Tidbits of Fangirlism

Tips to learn a new language

Thu, 02 Feb 2017 18:24:42 +0800

amateurlanguager:

thepolyglotblog:

darasteine:

The 75 most common words make up 40% of occurrences
The 200 most common words make up 50% of occurrences
The 524 most common words make up 60% of occurrences
The 1257 most common words make up 70% of occurrences
The 2925 most common words make up 80% of occurrences
The 7444 most common words make up 90% of occurrences
The 13374 most common words make up 95% of occurrences
The 25508 most common words make up 99% of occurrences

(Sources: 5 Steps to Speak a New Language by Hung Quang Pham)

This article has an excellent summary on how to rapidly learn a new language within 90 days.

We can begin with studying the first 600 words. Of course chucking is an effective way to memorize words readily. Here’s a list to translate into the language you desire to learn that I grabbed from here! :)

EXPRESSIONS OF POLITENESS (about 50 expressions)

‘Yes’ and ‘no’: yes, no, absolutely, no way, exactly.

Question words: when? where? how? how much? how many? why? what? who? which? whose?

Apologizing: excuse me, sorry to interrupt, well now, I’m afraid so, I’m afraid not.

Meeting and parting: good morning, good afternoon, good evening, hello, goodbye, cheers, see you later, pleased to meet you, nice to have met.

Interjections: please, thank you, don’t mention it, sorry, it’ll be done, I agree, congratulations, thank heavens, nonsense.

NOUNS (about 120 words)

Time: morning, afternoon, evening, night; Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; spring, summer, autumn, winter; time, occasion, minute, half-hour, hour, day, week, month, year.

People: family, relative, mother, father, son, daughter, sister, brother, husband, wife; colleague, friend, boyfriend, girlfriend; people, person, human being, man, woman, lady, gentleman, boy, girl, child.

Objects: address, bag, book, car, clothes, key, letter (=to post), light (=lamp), money, name, newspaper, pen, pencil, picture, suitcase, thing, ticket.

Places: place, world, country, town, street, road, school, shop, house, apartment, room, ground; Britain, name of the foreign country, British town-names, foreign town-names.

Abstract: accident, beginning, change, color, damage, fun, half, help, joke, journey, language, English, name of the foreign language, letter (of alphabet), life, love, mistake, news, page, pain, part, question, reason, sort, surprise, way (=method), weather, work.

Other: hand, foot, head, eye, mouth, voice; the left, the right; the top, the bottom, the side; air, water, sun, bread, food, paper, noise.

PREPOSITIONS (about 40 words)

General: of, to, at, for, from, in, on.

Logical: about, according-to, except, like, against, with, without, by, despite, instead of.

Space: into, out of, outside, towards, away from, behind, in front of, beside, next to, between, above, on top of, below, under, underneath, near to, a long way from, through.

Time: after, ago, before, during, since, until.

DETERMINERS (about 80 words)

Articles and numbers: a, the; nos. 0–20; nos. 30–100; nos. 200–1000; last, next, 1st–12th.

Demonstrative: this, that.

Possessive: my, your, his, her, its, our, their.

Quantifiers: all, some, no, any, many, much, more, less, a few, several, whole, a little, a lot of.

Comparators: both, neither, each, every, other, another, same, different, such.

ADJECTIVES (about 80 words)

Color: black, blue, green, red, white, yellow.

Evaluative: bad, good, terrible; important, urgent, necessary; possible, impossible; right, wrong, true.

General: big, little, small, heavy; high, low; hot, cold, warm; easy, difficult; cheap, expensive; clean, dirty; beautiful, funny (=comical), funny (=odd), usual, common (=shared), nice, pretty, wonderful; boring, interesting, dangerous, safe; short, tall, long; new, old; calm, clear, dry; fast, slow; finished, free, full, light (=not dark), open, quiet, ready, strong.

Personal: afraid, alone, angry, certain, cheerful, dead, famous, glad, happy, ill, kind, married, pleased, sorry, stupid, surprised, tired, well, worried, young.

VERBS (about 100 words)

arrive, ask, be, be able to, become, begin, believe, borrow, bring, buy, can, change, check, collect, come, continue, cry, do, drop, eat, fall, feel, find, finish, forget, give, going to, have, have to, hear, help, hold, hope, hurt (oneself), hurt (someone else), keep, know, laugh, learn, leave, lend, let (=allow), lie down, like, listen, live (=be alive), live (=reside), look (at), look for, lose, love, make, may (=permission), may (=possibility), mean, meet, must, need, obtain, open, ought to, pay, play, put, read, remember, say, see, sell, send, should, show, shut, sing, sleep, speak, stand, stay, stop, suggest, take, talk, teach, think, travel, try, understand, use, used to, wait for, walk, want, watch, will, work (=operate), work (=toil), worry, would, write.
PRONOUNS (about 40 words)

Personal: I, you, he, she, it, we, they, one; myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.

Possessive: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs.

Demonstrative: this, that.

Universal: everyone, everybody, everything, each, both, all, one, another.

Indefinite: someone, somebody, something, some, a few, a little, more, less; anyone, anybody, anything, any, either, much, many.

Negative: no-one, nobody, nothing, none, neither.

ADVERBS (about 60 words)

Place: here, there, above, over, below, in front, behind, nearby, a long way away, inside, outside, to the right, to the left, somewhere, anywhere, everywhere, nowhere, home, upstairs, downstairs.

Time: now, soon, immediately, quickly, finally, again, once, for a long time, today, generally, sometimes, always, often, before, after, early, late, never, not yet, still, already, then (=at that time), then (=next), yesterday, tomorrow, tonight.

Quantifiers: a little, about (=approximately), almost, at least, completely, very, enough, exactly, just, not, too much, more, less.

Manner: also, especially, gradually, of course, only, otherwise, perhaps, probably, quite, so, then (=therefore), too (=also), unfortunately, very much, well.

CONJUNCTIONS (about 30 words)

Coordinating: and, but, or; as, than, like.

Time & Place: when, while, before, after, since (=time), until; where.

Manner & Logic: how, why, because, since (=because), although, if; what, who, whom, whose, which, that.

Oh i love this concept!

I love it too! I love it mostly because it makes me feel less overwhelmed. When you break it down like this, everything seems so much more manageable. Like, hey, I could memorize 20 words at a time (even if ‘at a time’ varies wildly for me), and just do that like ten times. That’s a HUGE chunk of a language.

(And since I have the habit of doing languages that are similar to ones I’m already familiar with, the grammar part usually comes pretty easy, too.)

As a writer, this also strikes me as useful to know if you are constructing a language.

sludgejudy: sludgejudy: sludgejudy: whys that one dog from the secret life of pets look like the...

Tue, 31 Jan 2017 08:39:07 +0800

sludgejudy:

sludgejudy:

sludgejudy:

whys that one dog from the secret life of pets look like the babadook

this one

rage-quitter: I was getting pretty fed up with links and generators with very general and overused...

Sat, 21 Jan 2017 20:05:50 +0800

rage-quitter:

I was getting pretty fed up with links and generators with very general and overused weapons and superpowers and what have you for characters so:

Here is a page for premodern weapons, broken down into a ton of subcategories, with the weapon’s region of origin.

Here is a page of medieval weapons.

Here is a page of just about every conceived superpower.

Here is a page for legendary creatures and their regions of origin.

Here are some gemstones.

Here is a bunch of Greek legends, including monsters, gods, nymphs, heroes, and so on.

Here is a website with a ton of (legally attained, don’t worry) information about the black market.

Here is a website with information about forensic science and cases of death. Discretion advised.

Here is every religion in the world.

Here is every language in the world.

Here are methods of torture. Discretion advised.

Here are descriptions of the various methods used for the death penalty. Discretion advised.

Here are poisonous plants.

Here are plants in general.

Feel free to add more to this!

lunararcher: princessparadoxical: k-loulee: fozmeadows: hollowedskin: derinthemadscientist: lan...

Sat, 07 Jan 2017 16:52:13 +0800

lunararcher:

princessparadoxical:

k-loulee:

fozmeadows:

hollowedskin:

derinthemadscientist:

languageoclock:

deflare:

penfairy:

Throwback to the time my poor German teacher had to explain the concept of formal and informal pronouns to a class full of Australians and everyone was scandalised and loudly complained “why can’t I treat everyone the same?” “I don’t want to be a Sie!” “but being friendly is respectful!” “wouldn’t using ‘du’ just show I like them?” until one guy conceded “I suppose maybe I’d use Sie with someone like the prime minister, if he weren’t such a cunt” and my teacher ended up with her head in her hands saying “you are all banned from using du until I can trust you”

God help Japanese teachers in Australia.

if this isnt an accurate representation of australia idk what is

Australia’s reverse-formality respect culture is fascinating. We don’t even really think about it until we try to communicate or learn about another culture and the rules that are pretty standard for most of the world just feel so wrong. I went to America this one time and I kept automatically thinking that strangers using ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ were sassing me.

Australians could not be trusted with a language with ingrained tiers of formal address. The most formal forms would immediately become synonyms for ‘go fuck yourself’ and if you weren’t using the most informal version possible within three sentences of meeting someone they’d take it to mean you hated them.

100% true.

the difference between “‘scuse me” and “excuse me” is a fistfight

See also: the Australian habit of insulting people by way of showing affection, which other English-speakers also do, but not in a context where deescalating the spoken invective actively increases the degree of offence intended, particularly if you’ve just been affectionately-insulting with someone else.

By which I mean: if you’ve just called your best mate an absolute dickhead, you can’t then call a hated politician something that’s (technically) worse, like a total fuckwit, because that would imply either that you were really insulting your mate or that you like the politician. Instead, you have to use a milder epithet, like bastard, to convey your seething hatred for the second person. But if your opening conversational gambit is slagging someone off, then it’s acceptable to go big (”The PM’s a total cockstain!”) at the outset.

Also note that different modifiers radically change the meaning of particular insults. Case in point: calling someone a fuckin’ cunt is a deadly insult, calling someone a mad cunt is a compliment, and calling someone a fuckin’ mad cunt means you’re literally in awe of them. Because STRAYA.

case in point: the ‘Howard DJs like a mad cunt’ meme.

I recommend this bloody good article by Mark Di Stefano of Buzzfeed Australia about the origin of John Howard’s DJ skills: We Found The Guy Behind Australia’s Greatest Ever Meme.

1. I work for the Australian National Audit Office as a federal performance analyst and literally everyone in the office refers to each other by their first name. Even the Auditor-General gets called by his first name, and he’s an independent officer of the Parliament, appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit (JCPAA) and the Prime Minister.

2. This is like the fourth time I’ve reblogged this due to additional A+ commentary.

This is wild, haha!

cuddling fairy wrens

Sat, 07 Jan 2017 10:45:45 +0800

penfairy:

reblog if u agree

ladyinsanity:Meet the Voice Actors of Scott and Sara Ryder - Tom...

Fri, 06 Jan 2017 05:46:26 +0800

ladyinsanity:

Meet the Voice Actors of Scott and Sara Ryder - Tom Taylorson and Fryda Wolff

localstarboy: Nahhh they actually made 2016 into a horror movie...

Mon, 02 Jan 2017 22:14:28 +0800

localstarboy:

Nahhh they actually made 2016 into a horror movie LOOOOOOOOL 😂😂😂

stoochh: shred-my-anxiety: crydaisy: When u can’t find ur mam...

Mon, 19 Dec 2016 11:58:12 +0800

stoochh:

shred-my-anxiety:

crydaisy:

When u can’t find ur mam in the supermarket

Oh my god I can’t breathe

MAM

cooncomic: 11. Adult You did it! Now panic.

Mon, 12 Dec 2016 12:57:29 +0800

cooncomic:

11. Adult

You did it! Now panic.

missaralindsey: mbulteau: egglorru: immaplatypus: “I’M...

Mon, 12 Dec 2016 12:54:34 +0800

missaralindsey:

mbulteau:

egglorru:

immaplatypus:

“I’M ESPECIALLY GOOD AT PRECIPITATING”

“MY WHAT AN EYE THAT GASTON”

“I USE LIGHTNING IN ALL OF MY DEVASTATING”

CATEGORY FIVE IS GASTON

sailorsexbang: senshi76: show me the roundest cat

Mon, 12 Dec 2016 12:53:35 +0800

sailorsexbang:

senshi76:

show me the roundest cat

Video

Tue, 06 Dec 2016 13:23:21 +0800

rakkuguy: snakegay: i like how im a good deal into the game and...

Thu, 24 Nov 2016 13:28:46 +0800

rakkuguy:

snakegay:

i like how im a good deal into the game and yet still have no idea what team skull’s motivation is. theyre just kind of there, doing inexplicable shit like this

gamefreak dev A: hey what pokemon should we have return for Sun and Moon

Thu, 24 Nov 2016 11:40:00 +0800

gamefreak dev A: hey what pokemon should we have return for Sun and Moon
gamefreak dev B: zubats
gamefreak dev A:
gamefreak dev B: make the zubats be able to summon other zubats indefinitely

witchy-woman: funkpunkhippie: kyuofcosmic: happylittleblogger:...

Sat, 12 Nov 2016 17:54:08 +0800

witchy-woman:

funkpunkhippie:

kyuofcosmic:

happylittleblogger:

felicityredbarrow:

sappire-charizard:

six6vi:

Just in case

I’m actually going to reblog a thing just because this is really important.

As someone who has epilepsy and used to have several grand mal seizures a day, I’d also like to add that “offer help” can range anywhere from keeping the person calm to explaining to them where they are and what they were doing to even just telling them they should sit and rest for a while longer (lack or coordination is common, and it can be hard to walk straight or see clearly).

It’s okay for them to take up to a half hour to fully regain their bearings and sort out what they were doing prior to the seizure. Just answer any questions calmly and be there for support.

If they come around and you start to panic or shake them or ask them what the heck is wrong with them they are going to freak out and panic too.

I cannot stress it enough that this is bad.

If someone has a seizure and they come out of it, please. please stay calm.
They are likely disoriented and confused, even if it’s only for a minute or two, and you don’t want them panicking on top of that because they can have another seizure as a result.

IMPORTANT

IMPORTANT because last year a kid in my class had a seizure, none of us even knew he was at risk for them either so just cause you don’t think you know anyone doesn’t mean you don’t

stay safe

I have to stress how important it is to time a seizure. If it lasts more than a few minutes, call an ambulance.

DO NOT CALL THE POLICE. I’m dead fucking serious. I had a grand mal in public once and the POLICE were called and imagine coming out of the seizure, feeling like you got smacked in the head with a sack full of bricks, confused, dazed, in desperate need of some sugar to boost low blood pressure and some DIPSHIT has called the police and I was being threatened with being ‘drunk and disorderly’. It took a phone call to my doctors office to get them to back off. The police cannot properly deal with sick people.

Offer help can be:

assuring person where they are/what time it is

getting them something to drink if they can; seizure burns so much energy and does cause a blood pressure drop

getting them safely to transport or a carer

getting them some dignity like a blanket/towel [loosing control of your bladder and bowels is fucking horrifying]

ensuring they have a way to get home. Someone who has just had a seizure should NEVER DRIVE straight after

calling emergency services if you notice any of these symptoms because they may have stroked out.

Why you shouldn’t put anything in someone’s mouth: they will choke. Yes, they may bite their tongue but I can assure you it’s less traumatic than cracking your jaw on someone’s greasy wallet or choking on a spoon.

DO NOT HOLD ANYONE DOWN. Example: someone pinned my right shoulder mid-seizure a few years back and how I have a permanently displaced and clicking shoulder. Let the person flail around, those muscles are out of control and restraining them does cause more damage to the patient and you.

ALSO QUICK LEGALITY: YOU HAVE TO RECEIVE CONSENT TO HELP THE INDIVIDUAL BY LAW.
I recently got trained with First Aid and Red Cross now makes it so you know how to help with seizures too, and the first thing you do when you’re trained is say “hi. My name is (name) and I am able to help, is that all right?”
Do not leave the persons side until further help is received in the clear.

My brother is epileptic and this is IMPORTANT. Please give this a read!!

opal-aurora: “Quiet, reflective, and idealistic. Interested in...

Fri, 28 Oct 2016 07:21:45 +0800

opal-aurora:

“Quiet, reflective, and idealistic. Interested in serving humanity. Well-developed value system, which they strive to live in accordance with. Extremely loyal. Adaptable and laid-back unless a strongly-held value is threatened. Usually talented writers. Mentally quick, and able to see possibilities. Interested in understanding and helping people.”

deerhoof: bheriye: thats not even a whole dog thats like 1/10...

Mon, 24 Oct 2016 14:33:53 +0800

deerhoof:

bheriye:

thats not even a whole dog thats like 1/10 of a dog

how do ig et this dog

karasuki: P5クリア記念！https://twitter.com/karasuki/status/7891009507...

Mon, 24 Oct 2016 12:45:31 +0800

karasuki:

P5クリア記念！
https://twitter.com/karasuki/status/789100950795329536

総じて副島絵と3D新モデルになった悪魔デザインの
魅力＋色気を堪能するゲームだった…

内容の雑感は時間あったらここに書くつもりです　
いつになるかな〜

Trying to get Solas’s approval like

Mon, 24 Oct 2016 12:31:29 +0800

applepiesandimpalas:

The fade?

mayadile: mana-pudding: it… is trying to say Pikachu…

Mon, 24 Oct 2016 12:31:23 +0800

mayadile:

mana-pudding:

it… is trying to say Pikachu…