#ctrl-alt-languages

creating this bc i have to take an advanced french course and i just realized that i dont really know this ~important tense~ and creating posts helps me learn :)

P.C.= passé composé

P.S.= passé simple

most frequent usage: formal, literary, historical writing. NOT used as much as passé composé because P.C. is used INFORMALLY in everyday speech. as a non-native speaker, i’m assuming that using the passé simple in informal speech would be pretty weird since it’s only literary. 

purpose of P.S: expresses past action or event (like P.C.)

steps to create a word in P.S.: 

drop the root of the ver (drop -er, -ir, -re)

add P.S. root (see list below for -er, -ir, re, basically the plural form of each verb are the only ones that are unfamiliar)

examples: il aida les filles avec ses devoirs. après son aide, elles finirent ses devoirs. 

SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES: verbs ending in -cer become “ç” in the passe simple. Verbs ending in ‐ger change ‐g to ‐ge before ‐a (basically if a word already has a soft consonant, KEEP IT! 

starting an urdu series similar to the french crash courses i’ve made, but they will be more expansive! here is a short list of some animals in urdu! i will be posting more urdu content soon that will dive into some important basics, such as grammar and figures of speech! feel free to ask me any questions or let me know if u have specific requests for content :)

also added french translations! i left out articles such as un/une and le/la so don’t forget those when you are creating phrases and sentences!

animals

‎ریچھ (reechh): bear: ours

‎اونٹ (oont): camel: chameau

‎بلی (billi): cat: chat

‎گاۓ (gaay): cow: vache

‎ہرن (hiran): deer: cerf

‎کتا (kutta): dog: chien

‎گدھا (gadha): donkey: âne

‎ہاتھی (haathi): elephant: éléphant

‎لومڑی (lomdi): fox: renard

‎زرافہ (zarafah): giraffe: girafe

‎بکری (bakri): goat: chèvre

‎گھوڑا (ghoda): horse: cheval

‎بندر (bandar): monkey: singe

‎چوہا (chooha): mouse: souris

‎ٹٹو (tattu): pony: poney

‎خرگوش (khargosh): rabbit: lapin

‎بھیڑ (bhaid): sheep: mouton

‎سانپ (saanp): snake: serpent

‎شير (sher): tiger: tigre

i can add many more animals, but these were the most commonly used when it comes to hearing it in everyday life while growing up and hearing urdu around me! i’ll probably make a part 2 once i’ve created a good amount of urdu content- i figured i should post more to take advantage of my knowledge of it and help those learning! i know especially on here there is a huge drought in content surrounding south asian languages-so i’m hoping posts like these will help a little :)

here is a list of some really helpful mandarin resources that i found recently! all of the underlined ones are live links :) 

chinese-grammar: i’m gonna be honest here, this grammar website is IMPRESSIVE. it provides 22 lessons and an extensive and detailed explanation of chinese script and characters (with a really long list of characters). i only just recently came across this website but i totally see myself using this, like, all the time. i highly highly highly recommend it! 

chineseboost : this website is definitely an awesome long-term resource! it provides lessons for pretty much all levels of chinese (a1-c1, hsk1-hsk5) so everything is in one place! it also has some super helpful tools such as as a hanzi to pinyin translator and a blog where they have tips and study strategies! 

LTL mandarin school : although the posts on this blog are a little limited, i feel like the posts that they do have are pretty helpful, especially their “complete guides” to basic chinese grammar! this is definitely not a primary resource, but since it has some helpful stuff i decided to include it :) 

HSK 1: i find myself coming back again and again to this app! it’s a super super accessible resources and really interesting as a beginner chinese learner since it kind of throws you in the deep-end with its built-in games, and it’s honestly quite refreshing. it also provides a huuuuge bank of vocabulary as well as sentences! 

HSKOnline: this app is most useful to people who plan to take the hsk exams. i believe it provides all 5 hsk levels with practice exams, exercises, and important vocabulary! i personally have not completely dived into this app since i am very much not exam ready haha, but i can see how it would be very very helpful for people who want to formalize language learning. (honestly it’s great for casual language learners as well since you can just pretend that they are practice tests or fake tests) 

Infinite Chinese: this app is great if you are a beginner and you want a fun and interactive way to dive into the language! it’s also a great warmup activity. infinite chinese is basically an app that has a game very similar to quizlet’s meteor game thing (i hope you know what i mean) and it also covers quite a lot of vocabulary. it’s great for review as well! :) i’ve used this app multiple times for entertainment too, so it really helps you pick the language up a little faster! 

pleco chinese dictionary : needless to say, it’s super important to have a mandarin dictionary since the vocabulary and script is so expansive. i feel like this dictionary is particularly awesome since there is handwriting input (you can write out a character using your own hand) that will give you the definition and pinyin of whatever you wrote! this is great since it’s sometimes easy to mix up definitions and pronunciations since the language is so nuanced. ans, because it’s an app, it’s nice and accessible and not to mention portable lol 

scripts: this app has been something i find myself coming back to over and over again for not only mandarin, but other languages as well! for mandarin specifically, it gives you a really strong foundation on chinese radicals (if you are new to the language: radicals are the fundamental and most basic strokes that makes up the mandarin script- it’s super important to learn them because it will help you write and also sometimes help you with the definition of words you may not know quite yet) which is super helpful, especially in the long run. 

some quick pronounciation tips: 

L’s ( ل ) are typically pronounced as an “rl” sound when they are in the middle of a word

Hai ( ہے ) is pronounced like “hey” and not “hi”

A’s ( ا ) are pronounced as “uh” regardless of where they are in the word, unless the letter is ( آ ), and it would be pronounced as a long “ah” ( آ is pretty much always used at the beginning of a word)

basic grammar/conjugations:

in urdu, infinitive (non-conjugated) verbs always carry the verb ending نا (na). when you are changing the tense of a verb or are asking a question, you would drop the  نا (na) ending and replace it with the correct verb ending. 

here are some basic verbs to start off:

چلنا (chalna) — to walk

رکنا (rukna) — to stop

کھانا (khana) — to eat

پینا (peena) — to drink

All such verbs in their basic forms function to mean/represent an act of doing, happening, or being in a state. This is the most basic definition of a verb in Urdu. 

the following are the most basic verb tenses- present, past, and future. for the present tense, you drop the نا (na) ending in a verb and add تا ہے (ta hai) or تی ہے (ti hai), which are the masculine and feminine verb endings (urdu is a gendered language, much like french or spanish), respectively. you complete the same steps with the past and future tenses, which are below. using the verbs mentioned above as examples, see how the verbs are conjugated (i will use masculine verbs throughout the post, but you can use feminine ending using the same steps):

***IMPORTANT NOTE/EDIT: the conjugated urdu script is not properly connected in this post because I do not personally have access to an urdu keyboard (i am working on it tho), so please make sure that the conjugations are always connected to the root of the word when writing in urdu. coincidentally, the separation actually makes the conjugations more clear but plewse refer to the examples in the very beginning of this post to see what the conjugations should actually look like when properly written (i copy/pasted the script for those so that is in fact the correct way)!***

Present Simple Tense: تا ہے/تی ہے (ta hai) / (ti hai)

چل تا ہے (chalta hai) — is going

رک تا ہے (rukta hai) — is stopping

کھا تا ہے (khata hai) — is eating

پی تا ہے (peeta hai) — is drinking

Summary: for basic present tense, drop the نا (na) infinitive and add  تا ہے/تی ہے (ta hai) / (ti hai).

gonna start cranking out some urdu content finally! in the meantime, here are some non-english songs that i recommend!

la luna enamorada- kali uchis (spanish)

j’aime regarder les filles -patrick coutin (french)

écoute chérie- vendredi sur mer (french)

rock-a-bye my baby- haruomi hosono (japanese)

wagairah wagairah- ankur tewari, the ghalat family (hindi)

paris latino- bandolero (spanish, french)

dress down- kaoru akimoto (japanese)

siren- sunmi (korean)

love in portofino- dalida (italian, french)

here is some basic information on japanese verb conjugation and sentence structures! 

japanese verb conjugations by tense:

present positive: ROOT + ます

present negative: ROOT + ません

present questioning: ROOT + ますか

past positive: ROOT + ました

past negative: ROOT + ませんでした

sentence particles:

は: topic particle; used to indicate the subject of a sentence 

へ: direction particle: used to indicate a place, direction, or destination

を: object particle: Used to indicate the object of a sentence, NOT Subject

の: possessive particle: Used to indicate possession, acts as an “ ‘s”

basic japanese grammar structure and comparing it to english:

the japanese language follows an SOV sentence structure, which means that the subject comes first, an object comes second, and a verb comes last in a sentence. this is different from english, which follows an SVO structure, where the subject comes first, the verb comes second, and the object comes last. here is an example:

私はアメリカ人です。（わたしはアメリカじんです）

[subject] + [particle] + [adjective] + [object] + [verb] 

literally: [I] + [subject indicator] + [america person] + [am]

VS…

i am american.