västergök, bästergök

Like in Swedish “fjäll” refers to mountains above the tree line, exclusively in the Nordic countries. It’s not that that’s the name of our mountain range, it’s just what we call mountains here. I can’t say that I’m going to the Italian “fjällen” because they do not exist. I’d have to say “berg” which is a more general word for mountain (which can also be used for Nordic mountains of course, although “fjällen” is way more common and also gives a very different picture in my opinion). Another example would be “älv” (big river) and, interestingly according to the dictionary of the Swedish Academy, a similar but not exactly equivalent feature, “flod”, has the usage note “mainly describing a feature abroad”. Personally I had never thought of this and to me there could be a “flod” in Sweden but not an “älv” abroad.

What fascinates me about this is that these are in no way features unique to here. Like how you’d think a “fjord” has a specific name because it’s so common in Norway and so uncommon elsewhere. Both “fjäll” and “älvar” are extremely common everywhere so why are they only used for our “fjäll” and “älvar”?

Here’s a vocab list (based on this post) you can fill in with your own target language(s). There’s also an empty vocab list at the end in case you find additional words i missed in my lists. I’ll upload more lists with the rest of the vocab words from the post above soon too!

-> here’s a link to a Google Drive folder with the pdf file if you prefer that format

Feel free to post & share your filled-in lists for other language learners! 

Hello everyone! As you may know I've created this challenge to help revive the langblr community. It's a three week challenge designed to get you back into learning languages and (hopefully) give you ideas on how to study and share your knowledge of them. It is completely optional to do, but try to reblog other people's posts if you aren't participating.

The challenge is designed to be done daily, however if you miss a day, you can go back and do it later or continue from where you left off. I do encourage you to do your best to keep up with the challenge though. Tag your posts with #langblr reactivation challenge so that others can find your posts.

If you have any questions, please send me an ask or a message and I'll do my best to answer it.

I'll put the prompts under a read more so this post isn't ridiculously long. Good luck to everyone participating! Remember the best way to promote the langblr revival is by reblogging other people's work.

take for example the verb hoshii*, which means “want to.”  in japanese it’s incorrect to make assertions about someone else’s state of mind (it’s unclear to me whether it’s grammatically incorrect or just very rude), so in declarative sentences hoshii tends to mean “I want”

to express what someone else wants, you can use the construction “hoshigaru,” which means something more like “seems to want”

so because of a rule which seems to be basically related to politeness, we end up with this pair of verbs which comes very close to expressing grammatical person

There’s a fun book, Ellipsis and Reference Tracking in Japanese by Shigeko Nariyama. It starts out with a seemingly quite narrow question: in Japanese you can omit a subject or object of a word if it is clear from context, and if you compare sentences in English versus Japanese, typically arguments that would be pronouns in English are omitted from the Japanese, so without the pronouns, how do speakers know e.g. if a given sentence means “I want” or “you want”. But once she starts listing the features used for this kind of disambiguation, the book basically turns into a description of all of Japanese grammar.

The “epistemic morphemes” section is about the thing you noted above, but there are also a bunch other things that are marked in Japanese but not in English, like the “direction” of a verb (する versus してくれる), or politeness in the sense of keigo.

“キッズボンボン for Children” channel

All of the videos on this list have Japanese subtitles. It is mostly in ひらがな and the words are separated. This and the fact that these videos are aimed for children, makes them great for beginners.

PEACH BOY - MOMOTARO (JAPANESE) Japanese classical stories | fairy tale

KINTARO (Japanese) Japanese classical stories | fairy tale

USHIWAKAMARU (JAPANESE) Japanese classical stories | fairy tale

SHINING PRINCESS (JAPANESE) Japanese classical stories | fairy tale

THE TONGUELESS SPARROW (JAPANESE) Japanese classical stories | fairy tale

THE DANCING KETTLE (JAPANESE) Japanese classical stories | fairy tale

THE STORY OF THE MONKEY AND THE CRAB (JAPANESE) Japanese classical stories | fairy tale

CLACK CLACK MOUNTAIN (JAPANESE) Japanese classical stories | fairy tale

OLD MAN WITH THE LUMP (JAPANESE) Japanese classical stories | fairy tale

OLD MAN FLOWER (JAPANESE) Japanese classical stories | fairy tale

THE YOUNG MONK IKKYU (JAPANESE) Japanese classical stories | fairy tale

THE GRATEFUL CRANE (JAPANESE) Japanese classical stories | fairy tale

URASHIMA TARO (JAPANESE) / うらしまたろう - 浦島太郎（日本語版）Japanese classical stories | fairy tale

THE SNOW WOMAN (JAPANESE) Japanese classical stories | fairy tale

THE ROLLING RICE BALL (JAPANESE) Japanese classical stories | fairy

INCH BOY (JAPANESE) Japanese classical stories | fairy tale

THE CHILD GODS (JAPANESE) Japanese classical stories | fairy tale

THE STORY OF THE ZODIAC (JAPANESE) Japanese classical stories | fairy tale

All of these videos have an English version on this channel. Search for them or click on this playlist. You can use both versions to study what’s being said.

SNOW WHITE (JAPANESE) fairytale | Folktales | bedtime stories

THUMBLINA (JAPANESE) | Folktales | bedtime stories

JACK AND THE BEANSTALK (JAPANESE) | Folktales | bedtime stories

PETER PAN (JAPANESE) | Folktales | bedtime stories

A DOG OF FLANDERS (JAPANESE) | Folktales | bedtime stories

PINOCCHIO (JAPANESE) | Folktales | bedtime stories

PUSS IN BOOTS (JAPANESE) | Folktales | bedtime stories

ALADDIN AND THE MAGIC LAMP (JAPANESE) | Folktales | bedtime stories

THE WOLF AND THE SEVEN LITTLE GOATS (JAPANESE) | Folktales | bedtime stories

CINDERELLA (JAPANESE) | Folktales | bedtime stories

THE LITTLE MATCH SELLER | Folktales | bedtime stories

HE MERMAID PRINCESS | Folktales | bedtime stories

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD | Folktales | bedtime stories

THE THREE LITTLE PIGS (JAPANESE) | Folktales | bedtime stories

THE ADVENTURE OF TOM SAWYER (JAPANESE) | Folktales | bedtime

THE WIZARD OF OZ (JAPANESE) | Folktales | bedtime stories

THE UGLY DUCKLING (JAPANESE) | Folktales | bedtime stories

ALICE IN WONDERLAND (JAPANESE) | Folktales | bedtime stories

More skills (130->175ish), but fewer lessons within them Way more grammar notes A more gradual introduction to kanji (none in the first checkpoint, barely in the second) General tree restructuring

If you can`t make your own examples to a grammar rule, you don`t know this grammar rule.

Learning words without context is almost useless. You may repeat something like “road” or “deeply” millions of times and still forgetting them in the most important situations. Memorize phrases instead. e. g. “I crossed the road” and “to be deeply ashamed”.

Prioritize. There are almost 500 000 words in the English language and even more in some non-European languages. If you decide to learn 5 words a day, you`ll need a shitload of time to cover at least the third of the whole vocabulary. So, know precisely what words are the most frequent and the most important for you personally.

No, you won`t learn a language by listening to songs ONLY.

If your level of knowledge is Intermediate or higher, you don`t need the fucking subtitles. Well, in the beginning, you will have a terrible headache and doubts about the whole thing, but every video will be making you a little better. You`ll slowly get used to the accents and intonation. It`ll stop to sound like the endless phrase without any pauses. Just give yourself some time.

Translation from the native language to the target language is useless (if you`re not going to become an interpreter). Write the short texts in your target language instead.

Forget about boring topics from the textbooks. Argue with somebody in the comment section under your fav YouTube videos. Try to persuade me that the Earth is flat (I know it`s insane, but you`ll remember it much better than writing the essay “The current problems of ecology”). Rewrite your own posts. Write down 15 phrases do describe Donald Trump. I mean… Everything is better than a standard way of learning that doesn`t express your inner self. 

Check the pronunciation of ALL the words. ALL the time. Your intuition is a great tool. However, it doesn`t cure all the irregular cases. Just look at English words “daughter” and “laughter”, “head” and “heat”, “though” and “thought”. They look almost similar but they sound in ABSOLUTELY different ways. There`s a possibility that your target language also has a lot of such cases. Just spend few seconds on looking at the transcriptions. It doesn`t hurt, I promise.

inspired by this post made by @salutcavaouiettoi

We have a lot of ways to say “like” in swedish, and it’s a really bad habit that i do not endorse… However, using these will make you sound more like a native. To show them in the most natural context as possible, I’ve resorted to screenshots of messages between my partner and I! (..and a random tweet for the last one)

1. TYP

This is the most common one. Can also mean “type” (as in a type of coffee, tea etc.) or “guy/person” (han är en rolig typ -  he is a funny guy, hon är en konstig typ -  she is a weird person). Is also used as “kinda”.

Translation: “I wrote like German car or something”

Translation: “And tiredness and so on but i kinda don’t feel it”

2. LIKSOM/LIXOM/LXM

Liksom is the one that is the most similar to the english “like”. Liksom is made up of two morphemes, “lik” and “som” – “lik” means “similar” (in another context it would mean corpse) and “som” means “as” or “like”. So the word liksom literally means “as well as, similar to”. But it is only used like that in formal texts. (ex. Bananer, liksom blåbar, är bär – Bananas, as well as blueberries, are berries). It can also be spelled “lixom” or “lxm” when using it as “like”.

Translation: “And like you can empathize without feeling bad”

3. ASSÅ/ALLTSÅ

Asså comes from alltså, but it gained another meaning and pronunciation and now they’re pronounced differently depending on which meaning you want. Alltså means “thus” and you can use alltså to mean asså, but you can’t really use asså to mean alltså. Some people shorten asså even further to “aso”. It is a very special word and is best understood through context, but can indeed be used as like. 

Translation: “like why should i pay 50 crowns a day to go to school” (this was right when i had lost my free public transport card that i get from school)

Translation: “When do you think we should have “blockus”party? The day before i have my birthday or on monday?” “That is, the monday my birthday is on.” (Here you can see that “asså” is also used to clarify what you meant from a previous message)

I can’t find a message where either of use have used alltså in the formal sense, so heres a sentence from an essay I wrote some time ago:

“Han lever alltså i en identitetsanarki” -  He thus lives in an anarchy of identity

4. BA/BARA

Means like in the sense of “he was like…”. It is casually pronounced as ba, but if often also pronounced as bara which is the original form. “Bara” means “just” or “only”. So when we say “han ba(ra)…” it means “he just…”

“mom and I are watching @/filipdikmen96 on yt and she was like “Sine that Filip is handsome after all(,) does he have a girlfriend?””

And that’s it, I think! If you’re Swedish and feel like I’ve forgotten something, feel free to reblog and add your own! Hope this helps (:

these are not transliterations, because that would be too easy! instead i made up punny names from toki pona words

Hilarious swedish idioms. Idioms are useful and tend to be hilarious, especially for those of us who are new to a language. Here are some examples: 

1. Ingen fara på taket (No danger on the roof). A swedish way of saying ‘no worries’.

2.  Lägg ägg!  (Lay eggs) = no way!

3. Du har satt din sista potatis (you have planted your last potato). An intresting way of saying that i had enough of you.

4. Har inte alla hästar hemma (someone hasn’t all their horses at home) = someone is not  very smart.

Carl Michael Bellman (Fredmans epistlar)

Carl Jonas Love Almqvist (Det går an)

Viktor Rydberg (Singoalla, Tomten)

August Strindberg (Röda rummet, Fröken Julie, Hemsöborna)

Selma Lagerlöf (Nils Holgersson, Kejsarn av Portugallien) 

Hjalmar Söderberg (Doktor Glas, Den allvarsamma leken) 

 Stig Dagerman (Att döda ett barn) 

 Vilhelm Moberg (Utvandrarserien) 

Per Anders Fogelström (Stadserien) 

Pär Lagerkvist (Dvärgen, Ångest) 

Karin Boye (Ja visst gör det ont, Kallocain) 

 Håkan Nesser (Kim Novak badade aldrig i Genesarets sjö) 

The Catcher in the Rye (JD Salinger)

The Great Gatsby (F Scott Fitzgerald)

1984, and Animal Farm (George Orwell)

To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

Lord of the Flies (William Golding)

Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes)

Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)

Just some fun and practise for me :)