lingustics

Wish you were enrolled in an intro linguistics class this semester? Starting a linguistics major and looking for extra help? Trying to figure out whether you should study linguistics and what comes after?  Whether you’re just trying to grasp the basics of linguistics or you’re trying to construct a full online linguistics course, here’s a comprehensive list of free linguistics websites, podcasts, videos, blogs, and other resources from around the internet: 

Linguistics Podcasts

Specific episodes:

The International Phonetic Alphabet

Constituency

Gricean Maxims

Kids These Days aren’t ruining language

Learning languages linguistically

Podcasts in general:

Lingthusiasm

The History of English Podcast

Talk the Talk

Lexicon Valley

The World in Words

A Way With Words

Linguistics Videos

Modular topics:

NativLang (cartoons)

The Ling Space

Tom Scott’s Language Files

Arika Okrent (whiteboard videos)

Structured video series like an online course:  

Introduction to Linguistics (TrevTutor)

Another intro linguistics series (DS Bigham)

Phonology (TrevTutor)

Mathematical linguistics (TrevTutor)

Syntax (TrevTutor)

Another syntax series following the chapter structure of a free online syntax textbook (Caroline Heycock)

The Virtual Linguistics Campus at Marburg University

Blog posts

General

How much do I need to know before taking intro linguistics? (Spoiler: not much) 

28 tips for doing better in your intro linguistics course

How to find a topic for your linguistics essay or research paper

For typesetting linguistics symbols: What is LaTeX and why do linguists love it? (with sample LaTeX doc to download and modify).

Further linguistics resources about specific areas, such as sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, language acquisition (first/second), historical linguistics, neurolinguistics, prescriptivism. 

Phonetics & Phonology

How to make your own paper model of the larynx

Teaching phonetics using lollipops

How to remember the IPA vowel chart

How to remember the IPA consonant chart

IPA transcription practice

A detailed explanation of sonorants, obstruents, and sonority

A very elaborate Venn diagram of English phonological features

The basics of how Optimality Theory works, with coffee analogy

Allophones of /t/, explained with internet gifs

Several good visualizations and explanations of the vocal tract

How to type IPA on your phone (Android and iOS) 

Various ways to type IPA on a computer

Morphology & Syntax

Morphological typology cartoons

So you asked the internet how to draw syntax trees. Here’s why you’re confused.

Types of trees: a sentence is an S, a sentence is an IP, a sentence is a TP

A step-by-step guide to drawing a syntax tree, with gifs

Distributed Morphology

Garden path sentences: how they work, some examples

Structural ambiguity and understanding people in Ipswich

How to draw trees on a computer (TreeForm and phpSyntaxTree) 

Pronoun typology and “the gay fanfiction problem”

The solution to violent example sentences: Pokemon

Semantics & Pragmatics

The difference between epistemic and deontic, necessity and possibility (with bonus modals as Hogwarts houses)

Why learn semantics? Comebacks to annoying people.

Presuppositions, implicature and entailment, and more presuppositions in Lizzie Bennet Diaries

Gricean maxims in Welcome to Night Vale

Scalar implicature and a duck gif

Giving a shit about Negative Polarity Items, NPIs explained using Mean Girls references, and a follow-up on Free Choice Items

The lambda calculus for absolute dummies

The Lambda Calculator (software for practising in Heim & Kratzer style)

Teaching & Academic/career advice

Linguistics resources for high school teachers

Teaching linguistics to 9-14 year olds

On writing an IB extended essay in linguistics (& follow-up)

IPA Bingo

IPA Jeopardy and IPA Hangman

Practising syntax trees using cards and string/straws

Find a linguistics olympiad near you!

Editing linguistics Wikipedia articles instead of writing a final paper that no one but the prof will read (see also wikiedu.org)

Should you go to grad school in linguistics? Maybe

Figuring out if you actually want to go to linguistics grad school

How to decide which linguistics grad school to go to

How to look for linguistics undergrad programs

How to interact with someone who’s just given a talk

An extensive list of undergrad and/or student-friendly conferences - apply to one near you!

Linguistics jobs - a series about careers outside academia

Languages

Linguistic approaches to language learning resource roundup

Will linguistics help with language learning? / Will learning a second language help with linguistics?

The problem with “economically useful” as a reason for language learning

Further link roundups

This list not enough? Try these further masterposts: 

A very long list of linguistics movies, documentaries, and TV show episodes

Books (fiction and nonfiction) about linguistics

Linguistics podcasts

Linguistics videos on YouTube

20 linguistics blogs I recommend following

“La sirena y el pescador,” Elisa Chavez.

Hey all! This poem is part of my chapbook Miss Translated, which I produced in a limited run as Town Hall Seattle’s Spring 2017 artist-in-residence. The main conceit behind this work is that to accurately portray my relationship with Spanish, I have to explore the pain and ambiguity of not speaking the language of my grandparents and ancestors. As a result, these poems are bilingual … sort of. Each one is translated into English incorrectly.

and something about…blood? and transformation?  oooh yikes.  she didn’t want legs in the spanish version did she.  and it was a painful process.

First, I should tell you my experience of reading this. I didn’t even look at the English at first, because I didn’t know that the mistranslation was the point, and of course I didn’t need it. So I read the whole poem in Spanish and thought it was really sad and moving. Then I looked at the English and my eyebrows went right up to my hairline. Why the hell would you translate it this way, I thought. 

Then I read the caption and realized that this is a genius way of demonstrating how translation into English can be an act of colonization and violence.

I would translate the first two lines as “The mermaid rose from the sea / To see the dry world.” They’re very neutral lines. She was curious about the dry world, so she went to check it out. That’s a very different connotation from the mistranslation, which tells you that the mermaid preferred the land to the sea.

The second two lines I would say mean “She found a fisherman on the beach / this beautiful fish without a net.” She’s the one with agency here, not the fisherman, and she thinks of herself as a free fish, unconstrained by a net, not as a fish without a home.

The next three lines by my lights read “She had a gleaming tail; scales / that covered her breasts, arms, and face / and a wake of lacy waves.” Again, it’s from her perspective, not the fisherman’s, and she thinks of herself as having a gleaming rather than oily tail, a lacy wake rather than a frothing one.

Next stanza: “The fisherman caught her by the tail / and cut it in half.” From her point of view, the fisherman has committed a sudden and senseless mutilation. Then he goes, “’Now,’ he said to her, ‘you have legs. / Why don’t you walk?’” It’s almost like an accusation. You have legs now, why don’t you just get up and walk?

My read on the next stanza is: “The mermaid began to sing to the sea / for aid, her blood transforming / the sand of the beach into rainbows.” The sea is her home, not the land, and she’s crying out to her home in pain as she bleeds.

Then the poem ends with “She sang to the fisherman, ‘I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you.’”

The reason this mistranslation is so brilliant is that it takes a story about a mermaid trying to forgive a man who’s committed senseless violence against her, and turns it into a story about a man who uplifts a woman to a better life out of the kindness of his heart. And the thing is, that’s exactly what happens to so many stories from colonized cultures when they’re adapted by the oppressor. Translation into English, and further the cultural language of the oppressor, can be an act of violence and erasure rather than one of respect.

The 75 most common words make up 40% of occurrences The 200 most common words make up 50% of occurrences The 524 most common words make up 60% of occurrences The 1257 most common words make up 70% of occurrences The 2925 most common words make up 80% of occurrences The 7444 most common words make up 90% of occurrences The 13374 most common words make up 95% of occurrences The 25508 most common words make up 99% of occurrences

(Source: 5 Steps to Speak a New Language by Hung Quang Pham)

This article has an excellent summary on how to rapidly learn a new language within 90 days.

We can begin with studying the first 600 words. Of course chucking is an effective way to memorize words readily. Here’s a list to translate into the language you desire to learn that Derek Roger suggested! :)

EXPRESSIONS OF POLITENESS (about 50 expressions)      

‘Yes’ and ‘no’: yes, no, absolutely, no way, exactly.    

Question words: when? where? how? how much? how many? why? what? who? which? whose?    

Apologizing: excuse me, sorry to interrupt, well now, I’m afraid so, I’m afraid not.    

Meeting and parting: good morning, good afternoon, good evening, hello, goodbye, cheers, see you later, pleased to meet you, nice to have met.    

Interjections: please, thank you, don’t mention it, sorry, it’ll be done, I agree, congratulations, thank heavens, nonsense.    

NOUNS (about 120 words)

Time: morning, afternoon, evening, night; Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; spring, summer, autumn, winter; time, occasion, minute, half-hour, hour, day, week, month, year.    

People: family, relative, mother, father, son, daughter, sister, brother, husband, wife; colleague, friend, boyfriend, girlfriend; people, person, human being, man, woman, lady, gentleman, boy, girl, child.    

Objects: address, bag, book, car, clothes, key, letter (=to post), light (=lamp), money, name, newspaper, pen, pencil, picture, suitcase, thing, ticket.    

Places: place, world, country, town, street, road, school, shop, house, apartment, room, ground; Britain, name of the foreign country, British town-names, foreign town-names.    

Abstract: accident, beginning, change, color, damage, fun, half, help, joke, journey, language, English, name of the foreign language, letter (of alphabet), life, love, mistake, news, page, pain, part, question, reason, sort, surprise, way (=method), weather, work.    

Other: hand, foot, head, eye, mouth, voice; the left, the right; the top, the bottom, the side; air, water, sun, bread, food, paper, noise.    

PREPOSITIONS (about 40 words)    

General: of, to, at, for, from, in, on.    

Logical: about, according-to, except, like, against, with, without, by, despite, instead of.    

Space: into, out of, outside, towards, away from, behind, in front of, beside, next to, between, above, on top of, below, under, underneath, near to, a long way from, through.    

Time: after, ago, before, during, since, until.    

DETERMINERS (about 80 words)  

Articles and numbers: a, the; nos. 0–20; nos. 30–100; nos. 200–1000; last, next, 1st–12th.    

Demonstrative: this, that.    

Possessive: my, your, his, her, its, our, their.    

Quantifiers: all, some, no, any, many, much, more, less, a few, several, whole, a little, a lot of.    

Comparators: both, neither, each, every, other, another, same, different, such.    

ADJECTIVES (about 80 words)    

Color: black, blue, green, red, white, yellow.    

Evaluative: bad, good, terrible; important, urgent, necessary; possible, impossible; right, wrong, true.    

General: big, little, small, heavy; high, low; hot, cold, warm; easy, difficult; cheap, expensive; clean, dirty; beautiful, funny (=comical), funny (=odd), usual, common (=shared), nice, pretty, wonderful; boring, interesting, dangerous, safe; short, tall, long; new, old; calm, clear, dry; fast, slow; finished, free, full, light (=not dark), open, quiet, ready, strong.    

Personal: afraid, alone, angry, certain, cheerful, dead, famous, glad, happy, ill, kind, married, pleased, sorry, stupid, surprised, tired, well, worried, young.    

VERBS (about 100 words)    

arrive, ask, be, be able to, become, begin, believe, borrow, bring, buy, can, change, check, collect, come, continue, cry, do, drop, eat, fall, feel, find, finish, forget, give, going to, have, have to, hear, help, hold, hope, hurt (oneself), hurt (someone else), keep, know, laugh, learn, leave, lend, let (=allow), lie down, like, listen, live (=be alive), live (=reside), look (at), look for, lose, love, make, may (=permission), may (=possibility), mean, meet, must, need, obtain, open, ought to, pay, play, put, read, remember, say, see, sell, send, should, show, shut, sing, sleep, speak, stand, stay, stop, suggest, take, talk, teach, think, travel, try, understand, use, used to, wait for, walk, want, watch, will, work (=operate), work (=toil), worry, would, write.    

PRONOUNS (about 40 words)

Personal: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, one; myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.    

Possessive: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs.    

Demonstrative: this, that.    

Universal: everyone, everybody, everything, each, both, all, one, another.

Indefinite: someone, somebody, something, some, a few, a little, more, less; anyone, anybody, anything, any, either, much, many.    

Negative: no-one, nobody, nothing, none, neither.    

ADVERBS (about 60 words)

Place: here, there, above, over, below, in front, behind, nearby, a long way away, inside, outside, to the right, to the left, somewhere, anywhere, everywhere, nowhere, home, upstairs, downstairs.    

Time: now, soon, immediately, quickly, finally, again, once, for a long time, today, generally, sometimes, always, often, before, after, early, late, never, not yet, still, already, then (=at that time), then (=next), yesterday, tomorrow, tonight.    

Quantifiers: a little, about (=approximately), almost, at least, completely, very, enough, exactly, just, not, too much, more, less.    

Manner: also, especially, gradually, of course, only, otherwise, perhaps, probably, quite, so, then (=therefore), too (=also), unfortunately, very much, well.    

CONJUNCTIONS (about 30 words)

Coordinating: and, but, or; as, than, like.    

Time & Place: when, while, before, after, since (=time), until; where.    

Number of personal pronouns’ cases

Examples:  English: nominative (I), oblique (me), reflexive (myself), genitive (mine) French: nominative (je), accusative (me), dative (me), prepositional (moi), genitive (mien) Spanish and Portuguese: nominative (yo/eu), accusative (me), dative (me), oblique (mi/mim), comitative (conmigo/comigo), genitive (mio/meu)

I’ve been wanting to interview an English language teacher for this series since I started it. I spent some time teaching English before I started my undergraduate degree, and I know that I would have benefited from many of the skills I learnt in my linguistics major. I met Ash when he was doing his Honours year. I knew that he had gone to Japan to teach English, and he very kindly agreed to be interviewed. Turns out he’s been busy since then!

What did you study at university?

I did a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Science double degree, with majors in Geology, Japanese and Linguistics. As it happens, linguistics was the major I enjoyed most and pursued for the longest.

In linguistics, I did a wide range of subjects, but those I found most interesting were about grammar (syntax and morphology). In my Honours year I wrote a thesis on the grammar of an Australian language called Marri Ngarr.

I have since also completed a Masters in TESOL, in which my linguistics background not only helped me get lots of credit for prior learning, but also simplified much of the learning for me

What is your job?

After graduating I worked as an English teacher in a Japanese junior high school, primary school, kindergarten and local town adult evening class. Day-to-day I assisted a main Japanese teacher at the junior high school to make her classes more communicative and overall more interesting for the students. At the primary school and kinder I ran the classes myself, combining insights from both my linguistics major and masters degree (that I was doing simultaneously) to try to make truly effective and innovative lessons. Although phonetics had never been my main interest during my uni days, it was especially useful in teaching Japanese children how to pronounce English sounds.

These days I am not working full time, but have become a language student myself in Korea. Learning Korean has definitely been made easier by my knowledge of Japanese and by my knowledge of linguistics, in particular how people learn languages best, and just in grasping grammatical and semantic nuances faster than some of my classmates.

At the same time, I still do some English teaching in the form of private tutoring. Again, my linguistic knowledge helps in every single lesson, whether I’m explaining how someone should position their mouth to pronounce a tricky sound, explaining an English grammar point, advising on how best to improve/study, or just generally in my selection of activities for the tutoring session.

Do you gave any advice do you wish someone had given to you about linguistics/careers/university?

Study linguistics! If you have even a small amount of interest in language, linguistics will enable you to understand it in deeper ways than you can even imagine before linguistics training. And if you are considering a career as a language teacher, linguistics will make you a far better teacher.

Also, don’t do a language major in university: A year in a language school (or even self-study) in the country where it is spoken is worth more than any amount of study of that language in an Australian university. This is particularly true if you have some linguistics training to help you along.

Previously:

Interview with a Speech Pathologist

Interview with a computational linguist

Interview with a language revitalisation program director

Interview with a media language researcher

Interview with an editor and copywriter

Interview with a humanitarian aid worker

Interview with a high school teacher

Interview with an interpreter

Interview with a journalist

Ein Stern (der deinen Namen trägt) - DJ Ötzi

Anton aus Tirol - DJ Ötzi

Irgendwie, Irgendwo, Irgendwann - Nena

99 Luftballons - Nena

Marmor, Stein und Eisen bricht - Drafi Deutscher

Wahnsinn - Wolfgang Petry

Disco Pogo - Die Atzen

Das geht ab! - Die Atzen

Durch den Monsun - Tokio Hotel

Das rote Pferd - Markus Becker

Hawaii Toast Song - Alexander Marcus

Die da - Die Fantastischen Vier

Moskau - Dschingis Khan

Perfekte Welle - Juli

Verdammt ich lieb dich - Matthias Reim

1000 Mal berührt - Klaus Lage

Finger im Po Mexiko - Mickie Krause

Schnappi

Dicke Anna - Kid Bob

Ich hab dich lieb - Schnuffel

Blau blüht der Enzian - Heino

Skandal im Sperrbezirk - Spider Murphy Gang

Kommissar - Falco

Amadeus - Falco

Bruttosozialprodukt - Geier Sturzflug

Fliegerlied - Tim Toupet

Da Da Da - Trio

Junge - Die Ärzte

Er gehört zu mir - Marianne Rosenberg

Sternenhimmel - Hubert Kah

Ich bau dir ein Schloss - Neue Heimat

Ich lebe - Christina Stürmer

Das Beste - Silbermond

Dieser Weg - Xavier Naidoo

Für mich solls rote Rosen regnen - Hildegard Knef

An Tagen wie diesen - Die Toten Hosen

Nur noch kurz die Welt retten - Tim Bendzko

Willst du - Alligatoah

Grund zum Feiern - Otto Waalkes

“Jemanden festnehmen” means to arrest someone

gut zu Vögeln sein - to be good to birds