penguinlang

[penguinlang]

I hate wearing shoes inside and my parents are always like 'put on shoes!!'

World map of tradition of removing shoes in home. Green: shoes removed; Blue: shoes not removed.

[penguinlang]

there is no doubt in my mind ive spent more time running a studyblr than i have actually studying

[penguinlang]

ummm country roads?? take me home????

#Bop

[penguinlang]

I just wrote a seven page English essay wooh

#It actually was fun lmao #Does this count as langblr #English is a language so I'm gonna say yes lmao #School

[penguinlang]

#swedish #duolingo

[penguinlang]

yall im like the worst langblr lmao I disappear for months and barely study my target languages but I'm trying I guess

#Just in case any of my followers think I'm very productive I really am not

[penguinlang]

When learning a language, especially over a long period of time, there are some days when you just wake up and feel like you haven’t improved for months. Then you listen to a song and realise you know the words, or write an essay and don’t need to use a dictionary, or understand a conversation between two foreigners in a cafe somewhere and you realise that maybe, just maybe, you’re doing okay.

#languages

[penguinlang]

Känslor (Jag känner mig…)

Another part of the visual vocabulary series I’m doing (this time with cats!)

There is one thing I’d like to explain here; the concept of vemod. Vemod can be described as a bittersweet feeling, like when a mother sends her son away to college. It can’t necessarily be used with “jag är” or “jag känner mig” as it is a noun, but I felt like it’s an important part of the Swedish culture, so I had to include it.

Feel free to correct me if anything is wrong!

#swedish vocabulary #swedish language

[penguinlang]

I learn German and Swedish

Looking for Langbr

Hello there! I am searching for langblr to follow. Reblog if you are studying/speak these languages:

¤ Swedish;

¤ French;

¤ German.

Thanks a lot!

[penguinlang]

people who can be funny in a language that isn’t their native language or their mother tongue are superior to us all

#True

[penguinlang]

Yikes my laptop is broken

[penguinlang]

3 years of All Things Linguistic

It’s my third blogiversary! Let’s celebrate by looking back at some of my favourite posts:  

Explanations

Why the schwa is so great

Why do we say “big red barn” but “red big barn” sounds wrong?

How do you rhyme in a sign language?

What is a word?

Ikea’s bookbook, soy milk vs milk milk, and like-liking. What’s going on?

The language of poetry (me on Schwa Fire)

How does overtone singing work phonetically?

Why swearing is just like saying “please” (sort of)

A Linguist Explains the Syntax of “Fuck” (me on The Toast)

Your mother tongue has a lasting effect on your brain – even if you don’t remember it

Why lipreading is hard

To what extent is music language?

Linguist Humour

Highlights from a game of linguistsagainsthumanity

this is a wuge.

Linguistics Georg-ian

One wug. Two ___. Red wug. Blue wug.

A linguist walks into a bar. (More advanced version: A maximal projection walks into a v bar…)

Nasal-ingressive voiceless velar trill

All about that richness of the base

Highly implausible vowel inventories, from least to most ridiculous

xkcd on quotative “like”

Linguistics Gothic

IPA emoji

Anti-prescriptivism

What we think of as “good” English is the English historically spoken by people with the most power.

What makes a word “real”? (gif version)

Did a key witness in Trayvon Martin’s case talk funny, or could we all use some education?

Texting as amateur peer writing practice (xkcd)

Why grammar snobbery has no place in the movement

Young women shouldn’t have to talk like men to be taken seriously

Language is open source

Habitual “be” in African American English

Language activism

Codeswitching is a sign of fluency, not a deficit

“Children as young as five are punished for speaking African languages, indigenous languages and mother tongues at school.” 

Language revitalization and technology

Britain’s first baby to be registered with a sign name

Should people learn Indigenous languages that aren’t part of their heritage?

Indigenous language dormant for more than 100 years revived

Skwomesh language revitalized by First Nations youth through DIY immersion

Linguistics and pop culture

Look at all these ducks there are at least ten (Gricean Maxims and duck gifs)

Singing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song and trochaic tetrameter

Free “tudoring” and a moist owlet: the 5 “t” sounds in English

What tense should you use to talk about time travel in Back to the Future?

I analyzed the linguistic aspects of every single episode of Cabin Pressure, a very linguistically clever BBC radio comedy.

NPIs explained using Mean Girls references (follow-up on FCIs)

IPA Scrabble pictures

Internet Language

What’s up with exclamation!compounds?

Final hanging “but”, final “but”, “so” and “or”, final comma

(Problems with) Internet slang meets American Sign Language

e.e. cumblr (tumblr-speak as postmodern poetry)

That way we’re all writing now

no punctuation is funnier

When you can and cannot even

NOPE, tildes, and twitter dialects

Will we all be speaking emoji “language” in a few years? Nope. 

Internet language, pictures, and emoji

Tweeting with an accent

Some data on “u” vs “you” as a formality distinction

Gender pronouns

A linguist on the story of gender pronouns (me at The Toast)

Practice with pronouns

Over half of languages do not have gendered pronouns

Conjugating singular they

If pronouns are a closed class, how is it that people are inventing new ones?

Things about languages

Gothic katakana

Why Hangul (the Korean alphabet) is awesome

Linguistic tips for fake-pronouncing any foreign language

Multilingual sign language dictionary

Faire smashy-smash or fucking shit up? The complications of bilingual profanity

Why are written French and spoken French so different? (follow-up on French fanfic)

Ingressive “yes” in Swedish and some English dialects

Why the English progressive is interesting

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

Linguistics videos

LingVids, a joint project between me and several other linguists

The first video in my collaboration with Tom Scott

This syntax series from University of Edinburgh and of course the ongoing videos from thelingspace. 

#lingwiki

Explanations of ergative/accusative, Optimality Theory, and perfect vs perfective

How to participate in lingwiki editathons from afar, report from the first #lingwiki, report from the second #lingwiki (upcoming editathon on May 31st!) 

Resources

How to explain linguistics to your friends and family

Linguistics jobs resource roundup 

How to find a topic for your linguistics paper

List of linguistics conferences, especially those focussed on undergraduates/students

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

Linguistics resources for high school teachers

Teaching linguistics to 9-14 year olds: ling camp week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4. 

An eight-part series on teaching yourself to draw syntax trees: start here for an overview or here to dive right in

Advice for writing pop linguistics articles and how pop linguistics differs from teaching and pop science  

I made an FAQ and did an interview with Unravelled

Haven’t been with me this whole time? It’s okay – you can see the highlights of year one and year two right here. 

#Linguistics

[penguinlang]

Foirfe

#Gaeilge

[penguinlang]

#Gaeilge

[penguinlang]

I think I don't know any Irish but I understand this programme I'm watching lmao

#Gaeilge

[penguinlang]

I'm watching junior eurovision in Irish lmao

[penguinlang]

I don’t understand people who are really baffled by other languages like “wAit!!!! This letter…. makes a DiFfereNt sound in ThAt lanUuuauuage wAT???! The rulEs for garammmer and spilling is diFfrrfrent???” like yes Sharon those things are what make it…. a different language

#Languages