through the lessons that there wasn’t any need to complete the tree in the vain hopes that the course might magically get better. Lingodeer is very good right out of the gate.

Your first stop on the app is the “alphabet” section, as it should be. Like Duolingo, Lingodeer unfortunately uses a form of romanization to teach the letters (see my Duolingo review for an explanation about why that’s bad) but that’s where the similarities stop. Lingodeer presents the Hangul letters in an order that actually makes sense, and in a way where learners can understand they are actually using letters to build sounds and eventually, words. Also, stroke order! That was a delightful and welcome surprise, which will come in handy for users actually wanting to learn to write the letters properly.

Heading into the first set of lessons (the “Nationality” section of the above screenshot) the user is greeted with a list of the lessons contained in the section, and to the left side, a menu labeled “Learning Tips”. When I selected the first lesson, I was initially disappointed to see that the romanization followed me but I quickly found that there is a setting the user can toggle to switch between Hangul and romanization, Hangul only, and romanization only.

Jumping right into the lesson, the user begins learning words and grammar that are pertinent for beginners to know, which is again, something Duolingo fails at. Additionally, all the audio is voiced by a native Korean speaker, and the quality is very clear and easy to understand.

The exercises in the lessons are fairly standard for apps of this nature (match a picture to a word/sound, unscramble sentences, listen to a bit of audio and enter the answer, choose the word/grammar bit that doesn’t belong, etc) and are on the whole unremarkable. However there was a conspicuous lack of explanations about why the grammar works the way it does, why the lesson kept trying to drill -은/는 into my brain with no indication about why it was important… Until I accidentally brushed part of the screen with one of my fingers on my way to the “next” button and a small window popped up to explain the word and grammar I had unintentionally poked at! There is no indication on any of the exercises or lesson screens that the user can press the words or grammar points for tips, instead of just blindly clicking through the lesson and guessing.

Upon completing the first two lessons, I decided to check out the “Learning Tips” menu from the lesson selection screen, and found the in depth answers for all my previous questions and more were contained there. I feel like the app and users would benefit from somehow marking very clearly that this is the location to find all that information, instead of hiding it behind an ambiguous “tips” label, especially when the tips in the lessons themselves exist (invisible though they are). In my opinion this section should be required reading, especially as this app is directed towards total beginners, however even something like “grammar explanations” would be a big step up from “tips”. Putting an indicator somewhere on the lesson screen to draw attention to the fact tips are available there too would be a good idea as well.

The app also contains a review section, where the user can practice and review both vocabulary and grammar that they have covered in completed lessons, which negates the need for a separate SRS app at the very beginning stages of learning (though I do recommend it at higher levels).

And a bonus that does not pertain to the Korean section of the app itself: I encountered a bug while using the app and sent off a support email. I received a very prompt and polite response regarding it, and assurances they were working on fixing the issue. :) Lovely people over there at Lingodeer.

That all said, there are a couple things I don’t like about the app and it’s claims. First and foremost, there is no option to test out of skills or individual lessons. The app is designed for absolute beginners with no prior knowledge, yes, but being unable to test out of parts of the skill tree is discouraging for not-exactly-absolute-beginner users. Instead of having to spend the time to complete a whole bunch of lessons to get to one or two they might need, not-quite-newbies are better off just looking up the information online for a quicker answer.

Second, the listing on the app store claims that by using the app you will be at the “intermediate” level of knowledge, and the official website claims that if you complete all the lessons you will speak your target language. I find both of these claims laughable–the contents of the lessons will get the user to a mid-high beginner at best (late A2 on the CEFR scale) and the app doesn’t have any speaking exercises at all. Speaking recall can be very difficult if the learner is not actively practicing it. Remember: No one app, book series, website, or lesson set will be enough to get you anywhere near fluency alone.

But ultimately, the Lingodeer app is a very, very big step in the right direction and is everything Duolingo should have been but wasn’t. I would definitely recommend using Lingodeer along side a good set of grammar textbooks or when taking a class.

Check out the official Lingodeer site for links to the app/play store to give it a download! https://www.lingodeer.com/