#self-teaching

Here's my second ever crochet project, a genderqueer flag headband. My brother's been making pride flag knit/crochet stuff to sell and was asking for ideas and I realized I had more ideas than one person could probably make in a month, lol! So I decided to do one for myself after making a test headband for my daughter.

I’m seeking to document my research into self-teaching/building my own classical education curriculum to homeschool oneself in the fields of Classical Liberal/ Literature Arts as well as Languages. (For my personal and career life goals)

I will be posting my first video soon! I’m tirelessly doing research at the moment for it. It will be touching on everything more in-depth and how so I’m connecting with things for myself along with a document I’ll share with many free resources to help you do the same so you can join me on this journey!

Let’s do this together!!!!!

Please follow my YouTube as once I start posting I intend to keep that ball rolling but only as consistently as I can and will try to keep in touch. I hope you look forward to this as much as I do!!! And I hope you can stick with me as I grow my channel into what I hope for it to be.

half my news feed on google now consists of articles in japanese, and every so often i’ll try to read a couple.

this is the first one where i noticed i could understand much of it from context alone! it’s a recipe. try your hand at it here.

クリスマスパブロバ kurisumasu paburoba christmas pavlova

the pavlova is an australian/new zealander dessert, first made in honor of the russian ballerina anna pavlova on her tours to the area a century ago. it’s a meringue cake made with cream and topped with fruit and/or edible flowers. i’ve never had one, but i’d like to try this recipe.

We’ve made two guides to the teaching resources available for the International Phonetic Alphabet as part of the Mutual Intelligibility project. 

IPA Charts

Interactive IPA Chart A free, web-based IPA chart. Each symbol is clickable and plays the corresponding phoneme. Good for an introduction to IPA or phonology in general.

IPA Lab Audio Illustrations A far more detailed and complete IPA chart showing more phonemes and diacritics with detailed descriptions at the bottom of the screen for each symbol you click on. This would be good for a more complete and technical look at phonology and the IPA.

OSU Interactive IPA Chart 6 separate interactive IPA charts for specific phonemes found in these major world languages: Chinese, English, Indian, Korean, Spanish, Turkish.

rtMRI IPA charts Each clickable phoneme or word corresponds to an MRI of someone’s oral and nasal cavities while they say that phoneme/word.

Introduction to IPA Consonants

The Art of Language Invention, Episode 21: Ejectives and Implosives A short explanation and demonstration of implosive consonants. May be of interest to English-speaking students who have rarely, if ever, heard these before. Length: 7m32s total; timestamped at implosive section - section 4m40s. Captions: auto.

Vox: Why some Asian accents swap Ls and Rs in English A less technical but professional, detailed look at a common question about speakers of Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, and Korean who learn English as a second language. Includes an interview with Eleanor Lawson about using ultrasound to study phonology. Length: 8m56s. Captions: human-edited.

NativLang: Weird Phonemes - pronouncing the world's rarest sounds A short animated crash course in phonemes (almost all consonants) that English speakers are likely unfamiliar with. Length: 5m54s. Captions: human-edited.

Podcast: Lingthusiasm Episode 6: All the sounds in all the languages - The International Phonetic Alphabet Section: Origin of the IPA symbols (9:16-11:50) Section: Format of the IPA consonant table and mouth position (16:18-19:45)

Making Flaps Vibrate In Your Throat: Voicing This Tom Scott video is an explanation of voicing only, but it's short and very engaging. Length: 3m18s. Captions: human-edited.

The Language Sounds That Could Exist, But Don't This Tom Scott video is a nice introduction to the IPA chart as a whole and the grey "articulations judged impossible" area. Length: 6m30s. Captions: human-edited.

Introduction to IPA Vowels

ArticulatoryIPA YouTube Playlist A collection of animations and ultrasounds that depict people pronouncing various phonemes. Captions: we're not exactly sure how one would caption this.

Essential of Linguistics: 2.8 Diphthongs A short technical video about diphthongs with mini-quiz below; dry but informative. Length: 3m00s. Captions: human-edited.

Aaron Alon: What If English Were Phonetically Consistent? A fun look at the relationship of English spelling to its phonology, mostly focused on the (in)consistency of our vowels. Breaks each vowel grapheme down into the different IPA symbols it’s likely to represent in English. Length: 4m05s. Captions: auto.

NativLang: Intro to Phonology: Consonants & Vowels A short animated explanation of phonology in general. Length: 3m30s. Captions: human-edited.

Tech Tips

TypeIt: IPA Phonetic Symbols An easy-to-use website that lets you easily type IPA symbols (either full IPA or language-specific subsets) into a text box, which you can then copy-paste elsewhere as needed.

How to Type the IPA on your phone (iOS or Android) Several good free IPA phone keyboard options, reviewed.

EI am currently just doing daily Duolingo [it’s been 5 days so far] + I’ve been listening to Rosalia’s album El Mal Querer! + I’ve just started Las chicas del cable which seems really interesting so far.

I want to try and do the DELE exams for A1, A2 etc. so that I have something to motivate me during this learning process. 

Does anyone have any advice when self-learning a language? And any free resources for Spanish? Can anyone direct me to a Spanish Masterpost?