be - essere / stare there is - c’è there are - ci sono have - avere do - fare go - andare want - volere can - potere need - aver bisogno think - pensare know - sapere say - dire like - piacere speak - parlare learn - imparare understand - capire
Note - Verbs in Italian change all the time depending on the mood, tense and person. Here’s a useful Italian conjugator.
that (as in “I think that…” or “the woman that…”) - che and - e (if the following word starts with a vowel it is preferred that you use “ed”) or - o (if the following word starts with a vowel it is preferred that you use “od”) but - ma because - perché so (meaning “therefore” as in “I wanted it, so I bought it”) - per questo, perciò, quindi if - se
of - di to - a from - da in - in, a, da at (a place) - in, a, da at (a time) - a with - con about - circa, su like (meaning “similar to”) - come for (warning, this one has several meanings that you need to take care of) - per before (also as a conjunction) - prima di, prima che after (also as a conjunction) - dopo di, dopo che during - durante
Note - Prepositions in Italian are joined with the definite articles; e.g. di + la = della, a + il = al, etc.
who - chi what - che where - dove when - quando why - perché how - come how much - quanto/-a, quanti/-e which - quale, quali
a lot - molto, un sacco a little - un poco well - bene badly - male only - solo also - anche very - molto too (as in “too tall”) - troppo so (as in “so tall”) - davvero, molto so much - tanto more (know how to say “more … than …”) - più less (know how to say “less … than …”) - meno as … as … (e.g. “as tall as”) - tanto… quanto… best - meglio, migliore worst - peggio, peggiore now - ora, adesso then - allora, quindi here - qui there - lì, là maybe - forse always - sempre usually - di solito often - spesso sometimes - a volte never - mai today - oggi yesterday - ieri tomorrow - domani soon - presto almost - quasi already - già still - ancora enough - sufficiente, abbastanza
this - questo that - quello good - buono bad - cattivo all - tutto no - nessuno many - molto few - poco other - altro same - stesso different - diverso enough - abbastanza, sufficiente one - uno two - due first - primo easy - facile hard - difficile early - presto late - tardi important - importante interesting - interessante fun - divertente boring - noioso beautiful - bello big - grande small - piccolo happy - felice sad - triste busy - occupato excited - emozionato tired - stanco ready - pronto favorite - preferito new - nuovo right (meaning “correct”) - corretto wrong - sbagliato true - vero
Note - Italian adjectives always have to agree in number and gender with the noun they modify. The above list presents the adjectives in their masculine, singular form.
To know more about the pronouns, check out this post I wrote a while ago.
I - io you - tu she - ella, lei, essa he - egli, lui, esso it - esso/-a formal you - Lei we - noi you (plural) - voi they - essi, esse, loro
everything - tutto something - qualcosa nothing - niente everyone - tutti someone - qualcuno no one - nessuno Spanish - lo spagnolo English - l’inglese thing - la cosa person - la persona place - il luogo time (as in “a long time”) - il tempo time (as in “I did it 3 times”) - la volta friend - l’amico woman - la donna man - l’uomo money - i soldi country - il paese city - la città language - la lingua word - la parola food - il cibo house - la casa store - il negozio office - la oficina manager - direttore job - il lavoro work (as in “I have a lot of work to do”) - lavoro problem - il problema question - la domanda idea - l’idea life - la vita world - il mondo day - il giorno year - l’anno week - la settimana month - il mese hour - l’ora mother, father, parent - la madre, il padre, il genitore daughter, son, child - la figlia, il figlio, il bambino wife, husband - la sposa, lo sposo girlfriend, boyfriend - la ragazza, il ragazzo
Note - Italian nouns inflect by gender (masculine and feminine, with some instances of vestigial neuter) and number (singular and plural).
work (as in a person working) - lavorare work (meaning “to function”, e.g. “the TV works”) - funzionare see - vedere use - usare should - dovere believe - credere practice - praticare seem - sembrare come - venire leave - andarsene return - ritornare give - dare take - prendere bring - portare look for - cercare find - trovare receive - ricevere buy - comprare try - provare start - iniziano stop (doing something) - smettere di (fare qualcosa) finish - finire continue - continuare wake up - svegliarsi get up - alzarsi eat - mangiare eat breakfast - fare colazione eat lunch - pranzare eat dinner - cenare happen - succedere feel - sentire create (aka “make”) - creare cause (aka “make”) - causare meet (meeting someone for the first time) - conoscere ask (a question) - chiedere wonder - chiedersi reply - rispondere mean - significare, voler dire read - leggere write - scrivere listen - ascoltare hear - sentire remember - ricordare forget - dimenticare choose - scegliere decide - decidere be born - nascere die - morire kill - uccidere live - vivere stay - rimanere change - cambiare help - aiutare send - inviare study - studiare improve - migliorare hope - sperare
hello - ciao goodbye - addio thank you - grazie you’re welcome - di niente excuse me (to get someone’s attention) - scusa sorry - mi dispiace it’s fine (response to an apology) - non fa niente please - per favore yes - sì no - no my name is … - mi chiamo what’s your name? - come ti chiami? (informal singular); come si chiama? (formal singular) nice to meet you - piacere di conoscerti (informal singular); piacere di conoscerla (formal singular) how are you? - come stai? I’m doing well, how about you? - sto bene, e tu? sorry? / what? (if you didn’t hear something) - come? how do you say …? - come si dice …? what does … mean? - che vuol dire …? I don’t understand - non capisco could you repeat that? - puoi ripetere? (informal singular); può ripetere (formal singular) could you speak more slowly, please? - puoi parlare più lentamente? (informal singular); può parlare più lentamente? (formal singular) well (as in “well, I think…”) - bene really? - davvero? I guess that… - credo che… it’s hot (talking about the weather) - fa caldo it’s cold (talking about the weather) - fa freddo
do you have any recommendations for really scary and/or disturbing books or movies? especially if they are similar in tone to house of leaves!
alright, if you liked house of leaves you might like—
existential void-horror (ihumans driven by ambition or curiosity or circumstance venture into dark places and find themselves gazing into a silent and swallowing abyss and being gazed back into until they crack open and are changed into something frightful and fractured and deranged):
in space: moon; sunshine; solyaris and solaris (remake; i prefer tarkovsky ‘72 but both are disturbing), alien; event horizon; 2001: a space odyssey; pandorum; doctor who episode “midnight”; william gibson, “hinterlands”; peter watts, blindsight; terrence holt, in the valley of the kings; dan simmons, hyperion.
terrestrial: the descent; the abyss; the divide; dan simmons, the terror; cube; jacob’s ladder; thomas ligotti, “nethescurial”; jorge luis borges, ”the zahir”, ”tlön, uqbar, orbis tertius”; h.p. lovecraft, the call of cthulu and other stories; edgar allan poe, “the pit and the pendulum”.
haunted houses & hauntings:
shirley jackson, the haunting of hill house; kathe koja, the cipher; h.p. lovecraft, “the rats in the walls“ & ”the shunned house”; stephen king, the shining; richard matheson, hell house; the orphanage; the devil’s backbone; [rec]; session 9; edgar allan poe, “the fall of the house of usher”; henry james, the turn of the screw; ringu; SCP-087; the changeling.
sinister postmodernist metafiction:
vladimir nabokov, pale fire & bend sinister; paul auster, oracle night and the new york trilogy; cabin in the woods; pontypool (also a bbc radio drama); philip k. dick, the three stigmata of palmer eldritch and “second variety“ and every story he ever wrote; franz kafka, ”the trial” (proto-postmodern); eraserhead.
humans turned monstrous:
robert louis stevenson, strange case of dr jekyll & mr hyde; ira levin, rosemary’s baby; john ajvide lindqvist, let the right one in & let the right one in (swedish film); 28 days later; no country for old men; coraline; cormac mccarthy, the road; dan simmons, carrion comfort; jose saramago, blindness; richard matheson, i am legend; stephen king, salem’s lot, pet sematary, ”the jaunt” (short story); peter straub, ghost story; ian banks, the wasp factory; linda addison, how to recognise a demon has become your friend; octavia e. butler, dawn.
The Vampyre by John William Polidori
Carmilla by J. Sharidon le Fanu
The Flowers Of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer by Patrick Suskind & translated by John E. Woods
The Strange Case Of Doctor Jekyll & Mister Hyde by John Louis Stevenson
Complete Stories & Poems by Edgar Allen Poe
The Picture Of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wild
The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James
The Island Of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells
The Hounds Of Baskerville by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
Uncle Silas by J. Sheridan le Fanu
Melmoth The Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin
The Woman In White by Wilkie Collins
*Note these are all novels published BEFORE the 1900s -- I've got a whole other list of those. If you're interested, hmu.
This is what I have so far.
For some books I'm still missing sources, and I know it's not complete or ✨️Aesthetic✨️. But if there is anything that you think should be on there, let me know.
Duke, could you recommend some books that are just... odd? I know that I'm not specific whatsoever. :(
Some extremely odd suggestions off the top of my head:
Octavia Butler, Dawn (this book is insane, lots of alien sex, good luck)
Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End (will fuck you up for a while)
Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (a historical fiction/fantasy cinderblock well worth getting immersed in)
Glenn Duncan, I, Lucifer (blasphemous, filthy, and funny as hell)
Jennifer Egan, The Keep (one part family drama, one part fantasy, one part who the hell knows what)
Mark Andrew Ferguson, The Lost Boys Symphony (music and time travel)
Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf (inexplicable magical-philosophical something)
Jack Kerouac, Big Sur (dude decamps to isolated cabin to struggle through DT, gets interrupted by Neal Cassady)
Jonathan Lethem, Chronic City (stoner art heists, escaped tigers, astronaut ghostwriters, and more)
Jack London, The Sea Wolf (one part high-seas adventure, one part queer romance in deep Victorian denial)
Walter Tevis, The Man Who Fell to Earth (bleak but one of my favorite underrated sci fi novels, also a traumatizing movie by Nicholas Roeg)
Iris Murdoch, Under the Net (a madcap romp through London/Paris featuring a kidnapped movie-star dog)
Ignazio Silone, Bread & Wine (half adventure novel, half political treatise, only 200 pages)
Laura Van Den Berg, The Third Hotel (a short, strange book that asks more questions than it answers)
Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions (a hilarious burlesque of American culture)
Daniel Wallace, Extraordinary Adventures (one part rom-com, one part whodunit, one part wtf)
David Wong, John Dies at the End (campy comic horror)
Hope something here catches your eye!
I love world literature, and I’ve been frustrated by the lack of representation of it in literature + academia communities on tumblr, so here are some recommendations. I haven’t read all of these myself yet, but the ones I have are excellent and the ones I haven’t come highly recommended from Goodreads and are on my to-read list!
With the exception of anthologies of older works, all of these books were written before 2000 (some literally thousands of years earlier), since I’m less familiar with super contemporary literature. Also, I only included each writer once, though many of them have multiple amazing books. I’m sure there are plenty of incredible books I’m missing, so please feel free to add on to this list! And countries that aren’t included absolutely have a lot to offer as well–usually, it was just hard to find books available in English translation (which all of the ones below are.)
List below the cut (it’s my first post with a cut so let’s hope I do it right… and also warning that it’s super long)
Seguir leyendo
These all fuck me up to a varying degree of emotions
Crime
Philomel Cottage - Agatha Christie
Lamb to the Slaughter - Roald Dahl
Death and the Compass - Jorge Luis Borges
Horror
The Landlady - Roald Dahl
A Walk in the Dark - Arthur C Clarke
The Wife’s Story - Ursula K Le Guin
The Veldt - Ray Bradbury
The Hanging Stranger - Philip K Dick
The Colour out of Space - H P Lovecraft
The Spider - Hanns Heinz Ewers
Sad
The Life You Save May Be Your Own - Flannery O’Connor
A Small, Good Thing - Raymond Carver
Cathedral - Raymond Carver
The Haunted Boy - Carson McCullers
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas - Ursula K. Le Guin
The Chef - Andy Weir
The Martyr - Ngugi Wa Thiong’o
Jambula Tree - Monica Arak de Nyeko
The Rats Do Sleep At Night - Wolfgang Borchert
Sci-Fi
Love is the Plan the Plan is Death - James Tiptree Jr
The Last Question - Isaac Asimov
The Nine Billion Names of God - Arthur C Clarke
The Star - Arthur C Clarke
Reunion - Arthur C Clarke
The Commuter - Philip K Dick
Exhibit Piece - Philip K Dick
To Serve Man - Damon Knight
Brothers Beyond the Void - Paul W Fairman
What the Fuck?!
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
A Collapse of Horses - Brian Evenson
Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby - Donald Barthelme
Hopeful Monsters - Hiromi Goto
The Box Social - James Reaney
He-y come on ou-t - shinichi hoshi
The Garden of Forking Paths - Jorge Luis Borges
Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang (just the entire collection bro)
Other
Broken Routine - Jeffrey Archer
A Man Who Had No Eyes - Mackinlay Kantor
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been - Joyce Carol Oates
The Lady, or the Tiger - Frank R Stockton
The Continuity of Parks - Julio Cortázar
The Dinner Party - Mona Gardner
A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings - Gabriel García Márquez
On Exactitude in Science - Jorge Luis Borges
all duolingo irish tips and notes!
BASICS 1
BASICS 2
COMMON PHRASES
FOOD
PLURALS
ECLIPSES
LENITION
POSSESSIVE
VERBS: PRESENT TENSE 1
COLOURS
QUESTIONS
PREPOSITIONS 1
DATES/TIME
FAMILY
VERBS: PRESENT TENSE 2
PREPOSITIONS 2
GENITIVE
NEGATIVES
COMPARISON
PREPOSITIONS 3
PASSIVE
NUMBERS
FEELINGS/TRAITS
VERBS: PAST TENSE 1
CHARACTERISTICS
VERBS: PAST TENSE 2
VERBAL NOUNS
REFLEXIVE PRONOUNS
DIRECTIONS
SPORT
VERBS: FUTURE TENSE 1
IMPERATIVE
VERBS: IMPERFECT
VERBS: CONDITIONAL
{screencaps by me, do not repost}