Isn’t It Just Plain Hilarious When You Read Something In A Foreign Language And Understand It Then

reblog if you want your followers to tell you what vibe you give off based on your blog

stop 👏 saying 👏 languages 👏 and accents 👏 are ugly 👏 or awful 👏

i understand that some languages/dialects/accents may be difficult for you personally to understand because you speak differently, or they may contain sounds that you don’t like, but please don’t use value judgements like “lazy,” “bad,” or “ugly,” even jokingly

negative attitudes towards language both originate from and contribute to marginalization

a few quick reminders:

- that thing you did that was kind of embarrassing and weird, everyone else forgot about that already

- you look fine today, if you can’t notice something on your face standing 6 feet from a mirror then nobody else will either

- if something is out of your control, do not let yourself or anyone else expect you to deal with it alone

- social lives can go through cycles sometimes, if you feel like your friends are all ignoring you for no reason they’re probably just busy with other things

- if you can’t stop thinking about someone or something, find something mentally occupying to do like reading a book or watching a movie. it won’t solve any serious problems but you will feel better

- nothing will always be easy, if you’re trying then that should be good enough for anyone. if it’s not then you’re talking with the wrong people

- never underestimate the importance of going to bed, if it’s dark outside and you feel bad just go to bed and deal with your problems the next day

Language moodboard: Norwegian

things that make me happy:

listening to my favorite song after school ends

starting a book and knowing it will  be great

taking the time to write my notes again with my favorite stationery

starting a new notebook with thousands of ideas

looking at my freshly-taken polaroid picture and seeing that it looks great

anticipating the release of a new book/album/video game

spending the weekend curled up in bed with Netflix

searching for new beautiful study spots

getting nice new messages on my blog

finally getting that A I worked for

when my new amazon delivery package arrives after weeks of waiting

starting a great new project or self-study course

language learner problems

when your friend borrows your phone and you gotta prepare yourself for the “what the heck why this in a different language”

Compliment people. If you think a good thing about someone, there’s no harm in saying it aloud.

Language Moodboard ↠ German

french vocab from the first half of my year abroad

I’m home for Christmas now, which means I’m back on Scottish soil with decent internet. It’s giving me a chance to reflect on my French and how much it has improved just in three months of living in France. So I thought I’d share some of the things that I learned from living in the Charente-Maritime: 

ah, bah, oui (expression) this seems to be the equivalent of ‘yeah but no’ when people have a false-start on a sentence. usually, i heard this in disagreements in my classroom when students were wanting to correct another student but couldn’t get the words out fast enough. i think it’s a hilarious thing to say and i’ve been trying to incorporate it into my way of speaking. 

en fait (expression) this literally means ‘in fact’ or ‘actually’, which i think can come off a little rude in english but is actually a common expression in french. french people i have encountered use ‘en fait’ to start sentences, to provide more information, to correct, basically just all the time! 

franchement (adverb) in english, i’m a big fan of using ‘tbh’ or ‘to be honest’, and this is the best french equivalent to that. it sounds so very french when it’s said and can mean ‘frankly’, ‘honestly’, ‘indisputably’ or ‘without hesitation’, depending on the context. 

rater (verb) i picked up this new verb when i was telling a class about how i failed my driving test. i knew that ‘rater’ can mean ‘to miss’, as in ‘i missed the train’, but one student turned to another and said that ‘elle a raté’ and it was explained to me that ‘rater’ can also mean ‘to fail’, or in my case ‘to mess up’ something. 

se tromper (verb) this verb means ‘to be mistaken’, and i definitely found myself saying ‘je me suis trompée’ a lot while I was just new to the country! 

une chocolatine (noun) I was living on the south-west coast of France in the Charente-Maritime region which means that I picked up some new and different ways of saying things. I was quickly informed by my students in the most sincere and serious way possible that the famous ‘pain au chocolat’ pastry does not exist in the Charente-Maritime and I was to ask for ‘une chocolatine’ at the local boulangerie instead. I now use both nouns interchangeably! 

Watching my toddler figure out how to language is fascinating. Yesterday we were stumped when he kept insisting there was a “Lego winner” behind his bookshelf - it turned out to be a little Lego trophy cup. Not knowing the word for “trophy”, he’d extrapolated a word for “thing you can win”. And then, just now, he held up his empty milk container and said, “Mummy? It’s not rubbish. It’s allowed to be a bottle.” - meaning, effectively, “I want this. Don’t throw it away.” But to an adult ear, there’s something quite lovely about “it’s allowed to be a bottle,” as if we’re acknowledging that the object is entitled to keep its title even in the absence of the original function.