squidslanguages

[squidslanguages]

Welsh is an official language of Wales. This means, legally, it cannot be treated less favourably than English in any part of daily life. So we have bilingual signs and sometimes the translations are… well just awful.

This is a classic and made the news.

Welsh reads “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated.

Welsh reads “Wines and ghosts”

Welsh reads “Warning workers are exploding”

In English these drinks are alcohol free in Welsh the drinks are free “Alcohol for nothing”.

Um- Welsh reads “Free erections” yes really!

This seems a tad harsh “Injure yourself now”

Wording is fine but the English and the Welsh disagree on right/left

The sign says “Parcio I Bobi Anabl” which is “Parking to bake the disabled” which I don’t think Tesco were going for.

#welsh #sign

[squidslanguages]

a tournament of short-form polish poetry (in english translation) will be hosted here.

rules + the submission form to come.

inspired by @polish-art-tournament

#this will be a great opportunity to practice my polish! #though I'll probably still have to rely heavily on the translations XD #polish #tournament

[squidslanguages]

These are the apps and links I currently have on my phone to study Chinese:

SuperChinese: my main study resource. There are currently 7 levels, level 7 (still incomplete, they are still slowly adding lessons to it) being HSK 5 stuff. Each lesson has vocabulary, grammar and a short dialogue where those are used in context (I love context). It has a few free lessons in the lower levels but after that you have to buy a subscription. There are many sales though. When I was a beginner I used HelloChinese instead, which has more free content, and switched to SuperChinese when I finished all the free content there. It also has social network features and chat rooms I don't use.

TofuLearn is like a flashcard app with many pre-made decks (you can also create your own on their website and import decks from Anki) and the option to practice writing hanzi. Anki didn't work for me, but I find Tofu very helpful. Practicing writing helps me with character recognition, and it also helps me remember the tones thanks to the audio in the pre-made HSK decks.

Dot is a reading app with new texts being added every day. It used to be completely free, which actually seemed too good to be true, and then they put practically everything behind a paywall and very strict limits for free users. After a couple of months they made it a little less restricted though - we still can't choose the articles but we can read as many as we want as long as we do the vocabulary exercises after each article (plus, during the Spring Festival, they made all articles available for free for 3 days and we could save the ones we were interested in to read later). It follows the new, not-yet-implemented (and harder) HSK levels, so you should start one or two levels below yours and if the texts are too easy move up.

Google Translator: not the best but helpful when I need to translate whole sentences, plus I can point my camera or open an image and it translates writing.

Pleco: best Chinese to English dictionary.

Stroke Order: not an app but a website, does what it says in the tin: shows stroke order for a specific character.

YouGlish: also a website, you can put a word or phrase and it shows videos where people say that word/phrase. Very cool.

Todaii is a graded news app that has only two levels: easy and hard. I'm around level HSK4 and the "easy" level is quite hard though (but I admit reading is my nemesis).

I also use YouTube and Spotify a lot.

#chinese #language resources #apps

[squidslanguages]

in guarani there's a standard greeting that literally translates to "are you happy" (ndevy'apa) and the natural reply is "i'm happy" (avy'a) and as americans learning the language we were so distressed like "but what if we're not happy....." and our teachers were like "that's so not the fucking point"

we kept trying to think of any other way to reply but our teachers kept trying to get it into our brains that it's an idiomatic greeting, it literally is not the time or place to traumadump, and as usamerican english speakers we are not some special exception for saying "what's up" with the reply being "not much" instead of "the ceiling"

but anyway while i was working in paraguay -- the country with the largest population of guarani speakers -- i got sent an article by some friends back home like "look! they're saying that paraguay is the happiest country in the world!"

and the methodology was "we went around and asked paraguayans if they're happy and recorded their responses" and i was like. oh. of course you did. and of course you got a 100% positive response rate.

#XD #guarani #and I always thought the only answer US Americans want to hear to “how are you?” #is “good” or “fine”

[squidslanguages]

American Finnish words!

American Finnish has many unique words, many being borrowed from English! Did you know that in a study of American vs. Finland Finnish, a Finnish speaker from Finland could understand an American Finnish speaker better than an American Finnish speaker could understand Finland Finnish! Here are some examples of words in American Finnish:

I love how Kupai sounds :') I know that a lot of Americans of Finnish descent follow me, does your family use any of these words?

#finnish #american finnish

[squidslanguages]

THE DAY OF LANGUAGES!!!

This 7th of May, 2024, we use our own language again!

If your language, native or not, is something other than English, on May 7th you can speak that language all day!

You’ll blog in your chosen language(s) all day: text posts, replies, tags (except triggers and organizational tags).

Regardless of what language people choose to speak to you, you can answer in your own.

Non-verbal, non-written languages (like sign language, dialects, otherwise non-written languages) are more than welcome! See my FAQ for tips

English native speakers can participate in any other language they're studying/have studied/know.

The tag is gonna be #Speak Your Language Day or #spyld for short.

Please submit me some language facts for me to share on this day <3

Pinned post and FAQ

#day of languages

[squidslanguages]

LISTA CIAST BIORĄCYCH UDZIAŁ W TURNAMENCIE

Łzy Wałęsy

Shrek

Cycki (murzynki, teściowej)

Ciasta czekoladowe (murzynek, cukiniowe itp.)

Góry lodowe

Ciasto jajko sadzone

Pani Walewska

Pleśniak

Wuzetka

Mazurek (każda iteracja)

Sękacz

Makowiec

Malinowa chmurka

Mrowisko

Karpatka

Marcinek

Szarlotka

Szarlotka królewska

Wiewiórka

Drożdżowe (z owocami lub bez nich c: )

Kremówka

Sernik na zimno

Sernik krakowski

Sernik pieczony

Babka (również każda iteracja)

Napoleonka

Rolada

Miodownik

Szachownica

Piernik

Piernik z powidłami

Mech leśny

Dupa pawiana

Kopiec kreta

Chatka Puchatka/ Baby Jagi

Zebra

Keks

Makowiec japoński

Seromak

Metrowiec

Fale Dunaju

Raffaello

Ciasta ucierane z owocami (truskawki, rabarbar, śliwki itd)

Snickers

Delicja

Ambasador

Placek z ptasim mleczkiem

Toffik

Sernik Isaura

Ciasto marchewkowe

Jamajka

Kubanka

Królowa śniegu

Niebo w gębie

Cassate

Kołocz

Pijak

Blok czekoladowy

Tarty (również każda iteracja)

Marysieńka

Tort szwarcwaldzki

Pawi ogon

Krówka

Smerfetka

#recipes #polish

[squidslanguages]

when you see a random animal on the internet or in person, do you automatically default to he/him pronouns for it?

-yes (be ashamed of yourself)

-no

#if I can't tell or guess #I tend to go with its default pronoun in German #eg cats female - dogs male - hedgehogs male - pigs neutral - spider female #gender #animals

[squidslanguages]

#silesian #politics #language vs. dialect

[squidslanguages]

#etymology #turkey

[squidslanguages]

'Wool waulking is a traditional Scottish process of finishing and strengthening newly woven woolen fabrics. It is a significant social and cultural activity, often carried out by women in the Highlands of Scotland. The Gaelic songs that are sung during waulking have a distinctive rhythmic pattern that aids in synchronising the work.'

(Video and text via Inverness Outlanders)

#scottish gaelic #song #video #work

[squidslanguages]

Many books of the Bible that didn't make it to the official canon(s) and other incredibly important pieces of scripture and literature are only known today because they were preserved in the Ge'ez script in Ethiopia. It is very likely that there are lots of other texts dating to the earliest days of Christianity that are still to be "found", only because there aren't enough international scholars who know the Ge'ez script or work in Ethiopia. There are many, but not as much as it deserves. (Important note is that Ge'ez is both a liturgical language, like Latin, and also is a script, much like Latin or Chinese characters, used by many Ethiopian languages, but others can be written and indeed are written in Ge'ez script, this is why it has preserved such a range of literature)

Ge'ez looks like this:

ሀሎ! ይህ በአማርኛ ቋንቋ እና በግእዝ ፊደል የተጻፈ ነው! ለእርስዎ እና ለቤተሰብዎ በረከቶች!

There was briefly a very bad taste meme calling it a "demon language", with people even copypasting random religious literature in Ge'ez thus making it seem more "sinister". I won't comment on how ignorant and offensive that is.

Ge'ez is an important script and language, much like Greek or Latin, because of its connection to major religions like Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Ethiopia is a wonderful country with a deep, rich history, and is an example of how Africa has always been part of world history. But like all languages, it's also a cultural heritage on its own, worth cherising, preserving, and learning about, regardless of its importance to the rest of the world. Instead of being ignorant for a racist joke, we could always take our time and learn and appreciate such things.

#ge'ez #writing #religion

[squidslanguages]

a dramatical "schwiiierig" is literally the worst response you can get from a German

#XD #german

[squidslanguages]

the nuisance of our language is stunning

#croatian #swear words

[squidslanguages]

Creepy Koi

This Koi found in a Chinese lake has some unique markings.

#china #fish #mythology #video

[squidslanguages]

my biggest pet peeve wiht the english language is that you don’t have sin/sina

in swedish if u have two people who use the same pronoun u can always tell whos doing what bc its like ‘han tog sin väska’ (he took his[own] bag) and ‘han tog hans väska’ would be that he took the other persons bag

but in english its like if u have 2 ppl w/ the same pronoun:

“she took her bag” whose bag????WHose BAG was it her OWN bag or the other her’s bag??????????????

“he ate his donuts” were the donuts his own???? did he fucking eat someone elses donuts??? YIU DONT KNOW bc english is a bullshit language 

#swedish #pronouns

[squidslanguages]

#this makes me feel a lot better about the effort I just put into a set of Anki cards for Chinese #XD #chinese #writing #printing #video #history